Speaker 1: Welcome Friends podcast podcast is do show JACKI again Ryan.
Speaker 1: They're talking about Booby mom.
Speaker 2: Ma in the race for the world's most advanced communications technologies.
Speaker 2: Together they will search and the more they discover, the
Speaker 2: greater the danger.
Speaker 3: An animal move like that.
Speaker 2: We're getting out of here.
Speaker 3: Put them on the indangered species left from the best
Speaker 3: selling novel by the author of Jurassic Party.
Speaker 2: Congo, where you are the endangered species.
Speaker 3: Welcome to a movie film commentary track. My name is
Speaker 3: Zachi As. I'm here with Brian Hall.
Speaker 1: Brian to be here.
Speaker 3: And without you even having had your your your customary martini.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3: Hey, we're here to watch Congo.
Speaker 1: Yes, and for me, this will be my second time
Speaker 1: watching Congo, because I watched it for the first time
Speaker 1: to prepare for this commentary.
Speaker 3: Well, this will be my third time because that's I've
Speaker 3: only seen it once more than you.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, okay, yeah.
Speaker 3: So this is a movie that celebrated its thirtieth anniversary
Speaker 3: just a few weeks ago as we were recording this,
Speaker 3: and it is a movie we have gotten a ton
Speaker 3: of requests for and so you know, as tends to
Speaker 3: be the case, I pitched it to Brian. I was like, hey,
Speaker 3: it's under two hours.
Speaker 1: He knows my love language.
Speaker 3: That's all it took. He's like, go on, Yeah, so
Speaker 3: this is this is based on the novel by Michael Crichton,
Speaker 3: although I think that's the extent of the involvement that
Speaker 3: Michael Crichton had in this film, right, and it is
Speaker 3: certainly a time capsule. I will say that.
Speaker 1: I love your tone. I'll certainly say that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I think this is gonna be a fun one
Speaker 1: because I, as I often say, I love revisiting these
Speaker 1: nineties movies that I missed because I just by virtue
Speaker 1: of my age, I'm just very endeared to the filmmaking
Speaker 1: style of the nineties and so seeing new artifacts from
Speaker 1: it is always delightful, especially ones as wacky as this one.
Speaker 3: Indeed, Yeah, and that is I think that is the
Speaker 3: right word for it. So with that in mind, I
Speaker 3: figured like, hey, let's just let's just dive right in.
Speaker 3: What do you think I'm ready? So we will do
Speaker 3: the usual thing. We will play on three. So one,
Speaker 3: two three play and are we gonna do that right now? One?
Speaker 3: Two three play?
Speaker 1: So this is two years after Jurassic Park, right, two years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so by way of context, the genesis of this
Speaker 3: pro project began many years before, but in the heat
Speaker 3: of Jurassic Park Afterglow, Hollywood was just ready to jump
Speaker 3: on anything that had the Crichton name attached, and this
Speaker 3: one had been working its way through the collective GI
Speaker 3: tract of the industry before it was finally expelled in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety five. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Michael Crichton's interesting because I was introduced to him. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think as most people around our age were through
Speaker 1: Jurassic Park, and later I learned well, so then it
Speaker 1: was interesting to me to watch that Simpsons episode where
Speaker 1: they go to Itchy and Scratchy Land, and I think
Speaker 1: that that's based on Jurassic Park, and it partially is,
Speaker 1: but it's mostly based on Westworld West World, Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: and so.
Speaker 3: I would say more so West World than Jurassic Park.
Speaker 1: Definitely, definitely. And so later in life I realized that, oh,
Speaker 1: Michael Crichton didn't sort of begin in the early nineties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, he was a successful author, director, screenwriter in
Speaker 1: the seventies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a computer programmer. I mean, he's a true jack
Speaker 3: of all trades.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So this book came out in nineteen eighty Congo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and from everything I've heard through the research I've done,
Speaker 1: it's different, a little different than this movie. But and
Speaker 1: you know, any of the things that you nitpick in
Speaker 1: this movie, it sounds like the book is actually pretty good.
Speaker 1: Like people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's more of a straight ahead adventure. And I
Speaker 3: mean the genesis of the story began with Crichton having
Speaker 3: directed a movie called The Great Train Robbery, which I
Speaker 3: think outside of the US was called the first Great
Speaker 3: Train Robbery, but it starred Sean Connery, and so he
Speaker 3: was so enamored of his time with Sean Connery that
Speaker 3: he wrote Congo with Sean Connery in mind to play
Speaker 3: the adventurer who would lead the movie, you know, a
Speaker 3: great white hunter Charles Monroe and kind of a character
Speaker 3: in the vein of Alan Quartermain of King Solomon's minds.
Speaker 3: And obviously that movie version of the movie didn't get made,
Speaker 3: although ironically, you know, Sean Connery did play Alan Quartermain.
Speaker 3: It was his last movie, you know, The League of
Speaker 3: Extordinary Gentlemen.
Speaker 1: That's pretty wild, the movie that pretty much made him.
Speaker 3: Retire exactly, so you know, but yeah, this had been
Speaker 3: Crichton had planned to direct this okay. And what it
Speaker 3: came down to this was when it was at twentyeth
Speaker 3: century Fox, and he said he would not do it
Speaker 3: unless he could have a real gorilla play the character
Speaker 3: of Amy Amy being a gorilla, just to clarify, and
Speaker 3: and Fox was like, are you insane?
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the early eighties attempt at making this movie.
Speaker 1: And you know what, though, I can appreciate his thinking
Speaker 1: because I'm sure at that time, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: you think of this, was it seventy seven King Kong, Yes,
Speaker 1: seventy six, seventy six. I enjoyed its great, but it's
Speaker 1: a very much like a monkey suit guy in a suit,
Speaker 1: guy in a suit. And we still have guy in
Speaker 1: suit in this one. But the you know, you have
Speaker 1: servos in the head and great care being taken with
Speaker 1: their eyeballs and irises and the like, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like they've come a long way in terms
Speaker 1: of suits with I mean San Winston, for goodness sake,
Speaker 1: he's the other guy who made the suit.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: I can see his apprehension in the early eighties wanting
Speaker 1: to do that. Yeah, I'm stiking to screaming Bruce Campbell.
Speaker 1: I was surprised to see this.
Speaker 3: Bruce Campbell was always a bridesmaid, never a bride when
Speaker 3: it comes to these movies because because he he auditioned
Speaker 3: for the role of doctor Peter Elliott and that went
Speaker 3: to Dylan Waalsh, so they let him be you know,
Speaker 3: guy guy the Hey, that guy who gets killed off early.
Speaker 1: See. Now, I didn't know that, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I had no idea this was a Bruce Campbell movie.
Speaker 3: And uh oh when you were watching.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I knew nothing about this except that the
Speaker 1: gorilla could talk, you know, through technology. I gotta say,
Speaker 1: I mean, just right off the bat, this movie, I
Speaker 1: almost felt like I was watching an inside joke I
Speaker 1: didn't get as I was watching it. I think it
Speaker 1: helps if you're gonna watch this for the first time
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, to either have a fond nostalgia
Speaker 1: for it or to know what you're getting into. And
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna have a lot more fun watching
Speaker 1: it this time with you knowing what it is. But
Speaker 1: all have to say, like, I just didn't find the
Speaker 1: leads very dynamic, no, which I think is a big problem.
Speaker 3: Well, and it's it's puzzling because they're all decent actors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but they just don't pop. And it kind
Speaker 1: of makes me wish Bruce Campbell had been one of
Speaker 1: the leads in this thing. I think he would have
Speaker 1: brought an energy that would have really helped propel it
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 3: I agree with that. You could have put him in
Speaker 3: as Doctor Ellie. You could have made him Monroe Kelly.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, yeah, yeah, either way, you could.
Speaker 3: Have bought him. Although I like Ernie Hudson, but I.
Speaker 1: Gotta say me too, I really love what he's doing
Speaker 1: in this.
Speaker 3: But yeah, you know, it's just like in Dark Man
Speaker 3: five years earlier. You know, he had auditioned to play
Speaker 3: the main character. They gave him a little cameo at
Speaker 3: the end, and then ly Bruce Campbell in this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then he's in the Doctor Strange multiverse of
Speaker 1: Madness and basically just gets to punch himself in the
Speaker 1: face for two minutes. You know, like that's right, you
Speaker 1: just can't get a break.
Speaker 3: And in all three Sam Raimi Spider Man movies also right.
Speaker 1: Right, But it's interesting because and when I say with
Speaker 1: dynamic leads, it's not star power, because I mean, you
Speaker 1: look at Jurassic Park two years earlier. Those people weren't stars. Really.
Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't Harrison Ford or whoever, like, but
Speaker 1: they're perfectly cast there. Whatever it is that they possess
Speaker 1: as people they make those character is interesting, and unfortunately
Speaker 1: I'm not getting that shining off of this cast.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, what it is really is that everybody is
Speaker 3: kind of in their own They're they're on each on
Speaker 3: a different highway. They're not even in a different lane.
Speaker 1: Please expand on that, because I agree.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, like Joe Don Baker over here, who is
Speaker 3: energetic to maybe a maximal degree, I'm like, bro, like,
Speaker 3: just tone it down a little man.
Speaker 1: Like yeah yeah, yeah, well well and Tim Curry, like
Speaker 1: it feels like Tim Curry understood the assignment he did.
Speaker 1: He's playing this really fun, colorful side character. Well that's
Speaker 1: the thing too. I was reading people's takes on this,
Speaker 1: and it was saying some people realize they were in
Speaker 1: a comedy and others didn't realize they were in a comedy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, so rewatching this. Yeah, generally you don't want
Speaker 3: to find an eyeball in your hand, you know, it.
Speaker 1: Makes you think of Minority Report. I just eyeball stuff
Speaker 1: is just.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not a fan, No, I'm not a fan, and
Speaker 3: I should say Jodn Baker rip because he just like
Speaker 3: within the last two months he passed away. Oh, a
Speaker 3: very unique presence. I put him in the same bucket
Speaker 3: as like mm At Walsh, you know, totally just a
Speaker 3: type all by himself, you know, totally Yes, But no,
Speaker 3: as I said, I had watched this. I rented this
Speaker 3: on VHS from from Hollywood Video shortly after it came out,
Speaker 3: and then you know, I haven't watched it since. And
Speaker 3: rewatching it now for this commentary track, I was like, man,
Speaker 3: this is I'm getting WPWR syndicated right, like Saturday afternoon
Speaker 3: syndicated show Energy Zachy.
Speaker 1: This is literally what I wrote word for word in
Speaker 1: my notes. It feels like a cross between a WGN
Speaker 1: Saturday Afternoon syndicated television series with a Disney Sunday night movie. Unbelievable. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what this is. And so but here's the thing.
Speaker 1: As I'm watching the screen now and we're talking about it,
Speaker 1: I am feeling more charitable toward it, sure, and like, oh,
Speaker 1: this thing right right, And then I know that this
Speaker 1: guy is very funny and doesn't care about his son.
Speaker 1: He cares more about diamonds and like I'm I kind
Speaker 1: of a chuckle already at the ready as I'm watching this,
Speaker 1: and the first time I thought I was watching I
Speaker 1: certainly not Jurassic Park, but like, oh, a pretty good
Speaker 1: blockbuster from the nineties, that's what I thought I was getting.
Speaker 3: Sure, well, I would assume that's what audiences thought they
Speaker 3: were getting, which would which would explain why it did
Speaker 3: very well.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it opened really well. It was a fifty
Speaker 1: million dollar budget ultimately in the US and Canada made
Speaker 1: eighty one million worldwide, one hundred and fifty million, undred.
Speaker 3: And fifty ninety five. Yeah, so I mean it ended
Speaker 3: up doing okay. I will say I remember very distinctly
Speaker 3: my interest in this film was twofold number one. You know,
Speaker 3: the criton of it all got me, got me intrigued,
Speaker 3: and you know, they had the whole marketing campaign. They
Speaker 3: had a whole bunch of toys and things, which, dude,
Speaker 3: the notion of a toy line for this movie is
Speaker 3: like comical, right it It might as well be like
Speaker 3: the Philadelphia Action figure line on SNL, you know, because
Speaker 3: this is not a particularly toy atic movie, right. However,
Speaker 3: so it was like, oh, kids, go see this, but
Speaker 3: also in the mid nineties. I remember this was in
Speaker 3: the lead up to potentially a New Planet of the
Speaker 3: Apes movie. Oh interesting, And at the time there was like, oh,
Speaker 3: stan Winston's going to do the effects, and I was like, well,
Speaker 3: stan Winston's doing the apes in this. Let's see, let's
Speaker 3: see like how that might look, you know. And then
Speaker 3: he had Jerry Goldsmith doing the score and I'm like, hey,
Speaker 3: Jerry Goldsmith doing the score, but adjacent movie, you know
Speaker 3: very much, not that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm just to place it in the timeline
Speaker 1: of you know, the era. This beat Casper, which is
Speaker 1: kind of interesting, and then the next week it was
Speaker 1: overtaken by Batman Forever. So that's kind of what was
Speaker 1: going on when this came out. But interesting, you know
Speaker 1: what's funny though, I mean, well, I guess we're getting
Speaker 1: to it right now. Well we should talk about what
Speaker 1: happened a little bit. So we open where this like
Speaker 1: telecom company. I guess they're mining for diamonds in this
Speaker 1: remote area that will I don't know, make their the
Speaker 1: stuff that they produced function better, right, And so they
Speaker 1: have this team over there on an expedition and it
Speaker 1: looks like they're getting attacked you know, we see like
Speaker 1: a blurry gorilla type figure in front of the camera.
