Thomas and Frank check out a cult classic comedy that's hard to find online and a divisive action film about a famous pulp hero.
First, Thomas reviews "The Meteor Man" (1993). Then, Frank reviews "The Shadow" (1994).
It's an obscure superhero Double Feature, and it starts right now!
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Meet Your Double Feature is a double-blind movie review podcast hosted by brothers Thomas and Frank. Thomas is an event producer and broadcaster from Chicago. Frank is an independent filmmaker living in Los Angeles.
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For full episodes, written reviews and more, visit our website at https://www.MeetYourDoubleFeature.com/
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Music for tonight's show licensed through Soundstripe
"The Shakedown" by Dresden, The Flamingo
"Soul Tonic" by Cast of Characters
"Sophistikitty" by Cast of Characters
(00:00) Intro
(00:45) The Meteor Man (1993)
(44:04) We're appearing on the "Hard Ticket" podcast!
(45:21) The Shadow (1994)
(01:36:57) Final Scores and Wrap-Up
(01:47:51) Outro
00:00:10
Tonight on Meet Your Double Feature, mild mannered Jefferson
00:00:13
Reed uses his new found superpowers to save his
00:00:16
neighborhood from an evil gang. It's not a bird or a plane.
00:00:21
It's the Meteor Man. Then Lamont Cranston uses his
00:00:25
psychic abilities to protect New York City from a descendant of
00:00:28
Genghis Khan, A Dark Knight Rises in the shadow.
00:00:33
It's an obscure superhero double feature, and it starts right
00:00:38
now. Hello and welcome to Meet Your
00:00:46
Double Feature, a double-blind movie review podcast.
00:00:49
My name is Thomas, joined as always by my brother Frank.
00:00:52
Frank, how's it going? It's going, it's going good.
00:00:54
I'm very, very excited to be here as per huge.
00:00:58
As per Huge, he has said that every time the day he doesn't is
00:01:01
the day we end the show. But you didn't know.
00:01:04
That I didn't know that either. So you better keep that
00:01:08
excitement up or else people are going to be real disappointed in
00:01:11
you. Oh.
00:01:12
Gosh, OK, no pressure. No pressure anyway, welcome back
00:01:15
to the show. This is the second episode of
00:01:17
our new season on Meet and Double Feature, looking at
00:01:20
forgotten superhero movies. The way our show works, in case
00:01:23
you've never tuned in before, is that Frank and I have each
00:01:26
selected a movie for the other to watch and review on the show
00:01:29
that we have never seen previously.
00:01:30
Neither of us has seen even the two movies that we recommended
00:01:33
to each other. So we're going to find out in
00:01:34
real time what the other person thought of the movie that was
00:01:37
picked for them, and then whoever gave the better blind
00:01:39
recommendation will be declared the winner for that episode.
00:01:42
So Frank, we're two episodes in. I have already forgotten who won
00:01:46
last week's episode. Let's just assume it was me.
00:01:49
That's usually. I mean mathematically that would
00:01:52
be an A bad assumption because I have won more episodes overall,
00:01:55
but that could change theoretically.
00:01:59
Theoretically, yeah. Theoretically, if you started
00:02:02
performing better, it would go a different way.
00:02:07
Anyway, Frank, today I'm going to be kicking us off by talking
00:02:10
about the movie you asked me to watch at the end of our last
00:02:12
episode, 1993's Meteor Man. Can you refresh the folks at
00:02:17
home why you asked me to watch Meteor Man?
00:02:19
Well, I thought it fit the the theme of the season pretty well.
00:02:23
It's AI believe it's a superhero comedy film and in early it's
00:02:30
the 90s I believe is that one was released because we can't
00:02:33
seem to get away from 90s. Films, it's kind of our quickly
00:02:40
becoming our niche. Yeah, yeah.
00:02:43
But also because I've worked with the director before.
00:02:47
I worked on a documentary film that he made while I was still
00:02:51
in film school and he seemed like a cool guy and he seemed
00:02:55
like an underappreciated filmmaker so I was curious as to
00:03:01
his if this movie was any good. Yeah, So that would be in this
00:03:05
case for Meteor Man. It's writer, director, star
00:03:09
Robert Townsend. You worked on.
00:03:12
I think you've told me it was a documentary that he made in the
00:03:14
20 tens about a previous narrative film that he had made,
00:03:19
right, called the The Five Heartbeats.
00:03:21
Yeah, The Five. Heartbeats is the original film
00:03:23
which is sort of a a cult classic film in its own way.
