Hello and welcome to another episode of the
shock doctor's podcast. I'm Jim Smith. I'm Matt
J.
We are the shock doctors.
In this episode, we're going to be discussing
maxine,
which is the third and
final
installments in the x
franchise, Tie west's kind of
surprise
trilogy or at least for the moment trilogy
featuring ex
pearl and now this film.
Yeah. It's it's an odd duck all told,
the first 2
were sort of a package deal
where he made a movie, and then
spraying a second on us that was already
in the can. Right. That nobody knew about,
and that was kind of exciting. You know,
It was just, hey, what are you 2
movies for the price of 1. Obviously, leave
me a go. The 2 of you are
on the same wavelength. So let's ride this
crazy train as far as it'll take us.
And I like those first 2 movies well
enough. I had issues with both. We did
episodes on both. So I don't need to
re lit too much of that. Some of
it will be pertinent to today's shock doctor.
Yeah. I think that
is easily the weakest of the 3. And
because the first 2 were sort of con
joined twins in a sense, maxine feels a
little bit late to the party.
And a fourth installment in this
would feel like even more of a Johnny
come lately, I think.
Yeah.
I think that's more or less right. It
is kind of interesting though that this franchise
is sort of a pair of con condensed
pairs.
Yeah. That that... I don't know how you
would conceptualize that exactly, But I know I
know exactly what you mean because this is
really a sequel to x. And pearl is
not. It's very tangent
related.
Yeah. X
is about the title character from maxine. She
probably still maxine Miller in x. I don't
know that we ever even hear her last
name in that movie. It's about her and
this group of friends slash acquaintances, and they're
shooting this porn, and
they run a file of
the
der elderly couple who owns the ranch where
they're shooting and pearl, the title character in
that film is the younger version of the
old lady from x. The younger and older
version of that character as well as maxine
all played by mia Golf. Yes. So there's
a strange doubling going on a do gang
thing, which is more of a feature of
those first 2 movies because per role is
alive in both of those movies,
by Mia Got from the age of, 19
to 90,
you, give or takes.
And there's not that sense of doubling or
or or do gang in intrigued in maxine,
which also makes it feel like a little
bit of an outlier
however, the 3 of them taken as a
whole
do
constitute a kind of like,
Slash or cloud atlas. It's very weird.
Yeah. Something about rein
maybe or just about you know, because because
they're dead ringer for 1 another and that
seems significant, but it's hard to say exactly
how. I mean, I don't know what else
to call it. That's what I meant when
I said it's an odd duck we'd if
we've never had anything else quite like it
for better or worse.
Right. And this is maybe some post brake
business, and I may or may not expand
on this during the post break, but it's
stories of 2 women who basically go in
dia
opposed directions.
But they they have the same underlying Mo,
which is a thirst for start that they
never shut up about.
Exactly. But they're
results are completely different. They're both essentially going
for the same thing. Maybe they're going by
different routes or expect to go by different
routes but ultimately, they both want to be
famous. They both want to be stars.
And obviously,
we know how Pearls story ends
she mar a guy, and then they just
kind of get old and d credit it
on this ranch in Texas.
And start murdering people. Whereas,
I guess, spoilers for maxine, but I don't
think that's a big deal because the plot
of the movie isn't really what the movie
is about. She ends up
successfully
becoming a star she transitions from porn
to straight films. And, yeah. She basically,
everything's coming up Roses for her. Admittedly, she
has to go kind of through hell in
multiple iterations to get there, but she gets
what she wants.
And pearl really doesn't.
No. Pearls journey ends with her
d decrypt head being
caved in by the rear wheel of a
car. Yeah. But but they do want the
same thing. You know, I'm a star, And
they want it... So it... It's it's all...
It's not... It's more than their defining personality
trait. It's almost their sole personality trait. Right.
You know. So they are substantially
the same, and I don't know if it's
supposed to be an indictment
of the era in which pearl lived that
her life turned out so differently. We're definitely
getting in into post break
speculation and analysis now.
So maybe we should table this, but, it's
it's it's it's hard to say
why
their paths diver
so dramatically. It's even kind of hard to
say how pearl and her husband to became
serial killers.
I remember that she offs a bunch of
people in that movie, meaning pearl, but I
kind of can't room remember why
her, like, at her her husband's a soldier,
he returns from the war. And it was
shocked to discover a pile of bodies
and is somehow recruited
to continue this bloodshed with her
it... It's all just kind of doesn't hold
up to scrutiny I find and slash your
movies don't always need to hold up to
scrutiny nate. But Right. It... But this is
AAA strangely
ambitious project for the fundamentals
to still just be kind of
sketchy, you know, there's just a lot of
question marks sorta of holding up the foundations
here. Yeah. And that comes to a head
in in in a few ways, which it
with with maxine, which I think is the
most con confounded of the 3 and raises
a lot of questions about artistic intent that
were distracting me all through the movie. But
the movie broadly is about maxine. She goes
by maxine Min now trying to break into
legit filmmaking and and be a real actress
and a star.
Had lest we forget.
And
she's
operating in the mid eighties, early to mid
eighties whenever the night stalker was out and
about because that's sort of bubbling away in
the background of all of this. There's satanic
panic stuff going on. It throws a lot
shit at the wall. And for for my
money, most of it doesn't stick, but we'll
address each of those
failed sticking points As we proceed, we open
with a little pro log pre title sequence
of a home movie of baby maxine or,
you know, pre best maxine
doing a little dance routine for the camera,
and her father's voice is off camera and
he's coaching her and talking about how, you
know, she shouldn't take any gus from anybody.
All of the a lot of mantra
are introduced in this scene. Huge... Of most
movies are content with just 1, but this
scene this scene generates at least 2, if
not 3 mantra that we then revisit a
couple times in some cases. And certainly, by
by the time the climax rear its ugly
head. We've heard all of them more than
once.
And the 1 that I remember is
whatever it takes. You have to do whatever
it takes to get ahead in this world.
This is the philosophy.
That maxine has later in life applied to
her pursuit of start.
Although her her father has something a good
deal more
chased and church going in mind, I think.
And he was a presence in the original
x, but I don't
really
remember... I don't I don't have a single
detail to hang that impression on. I just
know
that it was established that her dad was
a preacher.
Yeah. Well, he's he's credited as just tele
in x, and I think it I don't
know if it's even explicitly
stated that that's her father. I might have
man mandela myself then. I did double check
that it was doctor. I honestly don't remember.
It is the same actor.
Yeah. It might just be kind of implied
that there's that relationship between them in x.
But it's the same guy, same doing the
same voice and
when he turns up in this movie, he
is her father. So that is made explicit
in this film. But, yeah. He's alarming even
in this
ostensibly sort of charming home movie. Yeah. This
this would be wholesome daddy daughter moment. So
my issue with all of this, I I
like this in isolation, the home movie. My
issue with it is that it is a
very kind of self conscious like,
mission statement style opening. Like, here come the
themes, You know, we're just throwing these mantra
at you. Right. And I know I only
invoked 1 of them, but there are others.
There's 1 that they recite daddy daughter at
the end of the movie. That's a little
just too long winded
to lend itself well to that kind of
rec. It's like, a whole sentence, You know,
it's not pi. Maybe you remember it. I
don't. It can't be chanted at a rally
affect Yeah. If it did it would peter
out.
It's
I think it's I refused to accept a
life. I do not deserve. Right. Something along
those lines. Like, it would it would it
would make a couple words
It would make a t shirt or a
coffee mug look look slightly cramped, you know,
a little dirty. Yeah. Just typo it graphically.
So there's that. And that... That's fine. Here
are some themes, some mantra something to chew
on. This is what the movie is about.
We then get our title drop, and then
our opening scene
kind of just doubles down on that beating
you over the head kind of feeling. It's
an audition where
maxine
is looking directly into the camera after being
instructed to do so by a woman across
a table from her it's evo of the
failed audition from the end of pearl when
she has her complete shit fit. And the
casting directors in destruction to her before she
starts
is
in the trailer verbatim. And so I knew
this was coming
and
it rank
every time.
Yeah.
For reasons that will become obvious when I
drop this on you, but
the line is, well, I don't remember how
it begins, but it ends with the phrases
and through her trauma addresses the lens direct
way. They're like, it's here we fucking go.
That's what I... And obviously trauma. Trauma has
been a bug bearer of ours for the
past couple years with horror movies just because
so trendy.
But even if that were not the case,
this would be terribly on the nose. Well,
yes. It's also irritating
because Ty west
seems to have on his mind and stylist
statistically
indicates he has on his mind something
seed
and pulp, basically
at every turn at all times than the
typical
a 24,
and it's il
trauma horror. I mean, it's not just 08:24.
It's regular studio, horror films. Too now. But
it started out in the sort of more
elevated horror and then per down into shit,
like, imagine it Mary. No. That phrase elevated
horror used to make you... We used to
trigger your gag reflex. I hate that we've
become numb to it now. Yeah. It's annoying,
but it's it's
pit enough. It's... Yeah. No. And it it
yeah. It's an umbrella that a lot of
horror movies are are clustered under nowadays even
studio fair like you were saying?
Yeah. So it's frustrating
even if he wants to dabble in trauma
and obviously,
maxine
had a traumatic life, even if we don't
talk about her childhood,
obviously, the events of x.
Count.
Yes. They're they were quite traumatic. But the
fact that he's going to do his film
in it to the extent that the film
opens
with someone literally
saying the word trauma out loud
and instructing her to make eye contact with
the camera which she does within the the
film grammar of the movie we're watching.
The whole thing just kind of resembles itself
before your very eyes. Man, stick to the
pulp. I want the pulp. Well, that's the
thing the whole thing. It makes the
ja
diploma pest thing, that the movie is doing.
The eighties sleeves
feel
very surface level. It's only skin deep because
the beating heart of the thing is
20 twenties horror.
You know, that is that trendy trauma thing.
Which is the the same issue. I don't
know that I articulated it exactly same way,
but it's the same issue I had with
last night in Soho.
And at least there, it was a conscious
subversion of ja tropes, you know, we're gonna
do a yellow, but it's gonna have a
conscience or something. I don't... I mean, I
didn't like that movie. I know you didn't
either. We an episode on that 1 too.
But Yeah I was I was reminded of
it all too often and watching Maxine.