Speaker 1: They don't know exactly what's going on. And in the
Speaker 1: head of the company that's his son who's over there right,
Speaker 1: who looks like he's being attacked by a guerrilla. So
Speaker 1: his Bruce Campbell, the guy over in the encampment, his
Speaker 1: ex fiance ex fiance, ex fiance, is like, we have
Speaker 1: to go over there and and help him, and the
Speaker 1: dad's like, yeah, absolutely, and then he's.
Speaker 3: Like, diamond diamond, uga booga, diamond diamond.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and she's like, no, no, I need you to
Speaker 1: tell me. We're doing this because you love your son.
Speaker 3: Yes, I love my diamond, I mean son exactly.
Speaker 1: That's basically what the first like ten minutes of this
Speaker 1: movie are. Yes, so we know that this guy is
Speaker 1: capital e evil, willing to let his son die so
Speaker 1: he can get diamonds that will help his business. And
Speaker 1: we have the you know, ex fiance who's willing to travel.
Speaker 3: They should have had him absent mindedly polishing a diamond
Speaker 3: and then he looks up and says, huh, yes, I
Speaker 3: mean my son, and then he goes back to polishing.
Speaker 1: Yes. It's sort of like mister Blackheart from the Citizens
Speaker 1: with the ivory, the ivory boots, the iphy. Yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: I will admit it took me a minute. No, no,
Speaker 1: not a minute. When the movie was over, I was like,
Speaker 1: how did all these people come together on this same expedition?
Speaker 1: I didn't understand.
Speaker 3: You have to connect the dots a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, two thirds of it makes sense to me. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how Laura Lenny was aware that this plane
Speaker 1: was leaving, but she's the one who's willing to fund it,
Speaker 1: so they need That's how they all need one another basically.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think it's happenstance.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 3: I think, right, maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: Well, hey, I don't know, but it seemed like it
Speaker 1: was a little different in the book, a little streamlined.
Speaker 1: But anyway, No, that's Mary Ellen Trainer.
Speaker 3: Look at that. We got a little mini Goonies reunit
Speaker 3: in here, because we got Joey Pants in just a
Speaker 3: little bit too.
Speaker 1: I was surprised and delighted to see him. Yep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's weird. It's it's it's episodic, where you
Speaker 3: just have people kind of wander in and out, people
Speaker 3: who are just familiar enough wander in where you're like, hey,
Speaker 3: where are you going?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, you expect them to be bigger characters.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. And by the way, the grantaslov as a likable,
Speaker 3: doomed partner. Yeah, I wonder you couldn't see the bull's eye.
Speaker 3: And that guy's had a.
Speaker 1: Say I know, I know, And I was actually thinking,
Speaker 1: like he had to go out there. I don't know
Speaker 1: where they are, like Costa Rica or something, And there's
Speaker 1: entire scenes where he like doesn't say anything, He's just
Speaker 1: standing there. Yeah, and then he gets like one line
Speaker 1: like I don't like the looks of this, you know
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, And I was like, man, what a
Speaker 1: sort of thinkless role. Although I every time it focuses
Speaker 1: on him, I'm happy. If I was in a test
Speaker 1: screening on the card, I would put please a little
Speaker 1: bit more of his flavor.
Speaker 3: A little more Faisal or whatever his name is in
Speaker 3: this movie. Yeah, Richard, that's it.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: So speaking of this suit, I don't know Tim Curry
Speaker 3: is up to no good there, Brian, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I almost wish he had something the showed a
Speaker 1: little bit more adventure her like in his costuming, Like
Speaker 1: why he stands out like, why is this guy in
Speaker 1: this meeting? You know what I mean, like a Indiana
Speaker 1: Jones hat and a scarf, a handkerchief or something. I'm
Speaker 1: turning it into a full cartoon. But the Amy speaking of,
Speaker 1: like the gorilla costumes, look, do they entirely hold up
Speaker 1: to a twenty twenty five? I? I don't know. That's
Speaker 1: kind of up to you. Amy completely worked for me.
Speaker 3: I think Amy and the Silverbacks worked. I think like
Speaker 3: the normal gorillas, not the mutant gorillas.
Speaker 1: Agreed, Yeah, no, yeah, the silver Back that looks incredible.
Speaker 1: Amy looks a little slightly more humanoid, I think because
Speaker 1: they needed her to have an expressiveness. Yeah, which I
Speaker 1: really loved. I loved Amy. I thought she was sweet
Speaker 1: and I was like.
Speaker 3: No, take care of her.
Speaker 1: She needs to be protected. So I in terms of that,
Speaker 1: all that completely worked for me and this movie.
Speaker 3: So there's James Karen, another character actor who's long list
Speaker 3: of credits. He's in the original Return of the Living Dead,
Speaker 3: and he is in Superman Returns Wow, and actually, well
Speaker 3: we're talking about Superman. Dylan Walsh he was recently a
Speaker 3: regular on Superman and Lewis. He played General Sam Lay
Speaker 3: and Lois's father.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: And he was, of course, about ten years after this movie.
Speaker 3: He came to the renewed fame because he was the
Speaker 3: co lead of Nip Tuck alongside Julian McMahon.
Speaker 1: I swear I didn't even put it together. I didn't
Speaker 1: really watch Niptuk, so he's not at the forefront of
Speaker 1: my mind. But I was like, man, that guy's face
Speaker 1: looks so familiar, but he's got this really shaggy, curly
Speaker 1: hair here, very different.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's weird because I'm sort of used to seeing
Speaker 3: him with the old guy face.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, maybe that's it too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, oh, yeah, I guess I guess he
Speaker 3: was young at one time.
Speaker 1: Right, right. So this well, so, I mean the plot
Speaker 1: again here is Amy is making all these drawings of
Speaker 1: the jungle, and so her trainer or whatever you would
Speaker 1: call him, is like, I think it's time for her
Speaker 1: to go back home, right see.
Speaker 3: And and the thing what I bump up against is
Speaker 3: I believe that these primates have a certain level of
Speaker 3: innate intelligence. I think ascribing language to them is maybe
Speaker 3: a bridge too far, right, Like even even these apes
Speaker 3: that that are taught sign language. I mean, I think
Speaker 3: that it's you know, I mean, they're not they're not
Speaker 3: experiencing cognition the way we do.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up, Zachy. So Amy obviously
Speaker 1: reminded me of Coco of Coco, right, who was a
Speaker 1: very famous gorilla geez whin like that when we were
Speaker 1: growing up.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, And I actually just wait, hold on this, this
Speaker 1: is the thing. See, I wasn't quite tracking. So obviously
Speaker 1: he's going and he just did a seminar doctor Peter
Speaker 1: Yes talking about how Amy can communicate, and it sounds
Speaker 1: like she wants to go home, so we're gonna take
Speaker 1: her home. And she's been making these drawings and in
Speaker 1: her drawings of the jungle, she included a picture of
Speaker 1: an eye, right right. So Tim Curry, who's attending this.
Speaker 3: He is her kermer Homolka.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna call him Tim Curry. Just I'm just
Speaker 1: making a note at the beginning of this so people understand.
Speaker 3: But you put some respect on mister Homolka's name.
Speaker 1: It's like Bob blah blah. So anyway, uh, Tim Curry again,
Speaker 1: I don't know why he's attending the seminar, but he
Speaker 1: sees this eye that looks just like an eye. And
Speaker 1: it's like that is that looks like that very specific
Speaker 1: guy that I have on this ring that comes from
Speaker 1: this lost city, and.
Speaker 3: And this sinister music on the soundtrack accuse us in
Speaker 3: that that something, something is afoot with this fella.
Speaker 1: He has motives. Yeah, so so he wants to get
Speaker 1: in on this journey because he thinks wherever he maybe
Speaker 1: this ape or a gorilla has seen the very place
Speaker 1: that he's looking for where he can find all these diamonds. Right,
Speaker 1: so that makes sense why he's like, okay, buddy, let
Speaker 1: me join you. Right. Yeah, I just didn't understand how
Speaker 1: Laura Lenny's character because she needs to go over and
Speaker 1: save her coworkers. Yes, I didn't understand how she ended
Speaker 1: up at the airport on this flight. Now obviously they
Speaker 1: need her because they're out of funds. They can't pay
Speaker 1: for the fuel and she has unlimited funds. Yes, I
Speaker 1: just didn't understand how she knew, like you said, happenstance.
Speaker 3: She shows a piece she had said to the at
Speaker 3: the company, find an expedition that's going, Ah, we'll be
Speaker 3: on the next one, I see, And it just so
Speaker 3: happens to be the Expedition with with with Peter Elliott
Speaker 3: and Amy.
Speaker 1: Okay see and mister Homolka. This rewards a multiple view.
Speaker 1: Here you go, make sure you catch every detail.
Speaker 3: Now, tell me if you didn't think that at some
Speaker 3: point in the movie it would be revealed that Tim
Speaker 3: Curry's accent was just a put on.
Speaker 1: Like I wish I had, but I would have loved that.
Speaker 3: It's so over the top. You know, we're going, I'm happy,
Speaker 3: will fund your trip, you know, and then at some
Speaker 3: point he's like, right, don't I don't really talk like that,
Speaker 3: you know, and.
Speaker 1: If that yes at gunpoint or something, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, no, please, please, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: kind of like Alan Rickman does in a diarhogy exactly
Speaker 1: flip into that kind of a thing. Oh no, you know,
Speaker 1: like that would be amazing missed opportunity.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, you know this, this movie is full
Speaker 3: of actors who are putting on these accents where you
Speaker 3: have to imagine at least somebody was like, are you.
Speaker 1: Sure right right?
Speaker 3: Because because we got all kinds of fun We got accent, music, chairs,
Speaker 3: he got Delroy Lindo doing one thing. We got Ernie
Speaker 3: Hudson doing another.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, okay, well we're gonna get the martini. You know,
Speaker 1: Amy needs her martini while she's on the plane. I
Speaker 1: like this actually by the way, where she's like what
Speaker 1: is happening? Yeah, the Amy looking out the window and
Speaker 1: like where's the ground? Where's the ground? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was very endeared too. I gotta give it to
Speaker 1: Stan Winston because I really cared about this character.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But but what we were talking about earlier, if
Speaker 3: if you, if you uh look at like how apes communicate. Uh,
Speaker 3: they never ask questions.
Speaker 1: Oh I didn't know that. That's is interesting. Well okay,
Speaker 1: so I did wanna I did. This is from Wikipedia,
Speaker 1: straight from Wikipedia, because I thought all of it was
Speaker 1: interesting and I didn't want to.
Speaker 3: Pair so consider the source.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well true, But this is this is about Coco, who,
Speaker 1: when you're growing up, was a famous gorilla that could sign,
Speaker 1: and I think people got really endeared to the idea
Speaker 1: of like, wow, isn't it amazing, Like maybe we could
Speaker 1: talk to one another. So Coco, which was a nickname
Speaker 1: was I'm reading now, was a female Western Lowland gorilla
Speaker 1: born in the San Francisco Zoo and cross fostered by
Speaker 1: Francine Patterson, who used conducted ape language experiments. Coco gained
Speaker 1: public attention as the subject of two national geographic cover
Speaker 1: stories and in nineteen eighty five, the best selling children's book,
Speaker 1: Coco's Kitten.
Speaker 3: I Remember that book.
Speaker 1: So Coco's communication skills were hotly debated. Coco used many
Speaker 1: signs adapted from American sign language, but the scientific consensus
Speaker 1: to date remains that she did not demonstrate the syntax
Speaker 1: or grammar required of true language. Patterson has been widely
Speaker 1: criticized for misrepresenting Coco's skills, providing insufficient care for Coco
Speaker 1: and her companion gorillas, and inappropriate treatment of Gorilla Foundation's
Speaker 1: staff members. Despite such controversies, Cocos story changed the public
Speaker 1: image of gorillas, previously assumed to be brainless and violent.
Speaker 1: Science I Think is a magazine, noted in its obituary
Speaker 1: that Coco helped transform how human the human world viewed
Speaker 1: animal emotion and intelligence. So, yeah, in my memory, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, yeah, it was a gorilla, it
Speaker 1: understood sign language and if I met it, it could
Speaker 1: talk to me. Yeah, And that's just I mean, of course,
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five, I was a kid, So of
Speaker 1: course I believe that reading is getting but apparently that's
Speaker 1: not exactly the case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well this is that's that's exactly it, right, Like
Speaker 3: I think the fact that that these amazing, beautiful creatures
Speaker 3: are are vaguely human ish, you know, we ascribe a
Speaker 3: human level intellect onto them, and I think I think
Speaker 3: that's what gets people into a lot of trouble, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I think, you know, the animals exactly.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say the same goes for even house pets, dogs,
Speaker 1: sure of court, Like dogs can understand, generally speaking, a
Speaker 1: certain amount of words. You know, when you say walk
Speaker 1: or you know, dinner or something, they know at least
Speaker 1: what that sound means for them, right. But it's like
Speaker 1: we want them to think, oh, he's hugging me right now,
Speaker 1: and it's like kind of you.
Speaker 3: Know, right exactly, that's exactly it. I remember uh reading
Speaker 3: about in a similar vein to Coco, you know, the
Speaker 3: Travis the Chimp. I don't remember driving, and I guarantee
Speaker 3: you know the story. It's about a woman who raised
Speaker 3: this chimpanzee and she raised him like a son, and
Speaker 3: then at one point he attacked her neighbor. You remember
Speaker 3: this vaguely, he he, I mean he did such damage
Speaker 3: to her face that she needed a full face transplant.
