Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to the season three finale of
Speaker 1: Second Take Cinema, coming at you from the Glorious the
Speaker 1: Swing in the Hip Hoppy in the Rockin' Im Parlor
Speaker 1: Film's headquarters in sunny South End on Sea. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jamie Evans, joined as always by Rory Jocelyn June. This
Speaker 1: is Jazz and because it's the season finale, we are
Speaker 1: bringing you a double feature episode. That's right, double bill baby,
Speaker 1: as we talk about two different music based movies made
Speaker 1: by very popular artists of their respective errors. Today we
Speaker 1: are giving a second take to nineteen eighty eight's Moonwalker
Speaker 1: and nineteen ninety seven's Spice World the movie. So starting
Speaker 1: with Moonwalker, this is a nineteen eighty eight American experimental
Speaker 1: anthology musical film. Now, I just want to put something
Speaker 1: in quickly because I've never ever seen this before. As
Speaker 1: you know, every time we cover a new film, I
Speaker 1: start by reading a little summary off of Wikipedia, the
Speaker 1: most you know, great source of information on the Internet,
Speaker 1: very reliable. It's not like anyone can just edit it.
Speaker 1: And I've never seen this before. It says verbatim. Moonwalker
Speaker 1: is a nineteen eighty eight American experimental, open brackets, dubious, discuss,
Speaker 1: close brackets, anthology, musical film. I mean, and that sums
Speaker 1: this film up, doesn't it. I think? Is it experimental
Speaker 1: genius and it's going over all of our heads? Or
Speaker 1: is it just insane discuss? That's what we're going to
Speaker 1: do in a minute, rather than featuring one continuous narrative.
Speaker 1: This film is a collection of short films, many of
Speaker 1: which are long form music videos from Michael Jackson's nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven album Bad And of course the film is
Speaker 1: named after The Moonwalk. It was directed by Jerry Crane,
Speaker 1: Colin Chilvers, and Jim Blashfield. The screenplay for Smooth Criminal
Speaker 1: was David Newman, based on a story by Michael Jackson himself.
Speaker 1: The film was made for a budget of twenty two
Speaker 1: million dollars and grossed sixty seven million dollars. It is
Speaker 1: worth noticing, however, that the film ended up not getting
Speaker 1: a theatrical release in America, because when I read that figure,
Speaker 1: sixty seven million dollars, I thought, no, no, that should
Speaker 1: be higher, like Michael Jackson, even if the film's bad,
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson Bad, Yes, Michael Jackson in eight like this
Speaker 1: should have made one hundred million at yeast, but it
Speaker 1: turns out it basically didn't get Warner Brothers pulled the
Speaker 1: American theatrical release. It was planned for a Christmas release.
Speaker 2: Right, but they which would have fit to be fair
Speaker 2: with some of the themes in it.
Speaker 1: Yes, And it's funny that that's what they do with
Speaker 1: musical films because guess when Spice World came out Boxing Day,
Speaker 1: Boxing Day nineteen ninety seven. That doesn't look Christmas. See,
Speaker 1: they should filmed it to look more like Chris. It's
Speaker 1: just a music thing they did with music films. They
Speaker 1: just go, hey, have it in December. I suppose maybe
Speaker 1: you think people will be more forgiving of the quality.
Speaker 2: I think so actually, because I think because it goes
Speaker 2: with Panto season, so at least in the UK.
Speaker 1: I don't know about America because I don't. Although they
Speaker 1: didn't go theatrical release, it did incredibly well on VHS.
Speaker 1: It remained number one on Billboard's Video chart for twenty
Speaker 1: two weeks. It also spent fourteen weeks at number one
Speaker 1: on the Video Cassette Sales chart NICE. In nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: moon Walker was honored with a certification of eight hundred
Speaker 1: thousand copies sold by the Recording Industry Association of America
Speaker 1: and was certified nine times platinum in the UK. Wow
Speaker 1: They Leave Me Alone Music Video aired as a separate
Speaker 1: entity and won a Grammy in nineteen ninety for Best
Speaker 1: Music Video Short Form, which is the only Grammy Award
Speaker 1: Jackson received for the album. Bad They Leave Me Alone
Speaker 1: Music Video also won the CANS Golden Lion of for
Speaker 1: Best Special Effects. Oh Wow. The film did receive mixed reviews, however,
Speaker 1: with critics praising the music but complaining that there was
Speaker 1: no plot and it seemed like a series of music
Speaker 1: videos tied together. Variety reported that Moonwalker seems unsure of
Speaker 1: what it's supposed to be. At the center of the
Speaker 1: pick is the Smooth Criminal Segment, a musical slash dramatic
Speaker 1: piece full of dancing, schmaltzy kids, sci fi effects, and
Speaker 1: blazing machine guns, directed by Academy Award winner Colin Chilvers,
Speaker 1: based on a story by Jackson. I looked up Colin Chilvers.
Speaker 1: He actually worked on the Rocky horror picture show Superman,
Speaker 1: The Christopher Reevewan and X Men Right, not as director
Speaker 1: on all of those. To be fair, he was also
Speaker 1: a special effects guy. So Moonwalker was added to the
Speaker 1: list by your good self Rory. So do you want
Speaker 1: to tell us about the first time you saw Moonwalker.
Speaker 2: I would have seen this as a child. I do
Speaker 2: not know exactly when, but I was born in eighty six,
Speaker 2: so I was two years old when this came out.
Speaker 2: I remember some very early memories of Michael Jackson. Not
Speaker 2: to connect this too much as I would normally do
Speaker 2: with EGMP, but a lot of my early memories of
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson wasn't only the music videos that I saw
Speaker 2: on TV when they got shown, because I didn't have cable,
Speaker 2: so I didn't have MTV. But it wasn't just that.
Speaker 2: It was also I remember pictures when I went to
Speaker 2: Saga World. I went to Saga World once as a kid,
Speaker 2: and they had a big photograph where Michael Jackson had
Speaker 2: signed a Mega drive and stuff at Segaworld. Because that
Speaker 2: in the early nineties, there was a huge cross connection
Speaker 2: there between Michael Jackson and Saga, so there was this
Speaker 2: huge sort of Michael Jackson was hugely in the zeitgeist.
Speaker 2: I was aware of him. I'd seen the music videos,
Speaker 2: and at some point I got to see this movie,
Speaker 2: and I remember when I watched this movie as a
Speaker 2: kid that there were bits that I really enjoyed, and
Speaker 2: I also remember it being absolutely batshit, which I then
Speaker 2: didn't watch it again from probably the early.
Speaker 1: To mid nineties.
Speaker 2: There would be a huge bit where I'd forget this
Speaker 2: film existed. And then I got it on Blu Ray
Speaker 2: about ten years ago, maybe a bit more, and I'll
Speaker 2: tell you what this is the version that we watched.
Speaker 2: It looks incredible on Blu Ray. Like the visual quality
Speaker 2: of that is. If you're itching to watch Moonwalker, that
Speaker 2: would be the way I would suggest to watch it,
Speaker 2: because it looks so much better and the sound is great.
Speaker 2: But watching it again, I was like, I remember this
Speaker 2: being a little bit zany I'll watched.
Speaker 1: And yeah, you could say that. I will give one
Speaker 1: last thing.
Speaker 2: About my perception of Moonwalker as a kid was I
Speaker 2: remember the absolutely adoring the speed demon section where he
Speaker 2: becomes a plastic scene rabbit and rides away on a motorcycle.
Speaker 2: We'll get to that specifically for the motorcycle. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: it was one of the early movies from my youth
Speaker 2: that I watched and made me really love cruiser motorcycles.
Speaker 2: That terminate two with Arno Schwarzenegger's big Cruiser motorcycle like
Speaker 2: Big Harley. So I have some affection for this film.
Speaker 2: It doesn't stop it being batshit, and I knew that
Speaker 2: when I recommended it for this show.
Speaker 1: I knew that.
Speaker 2: I'll be honest JB a little bit. It was can
Speaker 2: I break JBI with this film? Because I knew it
Speaker 2: goes so off the rails. I wanted to see if.
Speaker 1: You could follow along, right. So I was not familiar
Speaker 1: with this movie. I knew it existed. I knew there
Speaker 1: was a Michael Jackson Milwalker film, but I, believe it
Speaker 1: or not, did not really know much about Michael Jackson
Speaker 1: growing up. I know most people did well, because he
Speaker 1: was a fucking megastar. You were born in ninety one,
Speaker 1: so you were five years ninety ninety Okay, sorry, but yeah,
Speaker 1: so you were born four years later than me, and
Speaker 1: so by the time you would have had a memory
Speaker 1: of Michael Jackson, you were looking at sort of ninety
Speaker 1: five ninety six, So by that point he's star had
Speaker 1: faded quite a bit. Yes, but you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Because of how big a story was, a lot of
Speaker 1: people my age knew him still, yeah, because their parents
Speaker 1: liked him, and my parents just didn't particularly like Michael Jackson,
Speaker 1: so I never really got exposed to his music. They
Speaker 1: liked Elvis Presley, so I wasn't super familiar with Michael Jackson. However,
Speaker 1: I will just tell a very quick story about how
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson has permeated pop culture so thoroughly. I years
Speaker 1: and years later, I got hired when I first moved
Speaker 1: to South End, I got hired to film on Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson tribute concert. Right, So, me a couple of other
Speaker 1: guys were paid a small amount of money. We have
Speaker 1: three cameras and we just filmed this Michael Jackson performance.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, I was surprised how many songs
Speaker 1: I knew because I went in being like, okay, I
Speaker 1: know Thriller, Billy Jean, and beat It. I didn't even
Speaker 1: know bad. I was like, I know three songs, and
Speaker 1: I actually almost every song he played I recognized, even
Speaker 1: if I couldn't name it. I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've heard this before. So this was my first time
Speaker 1: seeing Moonwalker. I didn't know what to expect, except for
Speaker 1: a handful of things you told me were cheers. You
Speaker 1: had told me that Joe Peschi was in it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's the only other celebrity in the film. Yeah, playing
Speaker 1: mister Bige. Although he's actually got a name. He's Lideo
Speaker 1: Frank Ldeo, which I noticed is a anagram of the
Speaker 1: co producer's name. Oh really, Yeah, interesting, Joe Peshi is Ladeo.
Speaker 1: The real life person is Delayo. Right, So I thought
Speaker 1: that was a funny little thing. Yeah, so I'm going
Speaker 1: to start. What makes it weird talking about this film
Speaker 1: is it's not a movie if you're going to watch it.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying this as a don't watch it. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying this so people go in knowing what this is.
Speaker 1: It is only a movie in the sense that it's
Speaker 1: ninety minutes. It's not a movie in the sense of
Speaker 1: it's actually a bunch of short films and music videos
Speaker 1: that are put together. Now, there's still value, There is
Speaker 1: still some value in it. I'm not saying there's no
Speaker 1: value in it, especially given the impact Michael Jackson had,
Speaker 1: the likes of which we probably will never see again. No,
Speaker 1: so the film starts with just straight up concert footage
Speaker 1: of Michael Jackson doing Man in the Mirror. Yes, it
Speaker 1: is so yes, there is a good one. It is
Speaker 1: a good one, to be fair. The songs in this
Speaker 1: are all good except for one, which I'll get to
Speaker 1: you later, this one and that I didn't like, but
Speaker 1: we'll get to it probably. You then get a ten
Speaker 1: minute long Greatest Hits compilation. Yes, that basically is the
Speaker 1: complete history of Michael from the Jackson five to him
Speaker 1: going solo, and it's mostly made up of music, video footage,
Speaker 1: a couple of stills, some sound clips, randomly a photo
Speaker 1: of him meeting President Reagan yep, which seems like a
Speaker 1: choice in nineteen eighty eight. Well, actually, on those little
Speaker 1: inserts I put here on mine, I said, it shows
Speaker 1: an ego when has put footage of himself in his
Speaker 1: Man on the Mirror performances alongside footage of Martin Luther King,
Speaker 1: Junior GANDHI things like that, it's like, yes, me and
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King. It's like, that's a bit of a trip, man, Like.
Speaker 2: Don't get me wrong. In terms of social impact, probably
Speaker 2: is equal value in that sense. But in terms of
Speaker 2: the importance of the role you brought Martin Luther King
Speaker 2: was to do with the face of the civil rights Luther, Yeah,
Speaker 2: versus Hey, I make great songs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not. You are on a similar level in
Speaker 1: terms of being known. You're not on a similar level
Speaker 1: in terms of what you've brought. It's it's kind of different.
Speaker 1: You said something there that will come back to later,
Speaker 1: but it is one of the things I think it
Speaker 1: is interesting to compare with these two films. Yes, is
Speaker 1: this this film is made by Michael. Yes, he's self fondered. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's very for better and for worse. It is
Speaker 1: very of Michael, if I if I can say this
Speaker 1: straight from the off, it is actually though the thing
Speaker 1: for me that makes this the more interesting movie because
Speaker 1: at the very least, while it's and I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: think it's always in a good light for Michael, and
Speaker 1: we'll get to those pieces, but because it is so
Speaker 1: much Michael.
Speaker 2: He wrote the base of it, he fully funded it. So,
Speaker 2: like we said on VGMP with Uve Bowl, there's no
Speaker 2: one to tell him no. He ends up with a
Speaker 2: narrative he wants to display, but within that sometimes he
Speaker 2: makes statements he doesn't mean to. He doesn't either intend
Speaker 2: or doesn't understand he's accidentally making, which means that there
Speaker 2: is something to discuss and look into whereas with the
Speaker 2: next film we're going to discuss, it doesn't have that
Speaker 2: element to it.
Speaker 1: Now. I have noticed it takes a full twenty minutes
Speaker 1: into this movie before we get any actual original footage
Speaker 1: that's been shot for this movie.
Speaker 2: Yes, before we get to that bit. But yes, that
Speaker 2: is a very good point. I have also noted that
Speaker 2: twenty minutes since we start to do some narrative. If
Speaker 2: you are into MJ the intro twenty minutes is still
Speaker 2: very good because it not only shows footage from the past,
Speaker 2: but it strikes them from the best available sources. So
Speaker 2: while Thriller doesn't look amazing necessarily, it is at least
Speaker 2: struck from the film negative they used. There are some
Speaker 2: bits that are struck from videotape or live TV transmissions
Speaker 2: because there wasn't anything more available. And there is also
Speaker 2: an animated android woman.
Speaker 1: Bit, yes, which I liked. Yeah, I thought that was
Speaker 1: really cool.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that was made for this film,
Speaker 2: because it is incredibly high quality, but I don't know
Speaker 2: if it was made for the film, if it was
Speaker 2: made for something else. And like like for one of
Speaker 2: his other music videos, and he's just sort of planted
Speaker 2: it in. That's kind of the difficulty of this is
Speaker 2: you can't tell what's made for the movie and what's
Speaker 2: not unless you already know where the music videos are from. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but yeah, there are some where he does these animated inserts.