So because this comes right on the heels,
of the home movie thing. You do just
kinda feel like you're being cl with the
with the movie's mission statement with its artistic
intent It's like when you go to a
gallery. 1 of those
museum shows where the artist
statement
next to the piece. It'll be a very
cryptic piece of painting a photograph or whatever
and then the artist statements will be, like,
3 or 4 pairs graphs long, and you're
just, like, ma'am, let it speak for itself.
You don't... This is suffocating. I don't... III...
That's something. And at least there, it's out
over the frame. In our literal sense. You
can just choose not to read the plaque
mounted alongside of the artwork, whatever it may
be. But here it's into rated into the
work itself and is impossible to ignore. It
is extremely on the nose. It feels as
on the nose as
Kevin Bacon spends the second half of this
movie sporting, like a Chinatown style nose bandage
and that's how I felt. After these opening
2 scenes were done cl me, you know,
right, little ease up I got it. And
in between them, they sandwich which a Betty
Davis quote, which accompanies the title drop if
I remember. Right? It's something about how you
have to be monstrous in order to get
ahead in the industry. And so Yeah, you're
you're not a star until you become a
monster or something Right So it's a triple
threat. It's a it's a it's a fucking
hat trick. Of just, you know,
aggressive
messaging.
Messaging. Thank you, and post.
She delivers a monologue
directly into the camera as instructed and does
not wow them seemingly, but does not throw
a complete fit about it, the way that
her
spiritual predecessor
did in pearl
she winds up getting a different part in
a different horror movie. Her agent gives her
a call. Wait wait. Or is it the
same 1? No. It's the same 1. She
got. She got the gig.
Okay. I could... Well, it doesn't matter. I
might have been copy pasting the ending of
Pearl in their... III read there...
Yeah. Because Elizabeth Dub, who plays the director
of the film that she ends up being
in is in the cast Oh, that's right.
So the night stalker is pro the streets
by night and is up to no good,
and that's... We are reminded by news reports
every 10 minutes on 7 minutes. Yeah. We're
never permitted to forget that he's out there,
but we know that he's just a red
herring
because there's is sort of a little bit
of a wannabe palm seeing in a peep
show.
Where we know that we're inhabit a killer
Po.
I don't know if there was heavy breathing
or if I was just imagining it, but
there's, you know, The guys, like, loudly
flexing
his leather glove hands. Yes. His his black
yellow leather. Yeah this So that's breathing of
a kind.
So it's it's how r gel killers.
That's exactly.
They talk with their hands and breathe with
them too.
So he is is is getting very v
watching this nude or or semi nude woman
g rating on the other side of this
peep hole. Well, it's not just any woman
it's maxine
because okay.
She is constantly on the grind. It would
seem. She... Well, that's why I thought that
she was trying out for multiple horror movies
because she's moon moonlight. No. I mean, she's
She's got a scene early on, I think,
immediately after the
audition where she drives up to this kind
of ding looking strip club called the landing
strip, and she's walking all the way through
the club into the kitchen and all this
stuff. And for first I thought, like, she'd
been doing porn for 7 or 8 years
is she also stripping,
and then it turns out they shoot porn
in the back of the building. So... Right.
She's going to the porn set, and she
wraps up there and then goes over the
peep show and clocks in over there.
So she's just on her grind, I guess.
Right. So I I forgot that Elizabeth D
was sitting in on that audition. I didn't
recognize. I thought with the deck time she
shows up was her first appearance. So I
was just asleep at the wheel there.
But it does seem like, you know, I
thought that the takeaway was just, hey, you
win some you lose some because she is
non nonstop hustling. Well, to be fair, I
think when she gets the phone call from
Gia carlos Esp, who plays her lawyer slash
agent.
He gives her bad news good news. And
she, like, doesn't get this music video that
she was supposed to be in. But then
she does get the part. I think okay.
Vicky movie, And I think... My brand latched
onto to the... That is exactly what happened.
My brand latched onto to the wrong
detail of that phone call. So I think
because of all this Richard Ramirez chatter that
we are meant to think that we're inhabit
that there... At least that there's a chance
that we're inhabit his Poe
when the eyes of the killer thing is
happening.
But then we see the yellow gloves
and
right away, we figure out. Okay. This is
not our guy. So from that point on,
all of the night stalker stuff is just
a smokes screen. You know? It's just there.
At best it's... It's it's it's like set
dressing. Well, it's it's set dressing and at
least early on, maybe it's confusing the cops.
Because this guy our gl guy, the actual
villain of this film who is not the
night stalker
does start dropping bodies
while he's kind of pursuing magazine.
And at first the cops
think, hey, maybe this... These are more night
stalker victims.
So right. But even that part of it
doesn't last very long. The detectives seemed to
cotton on pretty to the idea, hey,
this is somebody else. Right. And if some
of the rank and file cops. So, like,
hey, you think this could be another night
stalker?
No.
Yeah. I so it doesn't... No. I meant.
I agree. It doesn't even appear to muddy
the water that much or for very long.
So maxine is talking to a fellow sex
worker friend of hers, and the 2 of
them part ways, and the next time we
see this other lady. She's a dead corpse.
Yeah. She's... Hal does not get a lot
of screen time in the snow.
I was expecting her. She's got 2 scenes,
basically. She's got this scene with me a
got, then it cuts to a scene immediately
afterwards shot on video. That's found footage.
Of a guy walking into this room and
opening this closet, and there's 2 women in
there. 1 of them is Maxi Costa from
the porn near the beginning of the movie,
and then the other one's hal, and they're
both tied up in the closet with gag
on and and blind folds.
Would
And then she's kind of let around blind
folded, and it seems a little bit eyes
wide shut, like, there's some kind of, you
know, it's not it's not a alone killer.
There's some cult activity happening here. And then
her demise is alight by a burst of
kind of d
static that fills the screen, so we don't
actually see what happens to her, which I
thought was was weird. Weirdly tasteful.
For what this movie is going for, and
especially weird given what it is immediately preceded
by, which is the most graphic
slang in the entire movie, and it happens
at Maxine hands.
She is coming home after she and House
have parted ways on the street, and she
winds up in a dead end alley. There's
a gate that's locked, and she's cornered
by this guy. Buster Keaton in person or
a really shitty buster keaton. I I didn't
know who he was supposed to be. At
first, she has to call him buster
for me to do who he's meant to
be earlier. We got a montage
with some split screen action, which is the
sort of thing that he did a lot
of x Ty west,
where we see a chaplain imp
and wonder woman, I think. I think that's
what clue me into it because this buster
Keaton guy shows up during that montage.
And having seen Chaplain before that is like,
oh, okay. I guess this guy's buster Keaton.
So when he shows up again, I'm like,
Yeah. Okay. So that's buster Keaton. So for
me, when she calls him buster, that was
almost like a poke in the eye like
it Yeah
It it's buster Keaton, now you've characterized this
as a slang, not to rush through it,
but basically, he pulls a knife, she acts
panicked, and then lets him get close and
then pulls her gun,
makes him strip
makes him suck on the end of her
gun, and then when she gets him face
down ass up, naked on the ground,
she mentions that the last person who tried
to hurt her or killer she squashed her
head. This time she just fatally injure his
balls.
Fatal to the balls, but I don't think
to him necessarily.
Yeah.
Right. I mean, no The balls are not
To his potential off offspring. Yeah. And it's
it's very in your face very
antichrist.
It's very... You know, it's it's gucci. And
you get right between the man's thighs as
he's, you know, yeah. As his manhood is
obliterated.
And I'm more than 2 mines about it
because I'm 6 minds about.
We've got our best minds working on this
that... And we we still have not puzzled
out how we feel. So I remember complaining
when we reviewed x
that pearls demise was weak sauce. And now
there are a lot of reasons I felt
that way. Part of it was to do
with the movies
cold open where cops discover something in the
basement and they're like, mother of god. And
you... And you and you expect what they're
looking at which you're not shown to be
something that trans transpired during the events of
the movie, but it isn't. It's old the
news. It like some previous victim that pre
dates the events of the movie.
You know, the when maxine and her and
her crew get to the murder barn, that
woman is already cold, and that's what the
cop is looking at.
And so that felt like a terrible cheat
to me. And so I wanted
pearl to linger long enough to do something
to create some g tableau
that the cop could look at. And godmother
mother of God. Because I I just thought
that backing up over her head was horribly
un
and a missed opportunity.
So vaccine invoke
that death, which I found under Well right
before
administering this
horrible cuda
ra to this guy's junk, and it's way
more hardcore than anything in ad anything in
pearl, anything in the rest of this movie,
if you were like, plotting it on a
graph. It would just be this insane spike
out of nowhere.
And then we get back to baseline.
Yeah. And it's... Again, just circling back to
the hal thing, you expect
she's not known
as an actress, primarily. She's been in a
couple of things. But being this relatively major
celebrity
you figure either, she's going to have a
supporting role of some size
in terms of screen time and plot relevance,
or she's going to have something
spectacular happen to her.
Since you get 1 scene, and then the
next scene
She is clearly about to be murdered. You
expect big things out of that murder set
piece. You don't see it happen at all,
and then
when she's found, she's just a regular floater
that's got a pen branded honor.
Yeah. And it... It's all just kind of
under overwhelming. In that. Well, I I have
to assume that the eli illusion there that
what I called the Dam amir burst of
static that that that spares us her fate
isn't tact. I mean, maybe it is. I
don't know. But I I my my thought
was that he's just trying to conceal who
done it, which makes me worry that he,
the director the writer director thinks that the
mystery
element here is much more compelling than it
actually is.
I don't think we would lose anything
if we saw that she was done in
by a cult. We all... I we've already
seen enough to kind of put that together.
Don't know what more we could have seen
that would have given the game away, other
than, I guess, the identity of the head
hon, which I guess understandable you would wanna
save for the third act. But cult wear
masks and hoods, you know, it's that's easy.
That's the easiest thing in the world. The
guy from the peep show,
recur multiple times usually in the car with
Kevin Bacon and I'm assuming that's her dad.