Speaker 1: See, I think I remember that part of it. A woman,
Speaker 1: the transplant and dealing with yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, and the end the ape was eventually the ape
Speaker 3: was put down, and I mean it was It was
Speaker 3: a horrible story, right. And my point is that they look,
Speaker 3: I mean, they're still animals, you know, yes, so they
Speaker 3: should be treated with kindness and compassion, and they should
Speaker 3: be left alone because they're not people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the understanding that they're not going to ever fully
Speaker 1: behave or have the like moral sense of humans, right,
Speaker 1: Like they're gonna have these instincts that could come out
Speaker 1: at any moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, so so any the point I'm making
Speaker 3: is this movie presents Amy as if Amy is a
Speaker 3: fully uh you know, interactive, a cognizant creature, and and
Speaker 3: there's never any sci fi gobbledygook explanation for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she hasn't been altered.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I'm like, I would have almost preferred that
Speaker 3: because that would make it easier to swallow, you know, sure, yeah,
Speaker 3: yeah right, because because there there is like a fantasy
Speaker 3: element to this movie. And it's weird how the the
Speaker 3: movie doesn't really prepare you for that. No, yeah, right,
Speaker 3: it's about an hour and a half of just you know,
Speaker 3: trapes through the jungle and then twenty minutes of you
Speaker 3: know what feels like a universal stunt show.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, it really does, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's the way that the sets look and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: very static. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 3: Ernie. So, Ernie Hudson, the man, the myth, the legend.
Speaker 3: I think I speak for you when I say that
Speaker 3: here at movie film we celebrate Ernie Hudson and all
Speaker 3: his configurations.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I even had the pleasure of meeting him. He
Speaker 1: voiced a dog that I wrote for Puppy Dog Pals
Speaker 1: and I got to go to the record shake his hand.
Speaker 1: That was really special.
Speaker 3: Now he has said that Monroe Kelly is the favorite
Speaker 3: character he has played.
Speaker 1: I completely understand why. Right, He's gonna have some fun
Speaker 1: with this.
Speaker 3: He is the de facto, you know, adventure lead of
Speaker 3: this movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's got this sort of debonair you know,
Speaker 1: affect and like O course, you know, because the Jungle
Speaker 1: is a house of many mysteries, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: a speaking kind of thing which is really fun.
Speaker 3: So that all being said, as much as I do
Speaker 3: enjoy Ernie Hudson in this movie, I would say maybe
Speaker 3: the accent wasn't wasn't the best choice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know it's funny. Yes, the objective answer is yes. However,
Speaker 1: if I'm just going to lean into what's going on
Speaker 1: here and everything is as wacky as it is, if
Speaker 1: he's having fun, it can pretty much sense it. I
Speaker 1: can sense it coming off of him, how much funny's
Speaker 1: having and I'm in And frankly, if they had done
Speaker 1: more stories with him, sure, you know, like more movies
Speaker 1: or a series with him as the lead, leading different
Speaker 1: sorts of interesting people through the jungles or whatever that
Speaker 1: would be. I think he's an interesting enough character.
Speaker 3: It's out on that opportunity. Yeah, and he does get
Speaker 3: one of the best lines, I'm the great white Hunter
Speaker 3: except on black right.
Speaker 1: That's right, written by a Pulitzer Prize winner by the way,
Speaker 1: this movie, I don't know if we brought that up yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So so Michael Crichton had nothing to do with
Speaker 3: with this once it landed at Paramount and and I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm your great right Hunter. Though I happened to be black.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you've basically like karaoke det right. For me,
Speaker 1: that's perfect. It was fun with looking at him and
Speaker 1: hearing your voice come.
Speaker 3: My less impressive voice. I'm telling you, give me more,
Speaker 3: Ernie Hudson, give me. You know, if they do another
Speaker 3: Ghostbusters and and the the the other ogs decided not
Speaker 3: to come back, and we just get four clones of
Speaker 3: winston' z ed Moore, I would still be down with them.
Speaker 1: Same same.
Speaker 3: But yeah, Michael Crichton had had no involvement in this,
Speaker 3: and so you had you had the amblin uh connection
Speaker 3: because of Frank Marshall. Is I don't think the movie
Speaker 3: is amblin.
Speaker 1: Wow, great point. I don't think it is either. And
Speaker 1: does that have to do with it being released through Paramount?
Speaker 3: That would be my guess. But nonetheless, Frank Marshall and
Speaker 3: Kathy Kennedy did produce it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Frank Marshall directed.
Speaker 3: And Frank Marshall directed. Frank Marshall is an interesting director, right,
Speaker 3: It's like because I think there's like I think he's
Speaker 3: a competent director, but I don't know that he ever
Speaker 3: really elevates the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I mean he did a lot of
Speaker 1: second unit for Spielberg. So's he's got chops, He's got a.
Speaker 3: Knock on raiders, right, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and that's where he met Kathleen Kennedy and
Speaker 1: they got married. And then yeah, he did like a
Speaker 1: rack Noophobia, which I think is an ambulin movie. Yes,
Speaker 1: those are live? Oh did he do?
Speaker 3: I've never seen a live Actually live is good. I
Speaker 3: think I was a little.
Speaker 1: Afraid of it, honestly. Sure, but I'm a little old,
Speaker 1: like being a little older, I think I might be
Speaker 1: able to handle it now. But now he does like
Speaker 1: music documentaries, you know, like Beach Boys and just interesting,
Speaker 1: a very interesting career.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I the movie was offered to Steven Spielberg
Speaker 3: at one point, which you can completely imagine. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 3: And this is pre Jurassic This is like in the eighties,
Speaker 3: and he passed. John Carpenter had been offered it. So
Speaker 3: I mean it was it was working its way. And
Speaker 3: again the hook really came once Jurassic Park just started
Speaker 3: minting money. And and so you can understand the calculus
Speaker 3: a paramount being like, hey that they made all that
Speaker 3: Michael Crichton money, we want we want some of that
Speaker 3: Michael Crichton money.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 3: However, I think the miscalculation is this idea that people
Speaker 3: will treat mutant apes the same way they did you know,
Speaker 3: living cgi dinosaurs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agreed. But well when I alluded
Speaker 1: earlier about the Puelitzer Prize. So John Patrick Shanley wrote
Speaker 1: the screenplay. I mean he wrote Moonstruck Doubt.
Speaker 3: Yeah. What an Academy work for Moonstruck. If I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 3: I believe so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think the peelds are for doubt and
Speaker 1: and Congo, so very funny thing is.
Speaker 3: And he directed Joe Versus the Volcano.
Speaker 1: I love Joe Versus the Volcano.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 1: I mean, what an interesting that's a I'd call that
Speaker 1: an aspirational writer's career. I mean, you got your goofy blockbuster,
Speaker 1: say what you will about it. You've got your like
Speaker 1: prestige piece, You've got your weird Joe Versus Volcano, kind
Speaker 1: of like your weird indie film. That's very quirky and fun. Interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's being of quirky and fun Delroy Lindo again,
Speaker 3: he just wanders in for a scene and leaves a kind.
Speaker 1: Of amongous impression.
Speaker 3: He really doesn't. There's another one like same with Joey
Speaker 3: Pantsy just leaves the movie and Delroy Lindo. You're like, hey,
Speaker 3: where are you going?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but no, he's great in this. It needs to
Speaker 1: be bribed.
Speaker 3: I saw this one time thirty years ago, and yet
Speaker 3: to this day, just randomly, I'd be like, stop eating
Speaker 3: my sesami cake. See.
Speaker 1: That was fun for me because I remembered that. I
Speaker 1: was like, what is happening? And then when I started
Speaker 1: reading up on this movie afterward, I just kept seeing
Speaker 1: that quote everywhere. I was like, Oh, that that's what
Speaker 1: lived on from this. I love this too. The bribing
Speaker 1: giving him the money, he's like more just smiling. That's sucker.
Speaker 2: You know what.
Speaker 1: I love to this little detail he puts the money
Speaker 1: in a in a like a brown grocery sack and
Speaker 1: then he just starts stapling it. What a great detail.
Speaker 1: Here we go. If we want to call out possibly
Speaker 1: the moment of the movie.
Speaker 3: You don't need a man sesame cake, Brian. That's what
Speaker 3: this movie taught me. So there's some things you just
Speaker 3: do not do right.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of you know Spielberg and all those connections,
Speaker 1: this was shot by the DP of ET Alan Davia,
Speaker 1: so he was the DP on ET color purple. He
Speaker 1: also did Bugsy Albert Brooks movie Defending Your Life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, actually I got to see him speak once.
Speaker 1: He spoke before screening of ET at the New Beverly.
Speaker 3: That was really special and he just he could not
Speaker 3: stop talking about Congo. Right, but I know you guys
Speaker 3: are here about ET, but let me tell you about Congo.
Speaker 1: Well, it's fascinating because you look at this scene and
Speaker 1: it's lit great, and there was a scene on the
Speaker 1: airplane earlier where Laura Lenny was lit really beautifully and
Speaker 1: dramatically and stuff. But then to your point, we can
Speaker 1: dig into it more when it happens. But in the
Speaker 1: third act it doesn't look very good at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's there is like a sudden and pronounced
Speaker 3: tonal and visual shift.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'll save it so make sure we still
Speaker 1: have something to talk about at the end. But there
Speaker 1: was stan Winston digs into that a little bit in
Speaker 1: a way that I just hadn't crossed my mind that
Speaker 1: I've kind of fascinating and instructive for anybody looking to
Speaker 1: shoot a movie.
Speaker 3: So, oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I my understanding, I have
Speaker 3: not read the novel, but my understanding is that in
Speaker 3: the book you have multiple expeditions that are sort of
Speaker 3: competing with each other to get to it's a race
Speaker 3: study of Zinge, right, yes, And my thought watching the
Speaker 3: film is, well, why would you not keep that element
Speaker 3: of drama in the movie, because there is something weirdly
Speaker 3: languid about the entire front front two thirds?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's I like Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 1: but I think some people the criticism is like, so
Speaker 1: they just walk for like two and a half hours
Speaker 1: and that's that's But you know, I would argue that
Speaker 1: it's very interesting, and the characters are very interesting, and
Speaker 1: they encounter a lot of interesting things along the way.
Speaker 1: And this one, Yeah, the first two thirds is literally
Speaker 1: just them trapsing through the joke.
Speaker 3: It's it's literally here to hear something happened, something happens,
Speaker 3: something else here to hear something happens, something happens, something happens.
Speaker 3: To here, to hear something happens, something happens, something happens.
Speaker 1: And it's not all really related either, Like there's no
Speaker 1: I'll call it out early, but there's a really random
Speaker 1: moment where a snake shows up, yes, and then the
Speaker 1: guy just goes oh then like cuts his head off
Speaker 1: with the sword, and it's like then cross fades and
Speaker 1: they continued to walk, you know, like it's just like
Speaker 1: such a non event.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the pacing is off for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I don't I don't know why they didn't
Speaker 1: keep that extra tension element from the book.
Speaker 3: Well, And I think the problem is that if you say, oh,
Speaker 3: we're we're going to rescue Bruce Campbell m h even
Speaker 3: that it it feels so out of sight, out of
Speaker 3: mind mm hmm. Right, So maybe increase that element. Maybe
Speaker 3: maybe he's you know, he's not dead yet and he's
Speaker 3: getting these messages out and and you know, Laura Linnie's
Speaker 3: character is receiving them, and so there's a sense of
Speaker 3: like we got to get to him before it's too
Speaker 3: late kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I totally completely agree. So Amy there just kind of
Speaker 1: with her hand on her the doctor's leg and just
Speaker 1: the way that they're close. And then the people who
Speaker 1: are loading the plane are like husband and wife. But
Speaker 1: you know what's so funny. I was like, hey, shut up,
Speaker 1: like because I was like, it's so sweet. I was
Speaker 1: listening to the how did this get made? About this episode?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Interesting, okay, And they were joking about how like kind
Speaker 1: of gross and semi erotic it seems between huh, and
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, I get it for like
Speaker 1: comedy sake and whatever, and maybe if.
Speaker 3: I was I don't really get that sense.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, if I was in the right mood,
Speaker 1: like oh yeah, yeah, okay, But no I didn't either.
Speaker 1: I actually found it very sweet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I thought they calibrated that pretty well. Their connection and
Speaker 1: and and how much Amy you know, loves her, I
Speaker 1: don't know what you call him, trainer the husband apparently
Speaker 1: husband he exactly. So this is kind of a crazy moment.
Speaker 3: I know, Hecker, it's her murker homolka, thank you very much,
Speaker 3: you know what.
Speaker 1: I yeah, okay or her.
Speaker 3: Kermer whatever the hell.
Speaker 1: I'll keep it open on my laptop so I have
Speaker 1: it in front of me. But yeah, we see some
Speaker 1: racist undertones here.
Speaker 3: He goes from zero to N word pretty.
Speaker 1: Fast, yeah, which feels like, why are we doing that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's weird. Well, I think I think a
Speaker 3: couple of reasons. I think number one, they want to
Speaker 3: situate Homolka as not a good guy. Sure, and that's
Speaker 3: a if you didn't get that sense already, you know,
Speaker 3: that'll take you the rest of the way. And then
Speaker 3: they want to situate uh Monroe as the the alpha
Speaker 3: if you will, mm sure, Like he ain't standing for
Speaker 3: that ship.
Speaker 1: Sure yep ye. And he's not rattled by it, like
Speaker 1: he doesn't even not rattle's not even the like he's
Speaker 1: not like sent into like an angry mode, like he's
Speaker 1: still confident in like a few you know.
Speaker 3: See, I would have liked, and I'm not even saying
Speaker 3: this as a joke. I would have liked if he
Speaker 3: just like popped him in the face, like it doesn't
Speaker 3: doesn't get angry.
Speaker 1: But just like a pop right with a smile. Yeah
Speaker 1: exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: I think I like that too, Like what was that,
Speaker 3: you know kind of thing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, not a smile, that's the wrong, but yeah exactly,
Speaker 1: Like it's still like a confidence like I'm yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah exactly, I'm the alpha here. Yeah you know, so
Speaker 1: I uh, this this is leading to something very fun.