Speaker 2: They are fantastic, Like the actual quality of them is
Speaker 2: very good.
Speaker 1: Then you get a parody of the bad music video
Speaker 1: with children. I didn't get it. I didn't get it.
Speaker 1: Like the kids are all great dancers, Like the kids
Speaker 1: do a wonderful job. There is no slight to the kids.
Speaker 1: But why not put the bad music video? But what
Speaker 1: does it mean? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, I can actually answer that as far as I'm
Speaker 2: aware from what I've read before about this film. The
Speaker 2: reason that that's done that way because realistically he should
Speaker 2: have just put the bad music video in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because White transitions to next is him coming off of.
Speaker 2: That set, Yeah, as an adult. But yeah, in the
Speaker 2: he's also played by a kid who's also a kid
Speaker 2: who appears later in the movie. So why is he
Speaker 2: he becomes MJ at this point as if that's young MJ.
Speaker 2: But then that kid appears later on seeing MJ in
Speaker 2: another scene.
Speaker 1: Just like It's one of those things that again, you're
Speaker 1: just like, you just didn't fucking think any of this through.
Speaker 1: But yeah, during that segment, the reason was MJ thought
Speaker 1: it would be funny, and he genuinely loved that sequence.
Speaker 1: He thought that the guy who plays the young MJ
Speaker 1: doing the dancing was hilarious. Apparently he was cracking up
Speaker 1: off camera all the time, which is fair enough.
Speaker 2: If you enjoy it, Michael, that's great. It's one of
Speaker 2: those things though, where I think a producer would have gone,
Speaker 2: cool idea. But maybe because this is about MJ, we
Speaker 2: should actually show the MJ video.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if we're gonna do it, it's funny to you, Michael,
Speaker 1: it's not funny to anybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but again, where he's the guy bankrolling the whole thing,
Speaker 2: he's also his own producer, and he's the guy right
Speaker 2: in it. Who's going to tell Michael what to do
Speaker 2: with his own money.
Speaker 1: Oh, certainly not in nineteen eighty eight. No, so as
Speaker 1: we said, this then transitions to Michael being an adult,
Speaker 1: and this launches us into the next segment of the film,
Speaker 1: which is called speed Demon. And this is the first
Speaker 1: time we get to see Michael Jacks an act. YEP.
Speaker 1: If you can call it that, and he is being
Speaker 1: chased through a studio lot, yes, by caricatures of tourists. Yes,
Speaker 1: as are made of claymation.
Speaker 2: Yes, we also get a couple of claymation caricatures of
Speaker 2: Steven Spielberg and Lee van Cleif, Yes, who chased him
Speaker 2: a horseback.
Speaker 1: And I don't even turns into a dragon for some reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he gets some angry turns into a dragon. The
Speaker 2: other thing, as well is I don't think Lee van
Speaker 2: Cleeff was alive at this point, so having Steven Spielberg
Speaker 2: directing Levan Cleef in a western seems a bit out
Speaker 2: of place, like at least make it seem like a
Speaker 2: believable shoot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was interesting because obviously this is
Speaker 1: stop motion crossed with live action footage. Yes. And I
Speaker 1: also noticed a little trick they've used. I don't blame
Speaker 1: them one bit because stop motion is incredibly time consuming, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which also means it's incredibly expensive.
Speaker 2: And they do it through it pretty much the entire
Speaker 2: music videos, so actually fair play, they don't.
Speaker 1: So they do a little trick I know, if you notice,
Speaker 1: they do a little trick to get around some of it,
Speaker 1: which is whenever it's a person in the background who's
Speaker 1: not really the focus. They're not actually stop motion animation.
Speaker 1: It is a regular person where they've actually made latex
Speaker 1: heads of the stop motion model. And it's just you
Speaker 1: can always tell because the person's movement is obviously well,
Speaker 1: they're acting smoother.
Speaker 2: They're moving like a person, but the head doesn't move
Speaker 2: and it's clearly unbalanced on their head, wobbling on their head.
Speaker 2: I did what I like about this sequence. It's not
Speaker 2: a good sequence, let's put it that way in terms
Speaker 2: of what it says. But that's kind of the bit
Speaker 2: that I was saying about where this is all from
Speaker 2: Michael's brain. This kind of feels like a slip up
Speaker 2: that a producer would have caught and not had him make,
Speaker 2: where it kind of fills it with the journalists, it
Speaker 2: makes sense. There's bits of journalists, which there's a bit
Speaker 2: that's really odd where you have like a line of
Speaker 2: journalists in a row or walking in lockstep with.
Speaker 1: Their cameras in front of their faces. That sort of
Speaker 1: imagery is great. Yeah, the problem is is when he's
Speaker 1: trying to run away from his fans and his fans
Speaker 1: are like, my god, they're turning into like grotesque monsters
Speaker 1: almost because they are so obsessed and they're not girl
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. You're like, do you hate your fans?
Speaker 1: Like this kind of feels like I understand, like not
Speaker 1: liking the obsession from fans, that's that I get and not.
Speaker 1: But you could have done that same story and in
Speaker 1: fact did with the journalists having the being the paparazzi
Speaker 1: that have the obsession and not had the statement almost
Speaker 1: about your fans. And I'm not sure that I don't
Speaker 1: I doubt that Michael Jackson wanted to make a statement
Speaker 1: about his fans. But this is the interesting bit.
Speaker 2: Is he making a statement about his fans and now
Speaker 2: you can have that discussion. Yeah, personally, I think he's
Speaker 2: accidentally let slip a little bit of frustration. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think he's accidentally saying more than he intended. But
Speaker 2: it could just be an accident, and he was just like,
Speaker 2: I love my fans, but you know, I just thought
Speaker 2: it would be funny.
Speaker 1: The part that's really weird in this section is he
Speaker 1: goes and hides in a room, comes back out as
Speaker 1: the rabbit Spike, yes, implying he has transformed into a rabbit. However,
Speaker 1: when he then after we've had the chase sequence. He
Speaker 1: then takes the rabbit costume off. You're like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: it was just Michael wearing a costume, but then the
Speaker 1: costume comes to life. Yes, so so what was it.
Speaker 1: Did he turn into a rabbit? Did he split into
Speaker 1: two different people? Because right at the very end, the
Speaker 1: rabbit becomes a mountain? Yeah, so does it really matter, Jamie, No,
Speaker 1: this is my least favorite part in the film because
Speaker 1: I also don't like the song speed Demon. It's the
Speaker 1: only song in it that doesn't sound like a Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson song to me. Oh, it's what I think of
Speaker 1: with Michael Jackson weirdly. Oh really, Okay, that's interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously different strokes for different folks and any
Speaker 1: sort of music, but yeah, for me, it's kind of
Speaker 1: the epitome. But it is.
Speaker 2: What is kind of interesting with Speed Demon in terms
Speaker 2: of album releases is it is on The Bad Album
Speaker 2: in the UK, but it's not on The Bad Album
Speaker 2: in America. Okay, so Speed Demon actually you could classify
Speaker 2: as being part of one of like the Bad is
Speaker 2: arguably his best ever album, and either depending on where
Speaker 2: you live, it either is on that album or it
Speaker 2: isn't right, and it's so very depending on territory.
Speaker 1: But with this the one. So there's two things that
Speaker 1: I something I don't understand in this is he comes
Speaker 1: out as Spike, steals a bicycle to escape, and then
Speaker 1: when he realizes he's gonna get away, he then turns around,
Speaker 1: go whistles at the fucking crowd and goes it's me
Speaker 1: basically and dancing. Oh, he's dressed as a rabbit. You're like,
Speaker 1: so you're big a little more then, so Chase Mid
Speaker 1: chase me. Oh, they're not chasing Chase Mid chasing Michael.
Speaker 1: This doesn't make you look good. You're you're encouraging it
Speaker 1: if nothing, But to be fair, that is kind of
Speaker 1: the duality of celebrity, isn't it is they both love
Speaker 1: the attention and come to resent it. Yeah, but again,
Speaker 1: I don't think he's trying to make a statement on it.
Speaker 1: He's just accidentally done so because there's no one checking
Speaker 1: the work and going, Michael, you know how this looks?
Speaker 1: I will say, like, as I say, speed Demon is
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that I absolutely love the type
Speaker 1: of motorbike that I now own. So that's another reason
Speaker 1: I watched this as a kid this music video separately
Speaker 1: and fucking adored it. What I will say about this bit, though,
Speaker 1: is something else about this footage. Now, obviously there's stop motion,
Speaker 1: but the backgrounds aren't stop motion. The backgrounds are live action.
Speaker 2: Footage speeding through cities, sometimes with like a frame like
Speaker 2: a like where they have a long exposure, that's it.
Speaker 2: Sometimes with a long exposure so that you get like
Speaker 2: streaks from the street lights as they pass. That footage
Speaker 2: is gorgeous, and I really one thing that's really good
Speaker 2: about this film is a cinematography, and this bit doesn't
Speaker 2: doesn't let let you down either. We've lost being able
Speaker 2: to shoot night shoots in streets for some reason in
Speaker 2: modern cinema. I don't know why, and I'm not just
Speaker 2: going with oh because it's all cgi even when we
Speaker 2: do film in actual streets in actual night. But we
Speaker 2: can't get street lights to look like this anymore, the
Speaker 2: sort of the way you get the glare come off
Speaker 2: from the lights, sort of bluish tint you get out
Speaker 2: of the lighting.
Speaker 1: We talked about this on our Terminator episode. They use
Speaker 1: mercury light in the light. The light bulbs are physically
Speaker 1: different now and they don't have the same, not even
Speaker 1: just the mercury ones. They're at least in the UK.
Speaker 1: I don't know about America, to be fair, in the
Speaker 1: UK they're nearly all led now. But I get what
Speaker 1: you mean. Yes, it's not the same. Stuff doesn't look
Speaker 1: the same on film anymore. Everything looks workman like now
Speaker 1: because they get in they and I get it. Budgets
Speaker 1: are getting tighter and tighter because everything's becoming more expensive.
Speaker 1: But it is most content. You see, Well, they're the
Speaker 1: word content. It's viewed as content, not as art. So
Speaker 1: it's getting do the basic angle, shoot the damn thing
Speaker 1: and get out. Well, you say everything's getting more expensive,
Speaker 1: but to a certain level. Does it have to be.
Speaker 2: Because like, for example, yes, like the cost of people,
Speaker 2: for example, is more expensive now than it was, and
Speaker 2: that is, to be honest, the bulk of costs in
Speaker 2: any production, however, the cost of actually filming something should
Speaker 2: be way down in terms of the technical costs should
Speaker 2: be But.
Speaker 1: It's not because capitalism sucks. Yeah, well no, because everything's
Speaker 1: going up because of inflation, isn't it raw materials and shit,
Speaker 1: I get that, but the raw material isn't really a
Speaker 1: big issue anymore in at least one particular way, in that,
Speaker 1: despite what Tarantino might say about what's real film and
Speaker 1: what's not, most films now don't need to be shot
Speaker 1: on cinema film, So the cost of the reel is
Speaker 1: obviously you've got only so much real and you've got
Speaker 1: to you know, blahlah blah blah.
Speaker 2: But with digital you don't really have that issue. It's
Speaker 2: not a you don't run out of it. You you know,
Speaker 2: you have to empty the cards and stuff, so you've
Speaker 2: still got more time, but you don't run out of it.
Speaker 2: It's not a disposable material. So theoretically you've got as
Speaker 2: that that's a cost saving. But then I think the
Speaker 2: other problem with that, of course, is half the time,
Speaker 2: even if you've got a big budget studio, they lease everything,
Speaker 2: don't they, rather than buy their own equipment. So actually
Speaker 2: the cost saving they would have had is thrown out
Speaker 2: the window.
Speaker 1: That's the things films are almost designed to be as
Speaker 1: expensive as possible. It is a little bit of a
Speaker 1: money pit buy design so that they can then claim
Speaker 1: films cost more to make than they actually do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: A discourages little guys from getting into it, and b
Speaker 1: it means they can fiddle the books on the back end.
Speaker 1: Maybe it also gives it from me.
Speaker 2: Maybe it also gives the studios a bit more power
Speaker 2: because if they go right, well, you've got twenty million,
Speaker 2: make a decent film out of that.
Speaker 1: You might go right well, as.
Speaker 2: The director, I want to stipulate I want this, this, this,
Speaker 2: and this in it. If they go, well, we're spending
Speaker 2: two hundred million on this film, so whatever you say
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter because it's not your two hundred million.
Speaker 1: But that's what I mean by that, keeping the little
Speaker 1: guys out of it as well. Yeah, because once upon
Speaker 1: a time you'd have had a directicle all right, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna work like this. I'm gonna go to a
Speaker 1: smaller studio, yeah, and make the film cheaper. But they're
Speaker 1: convincing everyone that the minimum you can spend on a
Speaker 1: film is one hundred million. Yeah, which is insane. It's insane.
Speaker 1: So the next section is leave me alone again. This
Speaker 1: is just a music video. It's a good music video.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed this song. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a good song.
Speaker 2: And actually, this is where I think Michael Jackson's put
Speaker 2: in a message that he did intend, which is he
Speaker 2: is the fair ground ride that all of the animeatics
Speaker 2: are being built around, and yeah, and him eventually breaking
Speaker 2: out of it at the end, and obviously the meaning
Speaker 2: of the song itself, just Leave Me Alone, makes a
Speaker 2: lot of sense. I think this should have come before
Speaker 2: the speed Demon section because this basically explains the speed
Speaker 2: Demon section. Yeah, so it would have been a case of,
Speaker 2: you know, he comes off of bad and gets harassed,
Speaker 2: and then he makes this song just leave Me Alone,
Speaker 2: and then in the end wants to fuck off, so
Speaker 2: he gets on the motorbiking goes on his way, and
Speaker 2: then that would lead us to the next section, because
Speaker 2: then we have after this it like is really disjointed.
Speaker 2: You get this whole song just Leave Me Alone, and
Speaker 2: the whole film at this point has basically been segments,
Speaker 2: and then the next bit suddenly is like, hey.
Speaker 1: Let's open up this fantasy film. Hurrah narrative begins and
Speaker 1: that is at thirty seven minutes into A ninety s.
Speaker 1: I wrote that down as well, thirty seven minutes smooth
Speaker 1: Criminal begins. Yeah, but not actually smooth Criminal. Over that
Speaker 1: segment is smooth Criminal. So some of the headlines in
Speaker 1: the leave me alone. Thing are taken from real headlines,
Speaker 1: real news stories that we're written about Michael, like sleeps
Speaker 1: in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Yes, that he has Bubbles
Speaker 1: the monkey as a pet, that he's got surgery addiction,
Speaker 1: but no, I really liked the image of him being
Speaker 1: the amusement park. This film's got almost This video has
Speaker 1: got almost a stop motion quality to it as well.