All along. He basically admits as much. So
you could have him kill Hal while wearing
the same get up. We don't have to
see his face
we'll just know, like, okay. This is the
guy who's been following maxine, which we would
assume anyway, and we could see a real
opera automatic murder set piece if Ty West
wanted it, and frankly, he should have wanted
it. I... I'm inclined to agree. I wonder
if there's a would be feminist
subversion happening here we're... Yeah. I'm gonna show
you maxine ob
this guy's crotch, but I'm not gonna show
you Hal z getting gutted like a pig
or whatever, You know, And and. I mean,
there is that, and there's the fact that
this is jumping ahead a little bit, but
maxine has a buddy
who operates
a video store who
ends up getting murdered by the guy who
we find out is her dad. And he
gets a fairly
g
death sequence Know, you gets, Yeah. It's cut
on the back of the neck and we
see some gucci stuff going on, and he
you get slashed down across his face splits
1 of his eyes open. Mh. He tries
to use. He's got a plaster cast on
1 arm that he tries to use to
defend himself that kinda made me sit up
and pay attention. Because it did a pretty
good job of conveying a sense of his
resourceful and desperation in those final moments. You
know. I'm gonna use an already wounded arm
to train an el ditch effort to get
away from this Man act. But then again,
near the end of the movie, a woman
does turn up in pieces inside of a
suit suitcase. So
I mean, the fact that that wasn't shown
on screen, I guess still potentially preserves what
could be as you're describing a a sort
of feminist or pseudo feminist
inversion
where we see the men get graphically butcher
on screen and whenever women die, it's kind
of off to the side.
Then again, I don't know. I mean, classic
slash
men and women both die. And, yeah, it's
probably a little bit disproportionately.
Women
and certain disproportionately top list when... And that's
what I was about to say. Certainly on
nudity scale, women were disproportionately.
Featured as opposed to men. But at the
end of the day,
setting the nudity part aside, the level of
gore in male and female deaths
in slash films of the eighties
pretty similar. I would say. Yeah. I mean,
Case point, Kevin Bacon has maybe the ne
death in the original friday of the thirteenth.
However, he does not hang hog. In that
movie. For that, you have to go to
wild things.
And stream of the devil, and he shall
appear because who do we meet next? But
a s private eye played by Kevin Bacon
with a voice that made me think that
somebody told him that this was a sequel
to Jfk k. You know? He's got that
that that southern draw that he turns on
occasionally. I just watched my dog skip for
movie by May. Same voice in that 1.
Now that's the voice.
I would say 80 to 90 percent of
the time, but then the remaining
10 or 20 percent. He he like... He
just very occasionally turns into Wolf man jack,
you know, or it's alrighty. There
just gets, like, way ras beer and he
curtains turns into almost like, more of a
black scent, almost more of a jazz.
Kind of a thing. You got the curves
baby. I got the angles.
And it it's it his first scene is
like that. And the first line of dialogue
that he has is delivered in that cadence,
and I thought, oh, wow. We are in
for a wild ride. And then the next
time he showed up, it was just was
back to Jfk, and I thought, Oh, it
was back never mind. You know, Jan cra
dad done at up our flag. Yeah. Price.
You don't know how the world works, mister
Garrison because you never been fucked in the
ass.
I was like, okay. I know this Kevin
bacon. I maybe do it, like 1 of
those cartoon, you know, like stick my pinky
in my ear and go like,
You're like at I hearing things.
But then, you know, every every
fourth or fifth appearance, it would be Wolf
man jack again, Look he was getting possessed.
Yeah.
So when... I believe it's when we're first
introduced to him. He's pro around in his
automobile spying on Max san talking to a
guy in his back backseat or the passenger
seat, and we see a familiar pair of
j gloves, and I'm thinking like, okay. Now
this guy's hiring private investor,
You know, III got, like, un
lone wolf vibes from the peep show scene.
Slash villains do not hire Pi. That's just
not part of the game plan.
So, like, who is this guy? Already, he
feels like he's just in a costume,
You know Right? He's he's invoking all of
these gl slash, but is is actually... Would
we more at home in, like, the parallel
you or something. It just it just does...
There's something that's not c coherent there.
I guess you can have it both ways.
John Lip out in blow out is like
the perfect
fusion of those 2 types where he's You
know. Very true. He's like an assassin for
hire that does political wet work but then
he's also a raving luna tech who can
just go off of the grid and commit
of or a bunch of random killings
for
no discernible reason.
Yeah. Well, and it does make a certain
amount of sense. Again, I... We we keep
repeatedly spoiling in case you didn't hear us
the first time that this ad what's done
it? Yeah. It's her dad, what done it
and what's doing it. But in a sense,
he is kind of wearing the costume of
a yellow killer
when he's a psycho murderer, but of a
different stripe.
Yeah. He's a bible beaten nut bag.
So he is in a sense wearing a
custom just not in in the way it
kind of reads.
And I think that bible t hiring a
hit hitman or not a hit hitman.
Firing a private eye is a little more
plausible
than a gl
and higher. Well... But he's clearly not afraid
to get his own hands dirty. So hire
is have a fake Can points out later
as the film. That that scene was that
scene was a head spending. So it's like,
hiring Api, even a really s 1 who
seems capable of murder as Kevin Bacon does.
Seems like a ludicrous half measure when you
are meanwhile, just going around ending lives, you
know, and doing your own smooth thing. If
you really needed the guy
to get you on
Maxine vaccines trail initially.
I guess that's fine. But you easily could
have dispensed with his services.
Yeah Possibly murdered him.
And possibly,
carotid him from the back backseat. That's seems...
That would have been fucking wild if that
first scene where they're sitting in the car
together, and he's Kevin Bacon.
You know if we
if if if the bill fair is changing,
the price is gonna go up.
But if if he just immediately got carotid
after we would have expected so many more
scenes of Kevin Bacon, that would have been
wild. That would like a, like, janet in
Psycho writ small. Yeah. And that's a reference
I make
as you'll find out. Yes.
A boy will you. But no. I mean,
I had... If if Kevin Bacon had died
in his first appearance, we would have been
deprived the scene where Maxine dad, whose identity
has yet to be revealed to us who
has just murdered her friend, the guy who
works at the video store hands or gloves
rather dripping with gore comes back to the
car and Kevin Bacon like, I see you're
not afraid to catch your hands to a
counselor.
And it's like,
what... Yeah. How do... Why are you...
Why he's so non plus? It's why is
why is he preview this? Are you a
chauffeur? Why are you out here?
Well, there's that logistical issue? And then there's
there's just like the trope.
The way this is supposed to play out
is Kevin Bacon supposed to go... Hey. I
didn't sign up for this. You know,
I want out. And then he'd gets capped.
And, but instead, he's just, like, I'm cool.
Well, as etsy points out when he's
stalking maxine later on through the bathroom of
some kind of industrial club.
I know how the criminal
we keep doing the Wolf man Jack voice
in spite of the fact that you pointed
out that that's only about 15 percent of
the time, But that's that voice is more
fun. So I guess we're gonna keep doing
it. Yes. I... I know how the criminal
thinks because I'm 1 myself.
Yes. The moon is full.
A woo.
Yes, indeed. It's very bizarre. That Kevin Bacon
shows up for that scene in the immediate
aftermath of the friend getting mer. And then
that that made my head spin, and then
it's spun again near the end of the
movie in exactly the same fashion.
There's a scene where you think that Maxine
is about to kill Kevin Bacon and you're
not wrong. But then her lawyer is also
there, and he's, like, as chill with the
murder as Kevin Bacon was
the murder of the video store guy. This
is a very man. Agents don't fuck around.
The very strange world we're getting here. With
all kinds of un savory characters who's who,
you know, you think that they're operating at
1 level of der duration and then in
an instant,
they'll reveal themselves to be
agent 47,
basically. Right. Right. And and and that that
ought be a good thing. That ought be
fun, but it did just kind of leave
my head spinning, and it kind of never
stopped. It's sort still going.
So
the next scene,
that we don't get that for some time
yet. The next seen of any consequence,
which I wanted to like. I like the
setup up very, very much is maxine on
set going to the makeup department to get
a plaster cast bed of her head because
of the movie that she
got the part in
lead role. In P2I
don't think we said that yet made up
horror movie. Sequel to a equally made up
horror a movie. The movie ends with a
shot of her d capita it head, so
they gotta take a plaster cast, so she's
under a pile of Goo and she's in
instructed not to move. And, you know, just
keep breathing, you'll be fine. I'll be back
in 10 minutes. So she's left alone in
this room. Can't move. Can't see. I thought
The Diploma thing to do here would be
to have her be silently menace Yeah. By
someone that she can't see after being told
not to get out of that chair, and
this is her first big break, so she
would be very reluctant. I would think to
fuck up the plaster cast and possibly
bundle the whole opportunity.
So she is in the hot seat, and
she's just sweating as she hears creaking floor
boards and maybe sinister
slash
breathing.
None of that happens. She's is totally alone.
The only thing that happens is that she
starts getting trauma flashbacks
to the original x.
And it's funny in a way because it's,
you know, shots of her with the plaster
drying on her head or inter cut. With
shots of old pearl
from x, and I was struck by the
fact that I was just looking at 2
mia Got swift with a bunch of goo
on their head. You know.
I'm I'm sure there a very intentional meta
that have to be doing So eventually, she
starts hyper vent and winds up falling over,
and the makeup artist
shows up in time to watch her scrape
the goo off her mouth. Oh my god,
are you okay? She's no worse for the
wear. Missed opportunity there, I think? Yeah.
We are introduced around this time. I think
it's when Hell corpse is dr up. We're
introduced to a pair of cops.
I didn't recognize... Introduced to detectives Can
and Mona.
Okay. I didn't recognize her. It was that
Michelle Mona. Holy shit. Yeah. Both of them
are slum it and then... Bobby can. Okay.
She's always got sunglasses on. He is very
recognizable Bobby campbell.
It's hard not to.
And he... There's a throw away line. I
thought I was gonna like his character a
lot more than I wound up liking it
because there's a throw away line early on.
Where she allude to the fact that he's
a fail actor, who then Yeah. You know,
became an actual cop.
And so he's he's always hammond it up
a little bit. And if that had just
been done with a lighter touch, that would
have been really funny. I think Yeah. Bobby
Can
or can or however it's pronounced is perfectly
cast in that kind of joke role where
you just... All you have to do is
the usual movie cop tough guy performance, but
just because we've been told he's a failed
actor.
All of that is going through that lens
and is just trans into comedy.
You know, But instead, like everything else in
the movie, it's laid on much too thick
and we're reminded that he's a failed actor.