Speaker 1: They have to sedate Amy, so they put a little
Speaker 1: pill in her banana because there's no way you're gonna
Speaker 1: get Amy to jump out of an airplane makes sense,
Speaker 1: totally makes sense. This is what I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: something with this kind of interesting like them almost being
Speaker 1: shot out of the sky here these rocket launchers. Yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: I even watching Amy now freaking out. This is a
Speaker 1: complete success.
Speaker 3: To me.
Speaker 1: I felt everything they wanted me to feel for her.
Speaker 3: I think I think that the I mean, considering that
Speaker 3: we're talking about a thirty year old effect, I think
Speaker 3: it's it's it does the trick, you know. I I
Speaker 3: think obviously technology has improved to the point where where
Speaker 3: now you could do something much more compelling via motion capture,
Speaker 3: but given what was available at the time, I think
Speaker 3: I think it does the job, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think, yeah, they're getting better and
Speaker 1: better at that, these fully CG characters. I think sometimes
Speaker 1: the mistake is they make them behave like animated characters
Speaker 1: in a live action setting, and that always throws me off.
Speaker 1: They move in this very Disneyesque, overly gestured manner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's just not how people move in the real
Speaker 1: that's right. So maybe that's why I'm responding a little
Speaker 1: bit better to this because it feels a bit more tangible.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like you're saying, I mean, they've gotten much
Speaker 1: much better at it and the planet, like when.
Speaker 3: You look at the recent Apes film, certainly the and
Speaker 3: Andy Cirkis ones. I mean, I think I think on
Speaker 3: the whole they've done a good job, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and this is how we know Karen is a badass exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We get to see her fire a weapon, and
Speaker 1: it is funny. I mean they mentioned that their heat seeking,
Speaker 1: but it still feels like their aim is pretty impeccable,
Speaker 1: you know, shooting like flares. I don't know that those
Speaker 1: are the most accurate, and they're well maybe they are,
Speaker 1: what do I know.
Speaker 3: And we know she's a former CIA agent, which really
Speaker 3: means that she is a current CIA agent, because anybody's
Speaker 3: a former CIA agent, you know.
Speaker 1: So we get this kind of funny moment here where
Speaker 1: it's like, well, someone's got to get Amy out of here.
Speaker 1: So basically Captain Monroe wears her like a backpack yep
Speaker 1: as he jumps out of the plane. It's kind of funny.
Speaker 3: Now now we were talking about the Tim Cray character.
Speaker 3: I think I think what's interesting also is that he's
Speaker 3: he's like a bad guy, but he's also kind of
Speaker 3: not really you know what I mean, Oh totally yeah, right,
Speaker 3: which which was also kind of weird to me, like
Speaker 3: you're sort of expecting a much more drastic heel turn
Speaker 3: from him, Yeah, where he's like willing to sacrifice everybody
Speaker 3: or something. He's yeah, he's interesting. I'm not quite sure
Speaker 3: he's he's I wouldn't call it. He ends up he
Speaker 3: ends up being kind of like Kevin J. O'Connor and
Speaker 3: the Mummy.
Speaker 1: Yeah sure, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: Whereas like the way, the way that you know, the
Speaker 3: first time we see him and we had the dramatic music,
Speaker 3: you expect a kind of a thing where he points
Speaker 3: his gun at the other people in the expedition and
Speaker 3: he's got his little satchel full of diamonds. That's what
Speaker 3: he's like, smellulator suckers.
Speaker 1: Exactly Like I'm taking the plane, yeah you know, what
Speaker 1: about us? Like what about you? And then like shuts
Speaker 1: the door or something. Yeah yeah, And then he.
Speaker 3: Turns around and there's all the gorillas and they bash
Speaker 3: his head in or something like that's a true spot.
Speaker 3: That's great.
Speaker 1: And then the plane starts rocking because he's being killed inside,
Speaker 1: and we're like, oh, I love it. I love it,
Speaker 1: but nope.
Speaker 3: Yeah, something substantially lesser than that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I forgot.
Speaker 3: To mention, by the way, mister Echo, Oh yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: and I will not even attempt to pronounce his name.
Speaker 1: I know, I feel bad out of respect and also
Speaker 1: possibly disrespect nuts. Yeah, what was I gonna say?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: Oh, somewhere I kind of missed it, but I guess
Speaker 1: Jimmy Buffett plays a pilot in here.
Speaker 3: That's kind of his thing, right, he just plays pilots. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: because he was in something else as a pilot. And
Speaker 3: now I'm trying to remember pilot.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I remember Jurassic World. He's the guy
Speaker 1: grabbing his margarita or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at the Jimmy Buffett restaurant yep, yep, as the
Speaker 3: dinosaurs are attacking.
Speaker 1: No. I thought this was kind of interesting. So speaking
Speaker 1: of Ernie Hudson's character, and well, I'll get to that,
Speaker 1: but basically, as I do now with these older movies,
Speaker 1: I go straight to ciskel Nieberd afterward.
Speaker 3: On YouTube they had some disagreements about this one.
Speaker 1: Oh man, Well it was hilarious because, yeah, they had
Speaker 1: their back and forth. Honestly, felt like the war inside
Speaker 1: of me after my first viewing, so Ebert kind of
Speaker 1: enjoyed it as like a silly like kind of throwback
Speaker 1: jungle adventure, probably like movies he watched when he was
Speaker 1: a kid. Then Ciskel is just like, what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? And he's like, I wasn't laughing with it.
Speaker 1: I was laughing at it, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's funny. I kind of feel both inside of me
Speaker 1: and Ebert was like, oh, come on, you know, like
Speaker 1: Ernie Hudson's playing this kind of carry Grant style figure
Speaker 1: and Ciscl's like, what are you talking about? Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was really funny. But anyway, eber then went.
Speaker 3: On to he called Ernie Hudson a lightweight, and I said,
Speaker 3: how effing dare?
Speaker 1: But Ebertt wrote later he does say Congo is a
Speaker 1: comedy that was mislabeled as an action drama and has
Speaker 1: suffered as a result. And I was like, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure I don't know how the filmmakers
Speaker 1: would take that. I don't think I would call it
Speaker 1: an out and out comedy, no, but it I think
Speaker 1: it could have leaned into a little bit of.
Speaker 3: A Teeters on the edge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think it could have leaned into its
Speaker 1: camp possibly a little bit.
Speaker 3: Right. Well, well, look, I mean listen, it's very simple.
Speaker 3: Paramount wanted a Jurassic Park, Yes, And that's essentially what
Speaker 3: it comes down to is that I think, as written,
Speaker 3: when you say it's kind of a kind of an
Speaker 3: Allan Quartermaan King Solomon's minds type thing, that was the
Speaker 3: angle it should have taken tonally totally, yes, right, and
Speaker 3: that means it should have been a little more heightened
Speaker 3: from the jump. And I think that's the big problem
Speaker 3: is that is, you know, and you tell me if
Speaker 3: you disagree, but by the time we end up in
Speaker 3: the Lost City, I'm like, what what in the what? Right?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Because it's it's it's such a left turn from everything
Speaker 3: that we're led up to at this point, you know.
Speaker 3: And and I think what what they really needed to
Speaker 3: do was seed that storyline more methodically throughout, so you know,
Speaker 3: and I don't know, I you know, it's not like
Speaker 3: you can have them encounter the mutant gorillas much earlier.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. You seed sort of a heightened the Yeah.
Speaker 3: So let me put it this way, when when when
Speaker 3: they opened the arc at the end of Raiders, you
Speaker 3: are mentally prepared for that because the movie has has
Speaker 3: done the job of walking you there.
Speaker 1: Yes, we've starten with odd things along the way.
Speaker 3: That's right, right, So so yeah, you know, like when
Speaker 3: we see the arc on the boat and it burns
Speaker 3: us and not see symbol, or even at the very
Speaker 3: beginning when Indy cracks the book and he's like here
Speaker 3: you going, there's a power of God whatever, right, and.
Speaker 1: So when they're so when he's in that household and
Speaker 1: they're talking about going to the ark and then all
Speaker 1: this huge wind comes through, like basically God being like stop, yeah.
Speaker 3: You know very well. So the movie is saying it's
Speaker 3: letting you know, okay, this is the kind of movie.
Speaker 3: This is right, And I think like, like, you know,
Speaker 3: what what Jurassic Park does, when you think about it,
Speaker 3: is the very first scene. It helps you. It helps
Speaker 3: establish the exact tone of what you're going to get
Speaker 3: for the rest of the movie. You know that with
Speaker 3: the with the Raptor and Muldoon and all that, you know, shoot,
Speaker 3: exactly right it it it sets your compass for the
Speaker 3: whole movie. However, what Ascid Park also does is we
Speaker 3: see the dinosaurs within you know whatever. It is like
Speaker 3: twenty minutes, right, So it's not like suddenly we see
Speaker 3: a brachiosaur at at you know, in our forty right, right,
Speaker 3: right right, whereas this movie is. Oh and by the way,
Speaker 3: here's some mutant apes.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, like I think that's the
Speaker 3: problem is it's playing kind of weirdly comically earnest right again.
Speaker 3: You know, Jodn Bakers as evil makeevilman, Yeah, Johnny mustache
Speaker 3: twirler in your parlance. And and I think it needed
Speaker 3: more of a heightened adventure tone so that when we
Speaker 3: get to the Lost City, it feels of a piece
Speaker 3: with everything we've seen up to that point.
Speaker 1: I totally agree.
Speaker 3: Yep. Now, does it feel like the movie couldn't decide
Speaker 3: whether they were going to have a romantic relationship between
Speaker 3: Karen and Peter.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll be honest with you, I don't remember
Speaker 1: enough because I but yeah, they probably had some moments
Speaker 1: where they Yeah, they could have had a moment like
Speaker 1: Sharon tenttent. We have our own tents, Okay, Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: maybe you could have had like some playful things like that.
Speaker 1: But then she thinks she's going to rescue someone who's
Speaker 1: very close to her. So maybe that's the.
Speaker 3: Right, but I mean, you know, you can he is
Speaker 3: her ex fiance after all, so that's true, it'd be
Speaker 3: that close. Come on.
Speaker 1: But you know what, frankly, to your point, it would
Speaker 1: have been nice if Campbell was still alive. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this is like rekindling something for her in a way,
Speaker 1: or at the very well, it doesn't even have to
Speaker 1: be rekindled, but there's like something powerful there between them
Speaker 1: that's compelling her to go through hippo infested waters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, hell or high water or whatever, hell or
Speaker 1: hippo invested waters, Yeah, to go get them. You know,
Speaker 1: I would have enjoyed seeing that energy from that character.
Speaker 1: Think might have heightened things a bit.
Speaker 3: I think the problem is that Peter is kind of
Speaker 3: just a void, Like he's just not a particularly compelling
Speaker 3: character beyond his affinity for Amy.
Speaker 1: I agree, yes, yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, And and I generally like Dylan Walsh as an actor,
Speaker 3: so I know he's capable of more. But it's really
Speaker 3: like it's just the character is a whole lot of nothing,
Speaker 3: and he's ostensibly the lead of this movie. Yeah right,
Speaker 3: and and he he gets brushed aside almost you know.
Speaker 1: No, I completely agree. Yeah, he's too he's too realistic.
Speaker 1: He's probably so many would encounter like this in real life.
Speaker 1: And it's like, you know, in the movie you want
Speaker 1: someone I don't know, Well, you.
Speaker 3: Can see the energy that Bruce Campbell would have brought
Speaker 3: to this role. Mm hmm. So it does feel like
Speaker 3: a shame that that they didn't go like maybe you
Speaker 3: swap it.
Speaker 1: I yeah, well, and then him going toe to toe
Speaker 1: with Humbuck Homlocker, you know what I mean, like you know,
Speaker 1: like slow your role there, Homlocker. You know, like that
Speaker 1: kind of energy from Campbell would be kind of fun
Speaker 1: seeing them go toe to toe. But they're both in
Speaker 1: pursuit of the same destination, but for different reasons, different energies.
Speaker 1: This is that snake thing I was talking about that
Speaker 1: felt yeah, yeah, and it just ends like it's not
Speaker 1: a set piece, you know. It's like almost feels like
Speaker 1: they actually killed a snake and they're like, well, out
Speaker 1: of respect, we should at least include it.
Speaker 3: We should leave it in for some of the family.
Speaker 3: His family knows what happened to him.
Speaker 1: That's poor snake. His family's in the movie theater, Like, wait,
Speaker 1: isn't that Jeff, He's been missing for nine months.
Speaker 3: Yeah, mom when his dad coming home? Oh yeah, lie down, kids,
Speaker 3: or just stay where you stay where you are exactly.
Speaker 1: I feel bad for this poor frog. Frog doesn't know
Speaker 1: it's in a movie.
Speaker 3: Was that a real frog? I mean it could have
Speaker 3: been like a little dudadder, you know what.
Speaker 1: That's probably true. Where was I reading? There was something
Speaker 1: about they thought about Oh yeah, I have it here,
Speaker 1: So I guess Frank Marshall thought about using computers for
Speaker 1: the apes. Yes, that's because of you know, obviously Jurassic Park,
Speaker 1: but it was the hair. Yeah, computer is just more
Speaker 1: capable of it yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's it's extraordinary because you had, you know,
Speaker 3: by the way he generally the prospect of leech on
Speaker 3: penis is probably reason number one. You're not gonna see
Speaker 3: me go into the into the deep dark woods.
Speaker 1: But it's it's funny and it's like an interesting, like
Speaker 1: moment you remember, But like, doesn't it just feel so random?
Speaker 1: Like you can just imagine they're like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: what's some stuff that can happen in the jungle, like
Speaker 1: a bullet point leech on penis?
Speaker 3: You know, Well, the fact that he's like I got
Speaker 3: everybody's like, I know, I'm like, I helped the guy out.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not it's not nothing. I know.