00:03:26
And then he was making a documentary titled The Making of
00:03:30
the Five Heartbeats and and that was what I worked on with him.
00:03:33
Oh, interesting. So I assume you were like the
00:03:34
star or like the. Yeah, yeah.
00:03:37
They were like, so you weren't in, you had nothing to do with
00:03:39
the original film. What can you tell us about what
00:03:41
that was like? And I was like, I got to, I got
00:03:44
to go. I'm sorry.
00:03:45
This has been a mistake. I'm I'm late for math school and
00:03:49
I'm like, that's not you're in film school.
00:03:52
That's not a class. You're going the wrong way.
00:03:54
That's not an exit. Just walk through like a prop
00:03:58
door and fall down. Yeah, well, that's interesting.
00:04:02
I like that connection. I feel like we we don't do
00:04:05
enough to highlight the fact that you've actually worked on
00:04:07
films yourself and have produced a film yourself.
00:04:10
Like the insight from that is fascinating to me.
00:04:13
And so I I think it's funny getting to watch something from
00:04:15
someone that you have actually collaborated with, even in a
00:04:18
small way, working as like a student assistant.
00:04:21
So that's neat. Yeah, it's cool.
00:04:23
I mean, I haven't seen the film myself.
00:04:25
I I probably should at some point, but I'm sure you will
00:04:27
tell me what a great, great pick it was for the show.
00:04:31
So OK, Meteor Man is a movie full of caveats for me.
00:04:35
First off, we're talking about forgotten movies.
00:04:38
This one is borderline impossible to find nowadays.
00:04:42
Like it's not. As of recording early 2026, it
00:04:47
is not available on any streaming platform.
00:04:50
I went to my local library and they didn't have a copy.
00:04:53
I had to order a DVD from like a reseller to watch this movie.
00:04:58
Yeah, you're a big library guy. The library let you down this
00:05:00
time, unfortunately. The library did let me down.
00:05:02
Usually they have obscure DVDs like that just 'cause they enter
00:05:06
circulation and never leave. But something about Meteor Man's
00:05:10
distribution or what? Like, I don't know who has the
00:05:13
rights to it, if it's one of those deals where like somebody
00:05:15
owns it and they just don't care enough to do anything with it.
00:05:19
But genuinely hard movie to find.
00:05:21
I think if you were a listener, your best bet would be to get a
00:05:24
physical copy or do that thing people do when movies aren't
00:05:26
available on the Internet. And what was that?
00:05:28
Tell us in explicit detail what that is.
00:05:31
OK, so you got to download a thing and then you got to go to
00:05:34
a place and then you get infected with malware.
00:05:39
I I think actually to touch on that point, not the malware you,
00:05:42
you can have fun with that, but the.
00:05:44
Thinking of malware, I found that as well.
00:05:46
Yeah, I invented that. No, the, I think Meteor Man is
00:05:52
owned by Marvel. Now.
00:05:55
I, I, I think, I, I'm not sure the sequence of events that led
00:05:58
to that, but I think technically that property is, is owned by
00:06:04
Marvel, which would, I guess be owned by Disney.
00:06:08
Oh, so it should be on Disney Plus?
00:06:10
Should be on Disney plus. They may, they may not know that
00:06:12
they own it or they you. Might have to alert Disney and
00:06:17
be like, did you know that you own Meteor Man?
00:06:20
And they're like, who are you? Like that's not a door.
00:06:23
Again, you need to leave. Sorry, I just math, math school.
00:06:31
So that's interesting. Very difficult movie to find,
00:06:33
Very in keeping with our theme about forgotten films, forgotten
00:06:36
superhero movie specifically, which for us is basically
00:06:39
anything that's predates the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which
00:06:43
I feel like what we've seen, even just looking at a few of
00:06:45
these so far, people just made superhero movies and then kind
00:06:49
of made fun of the fact that they existed at the same time.
00:06:51
There was such a like inauthenticity to a lot of them
00:06:54
where it was like, isn't this all kind of dumb?
00:06:57
And Meteor Man gets around that a bit by making the movie
00:07:00
explicitly a comedy. And so it doesn't really feel as
00:07:03
out of place as in like Steel, which we talked about last time,
00:07:07
where they're like, hey, this is Steel, he's a superhero.
00:07:09
Superheroes are dumb. Yeah, yeah.