And Michelle Mona keeps telling him to take
it down a notch. You know, it's particularly
the first time
that little tidbit gets dropped. It's when they
go to try and question maxine for the
first time
and after she says, man, I don't talk
to police and then just goes into her
apartment. Michelle Mona has to chew through some
pretty
clumsy dialogue
about how he was laying it on way
too thick, and you went over the top
and blah blah blah. No wonder, you didn't
make it as an actor. And this this
is clumsy.
Yeah. No. I mean, it's I mean the
movie itself.
Is over seasoning the dish, which is is
it is want to do.
And I think like I said, a lighter
touch would have made that whole thing saying.
Maxine is lured to a meeting with Kevin
Bacon. He's been leaving her messages. He left
her a V dhs tape containing footage
of the porn that they shot in the
murder barn in x, so he got his
hands on that somehow. Yeah. And it's got
a title card
like, Texas state police on it. So it
right indicated to be, like, pulled from police
evidence. So we come to learn that she's
never been imp duplicated in that she got
away Scot free, but I hate to even...
III hesitate to even use that physiology
because what would she be held accountable for?
Like, it seems like he's trying to blackmail
her? And she's very skit about the whole
thing. Granted
she backed up over Pearls head when she
didn't strictly speaking half to.
But beyond that, she was you fighting for
her life. Well, and again, just because we've
completely
put the plot points of this movie into
a blender, and we just keep revealing things
early. I'm just gonna do it again. Near
the end of the film, basically at the
end of the film. She has cornered her
father after this big climax.
And she's up by the Hollywood sign holding
a shotgun
over his head, and there's a police helicopter,
shining its light down on her, telling her,
it's all over, put down the gun.
And she still blows his brains out, and
then it flashes forward to a month later,
and she's, like, wrapping the shoot on P
too.
So
she got away with needlessly
murdering this guy in front of the police
and yet earlier on in the movie, she's
afraid
of potentially getting imp in a much more
obvious case of self defense. Yes. The the
murder of these 2 half dead psycho and,
you know,
you know, I think that you're gonna... Even
with mediocre legal
representation, you would just get slap on the
wrist, I think, especially when we're talking about
movie logic.
Yeah. So it's it's hard to say
why she's so cow by this guy, and
that's actually a problem that I have with
virtually every scene in this movie. She's revealed
to be a stone cold operator when she
brutally
d cox that guy.
Yeah. But then every other
interaction she has. She's meeting all of these
very forceful
personalities. Every time she's on screen with Kevin
Bacon. He does all the talking.
Every time she has to deal with those
2 cops, They do all the talking, the
director who's making her movie is the most
lo of them all. I don't I dare
think Maxine barely says a word to her.
So Maxine is a complete non entity, and
all of these interactions.
Despite as we have seen
being a force of nature when the situation
calls for it, but so often,
she's just
meek as a field mouse
And but while insisting the whole time that
she's a star. She's a star, You know?
And we're not being shown the g.
She's just this, like, kind of wave like
little leaf getting blown about by the wind.
But Yeah...
Until she isn't. I... That's the my number
1 problem,
with the movie. It doesn't in any way,
sell a feeling of herb, having that star
potential, having that pest, you know? And it's
shouldn't we just get less a performance out
of Mia Got, and this whole thing is
the Mia Got all singing all dancing extra,
You know, that's what Pearl was. God knows.
I mean, the stands wanted her to be
off nominated for that.
Yeah. She gets for as big for her
12 minute monologue or whatever right long it
was.
Right. 12 minute 1 shot, 1 or monologue.
And then we get we get this movie
where she like a just to complete nothing
for the most part. That was the 1
thing. I mean there's a lot of decisions
in this movie that I can't totally understand,
but that's the 1 thing that I'm really
struggling to wrap my head around, and I'll
probably have more to say about it after
the break because it is the movies number
1 critical week point for me.
Case in point, she does have a scene
just after the Kevin Bacon scene where she
is acc by the cops. And like I
said, they do all the talking,
and this is where we find out that
Bobby's a failed actor. And I bring it
up only because Kevin Bacon, Guilt trips her
a little about being the lone survivor of
the massacre in x. But if you survive,
if I'd had survived and all my friends
it perished. I, you know, blah boy howdy.
I would just be.
I would just fall to pieces you know,
Mag, the guilt would be
overwhelming. You know, And then he he reviewed.
He mentions he mentions that he's an atheist,
rather randomly, and that kind of comes up
again later.
I'm sorry. The southern exit you're doing now.
If you ever seen...
As soon as I said, boy Howdy, I
knew I'd lost the plot
Have you ever seen...
So
Will Ferrell has a recurring role
in east bound down? No. I have not.
Okay. He plays this car dealer with this
ridiculous
Yee, southern accents, and there's this scene of
a confrontation. And before I watched the scene
itself
I watched out takes of it. Multiple times.
He's standing in between Danny Mcbride and Craig
Robinson, who's, you know, like an an ex
rival of his, when they're having this showdown,
and Will farrell stan to get between them.
It's saying all this outlandish shit. The line
that sticks most of my mind is like,
I can feel it
in my plum.
And
I I just... I started thinking of him.
When you got down into the boy out
is. Yeah. Yeah. That that I have a
feeling that's rather on point.
So I only I only bring up the
scene with the cops, which like I said,
comes immediately after the Kevin Bacon because he
lays the lone survivor guilt trip on her.
And then the failed actor cop starts in
with a couple of your friends just turned
up dead. You know? We just pulled hal
corpse out of a lake. Don't you care?
Don't you... You know, so, like, 2 consecutive
scenes are about her failing her friends or
out living her friends. And I thought, like,
well, that's cons ridiculous.
Is that what these movies have been about
this whole time? Early not. That kinda came
out of nowhere. And sure enough, it never
comes up again. So
those scenes should not have been consecutive. They
should have either been spaced out or ideally.
We really didn't need both.
Yeah.
So we do meet the filmmaker, whose name
escapes me, but she has played by Elizabeth
D in a performance. The... I, I don't
really know what else she's done. So maybe
this is type casting that's lost on me.
But the way the character is written and
played.
It's like the sort of thing that, like
Emma Thompson or Ti Sw would have once
done. Yeah. Very kind of ice queen, a
sur
career.
On the 1 hand, she seems to be
a mouthpiece for Ty west, but with you
know time. Yeah. But some of the time,
but with this kind of girl boss v
that makes the whole thing feel like, a
little bit of a trojan horse in a
way that I'm kind of having a hard
time putting into words, but she boy, does
she go on. And like I said, mia
Got barely makes tit, the whole time there
together, and she drives her to the set
of psycho, you know, the bates Motel house,
which is still standing.
And they're too. I mean, it's the whole
thing. Yeah. Right. And,
you know, with there... There's a crane shot
we we crane up to the sign Bates
motel, and then Elizabeth Top vicky says Do
you know where you are?
This is where they shot cycle.
You don't say.
You know, I mean, she didn't just blow
in from Hicks. She knows what Psycho is.
That I don't know. That it it was
no. She just you know, 8 years of
doing porn. She's never watched a movie. Well,
it's it's
it could've have been a funny moment because
it seems like she's getting set up for
a Gotcha, At least this is where my
mind went with my
possibly faulty
grasp of movie trivial, although I think I'm
right about this. She could have said, do
you know where you are and mia Go
is like, yeah. This is where they shot
psycho and Elizabeth D could have said, no.
This is where they shot Psycho 2. Because
I think that they did they did really
tear down the set and then they had
to rebuild it. And I think I don't
know if it's still standing. But for years
and years, it was part of the, like,
universal studios tour,
but it wasn't the original set. It was
the set from Psycho 2 or 3. Probably,
it's the same structure because those movies are
both from the eighties.
Yeah.
And I I think that's the 1 that
stood the test of time. Although I... Yeah.
It's probably been bull since. I don't know.
But... I, it unless Ty West either
rebuilt it a second time or caught it
just before it was demolished. It's probably still
there.
Well, he he might have built it from
scratch because just after this, mia Got wander
onto a western set
that, I mean, I don't know. Maybe he
found that too, but in any case, there's
a really dumb shot of Kevin Bacon.
Has she already beaten his ass at this
point? I think that she at some point,
he's tailing her he's parked and he's sitting
in his car, and she just goes over
to the driver side window
and just beats the holy hell out of
his head and the bridge of his nose
Yeah. So he shows up with the Jake
Gi ga and bandage on his nose. And
standing got the he's got the cream colored
suit too.
Yeah. That's that's that's true. But
unlike Jake Gi, he's also giving Tombstone a
little bit because he's standing in the middle
of this Dusty street flank on either side
by old time looking banks in general stores.
And for once in the movie, Tie west
exercises
restraint and doesn't have a tumble weed blow
between them as they're staring each other down.
And it's not a shootout. Maxine takes off
running.
And winds up taking refuge in the bates
house, And he is unable to pursue her
because he's intercepted.
By security guard Larry Fest. That... Okay. That
is Larry. I thought so. I knew I
recognized him. He shows up twice. This is
the second time. The first time is
maxine pulling onto the lot to have a
meeting with Elizabeth Vicky. And he asked who
she's there to see. It's like, I'm here
to see so and so I'm maxine min,
and he sort of lee at her and
G it says, yes. You are. I was
like, I see I see you're a fan.
A family. Yes.
And honestly, and Larry Fa can bring that
energy like few others. You know? It's less.
It's like him and Mark Boone Jr.
Like, brothers from another mother, you know, both
of them. Can just turn on the Las
and the kind of just Douche sc thing
that they do, you know, Boy they like
awful.
So...
But like, all of the bates house stuff
is pretty annoying. There's even a shot. Correct
me if I'm wrong where Maxine looks in
the window in sees
pearl looking out at her or, like likely,
like, a silhouette crazy lady. You know, I
I get a good look. I didn't know
if it was supposed to be mama bates
norman, obviously. Yeah Or if it was supposed
to be pearl,
or if it was supposed to be vague
enough that it could be either or above.
I don't really. In any case, you put
yourself in conversation with Hitchcock
that explicitly,
you run the risk of it feeling like
self insert fan fiction. You run the risk
of it, just seeming way too big for
its bridges, which is how I felt about
the singing and the rain stuff in Babylon,
You know. It's like, you you you you
come at the king. You best not miss.