Speaker 1: Well, I love then Monroe gives him his cigar to
Speaker 1: burn it off, which yikes. And then and then I
Speaker 1: love that gives them the garback. I even I would
Speaker 1: have enough sense to be like, all right, I think
Speaker 1: this cigar is through.
Speaker 3: Oh shoot, I was saying something I can't remember that. Shoot.
Speaker 1: Sorry, well we were talking about fur and.
Speaker 3: Computer Yeah okay, so you had Jumanji right around those time,
Speaker 3: was ninety five, right, yeah yeah yeah, and and they
Speaker 3: had some chimpanzees and that, and yeah, I would imagine
Speaker 3: that that was the thinking like, oh we could do something,
Speaker 3: you know like that. You know.
Speaker 1: It's funny though when you watch Jumanji now it they
Speaker 1: look basically like what animatics look like.
Speaker 3: Yeahhh it doesn't hold up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so I can understand why they did.
Speaker 3: I mean, going back to what I was saying, I
Speaker 3: mean that's what made the recent apes movies such a
Speaker 3: quantum ly forward as they really licked that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it's incredible. I highly recommend
Speaker 1: those ILM documentaries on Disney Plus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I started watching.
Speaker 1: I mean they're just fascinating to begin with, because you're
Speaker 1: hearing people who are their first hand working on these films.
Speaker 1: So just hearing stories about movies you love is interesting
Speaker 1: right off the bat, but they actually get into Okay, look,
Speaker 1: we need to create a water simulation. Like it sounds
Speaker 1: cool when you see it finished, but like this is math,
Speaker 1: Like we have to figure out how mathematically like these
Speaker 1: things would bounce off one another and write some sort
Speaker 1: of program and then we can turn these little triangles
Speaker 1: that somehow now understand how they would react to one another,
Speaker 1: can actually act like droplets and blah blah blah blah
Speaker 1: and fur and what. It's it's fascinating stuff.
Speaker 3: That's really interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you think ninety five is when Toy Story
Speaker 1: one came out also, and it's I mean that movie
Speaker 1: completely holds up, but you do see the animation and go, oh,
Speaker 1: it's interesting, like how the humans, you know, their hair
Speaker 1: looks kind of it was easier for them. You can
Speaker 1: imagine they did Toy Story with toys because it's like, well,
Speaker 1: they're made a plastic in their shiny and we don't
Speaker 1: have to deal with too many textures, right, you know
Speaker 1: that's right, So definitely early early phase of things. You know,
Speaker 1: jar Jar is like four years away.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, well and this year you had you know,
Speaker 3: you mentioned that Casper. M hm. That was the first
Speaker 3: time you had a fully cg character who was the
Speaker 3: lead of a movie essentially right right, right right, And
Speaker 3: you know, because Casper is in that movie for like
Speaker 3: forty minutes or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's kind of perfect for that because Casper
Speaker 1: is a really simple shape, yeah right, mostly just eyeballs
Speaker 1: and acute smile. So it's kind of a good place
Speaker 1: to start.
Speaker 3: Isn't it, isn't it. Devin Sawa is like the yeah, right,
Speaker 3: the I don't know if he is he the voice
Speaker 3: and he's the human.
Speaker 1: I definitely know he's the human at the end. I
Speaker 1: don't know if he does the voice. I've only seen
Speaker 1: it once. But this is John Hawk, dude, I didn't
Speaker 1: even put that together. Yeah, that's amazing. It's weird seeing
Speaker 1: him young.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's also in Everest if you remember, yep, yep.
Speaker 3: He's My point is John Hawk should not go on expeditions, right,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: I gotta admit I'm not sure I'm buying him being
Speaker 1: scared to death, dying of fear. Yeah, like it was
Speaker 1: a little silly.
Speaker 3: I don't know, right, isn't that a thing? Doesn't that happen? Due?
Speaker 3: Do people die of fright? That feels like a.
Speaker 1: Thing, right, I'm sure it's possible. But and I know
Speaker 1: he's been through a lot.
Speaker 3: He saw he saw gorillas tear his friends to pieces. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then this other and then upsidles, this gorilla. I
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 1: It's just feels like a lot for his heart to burst.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: But then again, you know, well, let's put you in
Speaker 3: the exact same situation and let me know how it goes.
Speaker 1: I then I want you to lie at my funeral
Speaker 1: and say something else. And then this adorable gorilla came
Speaker 1: up and said, HI want breakf in sign language, and.
Speaker 3: I and Brian sh his pants, kissed himself and his
Speaker 3: head exploded. Rest in peace, brother exploded.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that can go on the death certificate.
Speaker 1: But at my funeral, please say I died defending a
Speaker 1: woman's honor or something. Okay, what do you think about
Speaker 1: everybody in the congo knowing California dreaming?
Speaker 3: It seems reasonable. I suppose, right, it's a it's a
Speaker 3: it's a catchy song. Yeah, cool.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. I mean I kind of liked that.
Speaker 1: I was actually thinking, could I do all the lyrics
Speaker 1: to this song?
Speaker 3: I definitely could not. I could I could do the chorus.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'd be like, no, Winter Thursday, I'd be doing
Speaker 1: that to church to pray.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would basically be me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: See, well, you know, I think this is just a
Speaker 3: testament to how there was a time when you know,
Speaker 3: these cultural artifacts brought people together because because they transcended
Speaker 3: the globe. You know.
Speaker 1: No, in all seriousness, I think it is kind of
Speaker 1: a sweet moment, but it feels a little awkwardly executed
Speaker 1: or something to me, Like it felt like it would
Speaker 1: have been nice if there had been a lot of
Speaker 1: misunderstandings between this crew or something. Yeah, and in this one,
Speaker 1: I think that.
Speaker 3: Things they go through that bind them together.
Speaker 1: Exactly, And this is like something where that for the
Speaker 1: first time they can speak the same language and it
Speaker 1: brings them together. I think you could have wrung it
Speaker 1: a little bit more.
Speaker 3: You know. Well, I think that's the problem is is
Speaker 3: that this entire you know, this whole portion of the
Speaker 3: movie is very it's very rote. Yeah, because like we said,
Speaker 3: they're just sort of they have their you know, a
Speaker 3: little episode, something happens, and they move on to this
Speaker 3: next thing, you know, and and I think all of
Speaker 3: like this here, this is kind of an exposition scene.
Speaker 3: We're finding out about you know, the Lost City and whatever,
Speaker 3: but it should be in the context of them being
Speaker 3: on the run or on the go.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, it's very uh like limp or something like.
Speaker 1: There's no urgency.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because because think about it, You've got You've got
Speaker 3: Tim Curry is trying to get to the Lost City
Speaker 3: to get his diamonds. Karen is trying to find out
Speaker 3: if if Charles is still alive. Peter is trying to
Speaker 3: get Amy to her her fellow apes. But they should
Speaker 3: have done something to kind of tie those three goals
Speaker 3: together in a way where all three are press completely agree.
Speaker 1: There's there's just no urgency here. I'm not sensing it.
Speaker 1: I'm not feeling it, you know. And yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: even if there was a little bit of you know,
Speaker 1: difficulty with the communication with this crew here and maybe
Speaker 1: snapping at them and them being like hey, like kind
Speaker 1: of snapping back in their language, and it's just like
Speaker 1: we're helping you and not connecting, and then to have
Speaker 1: them connect with that song and then get onto a
Speaker 1: new page. I think that could have been a really
Speaker 1: powerful thing.
Speaker 3: I think even even Monroe, right, like, what what has
Speaker 3: him other than being paid? Why is he invested in
Speaker 3: this expedition? Right? Yeah? You know?
Speaker 1: I yeah, I agree, And.
Speaker 3: Because he has that history with Tim Curry m hm,
Speaker 3: so maybe tie tie that in, right, like they got
Speaker 3: unfinished business from before m hm. You know, like I'm I'm, I'm,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna take you there and I'm going to prove
Speaker 3: what a piece of shit you are something like that.
Speaker 1: Something some business. Yeah, right, this is kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: So this is where the hippo thing happens, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty impressive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hippos the most lethal land animal. Did you know that?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Because those killed more people than lions. Really, yeah, I
Speaker 3: didn't know that. You do not want to get on
Speaker 3: any side of a hippo.
Speaker 1: Hungry because hungry hippo.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. That's the ironic thing is you got this
Speaker 3: childhood game that I think lulls people into thinking they're adorable,
Speaker 3: and they will chew you up and shit you out
Speaker 3: before you even realize you're dead.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, I mean I'm certainly afraid of its chomp.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, I mean it does. I mean you see
Speaker 1: those videos right where they stick these crazy things in there,
Speaker 1: like watermelons and all sorts of stuff, and they just
Speaker 1: always bananas.
Speaker 3: This is another you know, there's a story recently, maybe
Speaker 3: in the last ten years or so, of a guy
Speaker 3: who raised a hippo from infancy. Okay, and it was
Speaker 3: his pet and and let me cut to the end,
Speaker 3: the hippo ate him. Really yeah. Wow, because they're not pets, yo,
Speaker 3: they're wild animals. Leave them alone, a way to go.
Speaker 1: I gotta see this hippo. I mean, see this. This
Speaker 1: is executed really well because the only light we have
Speaker 1: is moonlight, so there's basically you know light silhouettes on everybody,
Speaker 1: and we can still tell what's going on. But it
Speaker 1: also obscures this you know, animatronic puppet in the best
Speaker 1: way possible because I think it I think it plays
Speaker 1: really well, yes, this hippo puppet, but but it is
Speaker 1: still just a hippo, meaning what like it's it's it
Speaker 1: feels like they're straining for business. Oh ablute? Well because
Speaker 1: it yeah, because then they just fire a couple of
Speaker 1: shots and then goes away. It's like the hippo comes,
Speaker 1: it chomps, they shoot at it, it goes away. That right, Like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't lead them anywhere, It doesn't accomplish anything.
Speaker 3: This is my point, right, Like, like it's not you know,
Speaker 3: a mosa sore or something, you know, like where where
Speaker 3: it's an otherworldly or or an unnatural creature based on
Speaker 3: what we're familiar with. And sure there's an added level
Speaker 3: of tension, you know. I think what should have been
Speaker 3: happening is we should have been should have been uh
Speaker 3: you know, laying laying the track for the ending.
Speaker 1: M Yes, yes, like like was that like I know
Speaker 1: they're on water, but like was that a gorilla?
Speaker 3: That was no gorilla? Yeah, you know something like that,
Speaker 3: you know. I mean it's it's it's kind of a
Speaker 3: metaphorical descent into hell, you know, so like you're going
Speaker 3: from the natural world that we know into something unnatural,
Speaker 3: you know, so that it's not like you go into
Speaker 3: the the caves and oh it's so crazy, like kind
Speaker 3: of get us there slowly.
Speaker 1: Totally agree. I have to point out I read that
Speaker 1: most of the volcano shots in this film are of
Speaker 1: ur and Allay, an active volcano in Costa Rica that
Speaker 1: I have hiked, no kidding, Yeah, I didn't recognize it,
Speaker 1: but with our friend Sean Seawan and I hiked it together.
Speaker 1: We took a trip many many years ago, a guy's
Speaker 1: trip to Costa Rica, and we actually while we were
Speaker 1: on the volcano, it's an active volcano. We saw it
Speaker 1: erupt We were on it as it was erupting. We
Speaker 1: saw rocks shooting out of it.
Speaker 3: Get out of here.
Speaker 1: We weren't near it, but it was pretty wild, pretty wild,
Speaker 1: So that was pretty that's scary. Yeah, And then we
Speaker 1: are the night before we were in a hotel and
Speaker 1: we heard like boom. We looked out and we could
Speaker 1: see the top was red and little rocks flying out
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 3: It kind of kind of puts in perspective how how
Speaker 3: inconsequential we are, you know, the oh.
Speaker 1: If that thing wants to take us out, it'll take
Speaker 1: us out.
Speaker 3: Right, like yep, you know, big picture, mother nature is
Speaker 3: doing our own thing, and and we're more an annoyance
Speaker 3: than anything else, you.
Speaker 1: Know, exactly, be grateful that it's mostly leaving us alone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, exactly.
Speaker 1: Man, that is so funny. I mean, just watching you've
Speaker 1: really got it in my head now, like watching and
Speaker 1: just looking at a map standing on the ground, like
Speaker 1: there's just really no urgency happening here.
Speaker 3: It's it's weird, it's it's very languid, you know.
Speaker 1: Now you mentioned it earlier, but this does, by the way,
Speaker 1: I will say though, this does look really great in
Speaker 1: that I mean, these are real locations.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: We have so many movies now that just simulate locations,
Speaker 1: and you really, I think our eyes are kind of
Speaker 1: adjusting to it. We're just getting you to it. But
Speaker 1: you do get the sense of disconnect between the characters
Speaker 1: and where they are. And this is pretty cool watching
Speaker 1: them go through real fog trapsing around real volcanoes, through
Speaker 1: real jungles. There's just a real palpability, you know, to
Speaker 1: their sweatiness and just the leaves slapping their faces. It's
Speaker 1: pretty cool.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 1: So, by the way, I wanted to comment on this
Speaker 1: so earlier. They jump out of a plane and they
Speaker 1: land like few and then the plane blows up, it
Speaker 1: gets hit by a rocket, and those poor freaking pilots
Speaker 1: are dead right, and they're basically like, wow, that was close.