Speaker 1: It does not claymation though.
Speaker 2: No, they live action footage of Michael, like when he's
Speaker 2: in the rocket ship and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It's the ride, but he's not.
Speaker 2: It's not a I think they've dropped it to like
Speaker 2: twelve frames a second to make it feel like animation.
Speaker 1: It reminded me this very high quality though something else
Speaker 1: they like to do in the eighties, because it reminded
Speaker 1: me a lot of Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer video, which is
Speaker 1: a similar thing. Okay, but no, I liked this one.
Speaker 1: But again, it's not a film. Yeah, it's a music video.
Speaker 2: We're not seeing a narrative actually start and finish yet.
Speaker 2: So we're thirty seven minutes in, We're nearly halfway through
Speaker 2: the movie, and we if we were to pause at
Speaker 2: this point and go, Jamie, what's the theme of this movie.
Speaker 2: You'd be like, like make music videos, Like that's all
Speaker 2: you've got. We've not had an act one. This does
Speaker 2: not fit a three act structure by any stretch. Like
Speaker 2: Act one is forty minutes long, and it's not any narrative.
Speaker 1: Not at all. So the smooth criminal segment, So this
Speaker 1: is the bulk of the film. This is the bulk
Speaker 1: of the narrative. It is a it's an extended short film.
Speaker 1: It's probably about half an hour long something like that,
Speaker 1: from a story by Michael Jackson himself. And it does
Speaker 1: it not a show, it's it's something. I will say
Speaker 1: one thing before we start. This entire sequence looks phenomenal
Speaker 1: in terms of cinematography, lighting, sets, choreography. When we get
Speaker 1: to the dance segments, one of the best pieces of cinema.
Speaker 1: There's clearly there's clearly been money spent here. The lighting's great,
Speaker 1: the choreography is great, the camera work is great, fairly certain.
Speaker 2: The sets there on are sets that are used usually
Speaker 2: in gangster films in America that would have been a
Speaker 2: backlot somewhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they look incredibles got a real noir feel.
Speaker 1: This film, this part of the film loves a Dutch
Speaker 1: tilt mate and loves them, but it uses it so well,
Speaker 1: like it knows when to employ these things. But unfortunately
Speaker 1: this is like putting lipstick on a pig, because the
Speaker 1: story is nothing. It's he comes out of his music
Speaker 1: shop and they shoot him. Michael Jackson gets shot by
Speaker 1: a bunch of gangsters. Well right, no, does he sing
Speaker 1: smooth criminal? First he escapes as the car first right
Speaker 1: to so he gets shot by but well no, no,
Speaker 1: First of all, he frolics in a field with some children.
Speaker 1: So he comes out of the music So the kids
Speaker 1: are on the rooftops of what looks like New York Street. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got to find Michael.
Speaker 2: They look over the side of a building and they
Speaker 2: see him coming out of a music shop in a
Speaker 2: white jacket, white like a white overcoat. You get this
Speaker 2: sort of almost fantasy musical, beautiful sort of sound coming
Speaker 2: through the sound waves. And then as he walks down
Speaker 2: the street, you suddenly hear the like the frog marching
Speaker 2: of all these soldiers and they look like, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: put it this way, they look like what you'd expect
Speaker 2: from a cyberpunk movie. As like a corporate or dystopian
Speaker 2: capitalist soldier army, and then just through the middle of
Speaker 2: them is Joe.
Speaker 1: Peshi with a real choice for a haircut. He's made.
Speaker 2: To be fair to Joe Peshi, he probably got offered
Speaker 2: a shitload of money to be in a film that
Speaker 2: didn't take him very long to actually make chew all
Speaker 2: the scenery, and later on he slaps the shit out
Speaker 2: of the little girl in the film. But it's just like,
Speaker 2: I get a beat up a kid.
Speaker 1: Fuck it I'm doing. He either must have been paid
Speaker 1: a fortune or he must have just been a gigantic
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson fan. Either way, and it's just like, yeah, whatever,
Speaker 1: I'll do whatever stupid thing you want, as long as I.
Speaker 2: Don't have any any qualms of Peshi. In this he's
Speaker 2: chewing the scenery just the way he should.
Speaker 1: His hair is so it's like pulled back really tight, yes,
Speaker 1: and then it's in a ponytail, but instead of just
Speaker 1: hanging down like a ponytail usually does, it's stuck up
Speaker 1: ramrod straight, like like it's an antenna or something on
Speaker 1: the back of his head. And what's really funny is
Speaker 1: later on when his great hat on you could see
Speaker 1: that that hair style is gone because you down. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But yeah, he has all his men shoot and kill Michael,
Speaker 2: and we just get close up on the kids show,
Speaker 2: no not Michael, and then we get this flashback to
Speaker 2: the past where him and the three children and a
Speaker 2: dog go running off to play. What's weird is they
Speaker 2: play like American football slash rugby, but with a soccer ball.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was a bit weird.
Speaker 2: This is because it adds to nothing, though I did
Speaker 2: notice that it's the same location they used in the
Speaker 2: pilot episode of Deep Space nine. They run across the
Speaker 2: river on that wooden bridge, and that wooden bridge is
Speaker 2: where Cisco first meets Jake Cisco.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah, it's I'm not going to have cast
Speaker 1: any aspersions here. I'm just going to say, looking back
Speaker 1: on this film from this viewpoint where we can't forget
Speaker 1: certain accusations that were made about Michael Jackson not necessarily
Speaker 1: true but not necessarily true. And I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: they're true, but definitely not necessarily falseeen but the fact
Speaker 1: that he is this just feels really weird that he
Speaker 1: made a film it's him in control, and it's just
Speaker 1: got scenes of him running around a field with a
Speaker 1: bunch of children, hiding behind barrels with a bunch of children.
Speaker 1: He's got no adult friends in this film.
Speaker 2: No, But also he has no adult friends. The kids
Speaker 2: don't seem to have parents. No, there's no mention of
Speaker 2: him being there to look after them, and if he was,
Speaker 2: why they're not his house. Like again, if the man
Speaker 2: is innocent of all the accusations, this film does not help, No,
Speaker 2: because it just it's thrown in there with no context.
Speaker 1: I'm sure going to play with these kids. That sounds bad.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go and play football with these kids, just
Speaker 1: but for no conceivable reason that matches in with plot.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he had good intentions. I'm sure it was
Speaker 1: just sort of a well, you know, I want to
Speaker 1: show that I'm really friendly and whatnot.
Speaker 2: To be fair, with the way this film is written,
Speaker 2: I can imagine he's not even thought about any sort.
Speaker 1: Of now and this mean it's just I like kids.
Speaker 2: I'll, you know, do scenes where you know I'm being
Speaker 2: a good guy with these kids.
Speaker 1: I want to be a transformer. I'll be a transformer.
Speaker 1: And this is five years before any accusations were made,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure this crossed nobody's mind in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: ninety eight. I just I'm looking back from a twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six less. It's hard to separate it when the
Speaker 1: allegations were what they were, So like you said, with
Speaker 1: mat Joe Peshi, Michaelaedeo, who literally has a line where
Speaker 1: he's like, I'm Michu Ladeo, and I won't stop till
Speaker 1: every kid on earth is on drugs or something somehow
Speaker 1: has a massive death ray at the end. Yeah, like,
Speaker 1: what sort of drug dealer has a fuck off huge
Speaker 1: planetary death ray. Also, I don't understand why they go
Speaker 1: into his lair because they him and the girl alone
Speaker 1: run off away from the other kids because the dog
Speaker 1: has run off and they've gone to look for the dog.
Speaker 1: They go through an area that says no trespassers, and
Speaker 1: they go in anyway because they think the dog's gone there.
Speaker 1: They go into a cave which is full of cobwebs
Speaker 1: and spiders. For some reason, then spiders the spiders that
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with Joe Peshi except for he
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to care that they're all around his lair.
Speaker 1: I think he's using them to transport the drugs.
Speaker 2: Maybe, I mean that makes sense, just inject them through
Speaker 2: the spiders.
Speaker 1: Who's going to know it's him? They go into this
Speaker 1: cave and then there's like, oh, there's a spider shaped
Speaker 1: button that Mike uster press that opens the doorway to
Speaker 1: the evil hidden lair. And I'm like, Michael, how do
Speaker 1: you think the dog pressed that button? Like you're you're
Speaker 1: meant to be looking for a dog and it could
Speaker 1: be an intelligent dog. You don't know. Okay, speeding up
Speaker 1: a little bits. We've got two films to do, so
Speaker 1: I talk about this bit. So Michael Jackson gets cordered
Speaker 1: by Joe Peshi and his goons, yes, and jumps to
Speaker 1: the present day. He's hiding in an alley. Show how
Speaker 1: he escapes getting shot.
Speaker 2: We just see his jacket is full of holes, but
Speaker 2: he's managed to run off down the street.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's hiding in an Alleyway. You get a modicum
Speaker 1: of tension where Joe pes. She's like, oh, he's like
Speaker 1: he's looking into the alley, like, oh, I think he
Speaker 1: knows Michael's there. He orders the firing squadcraftter Michael. Michael
Speaker 1: runs to a dead end and then what's he going
Speaker 1: to do. What is Michael Jackson going to do? And
Speaker 1: he looks up and he sees a logical thing to
Speaker 1: do at this point, clearly, he looks up and sees
Speaker 1: a shooting star and wishes that he was a car.
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson transforms into a car, a terrible looking sci
Speaker 1: fi car.
Speaker 2: So as well, when I was a kid, I thought
Speaker 2: this car looked really cool. On the behind the scenes
Speaker 2: of this the car barely works, so all the scenes
Speaker 2: of it moving is mostly it's being pushed because the
Speaker 2: car didn't really function very well. And then the bit
Speaker 2: where it has to blast off, they had to animate
Speaker 2: because the car just didn't go that fast and couldn't
Speaker 2: travel that far without breaking down. So the car itself
Speaker 2: is actually shit.
Speaker 1: But this is where it devolves for me a little
Speaker 1: bit on when he becomes the car. How does that devolve?
Speaker 1: Then it picks up again because we do the smooth
Speaker 1: criminal music anyow, which is again the best parts of
Speaker 1: this film is when Michael Jackson. Surprisingly enough, the best
Speaker 1: parts of this film are the parts where Michael Jackson
Speaker 1: does the thing Michael Jackson is famous for, which is
Speaker 1: singing and dancing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I will say this music video is probably
Speaker 2: one of the best music videos of all time. It
Speaker 2: is incredible, Like, the choreography is super on point, the
Speaker 2: cinematography is fantastic, the lighting is.
Speaker 1: Incredible, and Smooth Criminals a fantastic song. Yes, a wonderful song.
Speaker 2: And weirdly enough, unlike so I wanted to make a
Speaker 2: slight comparison. He did a similar sort of gangster video
Speaker 2: in the late nineties with Chris Tucker.
Speaker 1: Yes, I've seen that one. Yes. I can't remember the
Speaker 1: name of the song though, for the life of me, No,
Speaker 1: because for years I misremembered Dangerous something like that. Because
Speaker 1: for years and years I misrem but that that was
Speaker 1: the Smooth Criminal video, right, because I was like, well,
Speaker 1: he surely wanted have done two very similar videos, but
Speaker 1: he did. It's not like people say, it's this a
Speaker 1: legendary video. It's not that good. I've seen it, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh no, I didn't see it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think what that was was his career was
Speaker 1: slightly on a downswing, so he was trying to redoce
Speaker 1: Smooth Criminal. The problem is Smooth Criminal a By that
Speaker 1: point he kind of had the child voice going on
Speaker 1: all the times. Oh no, I'm against You're like, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not believing that, Bichael. But number so, actually, to
Speaker 1: be fair, he doesn't really talk in Smooth Criminal. He sings,
Speaker 1: which is what he's known for, and it's kind of badass.
Speaker 1: The other thing as well, is he's still actually a badass.
Speaker 2: In this there's bits that are a little harder edge,
Speaker 2: not hard edge overall, but a harder edge that were
Speaker 2: not in Dangerous ironically, where because in Dangerous he still
Speaker 2: had to be overall a good guy, Whereas in this
Speaker 2: one there's a bit where I mean he he breaks
Speaker 2: the cube all the white ball on someone's pool table
Speaker 2: just to piss him off. Then afterwards he gets mugged
Speaker 2: by a prostitute in the hallway. She takes his wallet
Speaker 2: out of his pocket as he's trying to romance her.
Speaker 2: Then he walks around the side of the balcony, a
Speaker 2: guy comes out with a big knife and he just
Speaker 2: shoots him through a fucking war and you're like, and
Speaker 2: he kicks another guy over the railing and you're like, yes,
Speaker 2: there's a little bit of a harder edge from this,
Speaker 2: which is really cool.
Speaker 1: And this is he does the famous anti gravity lean
Speaker 1: in this does and as do a lot of the
Speaker 1: other gangsters behind him, and the choreography is just incredible.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful. If there's anything this is me skipping ahead
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, of course, my recommendation for people
Speaker 1: with this is watch the music videos. Throw everything out away.
Speaker 1: He's a half hour. Watch the music videos. Let's be
Speaker 1: done with it.
Speaker 2: So at the end of the Smooth Criminal music video,
Speaker 2: all of the Cyberpunky guards walk out around the outside
Speaker 2: edge of the set and basically they're silhouetted in the windows,
Speaker 2: and then they shoot through and MJ has to fire
Speaker 2: back with the Tommy gun and then leaves the studio,
Speaker 2: sees that Joe Peshi has kidnapped the children and decides
Speaker 2: to go after them and basically just runs into what
Speaker 2: looks like a quarry in the middle of fucking New York.
Speaker 1: For the final showdown. Yeah, there's not a surprisingly enough,
Speaker 1: not a huge amount of sense between the two scenes.
Speaker 1: But I know that's a surprise.
Speaker 2: But yeah, at one hour and five we arrive at
Speaker 2: the finale of a one hour and thirty minute long film.
Speaker 1: And and Michael Jackson transforms into a robot. He doesn't
Speaker 1: transform into just any robot, so he's it's like a
Speaker 1: fucking transformer. Yeah, but his face opens up first and
Speaker 1: he screams and it makes all the cyber punk soldiers'
Speaker 1: faces explode. Yes, I take out Joe Peshi, though I
Speaker 1: really think would be the one to go for. I
Speaker 1: read a fair few people sorry if she do a
Speaker 1: little bit of research traumat on this on this show,
Speaker 1: And there was a fair few people online saying they
Speaker 1: had nightmares about the bit where because when he first
Speaker 1: turns metal, his eyes like turn yellow, and it is
Speaker 1: because it's an old effect. The effect of his skin
Speaker 1: turning metal is quite odd and very uncanny. And then,
Speaker 1: like you said, his whole face just starts opening up,
Speaker 1: it splits apart, and then he screams and it's fucking
Speaker 1: evil looking, and you're like, Michael, you're trying to make
Speaker 1: a horror film. For like three seconds, this was unnecessary.