As they say,
when she beats the shit out of Kevin
Bacon, it is to the song, man in
motion from Saint Elmo fire,
And it is just after
she's been given a pep talk by Elizabeth
D
about how her character in P too. I
can't remember who she says. I think she's,
like, you're gonna be, like, Clint East wood
combined with Charles Bronson or something like that.
So it almost seems like this death wish
vigilant moment that she has where she cracks
Kevin Bacon head, but good.
Is a product of that pep talk. Like,
yeah. Okay. She's she's tapping into the action
hero. She's trying to be the star that
Elizabeth D wants her to be but that
can't be the intention because we've already seen
her do much earlier vigilant justice earlier in
the movie.
So it it feels like a dee escalation,
which is not how these movies are supposed
to proceed. Not
they're just in the wrong order. It seems
to me. We know for fact that she's
exercising incredible self restraint
when she lays down that beat down.
Yeah. So he chases her all over the
studio. I kind of wanted that whole sequence,
You know because it starts in a western
town.
And I kind of wanted it to... I...
I and then, you know, it winds up
at the bates motel. And in the meantime,
in the interim, I wanted them to just
crap through different genres like the end of
blazing saddle. You know, just go all the
way with it, have them gate crash a
musical and and God knows what else, but
it's not actually slaps stick as wacky as
it is, so it doesn't commit to the
bit.
And on her way out after having alluded
Kevin Bacon, she stopped by Elizabeth Dip, and
they have another conversation,
and, Elizabeth Just... It's kind of tells her
the same shit we've heard already, which is
that you need to really get invested in
this film. For some reason, this director character
really thinks that P too is the opportunity
of a lifetime. Not just for me a
Got, but for but for her as well
as an artist.
This is gonna be her message movie. A
b movie with a ideas. I think she
calls it, which is a line that I've
seen people roasting
on the Internet
because that's another moment when seems like Ty
west is kind of giving us a statement
of intent. Right. Very on the nose. And
but so that we we get that little
side between the 2 women, which immediately follows
the pursuit across the studio lot, and we
see Kevin Bacon being hold off by security.
And the next thing we know, literally, maybe
a minute later. Mia Ga is starting a
line of coke and getting dal up and
going out to a club. And who should
we see under the strobe lights, but Kevin
Bacon, and I'm like,
she just got away from this guy. I
mean, this would be the same chase sequence
were it not for that brief conversation with
Elizabeth
which didn't tell us anything new? It's like
why why is there even an interruption there?
It's it's it's it really, really puzzling, and
this is when he does the hole, You
know? A, too am a criminal, you know,
thing that he does as as he's kicking
open stall doors in the ladies restroom,
and he winds up
chasing maxine
outside and then gets blinded
by a pair of headlights. And I thought
that she was just gonna floor it and
just run them down Christine style. But then
her lawyer is revealed to be there. Her
lawyer slash agent slash
Mafia
enforce, I guess.
Well, we we had 1 or 2 scenes
of him earlier in the movie, and he
did not seem to have that much street
cr to me. I mean, he allude to
shady dealings,
But every Hollywood power player or aspiring player
thinks. It's easy to claim. I've seen some
shit. Exactly.
But then it turns out that he knows
a guy whose Rot
will eat your remains. After after you've been
crushed in a car crusher.
In it's insane. I I say sw. Yeah.
So they do put Kevin Bacon who's tied
to the steering wheel of his car. They
put him in the car crusher.
And in the way of car crusher, it
doesn't move that fast. But I figured there
might be at least 1 stop and go
because that's how these fucking scenes always work.
Why something They would at least wanna know
who he's is working for. But they they
don't try to get any information out of.
No. They just what's press the button
and it just goes.
And he starts saying a Hail Mary so
much for being an Atheist. Well, that's there
in Fox holes
a bizarre check mate atheists moment where he
just
speed runs pascal
Wage in a fa lake foreign voice.
You know, I'm all father on heaven halloween
not name all god.
It's just like... I mean, it's played for
laughs, but it's also... It's it it's runs
counter...
Or the movie basically has a very anti
evangelical sla. So this would seem to run
counter to that, but
don't know. It was hard for me to
parse, but then, yeah, his bacon jam runs
out of what's left of the car and
some dogs come over and start lapping it
up. Yep.
So subsequently,
and we're ramping up to the climax now.
Although it doesn't really feel like it. I
mean, the ending comes a little bit out
of nowhere.
I wasn't as
thrown for a loop by it as some
other people, but it is
something of a curve
Mia Go is given another letter, like the
kind that Kevin Bacon has been leaving for
the whole movie at least, we thought it
was Kevin Bacon, but obviously, he's out of
the. I think it's another letter. I think
she's been hanging onto to it for half
the movie. Oh, think be the first 1.
The address was is Starlight Avenue or no
Starlight Drive. Yeah. 1 66
Starlight Drive,
and
either in real life or in the universe
of this film that is a street up
in the hills immediately under the Hollywood sign.
Mh. Which feels like another attempted hitchcock. It's
a little bit north by Northwest the way
that the climax spills up into the Hollywood
Hills under the sign in and around the
sign. Well, it's also a little Hollywood land
which I've not seen. Yeah. Well, it's just
murders taking place in the vicinity of the
Hollywood sign. U.
Anyway, Yeah. So she she drives up there
to finish things, basically.
And
as she's driving up the street, she passes
by detectives, Mona and Can who are staking
out the address, basically.
And
that in and of itself kind of bleeds
out some of the tension of this climax.
Not that particularly in a a post get
out world. We're like, yeah. The cops, everything's
going to be okay, but you figure... Okay.
The cops are on hand, they'll probably turn
up before anything bad or really bad happens
to.
So we kind of lose the tension there.
Not that there was a ton because just
you figure she's gonna make it anyway, but
that what little tension there might have been
that gets bled out by the fact that
the cops, we know they're sitting right there.
Yeah. It's it's a really weird decision, frankly.
And then when the cops do show up,
it gets a little bit
sub
Tara
with the shootout that en pursues?
Well, yeah. It it just... It turns into
a complete blood bath. Okay. So Mia
gets grabbed
by her dad. Yeah. Her dad is po
authenticating at her, making the failed actor character
in the movie look very t to reality
by comparison with the performance he's giving. He's
just really, like,
playing for the nose leads he makes a
meal out of the word devi. It's devi.
Well, and and shortly thereafter,
he explains
to her that he's here to make a
movie,
exposing
Hollywood. It's very
ana
qa on almost.
Yeah.
About how Hollywood's is a satan cult and
whatnot. Yeah. More like Holly weird.
Right. So he's he's here to make this
movie,
and we see shots from this movie of
the protesters that we've seen
outside the studio repeatedly earlier on in the
film, you're gonna be the climax of my
movie. And then,
He puts the bag on her head, plastic
bag,
not to suffocate to death, but to suffocate
too unconscious.
And the whole time she's just been backing
away from this frail old man. She's turned
to into steal old mouse again. Right. And
knocks over a suitcase. This... I mentioned this
earlier a suitcase full of Lily Collins
body parts.
Lily Collins has a small role
as the star of P in 1
who
shoots some flashbacks for P 2.
Yeah. And I I actually liked her 1
scene a fair deal. She does... There's a
moment where she
mimics the movie poster of P 1. She
does this extended
wide mouth silent scream that I actually found
slightly unnerving.
Because it's not totally static. Her face is
like taught and twitch.
And, you know, it's like, oh, this something's
not quite right with this woman.
You know, it was like... And it was
scary because it's silent. She doesn't make any
noise, but then weirdly when they flash back
to it later on,
there's some kind of flashback montage. There's a
there's a montage of mia Got having a
Eureka moment where she realizes that all of
her friends, actresses, sex workers have been lured
to this same house on Starlight drive.
Yeah. And when it cuts to that shot
of Lily Collins,
there is a scream sound under overlaid there.
And I don't know why. Yeah. Defeating the
whole purpose. The thing that made it Erie.
III was going to issue that caveat. The
asterisk there is that I don't like the
tape shouldn't at all. I only like the
original silent scream. So, yeah, that's what became
of Lily Collins. She wound up in a
suitcase in pieces.
Yeah.
So
Mia
is made unconscious and then tied up outside
by the pool where all the cult our
array in a big circle.
Her dad starts going into his speech, and
this is what I was building to
3 minutes ago when you talked about how
he makes a meal a out of the
word D ant
because
he's giving his speech for his
movie,
and he says,
ex.
And
turns into 30 syllables.
And and... But, like, 2 words later, he
also says,
mir
ke.
God, Heaven. It's a it's a this man
doing. It's a dreadful performance. And I I
don't know if... You know, I mean, it's
it's it's it's the right performance
for a bit player in x who only
appears on a Tv screen who's like, a
whacked out preacher. Tele evangelist,
not the kind of performance that you wanna
hang
the drama of your climax on and not
the climax of this movie even. More than
that, it's the climax of
this whole s shebang.
Yeah. And and he's just still doing the
same shit. It'd be 1 thing if, like,
that's who he was when the cameras were
rolling, and then behind the scenes. He's... You
know, he doesn't have to be cool as
a cucumber.
But he could, you know, maybe modulate it
a little bit. But, no. He's just... He's
always on. He's always turned up to 11.
And it's just a little bit suffer. I
thought, it is. I will say he modulate
slightly, but it's not like he turns it
down from 11 to 5 or 6.
It's like, he turns it down from 11
to when the cameras aren't rolling
like,
11 and earth Not 11:10 and 3 quarters.
It's I I think your instinct was right.
Yeah. No. Turns it down to 11 from
11.
No. I mean, there's there's the the the
almost an imp.
Yeah. Drop in his.
Yeah. I don't I don't know if Ty
west liked his performance or if he just
wanted to, you know, I mean, I obviously,
if you decide that your trilogy is gonna
go in this direction, it makes sense to
reward the guy with a bigger j role.
By I not recast him. So maybe it
was loyalty.
I don't know what the decision making process
was there, but it's it's... The end result
is Woe. I feel Think.
And then there's a shoot when the cops
bust in. And the writing just takes a
nose dive already in the movie. It's it's
and fit fully clever. You know, there have
been a handful of lines that kind of
made Big go, like, u, u. But it
just gets, like really
stupid in a way that's, like, just direct
to video stupid where... Unless I mis him...
When the cops show up, they've got their
guns trained on the cult tests, they're in
the the backyard of this mansion. There's a
pool. I mean, got this tied up. She's
about to be branded. The movie doesn't even
have the Colon to carry through on that.