Speaker 1: I'm like, not for the pilots, like they have this
Speaker 1: real lack of like, I don't know, respect for the
Speaker 1: loss of life that just happened. And so in this moment,
Speaker 1: another plane that's been sent by Laura, Lenny's employer, like
Speaker 1: a second expedition to go look for her, has been
Speaker 1: taken out of the sky and they come across the
Speaker 1: crash crest remains of it and they're like, whoa damn,
Speaker 1: and then they just keep hiking. I'm like, Oz, people
Speaker 1: are dying and they just don't seem to care.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: I mean, I would say even even later in the
Speaker 3: film when when Grant heslov gets gets acted right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: we barely let that register, you know. So this right here,
Speaker 3: this gorilla, I mean I was looking at it like
Speaker 3: is that is that a real gorilla?
Speaker 1: It's pretty tough to tell, right, Yeah, And I like this.
Speaker 1: I think this is filmed well. I think this has
Speaker 1: acted really well by Dylan Walsh. I can understand that
Speaker 1: feeling of fear but having to do the thing they
Speaker 1: tell you, like, yeah, don't look in the eye, but
Speaker 1: don't run and just I don't know this this scene
Speaker 1: worked for me.
Speaker 3: The the myth of the killer gorilla, right, which they
Speaker 3: allude to earlier in the movie, You know that that
Speaker 3: is something that when you think about it, has been
Speaker 3: so pronounced and you realize that, in fact, out of
Speaker 3: all the great apes, gorillas are the most gentle hmm.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Chimpanzees are the one who who they're gonna lose their
Speaker 3: shit at the drop of the hat.
Speaker 1: Really. Yeah, See, this is the fun stuff you can
Speaker 1: do in a story like this, right where you have
Speaker 1: now Amy who's very much domesticated and can even speak
Speaker 1: through this robotic right gloves. Yeah, like trying to communicate
Speaker 1: with gorillas in the wild, and I just love that
Speaker 1: her mode is Hi, hi'm Amy, how are you?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: And they're like what the hell?
Speaker 3: She turns to Dylan Wallher'd be like, kill me.
Speaker 1: Why did you do this to me?
Speaker 3: Father? Kill me? You are the enemy?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It's it is kind of weird seeing Laura Lenny in
Speaker 3: this movie, right, because like this is not her usual jam.
Speaker 3: She's she created such a distinguished career as like this
Speaker 3: really well respected actor and you know, dramatic actress. And
Speaker 3: to see her her in kind of just a pulpy
Speaker 3: summer blockbuster feels in congress to me.
Speaker 1: With like saying with pointing laser weapons and monkeys and
Speaker 1: being like, let's put these suckers on the endangered species
Speaker 1: exactly right.
Speaker 3: That's like something you'd see in like a Simpsons parody
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 1: It is, yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, I mean what
Speaker 1: was Primal Fear, Because Primal Fear was kind of after this,
Speaker 1: after this, okay, because because I know that for sure,
Speaker 1: because this is the first time I ever saw Laura Lennie.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay, you know, yeah, she well, and then
Speaker 1: you know, she's in Truman Show a couple of years later.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Truman I can't remember if that's part of
Speaker 1: the commentary or a bonus thing, but.
Speaker 3: That that was the bonus thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but anyway, but she's great in Truman Show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great in that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But yeah, she did, like you said, she doesn't
Speaker 1: tend to be in these sort of blockbustery sorts of things.
Speaker 3: Well, and and I mean she had some competition for
Speaker 3: this role. I mean they were, you know, they were
Speaker 3: looking at like Nane Lane and Susan Sarandon a couple
Speaker 3: other people, and I think, you know, I mean, she
Speaker 3: was virtually unknown at the time of this movie. So
Speaker 3: I think that ended up being kind of a good choice. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think all of these actors. The fact that the
Speaker 3: movie turned out a hit and did okay, it benefited everybody,
Speaker 3: you know, m hm, because because pretty much all went
Speaker 3: on to have a decent career. You know, everyone in
Speaker 3: this nobody nobody, nobody got left behind, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you know, speaking of it being a hit,
Speaker 1: I mean that shows that not only did people show
Speaker 1: up because they were expecting another Jurassic Park esque kind
Speaker 1: of adventure, but they came back you know. Yeah, some
Speaker 1: people repeat viewed this thing, so it did connect with
Speaker 1: you know, enough people.
Speaker 3: Well, so that's the thing, right, because you and at
Speaker 3: least me, I'm like, you know, look, it's not I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna say it's it's good, you know, but it
Speaker 3: it fills a specific niche and it's nice when movies
Speaker 3: are able to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree, I agree. I mean this is
Speaker 1: we talk about this often. I mean, we want the
Speaker 1: multiplexus populated with historical dramas, horror films, comedies, romantic comedies,
Speaker 1: pulp you know, pulp adventures like when I give it
Speaker 1: to all of us. But this seems like a moment
Speaker 1: where maybe people were more willing to give all of
Speaker 1: those things a shot, whereas now it seems like those
Speaker 1: things are a little more fragmented, like, oh, well, the
Speaker 1: rom coms we watch on streaming and the two hundred
Speaker 1: million dollar plus epic things, you know, superhero movies whatever
Speaker 1: we go to the theater for. But it was it
Speaker 1: was nice when all of this stuff not only could
Speaker 1: be in theaters, but everyone was showing up for all
Speaker 1: of it all stuff. That's you know, when I play Cinematrix,
Speaker 1: one of the categories is one hundred million dollars plus, right,
Speaker 1: and you have to guess which movies potentially made a
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars plus. And I told some people that
Speaker 1: I play with and you and I share sometimes our
Speaker 1: answers too. But if it's a movie in the nineties,
Speaker 1: I almost always assume it made a hundred million dollar
Speaker 1: plus because it was just a heyday, yeah, for movies
Speaker 1: and theater going. Like, if if it's a movie I
Speaker 1: remember from the nineties, it probably made a hundred million
Speaker 1: plus at least worldwide. Yeah, that's just the way it was.
Speaker 3: That's a great point this summer. I mean, in addition
Speaker 3: to Congo, you had Pocahontas, you had Brave Heart, You
Speaker 3: had a water World paullout thirteen, right, like, like you know,
Speaker 3: Judge Draid was this summer, you know, Johnny Monik, right,
Speaker 3: like it was. Not all of them were hits, right,
Speaker 3: but most of the movies I said were some degree
Speaker 3: of successful. And that shows Oh and you know, I
Speaker 3: think I said Casper, etcetera. You know, like there was
Speaker 3: there was a real diversity of content and that's always
Speaker 3: good good, I think, you know. And I would also
Speaker 3: imagine that if you were ten or eleven when you
Speaker 3: watch this, and if you saw it in the theater,
Speaker 3: I mean, it would be a real nostalgic experience.
Speaker 1: I completely get that I just missed it, but I
Speaker 1: can totally imagine twelve year old Brian watching this, loving it,
Speaker 1: and then watching it again as an adult, like I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I know, but I love it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you know, yeah, because I know there's
Speaker 3: plenty of folks who have a lot of nostalgia for
Speaker 3: this one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, speaking of when you're talking about like
Speaker 1: twelve year old and stuff, and then makes me think
Speaker 1: of this and then Jurassic Park or whatever. Michael Crane's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting to me, Like I was thinking about
Speaker 1: this earlier who was Jurassic Park written for? So it
Speaker 1: became because Michael Crichton's earlier stuff is pretty adult, you know, Westbrood,
Speaker 1: and so is Jurassic Park the book. That's what I'm saying. Like,
Speaker 1: so like West World's pretty you know, are rated in
Speaker 1: a lot of his earlier stuff, and even like Disclosure
Speaker 1: and things like those very adult stories, and then Jurassic
Speaker 1: Park just happened to be this thing. Then that got
Speaker 1: you know, Steven Spielberg, who everybody enjoys his movies, and
Speaker 1: then you know, makes a movie about dinosaurs, and of
Speaker 1: course kids are going to want to see that. So
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about when Crichton sat down and
Speaker 1: wrote Jurassic Park, it just feels like a family franchise, now,
Speaker 1: that's right, right, But when he made it, was he
Speaker 1: just thinking he was making another like adult thriller.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it really when when you look at it,
Speaker 3: it's it's a reskin of Westworld.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, totally right.
Speaker 3: And and the book is I mean I haven't read
Speaker 3: it since the early nineties, but it's it's much more violent,
Speaker 3: it's much darker, yeah, and gory, yeah, you know, and
Speaker 3: and you know this is something, you know, as James
Speaker 3: Cameron and Steven Spielberg were, you know, sort of they
Speaker 3: were in pole position trying to get the rights. And
Speaker 3: Cameron has said he would have made allans yeah, and
Speaker 3: and tonally that's more in line with the book, right right,
Speaker 3: and and so yeah, I mean Crichton, Crichton had had
Speaker 3: his he he had all to himself. This air like
Speaker 3: grounded science fiction. Mm hmm, right, the same way Tom
Speaker 3: Clancy had all to himself, you know, espionage techno thrillers,
Speaker 3: and Grisham had adult legal thrillers, you know, like those
Speaker 3: are that was like the the mount Rushmore of adult
Speaker 3: fiction in the nineties. He had Clancy, Grisham and and Crichton,
Speaker 3: you know, yep, yep. And I don't know who's the
Speaker 3: for Danielle Steele. I don't know, yeah, you know, probably yeah,
Speaker 3: right and and and I think that's that's really interesting
Speaker 3: because because what oh, by the way, this the this
Speaker 3: the guy who plays Claude. I was like, God, this
Speaker 3: guy looks familiar and he's in Jordan of the Jungle.
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, I've rend and Fraser playing basically the same character.
Speaker 3: Really sound like, well, he's he's found, he's found the
Speaker 3: character to play you know. Yeah, but but Crichton, when
Speaker 3: you look at the the the books that he wrote,
Speaker 3: not all of which became successful movies, but many of
Speaker 3: them did. I mean that they they're kind of that.
Speaker 3: They're adult sci fi thrillers. Andromeda Strain and uh, you
Speaker 3: know what are Sphere Sphere which is not a good movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which I've never seen either.
Speaker 3: There's a whole run of not good Christen adaptations.
Speaker 1: Disclosure.
Speaker 3: Disclosure was okay from what I remember, you.
Speaker 1: Know, it's so funny. The only thing I remember about
Speaker 1: that is Michael Douglass. They tried, but they were so
Speaker 1: convinced that like VR with dazzle audiences and be like
Speaker 1: the next you know, future sick looking sort of thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, he got a lot more man and everything,
Speaker 1: and then.
Speaker 3: Basically there he goes Grant Hasla. Never a good sign
Speaker 3: when you have to slowly turn and face the camera.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and then the poor guy just had this
Speaker 1: really awkward social interaction and that's his last moment on Earth.
Speaker 3: I know, he's like, oh man, do I have to apologize?
Speaker 3: Should I get him a card? I know?
Speaker 1: Anyway, sorry you were by a killer eight. No, but disclosure.
Speaker 1: I remember, basically Michael Douglas has to get like a
Speaker 1: word file off of a computer. But they're like, but
Speaker 1: what if he did it through VR? So he's like,
Speaker 1: you see this like digital version of him walking through
Speaker 1: you know, like tense music playing walking through like an
Speaker 1: office building, digital office building, just to like recover literally
Speaker 1: like a word file off of a computer. It was
Speaker 1: so ridiculous. But no, I just the whole thing is.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean when you really look at Crichton's work, not
Speaker 1: the film adaptations, but he seems like a very adult,
Speaker 1: skewing like author. And it's just funny then to think that,
Speaker 1: you know, Jurassic Park even before the film came out.
Speaker 1: I was introduced to him by buying that book at
Speaker 1: a middle school book flamm You know, it's just kind
Speaker 1: of funny that it's like, well, Spielberg's making it, so
Speaker 1: now this is for everybody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know what I mean, I think the
Speaker 3: fact that the Jurassic franchise is still going many years
Speaker 3: after his passing means that ultimately that's probably what he'll
Speaker 3: be most remembered for, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh easily yeah, right.
Speaker 3: He also you know, worth mentioning when it comes to Congo.
Speaker 3: He programmed or helped program a video game adaptation because
Speaker 3: he came up with the idea for the movie and
Speaker 3: then he wrote the book. He sold the screen rights
Speaker 3: to twentyth Century Fox, and at the same time he
Speaker 3: was coming up with a game like this is like
Speaker 3: early eighties, and then I guess what they realized later
Speaker 3: that all the rights were sold.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Well so he basically knew how to code.
Speaker 1: He yeah, like yeah, and what you said, like, he
Speaker 1: literally made the game himself crazy right, Yeah, based on Congo.
Speaker 1: But then the contract that he had signed with Fox,
Speaker 1: they owned any sort of ancillary things dealing with Congo,
Speaker 1: so including video games. So then he was like, oh shoot,
Speaker 1: so he had to tweak it a little bit, but
Speaker 1: it still came out in nineteen eighty four. Is a
Speaker 1: game called Amazon.
Speaker 3: Amazon Yeah, and instead of Amy the Ape, it was
Speaker 3: a parrot.
Speaker 1: Ah how funny.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that that kind of works.
Speaker 1: That'd be funny if it was still just like Amy Gorilla.
Speaker 1: He's like whatever, but whatever. The company that produced it
Speaker 1: and put it out it was their most successful title.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's right.
Speaker 1: It was a successful game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it predated the movie by about ten years
Speaker 3: at least, you know, I think you know, you had Congo,
Speaker 3: which did well, So you had Jurassic and Disclosure around
Speaker 3: the same time, and then this, Oh that wasn't.
Speaker 1: Ninety five also, wasn't it Disclosure?
Speaker 3: Pretty sure?
Speaker 1: Pretty sure?
Speaker 3: Yeah? It was either ninety four ninety five. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: then you had this run of movies that that weren't
Speaker 3: so good so and they didn't do that well. So
Speaker 3: he had Spear and what's the am I oh, of
Speaker 3: course Thirteenth Warrior.
Speaker 1: Oh, I say, I even forgot about them.