Speaker 1: But it's okay because in a minute he becomes a spaceship.
Speaker 2: He does turn into a spaceship. He turns into a transformer,
Speaker 2: shoots everyone dead apart from Joe Pesci because why would
Speaker 2: you take out the main bad guy? And even though
Speaker 2: he's right in front of him, And I will say
Speaker 2: this though. I don't know why, but Joe Pesci smacks
Speaker 2: seven shades of shit.
Speaker 1: Out of the little girl like does not seem to
Speaker 1: hold back so many films was it sobody films where
Speaker 1: Joe Pesci tries to beat children? I will say the
Speaker 1: animation work on the Robomichael for the Era is quite
Speaker 1: well done, but it's it's it's mental to it's too
Speaker 1: hard to remain It's so mental that it's hard to
Speaker 1: remain invested because you're now at a point where you're like,
Speaker 1: you jump the gun at the car, and then you went, hey,
Speaker 1: I can go one better. Then after that you went,
Speaker 1: but I can do more with the car? Right? He
Speaker 1: still is bullshit? But and to be fair, I might
Speaker 1: have missed something, So tell me if I did with
Speaker 1: the car. They at least try and give an explanation.
Speaker 1: It's a bullshit explanation to shoot. They at least try
Speaker 1: and give one, which is he sees the shooting star
Speaker 1: and he clearly makes a wish, right, yes, why can
Speaker 1: he turn into a robot? Does he see another shooting star?
Speaker 1: I didn't notice one.
Speaker 2: No, he saw Joe Pessey slap the girl and got
Speaker 2: angry enough to turn into a robot.
Speaker 1: So he's the Hulk, so we should do Incredible Hulk
Speaker 1: versus Robo Jacker Hulk Prime. I am Hulk Tomus Prime.
Speaker 2: But yeah, he then turns into a spaceship Joe Peshy
Speaker 2: has a huge planetary death laser.
Speaker 1: And then MJ just destroys him. And this is the
Speaker 1: other bit. MJ flies off and the kids are all
Speaker 1: crying and where's he going? And the girl because he's leaving.
Speaker 2: Don't know how they know that, but you know, okay,
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson's pissing off. This is regardless of the fact
Speaker 2: that clearly doesn't land because it's bollocks.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, you're having the emotional moment he's leaving
Speaker 1: us by Michael, like a fucking ego of it. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't work because a minute later they're sitting there going,
Speaker 1: I wish she come back. Oh, he's never coming back.
Speaker 1: Hey here's Michael. Hey I'm back. You're like, well that
Speaker 1: what was the point of flying away? Then like what
Speaker 1: the fuck? And then we go back to concert footage
Speaker 1: for the end, and this is a really interesting choice.
Speaker 1: The way they get there is he takes them back
Speaker 1: to Club thirty and it seems that Club thirty just
Speaker 1: changes to whatever MJ is feeling at the time, and
Speaker 1: he goes, don't worry, I'll show you something special and
Speaker 1: takes them into an abandoned Club thirty. But it's all
Speaker 1: in there. Now. They're in the backstage of the music thing,
Speaker 1: and this bit is fucking weird because I noticed this
Speaker 1: is weird. It's walking around the back the back of
Speaker 1: the you can see all of the truncated cabling for
Speaker 1: the stat sound stage, which is all cool, great idea,
Speaker 1: but they're walking through in the pitch black. There's no
Speaker 1: one else there, and the kids are like, oh, I'm scared.
Speaker 1: He's that there's nothing scary back here. What if there's spiders?
Speaker 1: There's no spiders. And then we get an overhead shot
Speaker 1: with some rats on the cabling above above them, and
Speaker 1: they go, what if there's rats? He goes, he there
Speaker 1: are no rats.
Speaker 2: You're like, but I can see the rats. Michael like,
Speaker 2: why are you exposing yourself as a liar? Like why
Speaker 2: we're going to horror territory right now? Like what the
Speaker 2: fuck is going on?
Speaker 1: And then suddenly they reach the front and some big
Speaker 1: black dude with a top hat comes along, which looks
Speaker 1: fucking awesome, but just comes out of nowhere? Does that
Speaker 1: a Michael go to Jersey and got your stuff for you?
Speaker 1: Brings him on the stage and then he does the
Speaker 1: final song. Yeah, yeah, And don't get wrong, this sequence
Speaker 1: is great. He's fantastic. He's got a great energy as
Speaker 1: a performer. I really love song. Yeah, it's that really
Speaker 1: eighties grungy glam rockets. I think. But od is dressed
Speaker 1: is awesome as well. Actually I think they're just better
Speaker 1: than he is. Yeah. The because you've got You've got
Speaker 1: a black guitarist, but it's got like his hair is
Speaker 1: all spiked out. He's got like a black leather jacket,
Speaker 1: the studs on it. You've got another woman who's i
Speaker 1: think the bassist, and she's got like the incredibly wild
Speaker 1: sort of glam rock hair style. They all look incredible
Speaker 1: and the lighting and everything's amazing. Yeah, sorry, what was
Speaker 1: your point? He just looks. It's an odd choice to
Speaker 1: end an ego driven project that's basically been a celebration
Speaker 1: of you and how good you are, Michael with a
Speaker 1: cover of another band's song It's come Together not here.
Speaker 1: It's the Beatles, but they don't count. He owned the
Speaker 1: Beatles at this point, so this is his ego again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's just being look, I could do your song in
Speaker 1: my movie. You can't stop ye because I think in
Speaker 1: eighty two he bought all the Beatles back catalog, right,
Speaker 1: but heate it's a Beatles song originally come together. In
Speaker 1: the credits, it credits Paul McCartney and John Lennon as
Speaker 1: the writers. That's me not knowing the Beatles. Sorry, no,
Speaker 1: trust me. That's one of the only Beatles songs I
Speaker 1: do know because I'm actually not a Beatles fan. I like,
Speaker 1: I like the cover. It's a great performance, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a bit with eat and the hey look
Speaker 1: how great Michael is with Hey, I can do the Beatles,
Speaker 1: Like why don't you do beat It or Thriller or
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, Billy Jean or something. So there is
Speaker 1: a guy with a key tar and I was like,
Speaker 1: that's a bit miss Yeah, I'm in this day as
Speaker 1: didn't really make it far out the eighties.
Speaker 2: The last thing I want to mention on the film then,
Speaker 2: before we move on to Spice World, is that the
Speaker 2: outro music is really cool as well, because it's not
Speaker 2: an MJ song. It's not mj at all. It's a
Speaker 2: South African group called Lady Lady Smith Black Mumbazo doing
Speaker 2: a song called the Moon Is Walking and it's fully
Speaker 2: a cappella, so there's like six of them and they
Speaker 2: all sing like the harmonized different parts of the song.
Speaker 2: It was an adaptation of their song Linda Lanni, which
Speaker 2: was a song that was anti apartheid at a time
Speaker 2: where that was very culturally relevant for South Africa. Linda
Speaker 2: Lani actually comes from the Zulu language meaning either wait
Speaker 2: or come and see, and they do sing the words
Speaker 2: come and see during Linda Lanni. There is a difference
Speaker 2: between the two songs. I did look up Linda Lanni
Speaker 2: as well afterwards to see if they're very similar. There's
Speaker 2: slight differences, but not I'm not musical enough to really
Speaker 2: be able to explain them, but there are some differences
Speaker 2: subtly between the two. But yeah, I thought that was
Speaker 2: a really nice way to finish the film was because,
Speaker 2: let's be honest, up to this point, it's all been ego.
Speaker 2: To then end with a band singing a song that
Speaker 2: actually is an important song politically for its time showed
Speaker 2: a surprising lack of intro.
Speaker 1: Sorry a surprising lack of ego for its outro segment,
Speaker 1: and then afterwards we get another montage of how great
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson is so during the credits. So it's short lived,
Speaker 1: but it is there. Yeah. So overall, like I said,
Speaker 1: for me personally, take the music videos junk the rest
Speaker 1: of it. For me, I agree that Smooth Criminal as
Speaker 1: in the whole segments we can is beautifully shot. But
Speaker 1: in the same what I've always been of that attitude
Speaker 1: where like it's like video games, a video game with
Speaker 1: incredible graphics can't make up for a boring video game.
Speaker 1: Rise the Robots proved that in ninety four in my opinion,
Speaker 1: but for some people it can. If you're one of
Speaker 1: those people, you might like this.
Speaker 2: I will say this is a proper movie in terms
Speaker 2: of how it's shot technically.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, yes, it's not in the sense that it
Speaker 1: isn't actually a script that goes from beginning to end.
Speaker 2: So the recommendation you would do on it would be
Speaker 2: based on what an audience memory is looking for. If
Speaker 2: you're looking for something that's really out there, really different
Speaker 2: and looks incredible, sounds incredible, will impress you with shit
Speaker 2: like the choreography and the cinematography and things like that.
Speaker 2: This film is a must.
Speaker 1: But if you're after something that will give you a
Speaker 1: really solid story, this is like the polar opposite end
Speaker 1: of the scale from what you're actually after.
Speaker 2: So it's something you watch when you're in a mood.
Speaker 2: I think, like, if you're in the mood for just like,
Speaker 2: you know what, I don't really care about story.
Speaker 1: I just want something that's fucking fun and in your face.
Speaker 1: I just want to be a map. I want to
Speaker 1: be bathed in the vibes. Yeah, yeah, of Michael Jackson.
Speaker 2: This film is a vibe film, right, and you have
Speaker 2: to kind of just accept that the ego is going
Speaker 2: to come along with that vibe. But ageah, if it's
Speaker 2: any deep emotional themes, yeah, you're not going to Moonwalker.
Speaker 1: No. So what's fully about Moonwalker is not well angry
Speaker 1: man No No. So what's funny about Moonwalker in contrast
Speaker 1: to our next film is obviously they're both film starring musicians. Yes,
Speaker 1: roughly exactly ten years apart. This is eighty eight ninety
Speaker 1: end of ninety seven is Spice World. The difference is
Speaker 1: that's a self fundered movie that was for better and
Speaker 1: for worse Michael Jackson. Yeah, it's fully Michael Spice World. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the Spice Girls were a more managed band. They, as
Speaker 1: far as I'm a weir, did not write their own songs.
Speaker 1: They were very heavily managed, very scheduled every part of
Speaker 1: their tour schedule, their their appearances, their publicities all managed.
Speaker 1: So this is more of a product that is crafted
Speaker 1: for them into Yeah, Michael Jackson's Moonwalker is a movie
Speaker 1: made by an autur for better and worse all for
Speaker 1: that word, for his own ego. This is content made
Speaker 1: by a mass produced company. See I kind of agree,
Speaker 1: kind of disagree on because yes, this is made by
Speaker 1: a mass produced company, but this is a movie Moonwalker ism. No,
Speaker 1: this is Moonwalker is a collection of music video. This
Speaker 1: is a store. This is not a good one, but
Speaker 1: it is a story that goes from a beginning to
Speaker 1: an end. No, it doesn't.
Speaker 2: There is exactly the same thing as Moonwalker. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: worse and honestly.
Speaker 1: Like the in fact, this lacks because it doesn't because
Speaker 1: it is is studio produced, and because it is about
Speaker 1: five stars not one. You don't have like the thing
Speaker 1: that makes Moonwalker kind of interesting for a filmmaker is
Speaker 1: just how much it is about this one man's self
Speaker 1: inflicted ego. You don't even have that in Spice World.
Speaker 1: It's just vapid.
Speaker 2: Within five minutes, you meet Elton John for two seconds,
Speaker 2: and then from that point on there's like another sixty
Speaker 2: eight cameos and you're like, but none of them mean anything.
Speaker 1: Well, get yourself ready to one night only revive. Jamie,
Speaker 1: your film taste sucks because I massively prefer this to Moonwalker. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, but to be fair, I was a Spice
Speaker 1: Girls fan. I am not, nor have I ever been
Speaker 1: a Michael Jackson. Okay, so I like some of his songs, No, no,
Speaker 1: So my issues with it because I like the Spice Girls.
Speaker 1: I don't dislike the Spice Girls. And all the songs
Speaker 1: they play in this are bangers, right, so apart from
Speaker 1: when they did want to be because for some reason,
Speaker 1: they sing it like garbage in this film, even though
Speaker 1: I really like that song. As soon as they start
Speaker 1: doing it, they're singing it out of kin. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck's going on with this song? And it
Speaker 1: also happens to be the only one, And this is
Speaker 1: the big problem with it. They're both music video films basically,
Speaker 1: but Spice World, every single music video is just girls
Speaker 1: standing in a line behind microphones. Boring as fuck.
Speaker 2: No cinematography, no choreography, nothing, It's just five people fucking
Speaker 2: about behind a microphone for three and a half minutes.
Speaker 1: At least with MJ's Moonwalker, the music video segments are incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the connecting thread is bollocks, but what you get in
Speaker 1: between the shit connecting thread is gold and Spice World
Speaker 1: doesn't have anything that matches that. At any point. We'll
Speaker 1: twitch the bit with the fucking agiens well to introduce it.
Speaker 1: Spice World is a nineteen ninety seven British musical comedy
Speaker 1: film directed by Bob Spears. It is made in a
Speaker 1: similar vein to the Beatles nineteen sixty four film A
Speaker 1: Hard Day's Night. It was made for a budget of
Speaker 1: twenty five million dollars, so we're around the same as Moonwalker,
Speaker 1: and it grossed fifty six million dollars at the box office.
Speaker 1: It stars obviously the Spice Girls, Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton,
Speaker 1: Melc Melb and Jerry halliwell as well as Richard E. Grahm,
Speaker 1: Garry Hallewell. At the time or was she changed her
Speaker 1: name now I can't remember because no, that is her
Speaker 1: name is Jerry Halliwell. That's her maiden name. She's now
Speaker 1: Halliwell Horner. That's it. Richard E. Grant, Alan Cumming, George
Speaker 1: went Clear, Rushbrook, Mark McKinney, and Roger More. Spice World
Speaker 1: was a number one box office success in the United Kingdom,
Speaker 1: grossing two point three million pounds on its opening week end,
Speaker 1: breaking the record that had been set earlier that same
Speaker 1: year by Bean. The film received generally negative reviews from critics,
Speaker 1: with an average rating on ronin Tomorrow's of thirty five percent,
Speaker 1: with a critic consensus that reads, Spice World's lack of
Speaker 1: cohesive plot will likely lose most viewers, but for fans
Speaker 1: of the titular girl group, there's more than enough fun
Speaker 1: to be had in their wacky, albeit superficial whirlwind of
Speaker 1: an adventure. Noted American film critic Roger Ebert gave one
Speaker 1: half of a star and listed Spice World as one
Speaker 1: of his most hated films, saying, the Spice Girls are
Speaker 1: easier to tell apart than the mutant Ninja turtles, but
Speaker 1: that is small consolation. What I think that's really harsh. Actually,
Speaker 1: what I done this film? That is hard? What can
Speaker 1: you say about five women whose principal distinguishing characteristic is
Speaker 1: that they have different names? They occupy a spice world.