Her face is marred when all of this
is done. Not that I wanna see her
get tortured, but, you know, I mean, I
don't know. I think just... There ought to
be a sense of a possibility of that
happening.
You should be fearing the scent of stuart
flesh reaching your nostrils, and I just I
just wasn't. Yeah. We knew that the cops
were waiting in the wings and sure enough,
they show up. And when they do, unless
I her of the guy, I'm pretty sure
that Maxine dad says, do not respect them.
They're part of the system, and it's like,
I don't I don't think respect is what's
staying their hand. I don't you know it's
fear of bullets. Boy It's fear of hot
lead. My friend?
Was, like, what do you mean do not
respect them? And then, you know, Maxine is
is is cut loose and Michelle Mona says
to her. You know, just stay here backups
on the way. And then she runs off,
and then maxine grabs a gun off the
ground and mu to herself. So am I.
It's like, what do you meet Yours? You're
already here?
What are you talking about? Just especially that
line makes no sense? And retroactively, it makes
a little sense because they're pursuing
yeah. They have to go up the hill
for the hill under the sign. But we
don't really know that right then and there.
So like what do you mean? You're on
your way. You are at the scene of
the crew you are at the place.
It's
so am high.
Just
It was like a like a like an
old with you.
Yeah.
It was just... It just sounded awkward. It's,
like, when you tell the guy who, like,
sold do your movie ticket. You know, he
says enjoy your movie and you say you
youtube. Too. Know. It's just, like, what, no.
That didn't come out right.
I'm sorry. I'm dumb.
So Bobby bobby gets per. I don't remember
if he survives or not. He does not.
Because once again, Michelle Mona is trying to
get vaccine to stay back. So she has
her takeover over the application of pressure.
And he has a line 2 about 30
years in La. This is the first time
I've ever been up here. You know, I
wanted to be an actor.
And then he's babe dies quote being trying
to be, like Kelly Savannah for something, who
loves your baby.
So
As we mentioned, you know, a million years
ago. This all ends with Maxine dad at
his daughter's Murphy. Let's let's Murphy?
Mercy.
Mother of berry, and.
Let's not forget.
So Bobby Can dies, which allows maxine to
guilt free get up and stop applying pressure.
She runs off after her dad and Michelle
Mona. Michelle Mona is shouting in the distance,
You know, I got him, and then lu
interview with, like, a
gh in her eye, and then she stumbles
down the hill, I guess to her death.
So just everybody has to be dead, but
maxine apparently.
Right. What, and it it is kind of
just like... It's not survival of the fit.
Because she has not
distinguished herself in any way,
during all of this f fructose. And you
would think that she would, given what was
established about her character
in the Alley Way season where she makes
mince meet of Buster Keaton manhood.
You know? It's... It it it it she
just never lives up to that promise. It's
the most baffling thing that the movie does.
And she can barely even string a sentence
together, let alone send people to their final
reward. She has to work up the nerve
to do so. To her own father and
granted there's a police copper, copper chopper
flying above her, telling her to stand down,
drop the weapon, etcetera.
And she decides to give him the scanner
special anyway and blow his head clean off
his shoulders. But not before
she has, like, this vision quest.
Yeah. So how her in, like, the rest
of her life's gonna turn out. She imagine
going on the news with Gia carla esp
fa doing an interview about how... Gia Carlos
Pos plays her agent lawyer if that was
established. He's not just, like, plugging
breaking bad or No. No. III mentioned it
I believe. Did you? Okay. Well, my mistake.
Just talking about how she survived this other
coincidental
serial killer, coincidental with the night stalker, and
how was her father, and then we see
her at the premiere of the P too,
talking to a reporter about... Do you have
any words of wisdom for young girls trying
to make it in Hollywood? It's all like
work hard, do whatever you have to do?
It's really like okay. What what mantra are
we gonna get from that opening home movie,
whatever it takes. And then it finally, this
is like a 2 or 3 or 3
and a half minute segment. It cuts back
to the Hollywood sign.
And I think she literally says, say it
with me, Daddy. She does. And then they
both say the thing the thing that would
barely fit on a shirt.
I refuse to accept the life, I do
not deserve. The only shirt with that much
verbiage
that actually works.
It's
a shirt that Dave Parker, who is a
baseball player for the Pittsburgh pirate
in the late seventies and into the eighties.
He wore this shirt that said, if you
hear any noise, it's just me and the
boys bop.
Which is
the coolest fucking shirt. And because it's so
goddamn cool, it gets away with being just
a wall of text on the front of
a shirt. But, yeah. If it...
That's the only shirt that could work that
way. Yes. If it were more 6 synced
of the charm would be lost, it would
just of evaporate.
No. I mean, I... Yeah. I mean, we
get... We'll we get both of those mantra
back to back, and then she blows his
head asu
and then we get an actual real deal
version of what she was just imagining, and
that feels redundant too. Because the first 1,
you can think, okay. Maybe this is probably
going for, like, a
a Travis bi rupert pumpkin kind of thing,
like, is it a fantasy or isn't it
that would work better if this were a
taxi driver scenario where she was bleeding out,
And so we could entertain the idea that
maybe it's a deathbed Fu. Or even if
it's not a death fu, it's just... This
is her imagining how she thinks her life
is about to go or how it ought
to go. And then her blood lust and
desire for vengeance in the face of police
orders to put the gun down, she ruins
it for herself
at the half yard line to just sort
of football analogy pointless, I guess.
So so you would you would expect the
cut to 1 year later to be a
rude awakening
that is inconsistent
with the fantasy
that she was interested prison or maybe at
best just back doing porn. Back doing porn
because it was a huge scandal or something.
Yeah. And no. Instead, it's 1 month later,
She cut the line of coke with her
freshly laminate
sag card,
and
she's she's
I'm guessing, wrapping the shoot. They don't say
that explicitly, but there's... You know, she gets,
like a round of applause, and they're all
standing in a circle. They do a moment
of silence
for you, Lily Collins. Yep. And then the
film
concludes
with them shooting this shot of her severed
head sitting out a bed, and then the
credits roll. And then
this
the shot backs all the way out of
the studio stage, you know, out of the
warehouse,
cranes up, goes to the hills,
instead of Hollywood sign. It's maxine
with the 3 x's, like in the title
as opposed to her name. And I kinda
figured her name would have 3 x in
it because it'd be a porn thing, But
no. That's just the title of the film
and also her car's vanity plate. Yeah. I
mean, there there could have been a whole
thing about her, you know, like an artist
formerly known as prints kind of thing where
she's trying to drop 2 of the exes
formally
and be credited as such, and that's indicative
indicative
of her struggle to go straight that would
have been tidy enough, I think. And then
the shot further cranes up from the hills
up into the sky
through the... And I keep waiting for it
to fade to black, and it just keeps
going. The over the clouds up through the
upper atmosphere and into space.
And then it finally gets out into space.
And even there when it's most black. I
still see
pin holes in the frail right.
So it's it's still in space. And it
eventually, it's fully black, and it's just the
credits. But
hoo boy?
Yeah. It's fucking os.
I we were joking before we started recording
that the fourth 1 if they make it
is it gonna be maxine in space, you
know, it's gonna be a about fighting fighting
Yeah. Yeah. Jason XXX.
Just throws as many x's as possible in
the fourth installment in the x franchise.
More after the break.
If you need to read off the sides
we gave you just go ahead. Alright? I
know
She turns to the camera and through her
trauma
addresses the lens directly.
Named faster celebrities who got their start and
horror. They immediately heard John Travolta to me
more Brook shield and Max
fucking mate.
I wanna let working on here by Freaking
nights stalker guy The night stalker. Night stalker.
Stalker terror Los Angeles.
I can handle myself. So every that girl
on Ollie.
Hello, listeners. It's Jim. Here is always during
the break to tell you some stuff you
probably already know.
Please follow us on Twitter at shock doctor's
pod on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash
shock doctor's pod or check us out on
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And now back to the show.
This is the defining role of your career.
Why was gonna in your life that's interfering
with his participation.
Squash it.
And intend to.
And we're back.
So this movie is frustrating to me for
any number of reasons
many of which we've already talked about either
briefly or at length. 1 thing that we
didn't really touch on though. Matt, you pointed
out that there's this
atmosphere of eighties
sleeves in the movie that's only really skin
deep,
and that's part of the problem. And
I guess building on that,
the
attraction... 1 of the attractions of this movie
to me
is that I have an affection for eighties
sleeves
because it's it's really just part of the
residue of the seventies.
As far as I'm concerned. It's it's the
way that the seventies leach into the eighties.
It maintained the sleeves. Yeah. Well, I mean,
so much of what we think of as
the seventies
star wars is 77.
Halloween is 78. You know, it always takes
a decade
for a decade to get over its identity
crisis and kind of figure itself out. So
that, you know, it it does it does
kind of c coherent and corp
into something in, like, the first half of
the eighties. It does feel, like, runoff off
to an extent. I... I'm picking up what
you're putting down. Yeah. And
I feel like we've touched at length on
how not just horror movies, but every facet
of media and horror movies are our patch.
So that's where we've engaged with it most
directly.
But every area of film and television
has really beaten the eighties thing into the
ground. The eighties nostalgia thing is stranger things
being a big driver, but just, you know,
any any number of things you could point
to.
But
most of that stuff,
most of those films and Tv shows
don't really engage with the sleeves part of
it. It's more the... It's monetized...
It's more sanitized and, you know, they engage
with the sort of, at least some of
the time, Not all the time. But some
of the time they engage with the sort
of corporate
material,
commercial
aspect of the eighties
And so
that's... If still maybe sanitized,
it's at least got some messaging there, I
guess. It's not just romantic sizing the eighties,
purely romantic sizing it. But in terms of
the straight sleeves,
that's basically still been neglected
throughout this full decade we've had basically of
the eighties and nostalgia boom,
And given that Ty west has shown a
pretty good facility for sleeves,
most, obviously in the first installment in this
range, guys, but in some of his other
work as well, I figured
okay. This is gonna hit that mark. And
even the surface level that shows up in
this movie.
Scratches that itch a little bit. I I
don't wanna completely deny credit,
but it could've have done it so much
more. I think that was well within his
grasp,
and we just didn't
really get that.
Yeah. It's it's endlessly disappointing because
house of the devil is my favorite to
hit of his films by a a huge
margin, and it is such a sc
faithful
slash past.