Speaker 3: See Thirteenth Warrior. The book is called Eaters of the Dead,
Speaker 3: I see, right. And and you know that movie famously
Speaker 3: ended up with a unlike this where Crichton had no
Speaker 3: involvement that one. He was like he was an ep
Speaker 3: on it, I think, and he basically recut John mctiernan's.
Speaker 1: Edit hm hm.
Speaker 3: And so the version that was released was chopped down
Speaker 3: and it's the Michael Crichton version cut. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 3: the McTiernan cut like does not exist. Yeah, and that
Speaker 3: one tanked yeah. And then you had was it Timeline?
Speaker 1: I think, oh, Timeline, that's right right, that was early
Speaker 1: early aughts. I think I've never seen that either. That's
Speaker 1: Richard Donner, right.
Speaker 3: Richard Donner one of his last movies that he.
Speaker 1: Did now, which people don't really tend to like.
Speaker 3: Right, Uh yeah, I can't say anything about it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I know Paul Walker is in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, that's right, Paul Walker, Gerard Butler. So
Speaker 1: now this is very speaking of aliens. You know, we
Speaker 1: have these uh I don't want you to come like
Speaker 1: century machine gun sort of things.
Speaker 3: Like yeah, see, okay. So I think what needed to
Speaker 3: happen is the movie needed to introduce the idea of
Speaker 3: these apes way earlier in the movie.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: I mean we get like the little the little snippets
Speaker 3: of them on the thing, you know, but we needed
Speaker 3: the equivalent of some of Indie cracking the book and
Speaker 3: being like these things here, you know.
Speaker 1: Maybe Tim Curry like it's it's guarded by these mythical creatures. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're like, oh, you're crazy, you and
Speaker 1: you're made up city and you're made up.
Speaker 3: Monsters, right something like that, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then they see weird like well the dressing
Speaker 1: part you see like a giant footprint and go who.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah that yeah, or even you have the Ernie
Speaker 3: Hudson character like he knows about him, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, maybe Tim Curry says that sort of
Speaker 1: thing and everyone's like, oh, come on, and then yeah
Speaker 1: he legitimizes it and goes, oh, no, I've heard that
Speaker 1: legend too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this does look kind of cool, these lasers.
Speaker 3: It is definitely very very aliens.
Speaker 1: Yes, and this is a great idea too, like having
Speaker 1: then the automatic machine guns fall over and then like
Speaker 1: could possibly shoot at them. I think you could have
Speaker 1: made more of a meal out of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah. See, I think the movie just takes too long
Speaker 3: to get here because essentially, now it's like twenty minutes
Speaker 3: of you know, high adventure or whatever we want to say, you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, yeah, agree, And then do you kind of
Speaker 1: feel bad when these white gorillas are getting killed?
Speaker 3: Okay? Yes, So this is the problem, right, because the
Speaker 3: movie is essentially saying that these gorillas were bred so
Speaker 3: that their most violent, you know, the most violent ones
Speaker 3: were the ones that propagated, and so they killed their
Speaker 3: their you know, creators or whatever. And so I think
Speaker 3: the movie assumes that by telling us that we'll be like,
Speaker 3: so kill them all right, and and yeah, I'm with
Speaker 3: you where it's like, I don't know, maybe they don't
Speaker 3: need to laser them in half. Maybe you just maybe
Speaker 3: just leave, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm like, you're kind of on their turf and
Speaker 1: they're just doing what they do.
Speaker 3: So this is the thing, right, But what you needed
Speaker 3: to do was have an in story you should You
Speaker 3: needed to show that these gorillas are expanding out and
Speaker 3: killing people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 3: Right, So in other words, they are they are a
Speaker 3: harm that needs to be dealt with, like these these
Speaker 3: are these are vicious predators in a in a way
Speaker 3: that's that's that's unnatural.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I don't even know if this makes sense,
Speaker 1: because then you could argue, well, people made them, so
Speaker 1: maybe this is like fitting that they hurt people. But
Speaker 1: like you could even I don't know how this works
Speaker 1: in the jungle especially, but like some sort of innocent
Speaker 1: animal mutilated somewhere and you're like, what would do that?
Speaker 1: You know, something that doesn't even know what it's doing anymore.
Speaker 1: It's you know something, you know. Yeah, they're a little
Speaker 1: they're beyond some sort of to use the wrong word humanity,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like they they don't even
Speaker 1: know what they're doing anymore. They're just killing machines.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because because what we have right now is is
Speaker 3: it's it's the they are in they are in the city,
Speaker 3: and they are protecting the diamonds as they were bred
Speaker 3: to do, and obviously that's bad and weird and whatever.
Speaker 3: But it's like, okay, we'll just leave then.
Speaker 1: Right, right, or at least I mean I get it,
Speaker 1: I get it, But yeah, they're doing what they were
Speaker 1: bred to do, and I just kind of feel bad
Speaker 1: as they're getting lasered in half.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Really, Yeah, I think that that's a tough one, right,
Speaker 3: because the movies view towards the gorillas in general is
Speaker 3: an empathetic one. M you know, the silver backs and
Speaker 3: Amy and whatever, and so it feels very bipolar.
Speaker 1: Right, you know, but maybe even of its time in
Speaker 1: a weird sort of way, like that joke of Lenny
Speaker 1: says later about like trying to put these things on
Speaker 1: the endangered species list. Yeah, I feel like we as
Speaker 1: a society now have a little more empathy for that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Like where I could see that being
Speaker 1: kind of a joke maybe in the nineties, you know,
Speaker 1: where we didn't think about those things is sensitively.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think, I'm trying to remember what the
Speaker 3: general societal view was back then. I mean, I feel
Speaker 3: like people were generally empathetic towards animals back then.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I don't know, I just I know
Speaker 1: there was a little bit more of a reverence or
Speaker 1: like a like it's so funny because like woke and
Speaker 1: all that stuff is the words we hear now, But
Speaker 1: like I remember when, like political correctness was a big
Speaker 1: thing in the nineties and it was kind of a
Speaker 1: funny thing to buy.
Speaker 3: That's what used to be called woke.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but it was it didn't feel as like
Speaker 1: nasty and pointed and calculated as it is now. H yeah.
Speaker 3: But just using Jurassic as a point of comparison, right,
Speaker 3: Like you watch the movie and you're not like, oh,
Speaker 3: kill the dinosaurs exactly, yes, right, yeah, So you're in
Speaker 3: awe of them, you're scared of them, we're trying to
Speaker 3: get away from them, but you're not like laser them
Speaker 3: in half.
Speaker 1: You know that's true. I mean, well, and it just
Speaker 1: kind of shows what an amazing filmmaker, the understanding that
Speaker 1: Spielberg has for his audience. Yeah, he knows how to
Speaker 1: handle these killing Some of them are just killing machines velociraptors,
Speaker 1: but like he knows that, like we wouldn't enjoy seeing
Speaker 1: one completely destroyed human. Yeah, he finds that balance perfectly. Okay,
Speaker 1: so something I thought, but I just didn't let my
Speaker 1: brain go down that path. But then when I listened
Speaker 1: to I have to credit that how did this get made? Podcast?
Speaker 1: They were like, it's so funny when they go in
Speaker 1: the Diamond mind and the diamonds are just randomly like
Speaker 1: laying on top of the surface. It's so like, like,
Speaker 1: what that's so true? Is that funny? I remember kind
Speaker 1: of thinking it, but not again, I just wasn't as
Speaker 1: plugged in enough to really let it sink in. But
Speaker 1: like it is very silly.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, so maybe because we see bones of other
Speaker 3: well I guess those are bones of other gorillas, right,
Speaker 3: but maybe there have been people who made it this
Speaker 3: far and and those are the diamonds that they tried
Speaker 3: to escape with, and so they've just liked that there
Speaker 3: you go.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it would have been kind of cool
Speaker 1: then to play off of that where maybe it's in
Speaker 1: a satchel yeah or something. It's like, wow, someone was here,
Speaker 1: But what do you think happened to them? Why did
Speaker 1: they why did they drop this and leave it behind?
Speaker 1: And then you go in a room and find all
Speaker 1: these bones and go, oh, I think that that would
Speaker 1: have worked better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, see, I think nowadays you would have much bigger
Speaker 3: CGI hordes. Oh right, yeah, I think that's kind of
Speaker 3: the thing, Like maybe maybe that's part of the problem.
Speaker 3: Is it feels a little like there's probably like a
Speaker 3: dozen of these guys here, you know, and we're just
Speaker 3: lasering them, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So so according to the book, there's an autopsy scene
Speaker 3: at some point in the book and they see that
Speaker 3: these these gorillas are the product of a gorilla DNA
Speaker 3: and chimpanzee DNA and even human DNA, which let's wonder
Speaker 3: how that happened. Moving on, Yeah, and that's why they're
Speaker 3: they're freaking horrific looking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe if you made him look more even more mutant, like.
Speaker 3: Let's let's pour one out for mister Homolka. Yeah see, okay,
Speaker 3: so so and I'll let you get back to your point,
Speaker 3: but that right there, when Tim Curry dies, I don't
Speaker 3: think like I feel kind of bad for him, right,
Speaker 3: And I don't think the movie knows what it wants
Speaker 3: us to feel about him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or even spends time to care.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry you were saying, no, no, I don't remember,
Speaker 1: but I alluded to this earlier. But speaking of the
Speaker 1: very similitude of the jungle and everything that I was
Speaker 1: saying earlier, now you walk into what you said earlier
Speaker 1: feels like a Universal Studio stunt show spectacular, which is
Speaker 1: basically just like a box.
Speaker 3: Of a room.
Speaker 1: It has red. Yeah, you know, it's just I don't know.
Speaker 1: You just don't buy it as this cool, dusty, dark,
Speaker 1: dank hidden mine, like legendary mythic hidden mind, you know.
Speaker 1: And so what I had read that I thought was
Speaker 1: kind of interesting. Stan Winston he was never fully satisfied
Speaker 1: with the gray gorillas and the way that they looked.
Speaker 1: But he pointed out, you know, in something like that,
Speaker 1: you would try to it's not just about what the
Speaker 1: suit looks like. It's also how do you light it?
Speaker 1: Does it? How do you capture it on camera? And
Speaker 1: he was saying he hated this set because it's just
Speaker 1: this big, cavernous set and for that reason, you couldn't
Speaker 1: put foliage or anything in there that could be lit
Speaker 1: in a certain way that would dapple all the characters
Speaker 1: in there and obscure the more mysterious, weird jnky looking characters.
Speaker 3: Interesting, isn't it interesting?
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, that's a really great point. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you have these things that are not going to
Speaker 1: ever look quite realistic to the human eye, well then
Speaker 1: you have to like creatively to obscure them a little
Speaker 1: bit and make them mysterious and make it work. But
Speaker 1: he's saying, in this big cavernous room, nothing for the
Speaker 1: light to go through and create interesting shadows. You just
Speaker 1: get these brightly lit, weird looking monkey suits, and it
Speaker 1: looks a little odd, It looks a little We both
Speaker 1: clocked it earlier, just saying this is kind of a
Speaker 1: flat looking scene, unfortunately interesting and it's interesting. Hearing Sam
Speaker 1: Winston comment on his satisfaction with it and saying that
Speaker 1: his work doesn't come across the best.
Speaker 3: That it could for that reason, I think he's probably
Speaker 3: on point.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, we see earlier with the Campbell character's corpse there,
Speaker 3: I'm like, why wouldn't you give us the close up,
Speaker 3: like give us his face?
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally right.
Speaker 3: It's weird that they didn't. The other the other thought.
Speaker 3: I had this random but like when when Karen she
Speaker 3: comes into says, she's like, she calls out Charles and
Speaker 3: then she's like Charlie. And I was like, I feel like,
Speaker 3: if you're a Charles, you're not a Charlie, but you've
Speaker 3: locked in. But then I was like, it'd be funny
Speaker 3: if she's like Charlie, Chuck, Chazz, You're right, Chucky, you know,
Speaker 3: sea dog. But yeah, that's weird. It's clearly like a
Speaker 3: dummy that looks like Bruce Campbell. But I'm like, why
Speaker 3: don't you just like just get get a b roll
Speaker 3: shot of him, like his face, we should get that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, you know he the frozen look of horror
Speaker 3: on his face or something. But I feel like we
Speaker 3: should have got that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Yeah, no, I don't disagree. It's kind
Speaker 1: of funny, this toss off exposition mother's instinct. What do
Speaker 1: you know about that?
Speaker 3: Let's go anyway, put them on the endangered species.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's looking. I mean that's another thing too, like
Speaker 1: you could sort of obscure the violence a little bit,
Speaker 1: but they're like, look at this. Poor things like arm
Speaker 1: get chopped off.
Speaker 3: That's that's what I'm saying, like, now, like what we
Speaker 3: know of Laura Lenny, it just feels very incongruous, you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like Helen Mirren in a Fast and Furious movie.
Speaker 3: Now you're like, what something's off about that? You know? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And by the way, like I you know, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: these things are attacking. This is a bit of a defense, yes,
Speaker 1: for the humans, But I just feel like you could
Speaker 1: make the execution a little more nuanced and it might
Speaker 1: not have those thoughts even enter our minds.
Speaker 3: Now, is there is there some in story explanation for
Speaker 3: why the volcano starts erupting?
Speaker 1: Well, you know that, not that I'm aware of, but
Speaker 1: it would be interesting if it'd be like they took
Speaker 1: too much.
Speaker 3: These gorillas are jumping right into the lava, so you.
Speaker 1: Know there is the there do there there? You know,
Speaker 1: they weren't meant to survive.
Speaker 3: You know, this is a Darwinian effect exactly exactly, but yeah.
Speaker 1: It should it should have been a result of something
Speaker 1: they're doing, because.