Speaker 1: They occupy Spice World as if they were watching it.
Speaker 1: They're so detached they can't even successfully lip sync their
Speaker 1: own songs. And when he reviewed the film on his
Speaker 1: and Gene Siskel's film critiquing program Ciskel and E but
Speaker 1: only three weeks into nineteen ninety eight, he declared he
Speaker 1: had already seen the worst film of the year and
Speaker 1: called it an entertainment free dead zone. He included the
Speaker 1: film on his The Worst of nineteen ninety eight special,
Speaker 1: but ultimately chose Armageddon as the worst film of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight. Is better than this, especially Space Space. He's
Speaker 1: got space dementsion, which is still better than the fucking
Speaker 1: aliens that appear in this film. Yeah. Janet Maslin of
Speaker 1: The New York Times stated that the film is pleasant
Speaker 1: and painless enough to amuse ardent fans, who figure in
Speaker 1: the film quite often, but also noted that while it
Speaker 1: got a PG rating in the United States, nothing about
Speaker 1: it should disturb its target audience of media. Wise, fun
Speaker 1: loving eight year old girls. Writing for Site and Sound.
Speaker 1: In a positive review, Mark Sinker placed it alongside The
Speaker 1: Monkey's nineteen sixty eight cult film head. He went on
Speaker 1: to say that it sends up the amicable idiocy of
Speaker 1: pop packaging and the slow witted mass media response to it,
Speaker 1: and it was tirelessly generous in its energy. Derek Ellie,
Speaker 1: resident film critic for Variety, gave a mixed review, calling
Speaker 1: the film bright and breezy and as timely but evernescent
Speaker 1: as the cool Britannia culture it celebrates. He stated that
Speaker 1: the film would delight the fab Fire's pree prebeuescent fans,
Speaker 1: but it would be totally forgotten within six months. Oh look,
Speaker 1: it's never even had a blue roly. Several critics have
Speaker 1: reevaluated the film more positively in the years after its
Speaker 1: initial release. Rewatching Spice World in twenty nineteen, Alice Vincent
Speaker 1: of The Daily Telegraph was pleasantly surprised that the jokes
Speaker 1: had not aged badly and found the set were good.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they never aged bad to begin with, and
Speaker 1: found the sets and costuming had a now retro charm.
Speaker 1: I'll give that. Vincent stated, it's an irreverent, lighthearted romp
Speaker 1: that captured the brash, patriotic positivity of a London swept
Speaker 1: up in cool Britannia, people keep saying that I am
Speaker 1: British and I've never heard of cool Britannia. What is this?
Speaker 1: What is I'll be honest, like I've heard the britannially. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but cool Britanni particularly, is that what they call? Because
Speaker 1: there was I was going to talk a bit about
Speaker 1: how Britain punches above its weight in terms of music
Speaker 1: a lot of the time. So you actually had the
Speaker 1: British invase. So you actually had the British because we
Speaker 1: have Ireland connected to us. They bring most of the talent,
Speaker 1: do they? Yes? And Wales? Since when since almost every
Speaker 1: single Eurovision winner we've ever had your revision? Fuck your revision.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about us being popular in America? What's wrong
Speaker 1: with So? You know, you had the British Invasion as
Speaker 1: they called it in the seventies, which was all the
Speaker 1: metal and rock of the seventies. They got really big
Speaker 1: in America. I was thinking only of pop. Fine, yeah,
Speaker 1: when it comes to rock, we do tend to rock.
Speaker 1: And then in the nineties you had a wave of
Speaker 1: British music get popular in America with things like the
Speaker 1: Spice Girls and Oasis actually hate but yeah that was
Speaker 1: un Blur? Is that what that is? Is that? What
Speaker 1: is that what they call cool Britannia? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Because Oasis and Blur they had to fight because they
Speaker 1: were britpop, so that was its own specific category of rock.
Speaker 1: But Spice Girls would not have classified as Britain no anyway.
Speaker 1: Writing for The New York Times in twenty nineteen, Eleanor
Speaker 1: Stanford found the film to be much smarter and more
Speaker 1: self aware than I once gave it credit for, particularly
Speaker 1: enjoying how the Spice Girls poked fun at themselves. Stanford concluded,
Speaker 1: the Spice Girls were absolutely working the very sexist system
Speaker 1: and making a lot of money off of it, but
Speaker 1: they were doing it slyly, with a wink and a grin.
Speaker 1: They were I think misunderstood at the time, and I
Speaker 1: wonder if an irreverent, breezy group like Theirs could even
Speaker 1: exist today. It was listed for a Golden Raspberry Award
Speaker 1: for several It won Worst Actress for all five Spice Girls,
Speaker 1: so collectively they won it. It was nominated for Worst
Speaker 1: New Star. It was nominated for Worst Original Song for
Speaker 1: the song too Much. Roger Moore was nominated for Worst
Speaker 1: Supporting Actor.
Speaker 2: He definitely deserves it. I love Roger Moore, but his
Speaker 2: performance and this is fucking track.
Speaker 1: It was also nominated for Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay,
Speaker 1: and then in two thousand and four it got renominated
Speaker 1: for Worst Musical of the first twenty five years of
Speaker 1: of the Raspberry the Razzies existing. Now, I just want
Speaker 1: to talk quickly about the director because one thing I
Speaker 1: will openly say, the two films have similar budgets. Yep,
Speaker 1: Spice Girls probably have slightly less when you factor in
Speaker 1: the ten years of inflation and the fact that there's
Speaker 1: five leads rather than one. So this is my thing.
Speaker 1: I think you can tell that one of the smart
Speaker 1: choices Michael Jackson made is as you said, there's basically
Speaker 1: no celebrities in it. And I wonder if he even
Speaker 1: paid himself because it maybe twenty five mil that without
Speaker 1: his cost included, so a lot of it went on
Speaker 1: the cinematography and it shows whereas Spy Skirls you're obviously
Speaker 1: paying five Spy Skirls, you're probably paying all those cameos
Speaker 1: and the director so I've just looked up the director
Speaker 1: Robert Spears. He's sadly not with us anymore. He died
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, and he's actually he's mostly
Speaker 1: a TV director, doesn't surprise me. He did three films,
Speaker 1: two of which were in nineteen ninety seven, which was
Speaker 1: That Darn Cat, which is a mystery comedy film starring
Speaker 1: Christina Reachi Spice World. And then in two thousand and
Speaker 1: one he did a film called Kevin of the North,
Speaker 1: which is an American comedy film starring Skeet all Rich,
Speaker 1: Natasha Henstridge, Leslie Nielsen, and Rick Mayle. And he's about
Speaker 1: the Alaskan idatorod Trail sled dog race. It no, but
Speaker 1: I kind of want to see that now. In terms
Speaker 1: of TV, though, I think you'll agree he's much more legendary.
Speaker 1: So on TV he directed Dad's Army Right, Faulty Towers, Wow,
Speaker 1: Are You Being Served? French and Saunders absolutely fabulous, bottom
Speaker 1: a bit of Fry and Laurie. Fry and Laurie and
Speaker 1: both in this film and the Ruby Wax Show that
Speaker 1: explains in this and she's from Fryan Laurie. So I
Speaker 1: think he got a lot of friends to come and
Speaker 1: just do camage.
Speaker 2: It makes me wonder if the cameos, most of which
Speaker 2: probably weren't paid, Roger Moore would have been paid.
Speaker 1: But I do wonder about Elton John as well.
Speaker 2: Actually because he's literal, because he's only in it for
Speaker 2: two seconds, make me think that.
Speaker 1: They bumped into them. He didn't know it was on film.
Speaker 1: He's just being himself. But so that's quite their big
Speaker 1: name was in British comedy. All those shows I've just
Speaker 1: listened some of the biggest names of comedy, actually Dad's
Speaker 1: Army being the biggest surprise because I consider that quite
Speaker 1: an old show, so he must have been quite old.
Speaker 1: He died in two thousand and eight. No no, no,
Speaker 1: Byny was like eighty right, there you go. Cool. So
Speaker 1: I put Spice World on the list. I chose it
Speaker 1: to be the season finale deliberately because it's a ridiculous movie,
Speaker 1: unlike Moonwalker. Well when you said moon Walker, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: let's put them together. Why not? So as a child,
Speaker 1: I was obsessed with the Spy Girls. Fucking me and
Speaker 1: my brother and sister all were. We loved the Spy Girls.
Speaker 1: We had a VHS of them performing live. I want
Speaker 1: to say Wembley Arena. We used to buy all the
Speaker 1: chocolate but I don't if you remember, but deary milks
Speaker 1: in the nineties have the spice Girls on them, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: we used to buy those. My sister had all of
Speaker 1: the Spice Girl dolls. The first game we had on
Speaker 1: our Sony PlayStation was the Spice World video game, which
Speaker 1: is I mean, it's not a game. It's not a
Speaker 1: game way, this is not a film. It is a
Speaker 1: waste of computer programming. So when this film came out, me,
Speaker 1: Jody and John were obsessed with it. We were like,
Speaker 1: we need to see this. I remember we had it
Speaker 1: on VHS and we must have watched it a jillion times.
Speaker 1: And that is why I am an uncultured swine who
Speaker 1: when I later saw some of the respectable work that
Speaker 1: Richard E. Grant went on to do, I was like,
Speaker 1: that's the guy from Spice World, which I'm sure Richard
Speaker 1: Grant would be Richard Y. Grant would be thrilled to
Speaker 1: know that. I didn't go, well, that's the dude from
Speaker 1: with Nail and I I went, oh, it's the dude
Speaker 1: from its most important role. As a kid. Loved the
Speaker 1: film haven't seen it in a very long time, as
Speaker 1: you can imagine, because I kind of grew out of
Speaker 1: the Spice because I still listened to the music occasional.
Speaker 1: They stopped being a band as well for a long time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well, yeah they broke well Jerry halliwell left
Speaker 1: and then they broke up not long after that, and
Speaker 1: I ended up liking Girls Allowed. I ended up moving
Speaker 1: on to Girls Allowed for a because I guess I
Speaker 1: like pop music. But anyway, one thing about watching this
Speaker 1: back now that we can talk about later is realizing
Speaker 1: how little of the film I understood as a kid.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of jokes in this I are not
Speaker 1: even talking dirty jokes, but just pop culture jokes that
Speaker 1: as a seven or eight year old kid, I didn't
Speaker 1: have the pop culture knowledge to get well, all the
Speaker 1: Roger more stuff. Yeah, like so there are so many
Speaker 1: Bond references with Roger Moore's appearances. I didn't even know
Speaker 1: who Roger mare was. No again, I didn't know what
Speaker 1: James Bond was at seven years old. Right, meat Loaf,
Speaker 1: Yeah again. The first time I ever saw Meatloaf in
Speaker 1: a music video went that's the bus driver from Spice Girls.
Speaker 1: You know what It's meaning is that I didn't recognize
Speaker 1: him in this because he's doing a normal, more voice
Speaker 1: and I didn't like it. I want I want a
Speaker 1: performing voice.
Speaker 2: When he does, he does a joke about the toilets, yes,
Speaker 2: and he's I wanted him to sing the line, so
Speaker 2: that's that's better.
Speaker 1: That's a joke. I mean that I didn't get where
Speaker 1: he says I love these girls. I would do anything
Speaker 1: for him, but I won't do that. Yeah, we'll just
Speaker 1: clean toilets. But he should have sung it instead. He
Speaker 1: just says it and that I love these girls, but
Speaker 1: I won't do that. You know, that would have been
Speaker 1: the way to perform the line. So I fully met, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and claim this is
Speaker 1: a good movie. It is an nostalgic is a nostalgic
Speaker 1: movie for me? Good? So fine. Right at the beginning,
Speaker 1: we open on Top of the Pops, and straight away
Speaker 1: I was like, fucking ill. Remember when Top of the
Speaker 1: Pops was a thing. It was such a big thing though,
Speaker 1: because it really did influence how or what would reach
Speaker 1: number one on the charts. It was important to get
Speaker 1: on Top of the Pops.
Speaker 2: And it's just so weird that it's not even a
Speaker 2: thing now, Like the Top of the Pops too, doesn't
Speaker 2: even play anywhere anymore. Yeah, no, it exists. It's just
Speaker 2: disappeared out of the zeitgeist. It's not really a shame,
Speaker 2: because I kind of understand it was a product of
Speaker 2: a time that no longer exists, but it is kind
Speaker 2: of it just feels weird to me, having grown up
Speaker 2: with it, that it's just gone.
Speaker 1: Well, we've talked before, haven't we, about how cultural zeitgeist
Speaker 1: is a thing that is thinning out because you because
Speaker 1: you used to have only, say, three radio stations and
Speaker 1: three TV channels. Let's say the bands that got featured
Speaker 1: on Top of the Pops, everyone in the country would
Speaker 1: have listened to them because it's your only source. But
Speaker 1: now that you've got the Internet, and you've got not
Speaker 1: only the entire back catalog of every other song that's
Speaker 1: ever been made before this point, but every day there's
Speaker 1: probably a thousand new songs that come out. When you
Speaker 1: factor in all of the indie artists and everything, people
Speaker 1: are able to curate their own experts. I do it.
Speaker 1: I can't name most modern singers because I don't have
Speaker 1: an interest in that music and you don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't go looking for it same anyway. That's kind of
Speaker 1: a off topic now, No, but it's it's it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I had misremembered this film because my miss I had
Speaker 1: remembered and I tell you now it's the facial hair.
Speaker 1: I had remembered that rich that much facial ha ha.
Speaker 1: I had remembered that Richard E. Grant was the villain
Speaker 1: of this movie because he had a go and he
Speaker 1: actually isn't. He's just getting pissy. I just remembered a
Speaker 1: bit where he's getting pissy and he's got the goaty
Speaker 1: and the sideburns, and there's a bit where they kind
Speaker 1: of light him from under a little bit and he's
Speaker 1: like glaring at someone. I just remembered that image. That's
Speaker 1: the villain in the film. Yeah, don't know. Richard E.
Speaker 1: Grant plays a lot of villain, but there isn't actually
Speaker 1: a villain in the film. The closest you get is
Speaker 1: the newspaper guy who's deliberately trying to spread rumors that.