It's got zooms in it and and camera
work that feel
authentically
seventies.
And like really I I went retro through.
I went out a ramble about how he
pulls off that same kind of stuff in
x also.
Yeah.
And and then and, you know, the this
the use of the split screen is sporadically.
Sometimes that hits the mark sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes it's carry at the prom. Sometimes it's
like, a wedding videographer.
I we're you with I don't I... I
mean, that's maybe unnecessarily cruel but it just
doesn't... I don't know how to put this
exactly. I think part of it is you
know, the the the problem with so much
eighties pest prestige media is that it is
the end result
of a pattern
of
nostalgic thinking that has acted as a kind
of
Si where stuff gets filtered out and stuff
makes it through and the stuff that is
homage
in any post stranger things, eighties Homage type
movie or what have you. You know, it's
gonna be stuff that made it through the
calendar.
And I think in order for it to
feel, like, authentically
eighties, if you wanna replicate what year to
say an almost fire come out because that's
when this is set. Is it 84
85.
If you wanted to feel like 19 85,
you gotta put stuff in it that nobody
remembers
you know, until they see this moving and
if they were alive then, they go, oh,
holy shit. I haven't thought about that in
40 years, you know? Like, that's
that that... That's how you make it feel
like an actual time capsule,
not by just
going, hey. Remember back to the future. Remember
this, remember that, and this movie doesn't invoke
back to the future. I'm talking more broadly
about the post stranger things, M.
That I've been labor under. You know, and
sometimes stuff makes it through the sieve in
a way that doesn't even make sense, Like,
there's a there's a scene in a stranger
things that bothered me and that I've seen
other people complaining about where they go and
see the thing. Notorious box office flop, the
thing. You know, and they're... And they, like
go nuts for it, which is just, like
that... I mean, that is a a retrospective
thing that has been done there they are
not likely to have discovered that movie when
it was brand spanking new. It's a sleeper
hit, a cult classic.
It accrued
status over time. But because it has accrued
that status, we can just retroactively
say that they were there at ground 0
day 1. And and and it just it
just feels like just some kind of strange
time travel has taken place there again, to
invoke back to the future, I guess. But
that so that that kind of
superficial and that that fa aisle quality
is
it it does mar maxine in different ways.
And I think what it came down to
for me is that
if you want it to feel like an
authentically eighties product, you do have to throw
in
deep cuts and shit that did not stand
to the test of time. That's the first
thing you need to do And the second
thing is that... And this is a little
counterintuitive,
I think. But rather than
being, like, okay, How would Brian D palm
do this. If you want it to feel
like the eighties, you need to ask yourself
the question that Brian D palmer was asking
himself which is how would Hitchcock could do
this. You know, how would Hitchcock do this
if he were making 1 r or an
x rated movie, You know, if he had
that kind of latitude.
So if you're trying to ape the filmmakers
that Brian Dip palm revered, the ones from
his childhood. If you're making a movie,
that feels like the eighties, then you have
to ape guys who were operating in the
fifties, because that's the the 30 year in
nostalgia cycle.
And then you'll make a movie that feels
like it actually came out in 19 85,
not just a movie
made in the 20 twenties
that is giving us sort of a children's
pop up book impression of 19 85.
But that... That's that's not the be all
and Dun. It's just kind of
another 1 of those. There's been so many
movies that do that same thing. And well
I think we're moving on now finally.
To the nineties. Eventually, the eighties have to
be left behind. It can't just be.
We've were stuck to that fucking decade like
fly paper,
we're starting, I think to peel ourselves off.
Well, it's crazy to think there was this
movie
came out
7 or 8 years ago now, I don't
think hardly anyone saw. It was called landline,
and it was a nineties
period piece
kind of
slice of life
thing. It had Jenny slate in it, and
it's about her and your younger sister
and her parents.
It was all just like. This is what
life was like in the nineties basic. And
I remember thinking at the time.
Again, this was, like 20 16 or so.
When I saw that, like, oh, here we
are. We're doing the nineties period pieces now.
This is this is novel.
A couple years later, Joan Hill did mid
nineties.
Yeah. And we've had a little bit of
a drip feed of them every now and
again since But nothing like nothing like the
cultural juggernaut not. God Know.
The eighties thing has been going strong for
10:15
years just keeps chugging along.
Well, I guess we'll get
Ty west's take on the nineties if he
makes a fourth 1. Time tell the big
issue here, which I already harp on about
a good deal is that maxine
is just such a non entity, such a
nothing. Such a flimsy
character
who doesn't really stand ground except for the
1 time, 1 and a half times if
you include the 7 bacon beat down. Yeah.
But even that
feels very half baked compared to the
iteration of that guy's downstairs equipment.
It's
my language is getting more cartoon
every time.
Yeah that.
I just don't understand her. She was a
little bit of a wall flower in the
first movie.
X. If I remember, right, she has to
be sort of sweet talked into doing... Or
she's like she's not supposed to star in
the porn, and then she winds up kind
of getting cons scripted. She's sort of tit
by it. I think you're con her character
with Jenna Ortega. Am I? Okay. Well, yeah.
Big.
Jenna Ortega plays the sound girl, you know,
Boom mike operator, who... Well... She's she's the
1 I'm remembering. I and then her boyfriend
feels k by the whole thing. Yes. Okay.
So I I remembered that being Mia Got,
which is not a point in that movies
favor, I guess, in in hindsight that the
more dominant character in my memory is just
another 1 who winds up getting off. Well,
she is also...
I mean, I I think the most popular
poster of x now is the 1 with
a big red x on it and Mia
go face in the or pocket of the
x. But I remember 1 that was making
the rounds around the time the movie came
out was Chin ortega wide open mouth
screaming when... I remember that scream that her
face con in a way that I don't
think I've ever seen another human being due.
It's...
It's a very arresting
thing to do with your bones. I just
I do and and and your lips. It's
it's like got this
incredible elasticity to it. It almost looks unreal.
I but... And that's...
I was just complaining some time ago about
the cop going into the basement mother of
god. She is looking and reacting to the
same thing. The same exact same thing. And
this was is just like she reacts then
we see it. It's just there's just 1
body that people keep tripping over in that
movie and pulling that face too. Yeah. I
mean, not that face because that face is
singular.
Yes.
This the the general
idea of that face. Yeah. Yes. The shot
and the horror.
So in that sense, there's a certain amount
of logic behind Gen Ortega character
sticking in your mind but, yeah, the fact
that features of her character
have just 2 years out from when we
watched that movie
sort of being super imposed onto maxine character.
I agree not the best sign, necessarily.
Her
deciding mid stream to give it a go
and get on camera in her birthday suit.
That feels like
a more protagonist coded character arc. Yes. If
Mia got is just already starring in it,
there's just not much development there outside of
her having to survive the night, which is
what the movie is really about. You know,
And that... That that's a, you know, a
trial by fire that is interesting enough. But
I don't know. It would feel like more
of a maxine origin story if we were
seeing her get her start in porn. It
would feel like, you know, in the same
way that Pearl feels like an origin story.
Like, there's nothing before that that we could
be is The weird thing is to my
recollection, it is also
maxine
start in porn. Well, it's yeah. It's a
very it's a very shoes string kind of
production. Yeah. I mean, she's been a stripper
for 2 or 3 years or whatever the
hell it's supposed to be, and the manager
of the strip club slash her boyfriend or
whatever their relationship is exactly,
is gonna get her to do this porn,
and she's all on board for that, but
effectively,
she and Jen ortega are getting their starts
in porn at the same time. Yeah. The
first half
at least the first act... First act to
first half of x
is still my favorite stretch of any of
these movies and I'm blatantly realizing that probably
more of that has to do with Jenna
Ortega than I gave her credit for. I'm
positive that I did not know her name
at the time of that recording. Because she
sort of blew up afterward
as I remember with Wednesday and all that.
Maybe I've got that timeline wrong. I frequent
do. But III think she might have been
in scream 5 before that, and that maybe
it clue me into her a little earlier.
Okay. But I don't know. I'll bet those
episodes aren't that far apart, whichever 1 third
first. They're definitely not. Okay. Yeah. So... Oh,
that's right. Right? She was also in the
babysitter sequel killer Queen that we also did?
Oh, she love interest in that 1? Yeah.
So she she was there were 2 kind
of female leads. There was the blonde sam
are weaving replacement, and then there was the,
you know, Alt girl who kinda comes to
his rescue, and that was General Ortega.
Yeah. Only part of that care to I
remember is I think that she talks about
how terminator 2 is the greatest sequel of
all time, which is funny because Mc g
made a terminator movie that nobody likes.
It's yeah. Weirdly self facing thing to include
in your shitty sequel.
But... Yeah. And then,
scream 5 came out in January of 22,
and then x came out in March of
22. So they were okay very close together,
But on the basis of that, I had
made some minor note of her
prior to x, I guess. Yeah. Hell of
a weird grim that will that will haunt
me forever.
And
yes. That's... It's that's a... That does the
take way. And I I think that her,
you know, getting her sea legs in porn
is strangely touching and and kind of part
of what makes the first half of that
movie and as are arresting as it is.
And and it it's suspense too because they
feel like real people. This is my recollection
anyway. And no 1 in maxine is a
real person.
No 1 in pearl is a real person
either because it's in mel mode the whole
time. I guess her monologue with the water
works and all that is is is going
for kind of, I don't know, like, a,
like, a like, a Eugene o'neill thing going
for blue collar path those in sort of
a down to earth salt of the Earth
sort of way, but broadly speaking. It's pretty
loo tones, and Maxine is just... I mean,
it it goes intergalactic at the end, but
it's kind of been off planet Earth the
entire time, I think. So it's a very
far cry from the first part of x,
the first half or so, which is the
part of this trilogy that I like the
most.
It's just kind of rep repeat with hack
moments. There's 1 that we didn't talk about
the murder of friend in the video store
is inter cut with maxine
reading her script,
and the screen directions
seem to correlate
with the butcher
happening to her friend, but their... A framework
has not been established
wherein that would have any impact or make
any sense whatsoever.
It's just something that's done in, like meta
slash.
And and even then it feels like hack
shit more often than not, but here it's
just be below ring. Know, I mean, it
just... There's no reason it's a consolation with
no substance,
just direction list, and so much of the
movie is like that. So stuff just sticks
out, like a like a sore thumb
left right center.