Speaker 3: There's invaders here, yes exactly.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, kind of like Indiana Jones
Speaker 1: right when he messes with something in a temple.
Speaker 3: It's you know what they should have been. I'll tell
Speaker 3: you you have Tim Curry. He goes he gets a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of bunch of diamonds, okay, and then he's
Speaker 3: walking away, his pockets are loaded up, and then he
Speaker 3: kind of sees like a glint out of the corner
Speaker 3: of his end, and he goes over and this is
Speaker 3: big honkin diamond and he's like, he rubs his hands
Speaker 3: together and he yanks it out. And that was the
Speaker 3: cork that was holding in all the lava.
Speaker 1: That was a cork diamond, you fool.
Speaker 3: He pulls it out and he's all happy, and then
Speaker 3: bra it starts coming out.
Speaker 1: I mean something like that, actually in that arena feels possible,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like, maybe not like that
Speaker 1: on the nose, but yeah, you know, like that's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, like the result of greed or hubrist or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, this stuff could be like a set or something,
Speaker 1: but I still think it looks kind of impressive and cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this stuff, I don't mind. It's the inside the
Speaker 3: cave stuff just looks a little too a little to
Speaker 3: channel fifty syndication, you know.
Speaker 1: Agreed.
Speaker 3: See, once she got a taste of that laser.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but she do we ever introduce this weapon because
Speaker 1: they want the.
Speaker 3: No, that's the funny thing.
Speaker 1: Yes, because the diamond is supposed to be for like
Speaker 1: a telecom that's satellite.
Speaker 3: It's like her pulling out a lightsaber in the third act.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, what, Well, because it would make sense if
Speaker 1: the dad, who's clearly evil, yeah, knew this and maybe
Speaker 1: even one of the diamonds, like yeah, telecom whatever, like, actually,
Speaker 1: we have a contract with the military these weapons you
Speaker 1: don't know about. Laura Lenny would be opposed to it. Yes,
Speaker 1: So why does she have this weapon? Why does she
Speaker 1: even know that?
Speaker 3: This is? No she like jury rigged, like she like
Speaker 3: mcguibird a laser?
Speaker 1: Oh did she?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, now this is this is.
Speaker 3: A thing that bugs me in movies in general, where
Speaker 3: we see characters outrun lava. Sure, I'm like, you're not
Speaker 3: outrunning lava.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I'm not an expert, but I know
Speaker 3: enough to know that if if there's a lava flow
Speaker 3: within you know your eye line, you're you're you're about
Speaker 3: to be cooked.
Speaker 1: That's really funny. Well, I hope I never find out.
Speaker 3: Uh, well, don't go hiking on that mountain again.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, this is probably a part. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: this is probably a you know, part of the Congo book.
Speaker 1: But that is interesting this writer Joe versus the volcano,
Speaker 1: and then you have a whole volcano set piece at
Speaker 1: the end of this too.
Speaker 3: There you go. Maybe that's why he signed on. He
Speaker 3: just like this is his particular passion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know we mentioned Jerry Goldsmith, but I
Speaker 1: don't know if you looked in the credits, did you
Speaker 1: see that James Newton Howard was also credited.
Speaker 3: I didn't that.
Speaker 1: Actually, I thought that was interesting, so I looked into it.
Speaker 1: Goldsmith was brought on when this was being talked about
Speaker 1: in the early eighties, okay, and when it was going
Speaker 1: into production in the nineties, James Newton Howard was hired. Okay,
Speaker 1: So he wrote I guess a tribal chant that was
Speaker 1: earlier in the movie, but at some point he had
Speaker 1: to back out of it, out of the movie, and
Speaker 1: Goldsmith was brought back, so he ultimately did the majority
Speaker 1: of the score. But James Newton Howard has some work
Speaker 1: in the movie.
Speaker 3: Oh that's okay. Goldsmith would always come through in a
Speaker 3: clutch man. They'd be like you got, you got, you
Speaker 3: got six days, and he'd be like, step aside, let
Speaker 3: the maestro work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's a great score.
Speaker 3: I think it is.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny. I was flipping channels the other
Speaker 1: night and I saw this movie. I wonder if other
Speaker 1: people have nostalgia for this, but it was very terrible.
Speaker 1: It was called Mom and Dad Saved the World. I think, okay,
Speaker 1: my Mom and Dad said the Galaxy or something. It
Speaker 1: was Terry Garr Jeffrey Jones. Famously, John Lovettz was fired
Speaker 1: from SNL for being in that movie, and so I
Speaker 1: just kind of knew what it was, and so I
Speaker 1: stopped on it and I was like, this movie looks bad,
Speaker 1: Like the production value is very bad. I was like,
Speaker 1: what is this score? The score is like not terrible
Speaker 1: and so curiosity IMDb. Harry Goldsmith Jerry Goldsmith, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, my man was cranking stuff out in the nineties. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like if it was an action movie, easily, you know,
Speaker 3: better than than than the forty chance that it was
Speaker 3: Jerry Goldsmith.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, he's solid.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I love Horner. You know, they were doing a
Speaker 3: lot in the nineties, you know, Oh, Man Horner RP.
Speaker 1: He's a rip legend. I love her, like shooting a
Speaker 1: satellite from space just with this like thing like take this,
Speaker 1: you know they like like.
Speaker 3: Well, and I love that. Jodn Baker Man, he's just
Speaker 3: he's in. He's in that one one tier. What about
Speaker 3: the diamond, my diamond diamond?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, she even has to like spelled out this
Speaker 1: was never about your son, screwmas On. Where's the diamond?
Speaker 3: My diamond's my real son. I never loved him anyway.
Speaker 1: I just love the idea of like being able to
Speaker 1: like a lock onto a satellite from like the ground,
Speaker 1: and just.
Speaker 3: I feel like people knew enough in the nineties to
Speaker 3: know that was probably not realistic and they're like we don't.
Speaker 1: Care, or like I wouldn't want to stand next to her.
Speaker 1: That feels like there'd be a lot of firepower.
Speaker 3: Possibly.
Speaker 1: Well, now we get the sad goodbye. Amy wants a boyfriend.
Speaker 3: And yet it's it's it's a better life for her.
Speaker 1: I hope, I gotta be honest. I mean, these silver
Speaker 1: Backs seem kind of welcoming, but she is not conditioned
Speaker 1: for the wilds. That's a good point, right, She's been
Speaker 1: fed food out of coolers and sedated when anything scary happened.
Speaker 3: And bananas with pills in them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, wearing three D glasses with her buds drinking.
Speaker 3: She asks for martini. They had the downhill pretty fast, and.
Speaker 1: That would actually be funny, and you know, asking for
Speaker 1: martini and the other ones like what's a martini and
Speaker 1: she's like no, And then we just cut back to
Speaker 1: the humans in their hot air balloon. Like that's the
Speaker 1: end of that chapter.
Speaker 3: Oh man, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean I can understand people being like, oh, it's weird.
Speaker 1: They love each other. Nah, this is very sweet to me.
Speaker 3: The Peter Amy stuff, I totally track with me too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The the you know, it's convenient that the volcano erupted
Speaker 3: just in time to wipe out any evidence of the
Speaker 3: lost city of Zinge. You know it was it laid
Speaker 3: dormant for god knows how long. But again, we just
Speaker 3: we just needed that pulling the cork scene with Tim Curry.
Speaker 3: That would have.
Speaker 1: Pulling the cork that should be added, like jump the shark,
Speaker 1: you know, like cork Like that means like, oh, they
Speaker 1: had an opportunity to do something they didn't capitalize on
Speaker 1: the should.
Speaker 3: Have pulled the cork. Now this Now, the thought I
Speaker 3: had with this is why would they assume that they
Speaker 3: won't get shot down?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Here right back in the air, yes, right. Well.
Speaker 1: I was also thinking it's funny because they're like, let's
Speaker 1: see where the wind takes us. And then my brain
Speaker 1: was like, hilarious if the wind was blowing them toward
Speaker 1: the volcano and they're.
Speaker 3: Like, ah, okay, now explain to me why she throws
Speaker 3: why she has the diamond thrown away?
Speaker 1: There's no point, man, They went through so much, right,
Speaker 1: I would benefit from it down there.
Speaker 3: I was thinking about that. I was like, that doesn't
Speaker 3: make sense.
Speaker 1: No, they're not stealing from culture, they're not stealing from
Speaker 1: like a museum. You may as well keep that as
Speaker 1: some sort of like I don't know, benefit out of
Speaker 1: this entire thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I I. He was so baffling to me because
Speaker 3: I'm like, a better button would have been, yes, one
Speaker 3: of the characters finding it and like oh look here
Speaker 3: you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and like maybe the you know, the
Speaker 1: gorilla program you know that doctor Peter had was like
Speaker 1: losing its funding, you know, something like yeah, it benefits
Speaker 1: them in some way. That's noble right something.
Speaker 3: You know, you have them to look at the volcano
Speaker 3: and be like, you know, it's like like it never existed,
Speaker 3: and then you know it holds up a diamond. Monroe
Speaker 3: maybe he's like, are you sure about that? You know,
Speaker 3: kind of totally, and maybe he Monroe finds it and
Speaker 3: he just tosses it to Peter something like that, like
Speaker 3: he doesn't need it.
Speaker 1: You're making me. You give me that feel where I'm
Speaker 1: getting like giddy and I'm like, zactly, I want to
Speaker 1: write a movie with you. This would be so much fun,
Speaker 1: just spitball in a room.
Speaker 3: I'd love it. Well, I love I love workshopping when
Speaker 3: we watch this stuff, you know, mm hmmmm hmm.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so now we're watching the credits. I really
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly sure how I felt after first viewing this
Speaker 1: was a blast. I could see now I have like
Speaker 1: sort of a familiarity with it and I know what
Speaker 1: it is, and I can kind of laugh at parts
Speaker 1: and also be like, oh, that part's not so bad,
Speaker 1: and I can see it being one of those movies
Speaker 1: where if I was flipping channels like oh, this part's
Speaker 1: like kind of fun and stopping on it where I
Speaker 1: had no relationship with this before.
Speaker 3: So I'm yeah, I'm very curious about that. So so
Speaker 3: when you first watched it like two days ago, you're
Speaker 3: just like, what what did I just watch?
Speaker 1: Kind of I mean, it just felt like.
Speaker 3: Real quick under featuring we have ad Wale, right, and
Speaker 3: that's that's mister Echo. Oh and he's got a very
Speaker 3: elaborate last name. You know.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, they don't even give you.
Speaker 3: He's like share and I'm like, yeah, I was like, hey,
Speaker 3: I guess I guess that's all you need is just
Speaker 3: the one name. Yeah, is Jimmy Buffett as the seventy
Speaker 3: seven pilot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, you were saying, oh, no, no, no, no, I
Speaker 1: just yeah, I just I was like, oh, Frank Welker
Speaker 1: of course naturally making the gorilla noises.
Speaker 3: Of course Amy's voice. By the way, they they initially
Speaker 3: were were thinking of Kim Basinger, what which like that
Speaker 3: would sound kind of horny probably right, See.
Speaker 1: That's yes, that's where it would have gone wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they did the right, the right approach to that.
Speaker 1: You know, Oh, Peter, yeah, Peter, it makes me a
Speaker 1: martini like that'd be I don't know, I don't know
Speaker 1: about that one.
Speaker 3: Okay, sorry you were saying no, no, no, I just yeah,
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 1: I was confused, like I said, with the ciskel Kniebert
Speaker 1: inside of me, kind of arguing over is this CAMPI
Speaker 1: in fun? Or is this just a bad movie?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: Is this like I just didn't know because I was
Speaker 1: quite prepared. Yeah, but now I kind of see it
Speaker 1: for it's kind of all the above, and it does
Speaker 1: make it charming in its own way. Yeah, as an artifact,
Speaker 1: I would say, I don't know that I would recommend,
Speaker 1: like I'm going to leave this room and then go
Speaker 1: tell my brother, like, you know, you should watch the Night.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, Hey, I would agree with that. I I
Speaker 3: I definitely I look at this and and just as
Speaker 3: our conversation you know, alludes to, you know, I see
Speaker 3: the ways it could have potentially been a more engrossing adaptation. Again,
Speaker 3: not having read the book, I should say, but but yeah,
Speaker 3: it was. It was of its time, and you know,
Speaker 3: I always say, like, you know, there there there was
Speaker 3: room in the marketplace for something that was a little
Speaker 3: off kilter like this totally and and even in its imperfections,
Speaker 3: I mean it's it's you know, it allows us to
Speaker 3: have a conversation like this where you know, we laugh
Speaker 3: and I think that's that's a good thing, you know.
Speaker 1: I agree, And and to your point earlier, if I
Speaker 1: was ten or something and saw this for the first time,
Speaker 1: I could totally imagine it, yeah, imprinting on me in
Speaker 1: a certain sort of way, and then years later watching
Speaker 1: it for fun to be nostalgic.
Speaker 3: Yep. By the way, we should say orchestrations by Alexander Courage.
Speaker 3: Alexander Courage, of course, wrote the Star Trek original television
Speaker 3: series theme Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: He used to work with Goldsmith a lot. He would
Speaker 3: he would, you know, take take the music that Goldsmith
Speaker 3: wrote and tweak it or whatever. And sometimes he would
Speaker 3: conduct his orchestras too.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: That's cool. But hey, that's our thoughts on Congo. And
Speaker 3: let us know what you think about not only the
Speaker 3: film but what we have to say. You know, Like
Speaker 3: I said, We've gotten many requests for this one over
Speaker 3: the years, so I'd love to hear the thoughts from
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Speaker 3: There we go, and with that on behalf of my
Speaker 3: partner Brian Home. My name is Zachison. This has been
Speaker 3: our commentary track for Congo. Thank you all for listening.
Speaker 3: We'll catch you next time.