Speaker 2: They broke I guess, yeah, No, to be fair, their
Speaker 2: Asian friend who's pregnant. She's really the villain because she
Speaker 2: almost makes them late for their final performance, right, so
Speaker 2: she's clearly a villain.
Speaker 1: Of course I'll belly joking.
Speaker 2: So okay, first of all, I want to say something
Speaker 2: that's in contrast with Moonwalker.
Speaker 1: Moonwalker looks amazing. This does not.
Speaker 2: And I don't just mean in terms of having maybe
Speaker 2: less budget, and I don't just mean in terms of
Speaker 2: it not fit in the same sort of style. And
Speaker 2: I don't even mean the fact that it's an interlaced
Speaker 2: DVD copyer, not a shiny blue ray at twenty four frames.
Speaker 2: None of the technical shit in that sense. What's worse
Speaker 2: about this film is camera work, angle, choice, movement, basically
Speaker 2: everything that makes the camera give a good performance.
Speaker 1: Lighting.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of shots with good lighting, but they're
Speaker 2: usually in places like there's a bit later on with
Speaker 2: Ministry of Sound, which looks really good, but that's because
Speaker 2: they're in the ministry of sound, and Ministry of sound
Speaker 2: looks incredible. Have been there, it looks amazing seeing with
Speaker 2: all the lights on. So that's all just freely given
Speaker 2: to the freely given to them by the venue where
Speaker 2: they are. There's a bit in not the first musical
Speaker 2: performan because the first musical performance has done like a
Speaker 2: James Bond intro is yes, girl, but it looks terrible
Speaker 2: because it's all CGI. And then they do a bit
Speaker 2: where they have to they're doing a rehearsal I think
Speaker 2: by Jules Holland in this tall ceiling.
Speaker 1: Jules Holland. It's Jules Holland. Yeah, it's a cameo. I
Speaker 1: didn't write down. Excuse me, There you go. I've made
Speaker 1: a list of all the cameos. Unnoticed I missed that one.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 2: So yeah, Jules Holland is directing them in a music video,
Speaker 2: which is again just them in a line singing behind
Speaker 2: my stands.
Speaker 1: Someone fucks on a keyboard, don't they Melbil los a
Speaker 1: temper at him. Yes, But when they start doing the
Speaker 1: actual rehearsal, the camera starts towards the ceiling of the
Speaker 1: room and slowly moves down to bring the girls into
Speaker 1: center frame. Beautiful idea of a shot. The camera's pissed.
Speaker 2: The the entire drop the camera is like, it's like
Speaker 2: someone's got a handicam and has got their hands slightly
Speaker 2: tilted as they do the motion. Oh, I didn't notice that,
Speaker 2: And they've not fixed it in post or anything like
Speaker 2: or redone it. It's one the shot is one key
Speaker 2: and not in like a Dutch angle way. It's just
Speaker 2: they fucked it up. And there's several shots throughout it
Speaker 2: where you're like, nothing's straight, like fucking straight in the
Speaker 2: fucking camera, like either they've got a dodgy tripod or
Speaker 2: that his name is Phil and he's got a dodgy leg.
Speaker 1: Everything is just won key where he's holding the camera
Speaker 1: at a weird angle. Why is it relevant that his
Speaker 1: name's Phil? I just want to now, I did want to.
Speaker 1: I did want to point out something though that's actually
Speaker 1: quite serious, and I was surprised. I was surprised this
Speaker 1: film did it. In ninety seven, as the Spice Girls
Speaker 1: are leaving the rehearsal and they're making their way to
Speaker 1: their tour bus, you get a bit where there's a
Speaker 1: load of paparazzi waiting for them, Yes, and riginally Grank
Speaker 1: grabs one of the cameras that's low and he goes
Speaker 1: not the skirts, thank you? Oh interesting, I missed that bit. Now,
Speaker 1: I want to bring this up. So I probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: have noticed it either, except again, I've got that Girl's
Speaker 1: Allowed documentary right, And there is a lot of time
Speaker 1: dedicated in that documentary to how disgusting British paparatzi were
Speaker 1: in the nineties and the two thousands, the way you
Speaker 1: often got those sort of shots, to the point where
Speaker 1: in the early twenty tens the UK government finally pastor
Speaker 1: law making it illegally ill.
Speaker 2: It was also the reason why when the smart phones
Speaker 2: came out that could do cameras that they don't have
Speaker 2: to make a noise when you take a photo, but
Speaker 2: by law they it now has to make a noise
Speaker 2: as part of the program. Because that way a woman
Speaker 2: will know if you've tried to upskirt shot her. That's
Speaker 2: what that That's why if you go it doesn't really
Speaker 2: need to make the noise, it does because of not
Speaker 2: because because of because of perverts. It's to yeah, and
Speaker 2: it's it's it is.
Speaker 1: Atrocious that we're in a world where we have to
Speaker 1: go no, make it make a noise because of the pervert.
Speaker 1: And it saddens me because the British paparazzi, specifically the
Speaker 1: British paparazzi had a reputation for doing this. I've seen
Speaker 1: interviews with American celebrities who say they used to dread
Speaker 1: coming over to Britain and dealing with British paparazzi because
Speaker 1: they were desperate to get the obscull literally. In the
Speaker 1: Girls Allowed documentary, they talk about times where their car
Speaker 1: would pull up to somewhere and the cameraman would be
Speaker 1: laid on the pavement so that you've got to step
Speaker 1: over him. But like there's a certain level where you
Speaker 1: sit there and go right. So you're you're a photographer
Speaker 1: for a newspaper, you're going to take it. Try and
Speaker 1: get a shot of let's say, Spice girls for this
Speaker 1: sake of this film. If you're lying on the floor
Speaker 1: and get the shot the girls step over, don't hey,
Speaker 1: look I've got the panty shot? Who are you? Who
Speaker 1: you selling that to? And be telling you like how
Speaker 1: are you getting away with it? Because someone will go, well,
Speaker 1: here's the credit for the photo is Gilly bib Bob.
Speaker 1: Clearly he's a perf because the only way you got
Speaker 1: that shot was by lying underneath the girls. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't really newspapers so much. It was things like Heat magazine,
Speaker 1: Oh the rag mags, because they'd put them up and
Speaker 1: then they'd be like, look she's got cell You like that.
Speaker 1: So it's disgusting. They are vile, vile trash those magazine
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I never read one. Yes, that's really sick. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's disgusting. So I was actually pleased they don't do
Speaker 1: much with it. It at least gets acknowledged in this film.
Speaker 1: This is something that the paparazzi do, no fair, disgusting shit.
Speaker 1: So this whole next bit as a kid was the
Speaker 1: bit I fucking loved. I'm gonna admit something really embarrassing now.
Speaker 1: So their tour bus is a huge tour bus with
Speaker 1: the Union jack painted on it meat loaf STEbus driver
Speaker 1: which obviously didn't know it was meat loaf when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, And a lot of scenes in this
Speaker 1: film take place in the bus on a set where
Speaker 1: they've got this huge dressing room. Yeah, but as a kid,
Speaker 1: I was like, that's what the Spice Girl's tour bus
Speaker 1: looks like. That is it exactly what the Spice Girl's
Speaker 1: tour bus looks like? Despite the fucking it was a tardis,
Speaker 1: no wonder you fucking liked it. You love Doctor who
Speaker 1: Spice tardis Yeah, and uh, and then watching it again
Speaker 1: as an adult I was literally watching this scene where
Speaker 1: like Victoria Beckham's trying on dressers and Jerry Halliwell's reading
Speaker 1: the magnifice.
Speaker 2: Actually was looking at the fact that baby Spice was
Speaker 2: literally acting like a baby, like she's swinging a little
Speaker 2: sweet sucking on her farm.
Speaker 1: But you're like a bit weird in it. You don't
Speaker 1: need to go this far. I was looking at I
Speaker 1: was looking at it and just going, how the fuck
Speaker 1: did I ever think that this was the actual bus
Speaker 1: the starters. It clearly isn't em It's supposed to be
Speaker 1: in motion, isn't it nothing, But it clearly isn't. Nothing's moving,
Speaker 1: they're not rocket They're on solid ground. It's the width
Speaker 1: of three double decker buses at least, it's definitely a
Speaker 1: film studio. And then there is like the level of it,
Speaker 1: like riginally Grant there's like a balcony. Yeah, he's looking
Speaker 1: down at them, which is like four stor up and
Speaker 1: you're like, all its double decker. But as an eight
Speaker 1: year and I was like, yeah, that's the Spice Skills
Speaker 1: tour bus. Yeah, that's exactly what that looks like. It
Speaker 1: makes it. It says a lot that there's never a
Speaker 1: shot that takes you from the bit where meat Loaf
Speaker 1: is driving into the back you never see the entrance.
Speaker 1: We get another cameo, Jonathan Ross, who I'm sure the
Speaker 1: British the American listeners probably won't know who that is.
Speaker 1: But he's like a talk show host. I guess he's
Speaker 1: like our Conan O'Brien, maybe kind of Graham Norton might
Speaker 1: be more of ourn Graham. To be fair, our chatch
Speaker 1: hopes are very different, but yeah, he's on that grade.
Speaker 1: Did you think it was weird that Jonathan Ross's jokes
Speaker 1: are all about him not being able to get the
Speaker 1: languages of countries right, Like they say something in Spanish
Speaker 1: and he's like great for the German listeners, and then
Speaker 1: they say something like Mexican something, Japanese, Japanese, He's like
Speaker 1: great for the Chinese listeners or something.
Speaker 2: It wasn't even Chinese. It was like really off, like
Speaker 2: Brazilian or something. He made sure, to be fair, it's
Speaker 2: not that bad. He does at least go all over
Speaker 2: as far away from the rest of the world as possible,
Speaker 2: so that you know it's just him being an idiot,
Speaker 2: not racist.
Speaker 1: You then get George Went from Cheers is in this movie.
Speaker 1: So he's the movie producer who keeps meeting with Richard E.
Speaker 1: Grant right, yes, the chubby guy. Yeah, I didn't know
Speaker 1: his name at the time. That's the dude from Cheers. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Again the bus being ridiculous. Clifford's office is like a
Speaker 1: sci fi villain la. Yeah, so Kevin mcmaxford, isn't it. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: Richard E. Grant, Oh sorry, on the bus. He's got
Speaker 1: like a little office you see him in with a
Speaker 1: swivel chair, and it's got like all these monitors all
Speaker 1: around him in a circling. When I first watched the film,
Speaker 1: I was like, how did he get back to his office?
Speaker 1: And then I realized later on, oh he's made Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: but no, and he calls Roger Moore's character so here's
Speaker 1: some more jokes. I didn't get some more jokes. Yeah
Speaker 1: what Roger Moore? Obviously very famously, James Bond is very
Speaker 1: deliberately made to look like Blofeld in this It's wearing
Speaker 1: similar clothes, he's in a swivel chair, He's stroking a cat,
Speaker 1: which they then later swap out for a teacup pig, yes,
Speaker 1: which was weird. This is a bit where the teacup
Speaker 1: pig just starts screaming is the only word I can use,
Speaker 1: and I'm fairly certain that's not in the script. I
Speaker 1: think the pig just started screaming, and Roger Moore just
Speaker 1: went with it. He was just like, I'll have you
Speaker 1: for another five minutes. The most egregious of these jokes, though,
Speaker 1: is there's a bit where he's shaking a Martini yes,
Speaker 1: and Richard E. Grant says, Oh, do you think I
Speaker 1: should stir up something?
Speaker 2: I was talking about the press? He's worried about we're
Speaker 2: getting to a point where the president a turn on
Speaker 2: the girls because they've had their peak almost And he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: do you want me to go and stir something.
Speaker 1: Up in the media? And he goes, no stirring necessary
Speaker 1: while shaking a Martini. Because in case you didn't get it, famously,
Speaker 1: James Bond drinks Martini's shaken, not stirred. You get a
Speaker 1: really weird skit with the Spice Girls as counsel of
Speaker 1: State moms. Yeah, that came out of nowhere because it
Speaker 1: doesn't happen anywhere else in the film, because essentially there's
Speaker 1: this uh, I can't remember the actress's name, the Asian
Speaker 1: friend that they've got. Oh, she's toss from torch. What
Speaker 1: didn't she? Yeah? Is it Naoki Maury or something like that?
Speaker 1: Let me fact check. So I don't want to be
Speaker 1: she's pregnant, and they're all like, oh, that, we're happy
Speaker 1: for you. And then in this sequence they'll sit there
Speaker 1: and going wonder, what do you be like to be pregnant? Oh,
Speaker 1: that might be quite nice. And then they have this
Speaker 1: dream sequence of them all pregnant together, living in a
Speaker 1: small house doing each other's laundry. Oh, it's right, it
Speaker 1: is Naoki Maury. Nice, Naoko Maury. Sorry, damn, I was
Speaker 1: nearly right. I mean it was closer than I would
Speaker 1: have gotten. So well done. But yeah, basically it's just
Speaker 1: really weird because this never happens again. We never get
Speaker 1: another sequence where they have like a dream sequence. No,
Speaker 1: not dream sequences, but you do get the film is littered.
Speaker 1: Do you get absurd moment with these weird sketchers that
Speaker 1: don't really fit into the narrative. It just feels like
Speaker 1: someone had a sketch script lying around and went, hey,
Speaker 1: I literally imagine they sat in the guy whoever wrote this,
Speaker 1: I imagine literally sat in a room and went, what
Speaker 1: if the Spice Girls were in a military training schore?
Speaker 1: What if the Spice Girls met aliens? Obviously couldn't think
Speaker 1: of enough plot, so just threw out any old shit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it's quite a tight run time, isn't it. And
Speaker 1: I think that's because they didn't have a whole lot.
Speaker 2: People are fans of the Spice Girls and they're watching
Speaker 2: this slop. Then they're coming because they want to see
Speaker 2: the Spicy Girls and they want to see the Spy
Speaker 2: Girls perform. Put in the best bits, put in instead
Speaker 2: of the wanna be thing that they do. Just put
Speaker 2: in the video from Wanna Bee. Try and strike it
Speaker 2: from a better.
Speaker 1: Source, maybe make it HD whatever, But like, don't don't
Speaker 1: do what you did. I'm so boring. But it's only
Speaker 1: now that we get introduced to the actual villain of
Speaker 1: the movie, who doesn't really implement much in the film.
Speaker 1: Kevin mcmaxford. He does anything the whole film. No, he
Speaker 1: has to be a parody of Rupert Murdoch. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: I thought it was Rupert Maxwell because of Robert Maxwell.
Speaker 1: Robert Maxwell, but Robert Maxwell would have been out of
Speaker 1: the count by for about ten years by this point,
Speaker 1: and Rupert Murdoch is Australian and this guy is Australian.