Yeah. So my biggest problem with it is
that maxine herself. Is not much of a
presence, which flies in the face of her
whole. I'm a star. I'm a star thing.
I just can't believe that this is what
we've been building to. III refuse particularly
they they lean into it very
aggressively
if not in necessarily always effectively because we
had mixed feelings about pearl, but they lean
hard
into that in pearl and Yes. Pearl become
is her movie. Big time. It's become a
stan rallying cry,
she's a star. This is about Me seen
this is about mia God. That's a star
vehicle
in every sense.
And I just refused to believe that this
is what they been clamoring for. You know?
She's just she's barely there, and that's insurmountable,
and and and kind of unforgivable.
I think. I mean, we've covered all of
these these movies for the podcast.
And if I were more invested in them,
I I would feel
hugely betrayed by that. I'm invested just enough
to be peeve, you know, And kind of
Yeah. Flo.
But I can inhabit the point of view
of someone
who really wanted this to be, like, it
should be like Uma thurman and kill bill
by this point. In essence, if not in
execution. He doesn't have to go on the
war path to quite that degree. But the
infinity pool was a much better showcase,
for mia Got, kick ass and ticket names.
Yeah. I mean sure there's just... We know
she can do it. She just doesn't do
it here, and I don't understand why Yeah.
You either. It's the kind of bad movie.
Usually, you're watching a bad movie or a
boring movie and you're just checked out your
faces
Slack, placid
this is the kind of movie that you
watch with a fur brow. Like, you can
feel... Like I could feel my muscles working.
While I was watching this movie, there was
a mounting sense of cons,
you know, as it went
further off the rails. I felt the same
way when we watched last night at Soho,
last night in Soho. There's just this inc
ingenuity mounting seen upon scene. And when it's
over,
it doesn't even... It's not even the kind
of movie that you can let off the
hook by saying that it takes enough big
swings that you have to at least applaud.
It's courage because it is it is strangely
meek in certain regards with regards to the
mia Got character. As I've said, So my
brow remains fur road. My head is still
spinning.
I,
it's a it's a disappointing send off if
it is a send off, And... But on
the other hand... I've I've never said this
before, but I think the stands deserved better.
They deserve to eat better.
On the other hand, who loves you baby?
Blah.
As the as the the fucking... What is
it a lollipop?
Or... Yeah. You know, rolls off his tongue
I was I was telling Jim during the
break that we... That that I I was
confused cog jack with call check,
speaking of night stalker.
Right.
Night stalker of a different kind. Yeah.
As for
recommendations, I don't know. They're
starry eyes, I don't think is really anything
special, but it it is a better
holly weird
movie
about an aspiring Star. I was left cold
by it, but it is better than Maxine.
And I it did come to mind a
couple times while we were watching this movie.
While I was watching this movie with bees,
I think bees and I watched Starry eyes
together. I never watch horror movies alone anymore
or both of our appetite are ins.
What was the other 1? 0, not a
horror movie. I was going to recommend
spring breakers, that's my formal recommendation. Only because
there's a scene in it where they make
James Franco
deep throat a gun.
True
that
spring break forever.
Spring break. Yeah. Well, and the and the
the wrinkle in that scene that kinda makes
it work is that he gets into it
and he starts fe the barrel of the
gun, but it seems like, that... I mean,
that's a collision of of sex and death
where their well sparks actually fly, if only
for a moment. Here,
sex and death are, like, 2 trains barrel
towards each other, but then there reveals to
be on parallel tracks and they pass harmless
in the night. You got the the night
stalker creeping around, and and there's this general
ambiance
of seed and rotten and vulgar,
but it's I don't know. It's just... It's
just not pal
there. Maybe because it's got that anti evangelical
sla at the end of the day. And
so it can't actually
be scandal
by any of the to
because it is ultimately,
the the film is in league with the
hooker and and everybody else, the porn stars,
the entertainment industry. So none of that is
actually dangerous.
Because they're essentially the good guys and the
he norma
murder cult.
The Bible beater
are the bad guys. And so there's a
there's a... I don't know. I'm I didn't
mean to go on this tangent. But suffice
to say spring breakers
is
mean, it's it's it's it's pretty harmless. I'm
not saying that it's really that abrasive or
anything. I remember it being a good time.
But it it it it does have a
a feeling of genuine s to it. I
think that is missing here. But mainly, I
thought of it because of the the gun
blow job
not a whole lot of those in the
cinema. Not a
not a popular trope. And it's specifically, you
know, in both cases,
It's a woman with her finger on the
trigger making a man
sexually submit with suck off a gun. Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly. It would to to the same
end, basically. I mean James Franco doesn't get
his Na sp it, but
because
he appears to get turned on, and that's
kind of how he saves his own skin
is by matching their freak as we say
nowadays.
So... Yes.
So
I've been thinking about recommendations a little bit.
Obviously, we've invoked
Brian Palm quite a bit on that basis.
I can recommend
dressed to kill and blow out the ladder
of which we've also specifically mentioned, but a
movie that actually
came to mind
before that for me.
It's got
speaking of decades
washing over into the next decade. This is
a film that came out in 19 90,
but is just dripping in eighties
excess and the dark side of Y dumb
and all that. In a movie where there's...
It's not like a bunch of murders.
So it doesn't have that in common with
maxine, but nonetheless, I just kept going back
to it. It's a Curtis Hanson film called
bad influence.
It stars, Rob and James Spade.
James Spade plays
a sort of ne
Yep, who meets this
strange sort of bras,
devil maker,
ne well. Played by Rob lowe, who kind
of gets him to embrace his darker impulses.
Hell, yeah. I haven't seen that. I have
seen the bedroom. Window by Curtis Hanson, which
is sort of a poor man's diploma of
that period sort of yeah hit talk thing.
I also thought of bedroom window, which I
also like, Me too. Interestingly, I'm seeing on
the Wikipedia article for bad influence that it's
the first
screen play on which David C received a
solo credit. So that's mildly interesting.
U. But, yeah, Curtis Hanson, cool guy. He
will always have a special place in my
heart for La
confidential, 1 of my favorite films bad influence
is a good time. So because he's very
very dependable. I've yet to see Curtis movie
that just didn't
didn't work. That that that fails to please.
I mean, we watched... We kicked off this
year's movie about May with River Wild.
Which was a a pretty good time. Yeah.
I like hand that rocks the cradle, a
fair bit. Yeah. I haven't seen Wonder boys,
but I hear that's good. I like wonder
boys.
So, yeah. I mean it's just
a list of solid or better outing.
So our maxine episode ended the only way
it could have with you a career
retrospective. A brian or Palmer and Curtis Hanson.
Which sort of should tell you how uni
inspired we feel by Ty west's latest offering.
I a lot of people are are bang
for his blood I'm not gonna join that
Chorus just because I do like house of
the devil so much,
but Maxine is not a viable path forward.
It's not a viable path forward, but I
agree that it's number 1, house of the
devil is great and number 2, as much
as we've spent
about 2 hours now bag on maxine.
It is not such an un mitigated
top to bottom
fucking disaster that I would call for Ty
west to be tar and feather on its
account. Well, Seems excessive
Part of it is that the x and
pearl fan base have been working their Ke
off, trying to get those films canon.
You know, trying to get them into the
hall of Fame, l split. And so there's
there's there's some
Yes. So there's some pent up an
brewing here and some backlash.
So now because maxine, is not particularly good.
We can now knock all 3 off their
pedestal. And I didn't think that the first
2 were on a pedestal to begin with,
but I have in my usual doctor Manhattan
fashion. I take a very,
very zoomed out
perspective.
The long arc of film history. You know,
I'm I'm I'm I'm typically
un moved
by... I don't know horror film Twitter's sense
of what's an instant classic and what isn't
it? Or any part of film Twitter, basically
Any anytime I'm maybe a little less doctor
Manhattan than you are, but at the end
of the day, and this isn't even limited
to film Twitter. It's just film criticism or
even film promotion in general anytime, something says
like,
instant classic, a bold new voice
star making performance and I'm was just like,
maybe,
time will tell.
Yes. I'm far from convinced just right off
the bat.
Yeah. History
be will be the final ar.
Why can't we just... And I go on
this fucking rant if I talk about Ph
beyond baseball players too. It's like, oh,
all time great. It's like, he's played a
hundred and 30 games.
Just wait and see.
Right.
I think it's just just... You know, I
part of it is just people being younger
and having seen fewer things, and they did
didn't
start the way I did, just working my
way through the A I top 100, and
the I top 02:50.
And in a in... They shoot pictures, don't
they? Yeah. If it's top 1000.
I was just very, you know, yeah. I
mean so III have... I I came up.
In a different time. I was it was
it was an isolated endeavor. I didn't know
the meaning of the word cloud, and I
sort of still don't. But anyway, this is
not.
U. This is not about me. This is
just, I think I often feel And I've
lament this in in past episodes. Often feel
out of step with consensus. Now. We got
so many, whatever you wanna call it elevated
horror movies now, which is the sort of
thing. I used to feel, like getting drops
of water in a desert. Whenever a movie
like that would come out. And now they're
just sort of the order of... You're. Now
you're drowning in a hurricane. Yes. I'm taking
the I... I can afford to take them
for granted now, and I can afford to
be a little more discerning, and I I
don't see that same discernment in a lot
of other
autos.
Shall we say of horror and I I
think that it's there's just there's just a
glut, and I think in a glut, you
need to... I don't know. Have a sense
of perspective
But anyway, people are not having that conversation
about Maxine. I think Maxine is pretty much
widely regarded as a mis fire, but people
were very much having that conversation about x
and pearl, which is why certain quarters have
their knives out for maxine because Ty west
Fa. And it's an over correction. Exactly, which
is so often the case.
Over compensatory?
Yeah.
Well, now that we've crane off
into
the starry. That is how they felt.
I am sitting on Mars
or making a palace of glass
Until next time, I'm Jim Smith.
I'm Matt Ge Daisy.
And we are the shock doctors.
We'll see you later.
As always, we have some acknowledgment.
Our music was composed by Will Connor.
Audio for the bumper was taken from maxine
official trailer Hd a 24,
uploaded by
a 24.
All rights reserved.
Our next episode will be up on Sunday,
July 20 first, and we will be discussing
Os Perkins viral
sensation,
long legs.
See that first