Speaker 1: Maybe they just felt like a choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Rupert Murdoch's name doesn't fit anywhere in this
Speaker 2: as much as Maxwell does.
Speaker 1: I don't think the name necessarily is a reference because
Speaker 1: they're afraid to get sued. Maybe I can't remember the
Speaker 1: name of the guy who plays his sort of subordinate.
Speaker 1: He's famous as well, isn't he. I couldn't think of
Speaker 1: his lockstock into smoking barrels. He's a British actor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's very good in it as well, for the bits
Speaker 1: he's got. But these two are seen only together. They're
Speaker 1: never introduced into the main plot. It's essentially Kevin mcmaxford
Speaker 1: really really wants the Spice Girls to fail and he
Speaker 1: can sell more papers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you can sell more papers, and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: let's make sure it sucks up. And the only connecting
Speaker 2: thread really is yeah, they hire Richard O'Brien to gain
Speaker 2: spy on the girl.
Speaker 1: So there's a joke here that I fucking hated and
Speaker 1: I bet you fucking loved it on and it's they
Speaker 1: do a deja vu joke where they just play the
Speaker 1: exact same two lines. Devo joke where they just play
Speaker 1: the same two lines. I bet you fucking loved it,
Speaker 1: didn't you. I bet I fucking loved it, didn't I? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like, this is a it's a really good joke.
Speaker 1: It's it's a great job. This is the only good
Speaker 1: scene in the movie. I've found it. I found it
Speaker 1: funnier even though it's absurd when he gets really angry
Speaker 1: and he's like villain plotty it suddenly starts raining, but
Speaker 1: only in his office. Yes, that I loved as well.
Speaker 1: I've noted that down.
Speaker 2: This is literally the only good scene in the film,
Speaker 2: by the way, the only good one. It's got the
Speaker 2: deja vu deja vu joke, and it's also got the
Speaker 2: bit where it's like, let me down sort of thing
Speaker 2: of the blokes in the rain inside the office it's
Speaker 2: clearly not ready outside.
Speaker 1: Don't worry, I'm gonna make sure it happens. Right. I
Speaker 1: did more of this villain shit. The only person who
Speaker 1: got an outright laugh from me was actually Richard O'Brien
Speaker 1: just after that bet right when he comes in and
Speaker 1: he goes, this is you picking your nose? This is
Speaker 1: you doing that? And I was like, okay, that's fine. End.
Speaker 1: But then it's the way he just goes this is
Speaker 1: you peeing in a pool when you were twelve? And
Speaker 1: I just laughed. I was like, oh, this guy's somehow
Speaker 1: got photos. Oh a guy when he was twelve.
Speaker 2: Sorry, but the Kevin mcmxwell stuff is the only stuff
Speaker 2: that works, and not all of it does, but it's
Speaker 2: honestly like, I was like, Okay, this scene suddenly happened,
Speaker 2: and suddenly my interest went up, and I was like, okay, cool,
Speaker 2: we're gonna get like some drama start entering into this.
Speaker 2: We're gonna have this fucking scenery chewing villain, phenomenal Richard O'Brien,
Speaker 2: who It feels like such a downgrade for Richard O'Brien
Speaker 2: because I'm not I'm fair. Certainly this is the same year,
Speaker 2: or maybe it was just the year before that he.
Speaker 1: Did Dark City. Oh is he in Dark City? It's
Speaker 1: fucking amazing, right, okay, in Dark City? Okay, fair plad.
Speaker 1: I didn't know it's in Dark City. I was about
Speaker 1: to say, is it a damn grade though? Because it
Speaker 1: was rocky horror in like the early eighties. Yes, and
Speaker 1: then host of the Crystal may which is which is great.
Speaker 1: I love the Crystal Maze. It's not a stunning movie career.
Speaker 1: But I did not realize he was in Dark City. No,
Speaker 1: he's fantastic in Dark City. He was also in that.
Speaker 1: This is not a good film. The second mal viral movie,
Speaker 1: Virus Haunted Hills. Yes, it fucking awful movie. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: first one is not bad. El Vira Mistress of the Dark.
Speaker 1: No a Vira Haunted Hills is it's not worth We
Speaker 1: actually get another dream sequence that I'd forgotten about, similar
Speaker 1: to the Pregnant one, which is when they're talking to
Speaker 1: Baby Spice about how she can get away with anything
Speaker 1: by flashing her smile. And this is where we get
Speaker 1: Hugh Laurie's cameout. They cooked to Hugh Laurie's clearly playing yeah,
Speaker 1: at least a parody of named as poiro and IMDb anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's like, so we must ask ourselves for the
Speaker 1: killer is. I can't do the accent. We must ask
Speaker 1: ourselves who the killer is. And he's going through all
Speaker 1: the typical you know, there's a vicar, a lady businessman,
Speaker 1: and then Emma Bunton is literally covered in bullets and
Speaker 1: holding a knife and he but she smiles at and
Speaker 1: goes the killer is clearly Reverend Smith or whatever his
Speaker 1: name is. I didn't like that saying that was ship.
Speaker 1: Two more cameos when they go to is this the
Speaker 1: Mystery of Sam the nightclub that they're in, Yes, Jennifer
Speaker 1: Saunders has a cameo here, Yes, talking to Victoria Beckham.
Speaker 1: She does. And Bob Geldoff has a cameo because I
Speaker 1: think he's got short hair, which is unusual for Bob Guilder.
Speaker 1: You know he's got long hair because Melby puts it
Speaker 1: into the same hairstyle she has. That's what it looks different.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm remembering, is that. Yeah, And here's a
Speaker 1: terrible lie. This is a we don't do worse lines
Speaker 1: on the show, but if we did, this is a
Speaker 1: candidate for worst line, because I get that you're playing
Speaker 1: of Victoria Beckham like Posh Spice's ditsy but fashionable. But
Speaker 1: this is too far. Is when they ask if the
Speaker 1: Japanese lady asks them if they can be godmother to
Speaker 1: the kid, and Victoria Beckham goes to Godmother's get stretch marks.
Speaker 1: What a stupid fucking question. I mean, like, no, of
Speaker 1: course they fucking don't. I mean it's part of the
Speaker 1: course for this film, to be honest. That doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 1: With this film, have hated the DJ joke more than that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did hate that. I also admitted that. Sorry, another
Speaker 1: chuckle I did get. I did get a little chuckle
Speaker 1: at They asked Jerry halliwell something, and she does a
Speaker 1: proper standard response of is the Pope Catholic? And it
Speaker 1: immediately cuts to a headline that says spice girls doubt
Speaker 1: Pope's fate. I did like that, and then it cuts
Speaker 1: to like the Bishop of Archbishop of Canterbury being like,
Speaker 1: of course the Pope is Catholic. This is slander. That
Speaker 1: was good. By this point though, my interest was waiting. Oh, actually, man,
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. I've got more laughs in this than I
Speaker 1: thought I did.
Speaker 2: Go on, Well, no, my next comment is about Michael
Speaker 2: Barrymore and I don't think we're there yet.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, I've got one about the Italian dancers.
Speaker 1: So they go to the Italian dancers scene, they go
Speaker 1: to Italy, and I'm fairly certain it is a racist
Speaker 1: portrayal of the Italian directory. He's got like a mono
Speaker 1: brow and he's like, your mother like that, and we
Speaker 1: must have had sex. But these guys come on in
Speaker 1: like the teeny tiny Calvin Kline jockey shorts, you know,
Speaker 1: shorts of pants, and they like proper like jockey shorts underwear. Yeah, yeah, briefs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're also called jockey shorts, I think, so I've
Speaker 1: never heard them. Okay, anyway, brief shorts would have considered
Speaker 1: briefs is the word I was actually looking for, you know,
Speaker 1: oiled up muscly guys. There's a bit that maybe wear
Speaker 1: one of touches one on their peck and they're like
Speaker 1: all the oil. Yeah, and I did like this joke
Speaker 1: only works because Richard E Grant's straight face delivery. They
Speaker 1: end up making a compromise. It cuts to the performance
Speaker 1: and the men all come out in purple suits and
Speaker 1: they're dancing, and Richard E Grant's assistant guys, oh, you
Speaker 1: managed to get it sorted then, and he goes, we
Speaker 1: made a compromise. And then the guys turn around and
Speaker 1: they've all got the butts on their suits cut out,
Speaker 1: and she goes, what is that straight faces anything? Richardie
Speaker 1: Grant goes. That's the compromise that made me laugh as well,
Speaker 1: but purely because of how Richard E. Grant delivers it.
Speaker 1: Richidey Grant is probably the MVP of the film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah, he is the best thing in
Speaker 1: the film. I think he's the only one trying to
Speaker 1: be honest. I don't think anyone else in this film.
Speaker 1: The assistant who's with him is doing a good job.
Speaker 1: But he's a celebrity. I don't I don't know her name,
Speaker 1: but she's in Doctor Who. Do you remember the episode?
Speaker 1: It's the two parter with David Tennant and Billy Piper
Speaker 1: where they go to the Satan planet with the UD.
Speaker 1: She's the woman who's like the second in command. Okay,
Speaker 1: fair enough, I didn't recognize that. Okay, cool, Yeah, she
Speaker 1: does a good job as well, to be fair, We
Speaker 1: randomly get a bit where the tour bus is driving
Speaker 1: through the British countryside at night and the Spice girls
Speaker 1: insist on pulling over because they need to pee. This
Speaker 1: is where you get the It's also where you get
Speaker 1: the bit where he says to Richard to meet Loaf,
Speaker 1: why don't you fix the toilets? Yeah, and I'll do
Speaker 1: anything with these girls, but I won't be there. Also,
Speaker 1: Britain's a real small country, Like you never need to
Speaker 1: hold it that long before you get to a service station,
Speaker 1: do you know what? Yeah, But anyway, they all go
Speaker 1: off into the trees in a scene of what I
Speaker 1: can only describe as a toilet no matter what that film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but like considering that's the narrative is they all need
Speaker 1: to pee desperately that they can't wait for another truck stop. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What I can only describe as a very very low
Speaker 1: budget parody of Close Encounters of the third kind begins
Speaker 1: with these UFO lights in the sky and these aliens
Speaker 1: come down, and I swear to God Rory. As you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, I'm a doctor who fan the effects in seventies,
Speaker 1: doctor who look better than these aliens. These aliens look awful.
Speaker 1: They're like little trolled old masks with big collars. And
Speaker 1: then one of them pops its belly out and posh
Speaker 1: by fat shames the alien. But don't worry. One of
Speaker 1: them asks for a kiss, yes, and gets it and
Speaker 1: gets it physically. See the mask just dent. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a scene where you're like, what the fuck is
Speaker 1: going on and again it so it doesn't come back.
Speaker 1: It doesn't any right. Right at the end you see
Speaker 1: the aliens dancing to the song. But that's it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't, it doesn't doesn't need to be here. No,
Speaker 1: this is literally just filling time. It's well, it's them going,
Speaker 1: oh look, the Spice girls are such a phenomenon that
Speaker 1: even alien on a different planet of heard them. But
Speaker 1: now we get to the military scene, so they basically
Speaker 1: get sent to a military score and we get another
Speaker 1: celebrity cameo. But it's another one where I don't think
Speaker 1: our American listeners will recognize him. I think he's only
Speaker 1: famous in Britain. I don't even know what he's famous for.
Speaker 1: I just know he is. So do you want to
Speaker 1: take this one?
Speaker 2: So Michael Barrymore is or was definitely won't be nowadays
Speaker 2: a famous game show host for different TV shows, but
Speaker 2: specifically Strike It Lucky, Slice Strike It Rich because they
Speaker 2: rebooted it halfway through its run and renamed it for
Speaker 2: some reason. But it's the same show. Michael Barrymore was
Speaker 2: very funny. He used to be quite witty with his guests.
Speaker 2: Sometimes he'd be a little bit sharp, but you know
Speaker 2: that's what his job was as the host, and at
Speaker 2: this time I think he would have been very famous
Speaker 2: in the UK, but I don't think he's ever been
Speaker 2: famous outside of the UK. But anyway, Michael Barrymore is
Speaker 2: in this, I don't think he's acting. You can tell
Speaker 2: he's a game show host because of the way he
Speaker 2: moons to camera and stuff, and he's trying.
Speaker 1: He's basically playing an army drill.
Speaker 2: Sergeant, but as campus nickers at certain points and that
Speaker 2: the blend doesn't work.
Speaker 1: No, you want to hear a Mandela effect on Well, no,
Speaker 1: it's not a mad Della effect. It's just me having
Speaker 1: a shit memory. If you'd have asked me before we
Speaker 1: watched this for this, I would have sworn on my
Speaker 1: life that this role was played by John Cleesh. Really,
Speaker 1: for some reason, it has always been my memory that
Speaker 1: John Clees is in Spice World playing the military drill sergeant. Right,
Speaker 1: And it's not at all at all. It's not even clubs,
Speaker 1: it's not even it's not even the same type of
Speaker 1: performance I was picturing. No, it's not what you'd expect
Speaker 1: from John Clee. No, my memory was it was John
Speaker 1: Clees doing a posh boy got his position by you know,
Speaker 1: just being born into the right family, because you know,
Speaker 1: we do that in Britain. They just get made fucking
Speaker 1: sergeants and ship because they were born in the right family.
Speaker 1: And then the Spice Girls won't obey him, so he
Speaker 1: starts getting all flustered and he's like, but the decorum
Speaker 1: and the tradition and that would have been better though,
Speaker 1: But in my memory that's what it was, right. And
Speaker 1: then I watched this and I was like, I literally
Speaker 1: wrote down, that's fucking Michael Barrymore. Have I got an
Speaker 1: alternate edition of the movie. Yeah, I doubt it. I
Speaker 1: think no. I looked it up. John Clees was never
Speaker 1: in it. No good good for him, Tell You, Tell You,
Speaker 1: isn't it? Those the most surprising cameo in it for me.
Speaker 1: Bob motherfucking Hoskins is in this film. I cannot with
Speaker 1: no dialogue. He's dubbed by Jerry halliwell, yep. To be fair, though,
Speaker 1: he can no longer have claimed that Super Mario Brothers
Speaker 1: was the worst film he was in, because this is
Speaker 1: way worse than Super Mario Brothers in every single capacity,
Speaker 1: is literally every single got Spice Girls in it, So
Speaker 1: with the music. They don't do any real singing or dancing.
Speaker 1: It weirdly, it weirdly made me proud to be British.
Speaker 1: This film it made me a shame to be really.
Speaker 1: I had a little wave of Patriotis and watching this, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, Britain I didn't get. I was like,
Speaker 1: look at all the fucking sellouts. This is how much
Speaker 1: Britain sucks is We are basically just sellouts that sit
Speaker 1: there and go, hey, look tea with the Queen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all Britain is. Now. We were an empire on
Speaker 1: Yeah they were bad. There's a line though, in this
Speaker 1: bit that is so cringe where I obviously girl power
Speaker 1: was the whole spice Girl's thing and it was particularly
Speaker 1: associated with Jerry Halliwell and obviously great cause, you know, feminism,
Speaker 1: great cause and whatnot. But this line where she literally
Speaker 1: explains what girl power means and she's like girl power
Speaker 1: equalization between the sexers, but it's Bob Hoskins miming it,
Speaker 1: doing the peace sign while Jerry Halliwell says it. And
Speaker 1: I was just like, your message is good, like the absolutely,
Speaker 1: but it just something when you're Bob Hoskins and not Jerry,
Speaker 1: but the execution, the fact the Waits just dropped into
Speaker 1: the middle of this movie. It's like, what also I reckon?
Speaker 1: That's the only I reckon. Jerry Halliwell basically said to them,
Speaker 1: I will not do this movie unless I can have
Speaker 1: a part in the film where I say this or
Speaker 1: say something. But she didn't. But she didn't specify how
Speaker 1: she had to say it. So they went, Okay, we'll
Speaker 1: give you what you want. By the way, you're not
Speaker 1: even gonna be on screen when you say it. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be Bob Hoskins doing an over the top sassy
Speaker 1: girl move. But the point of the Bob Hoskins cameo
Speaker 1: narrative turns into Bob Hoskins Yeah, because she's like, she's
Speaker 1: going right, I've got a good way around the press,
Speaker 1: so they won't recognize me. She goes into the telephone
Speaker 1: booths to like change almost like.
Speaker 2: Superman, I guess, but when she comes out, rather than
Speaker 2: being a superperson, she comes out as Bob Hoskins. But
Speaker 2: then that never comes back, not even with Bob Hoskins.
Speaker 2: But in no capacity do they ever hide their actual
Speaker 2: you know personas Again, Bob.
Speaker 1: Hoskins needed some money or something for this. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So I pointed this is when I realized that Richard E.
Speaker 1: Grant was not actually the villain of the movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I was like, I was sure he sold them out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't. Although I have put this, this neo
Speaker 1: green suit he's wearing makes me feel like he's auditioning
Speaker 1: to play the Riddler forever. It's like the Riddler, but
Speaker 1: within the Matrix. Yeah, because it's so precise, Like the
Speaker 1: suit is pristine, the sidebirds, the slip, the shades. I'm like,
Speaker 1: this guy is meant to be in the Matrix, but
Speaker 1: as the Riddler, and then he has to fit on
Speaker 1: stage in it. Ah, that's just like, yeah, this guy
Speaker 1: should totally be the Riddler home. I reckon to Tommy
Speaker 1: Lee Jones with the sank his buffooner, I reckon he
Speaker 1: would have done absolutely. This is also the part where
Speaker 1: Roger More's cat has been swapped for a pig, and
Speaker 1: we now do a very clever and by clever, I
Speaker 1: mean not great writing thing where they clearly had gotten
Speaker 1: to We're probably like an hour and ten into this
Speaker 1: ninety minute movie now yep, and the producers suddenly go, oh,
Speaker 1: there's no third act. There's no third act, and we
Speaker 1: don't really know how to build tension to get the
Speaker 1: Spice girls, you know from because they've gone to the
Speaker 1: hospital with their friend who's gone into labor yep. And
Speaker 1: they're like, we don't really know how we're going to
Speaker 1: get them back to their It's got to finish with
Speaker 1: a big concert, obviously, because it's a music film. Don't
Speaker 1: know how we're going to do this, So they use
Speaker 1: the American producer and writer character, the ones who are
Speaker 1: pitching the movie to Richard E. Grant. They use them
Speaker 1: to basically do away with the third act and truncate
Speaker 1: it into a just hand wave away the villains. Richard
Speaker 1: O'Brien just sees the error of his ways, doesn't he
Speaker 1: Just like he's like, oh no, I have realized the
Speaker 1: error of my way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I didn't need all of this. There's a
Speaker 2: bit where Jerry Halliwell shouts up the woman's fanny and
Speaker 2: I'm like, I didn't need this.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't need a film with this bit
Speaker 1: in it at all. I forgot. I don't remember seeing that.
Speaker 2: When when they think she's gonna give birth, I think
Speaker 2: it might be when they're in the hospital with it,
Speaker 2: or does she stay up there?
Speaker 1: Stay up there?
Speaker 2: Shouts up the woman And I don't need to see
Speaker 2: Jerry Hall will shower up a woman's fanny. That's not necessary.
Speaker 2: There is one more good joke that comes.
Speaker 1: Out tower Bridge. Yeah. Yeah, it's the only other good
Speaker 1: joke in the film. Yeah, I've written here they so.
Speaker 1: I actually if we had more of this in the film,
Speaker 1: to be honest, what the film probably should have been
Speaker 1: should have if they were smarter and more meta about it,
Speaker 1: and we were doing meta films by ninety seven. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it should have been the American producers pitching different movies
Speaker 1: for the Spice Girls to act. Sketches. Yeah, that sketches
Speaker 1: and they're all terrible, And your film becomes a commentary
Speaker 1: on the commercialization of everything that would have been and
Speaker 1: it's brilliant, and it wouldn't be like it's the first
Speaker 1: time it's been done. I've got a film. I have
Speaker 1: an Audrey Hepburn box set, and there's a film in
Speaker 1: it called Paris When Its Sizzles. It's Audrey Hepburn and
Speaker 1: William Holden. William Holden's a screenwriter and she's a typist
Speaker 1: who has been sent there not only to be a
Speaker 1: typist for him, but to make sure he actually writes
Speaker 1: the script because he's a screenwriter who's gotten a bit
Speaker 1: of a reputation for never actually handing scripts in on
Speaker 1: time because he's a drunk. And he tells her the
Speaker 1: idea for the film, but he's only got like the
Speaker 1: first scene, and she's like, your deadline's in three days.
Speaker 1: What do you mean you've only got the first scene?
Speaker 1: Is like, well, I've written so many scripts, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do now. I'm just copying myself.
Speaker 1: It's previous stuff I've already done. And the whole film
Speaker 1: is them coming up with different ways the film could go,
Speaker 1: and then each time they cought with a new one,
Speaker 1: it will cut to them to acting that out, and
Speaker 1: it ends up being really crazy. The film that starts
Speaker 1: as like a serious drama about finding love in Paris
Speaker 1: ends up turning into a bit where Dracula is having
Speaker 1: a World War two bomber plane fight with them. Right, yes,
Speaker 1: they should have done something like that, because this bit
Speaker 1: I didn't mind where it's like, you know, oh, they're
Speaker 1: on top of the roof, they're on the roof of
Speaker 1: the bus and Richard E Grant's like, why those are
Speaker 1: the rules? You gotta do that, And then they find
Speaker 1: a bomb on the bus, but why it's the rule? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that could have been something. And the tower. I do
Speaker 1: like the bit where they're like, they're going to jump
Speaker 1: tower bridge. Oh that sounds expensive, and it cuts to
Speaker 1: literally a toy over a cardboard bridge and he goes,
Speaker 1: oh maybe, yeah that was a joke. That's a really
Speaker 1: good joke. What way too late do you're to talk
Speaker 1: about Hackney joke? Really hackneyed? Oh they know that they've
Speaker 1: gone through Hackney ha ha when they get I don't
Speaker 1: know if you noticed the needle drop when they get
Speaker 1: to the Royal Albert Hall, right, and they get off
Speaker 1: the bus and they run up the teeny tiny flight
Speaker 1: of steps. Yep, it plays the fucking music from Rocky
Speaker 1: when he's running up the massive Philadelphia steps and he's
Speaker 1: done the whole run all the way through. They make
Speaker 1: it up the first flight of stairs before the first
Speaker 1: five notes of the music have played. But anyway, you
Speaker 1: get a bit where Richard E Grant is like, I'm
Speaker 1: done for it's over. Then the Spice Girls turn up
Speaker 1: at the last minute. Alan Cummings disappointed because he kind
Speaker 1: of wants the documentary to have a well.
Speaker 2: Because where Richardie Grant basically goes, I hate them, I
Speaker 2: hate those girls, and he thinks he's got the perfect
Speaker 2: end of the documentary. This is basically how the Spice
Speaker 2: girls deteriorate and fall and then immediately the girls run
Speaker 2: in and.
Speaker 1: Go, hey, don't worry, we're here. We're going on stageing
Speaker 1: why are you sitting around?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he goes, I love those girls, I love them,
Speaker 2: and that's why it ruins his documentary, But I'm in
Speaker 2: Would that really stop a nefarious, fucking journalist from just
Speaker 2: cutting out the I hate and releasing the movie as no?
Speaker 2: He apologizes to his assistant Donny that's a relatively good
Speaker 2: She says, you know, what do we do? He says,
Speaker 2: what do we do now? She goes, well, this is
Speaker 2: the bit where you chat me up. We'd end up
Speaker 2: basically sleeping together and then we'd fall out professionally in
Speaker 2: the next day, and the insinuation is that they do
Speaker 2: sleep together, and it nearly falls apart, but he manages
Speaker 2: to get enough heart to actually apologize, though he doesn't
Speaker 2: really apologize no, he apologizes and she goes, what for.
Speaker 1: It is because I'm supposed to I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like he doesn't really apologize, and it just kind
Speaker 1: of ends. We end up with a bit. They do
Speaker 1: a bit where the Spice Girls break the fourth wall,
Speaker 1: don't they and over the credits and they like come
Speaker 1: up to the camera they're like the people watching us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, of course they fucking are You're the Spice Girls.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's it's it's not a great film,
Speaker 1: but I I thought it was interesting in a how
Speaker 1: ridiculous it is, and be in contrast to Moonwalker, I
Speaker 1: think we didn't really plan to do it as a
Speaker 1: double bill at first, and I think it's really interesting
Speaker 1: actually that one is clearly a singular person, the actual
Speaker 1: artist in question, driving it forward, whereas this other one
Speaker 1: is a commercial project, a package that's put together because
Speaker 1: the Spice Girls were the biggest fucking thing in the
Speaker 1: world in nineteen ninety seven, and it was like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's fuck it, let's put them everywhere, Let's do Barbie dolls,
Speaker 1: let's do a video game, let's do a movie. And
Speaker 1: it's really shocking when you actually look at it because
Speaker 1: we remember them as this big cultural thing. It's only
Speaker 1: a few years that is peak Spice Girls, and all
Speaker 1: this shit is condensed into just like a two year
Speaker 1: period because I don't think they even fully lasted five years.
Speaker 1: I'll check it now. Yeah, because they came out mid
Speaker 1: nineties and they were gone realistically by the two thousands,
Speaker 1: at least as a five. I think like two thousand
Speaker 1: and one they broke up. Maybe maybe maybe even before that.
Speaker 1: Let me let me have a look for you. Ninety
Speaker 1: four to two thousand is their first run.
Speaker 2: Right, so yeah, six years if that that's you know,
Speaker 2: they were not up. But unlike MJ, who started off
Speaker 2: huge in the Jackson five and then had his own
Speaker 2: solo career for like thirty.
Speaker 1: Oh hang on, no, no, that said ninety four, but
Speaker 1: that's kind of bollocks. Their first ever single doesn't come
Speaker 1: out till ninety six, so I'm sorry, that's where you
Speaker 1: have to count it from, right. I don't care if
Speaker 1: they formed and were practicing before that. So this film
Speaker 1: was made within a year of them realistically being famous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So ninety six is Wanna Be? Which is number one?
Speaker 1: Then they did three more number one singles, which will
Speaker 1: say You'll be there to become one a mama. Then
Speaker 1: they did the album Spice World, which sold fourteen million
Speaker 1: copies worldwide, another three number one singles Spice Up Your
Speaker 1: Life Too Much in Viva for Hour, and then in
Speaker 1: ninety seven they did their first ever live concert debut
Speaker 1: and the feature film. The nineteen ninety eight Spice World
Speaker 1: tour was the I Don't Know If It's Still Airs,
Speaker 1: was the highest grossing concert tour by a female group,
Speaker 1: and Halliwell left the Spice Girls then Jerry Halliwell was
Speaker 1: only in it for like two years ninety six to
Speaker 1: ninety eight. So then they did a nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 1: tour and did the album Forever, which gave them their
Speaker 1: ninth number one single, which was Holler Slash Let Lovely
Speaker 1: the Way I Don't Know That one, and at the
Speaker 1: end of two thousand they split up. So, yeah, they are.
Speaker 1: They're kind of a flash in the pan, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like they turn up, they burn very brightly,
Speaker 1: very quickly, and then they're gone, yeah wow. Yeah four
Speaker 1: years then basically yeah, ninety six to two years of
Speaker 1: them as a five piece. Yeah, it's it's they were, yeah,
Speaker 1: a flash in the pan and nothing burger in the
Speaker 1: long stream, you know, because they and that's another thing.
Speaker 1: By the time m J made moonwalf I had to say,
Speaker 1: that's another difference is and that's at the height of them.
Speaker 1: That's MJ's been around for ages. Yeah, he's I mean,
Speaker 1: he's been a celebrity for about ten years at that point,
Speaker 1: at least longer because he was Jackson five. Yeah, as
Speaker 1: a solo career, at least he'd been going for about
Speaker 1: eight years. And prior to that, as you say, he
Speaker 1: had the Jackson five career. He was big.
Speaker 2: He was a big name for a long time, and
Speaker 2: he was at his peak, whereas technically the Spice Girls
Speaker 2: were at their peak at this time.
Speaker 1: But the peak came much quicker and very quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And overall, Michael Jackson had a career his entire life,
Speaker 1: whereas these girls didn't have a Spice girl's career their
Speaker 1: entire life. No, and not, let's be honest, none of
Speaker 1: the solo careers really took off. Jerry Halliwell had a
Speaker 1: couple of good songs. Emma Bunton had a good song.
Speaker 1: Melc had a couple of good songs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Melse sees the Sporty Spice Ones, and she she
Speaker 2: had a couple of good albums that were popular in
Speaker 2: the late nineties, no, in the early to mid two
Speaker 2: thousand and then she sort of disappeared as well.
Speaker 1: Well, there you have it, folks. That was a double
Speaker 1: bill for Second Take Cinema. This is the season finale
Speaker 1: of season three. Up next, we've got a five week
Speaker 1: long run of Listener Request Month. That's right, We will
Speaker 1: be doing episodes requested by you guys. We went out
Speaker 1: on our discord and on our Patreon and we asked
Speaker 1: people to send in films they want to hear us discuss,
Speaker 1: and we've got five great selections. So we will see
Speaker 1: you next time on Second Take Cinema.