00:07:13
Which was I just again, always an odd approach to the whole
00:07:17
thing. It's like, who you making this
00:07:19
for? Then with the maybe this one
00:07:21
less so because it is a comedy, but like with some of those
00:07:23
other ones that like seem to hate their own source material,
00:07:27
like like superheroes are for nerds, which of course now
00:07:31
everyone's a nerd. I guess that's just the the cool
00:07:34
thing to be like. Pretty much.
00:07:36
I mean, nerds are really good consumers.
00:07:38
Because they will. That's true.
00:07:40
They will stick with properties no matter how the way people
00:07:43
stick with a sports team that ever wins.
00:07:45
Where it's like sure the last 15 Superman movies have been
00:07:48
varying degrees of bad but they got a new QB this could be their
00:07:52
year. It's Supergirl.
00:07:55
Supergirl's the new QB, and it was good.
00:07:57
Supergirl is the new QB. We're going to have to do a
00:07:59
review of the new Supergirl movie, given that you're
00:08:02
currently, I think, the biggest stand of the 80s Supergirl
00:08:04
movie. Big time.
00:08:06
Yeah, no, yeah, I'm looking forward to that one actually.
00:08:08
That'll be, that'll be interesting.
00:08:09
That'll be maybe some good side content for us.
00:08:12
Yeah, I think we'll have to touch back on that one as a as a
00:08:14
comparison between these older films in the in the state of
00:08:16
superhero Movies Now. But Meteor Man is a weird one in
00:08:21
the sense where like it's kind of a revolutionary movie.
00:08:24
Not revolutionary. It's a very notable movie in the
00:08:27
history of superhero media because it holds the honor of
00:08:31
being essentially the first widely distributed studio backed
00:08:35
film about a black superhero. Which is kind of mind boggling
00:08:38
that it took until, was it, 1993 for one of those to get made and
00:08:42
even since then there's been like half a dozen and that's it.
00:08:46
Yeah, yeah, very few, very few. I mean, I think I was trying to
00:08:51
look this up because the there's like a asterisk next to it where
00:08:54
technically there was a movie in the 70s called like a Bar the
00:08:59
Black Superman that had a guy with superpowers.
00:09:01
But it was a much smaller production that not a lot of
00:09:04
people have seen. But Meteor Man was like a
00:09:06
theatrically released film that people saw that had a black
00:09:09
superhero in it. And I do feel like even in
00:09:11
watching the movie, that's kind of part of its whole premise.
00:09:15
That maybe wouldn't make as much sense now where it it.
00:09:19
Nowadays it's not uncommon to have like a black superhero.
00:09:22
But in the 90s that was almost like one of the jokes of the
00:09:24
movie. It's like, Can you imagine a
00:09:26
superhero trying to fight actual crime, like inner city crime
00:09:31
that real people are dealing with?
00:09:33
Ohio, Is it so? Is that what Meteor Man does?
00:09:35
Is that part of the story of the movie?
00:09:37
It is. The premise for Meteor Man is
00:09:40
pretty simple. It's a very like straightforward
00:09:42
movie in a way, although it does have some very odd comedic
00:09:45
quirks that I'll get into. The main character, played by
00:09:49
Robert Townsend, is named Jefferson Reed.
00:09:53
And he is like a meek, cowardly teacher living in a suburb of
00:09:59
Washington, DC And his characterization at the
00:10:01
beginning is that his local neighborhood is overrun with
00:10:05
gang activity, but he is too afraid to stand up to anybody.
00:10:09
Even is like, encouraging the students at the school he
00:10:12
teaches at to like, not stand up against bullies, don't pick
00:10:16
fights, don't get in anybody's way.
00:10:18
And then he accidentally ends up inheriting superpowers and has
00:10:22
to deal with the natural consequence of like, now that
00:10:25
you have the power to do something about this, are you
00:10:28
going to be brave enough to do anything about it?
00:10:31
OK, well, that's, I mean, that's a solid pitch for the narrative.
00:10:36
It's decent, it's pretty straightforward.
00:10:39
The execution is less so. I think the weirdest things to
00:10:42
be about Meteor Man are his powers because they seem just
00:10:47
thought up at random. I mean he does have like a Cape
00:10:51
and an outfit, which is sort of a joke in the movies that his
00:10:53
mom makes him a superhero outfit.
00:10:55
But he has basically every superpower that Superman himself
00:10:59
has, but also a number of very specific ones.
00:11:03
Like the first thing that he learns once he gets struck by a
00:11:06
falling comet and turns into Meteor Man is that if he touches
00:11:10
a book, he can absorb all of the information from the book in an
00:11:15
instant, but he only holds on to that knowledge for 30 seconds.
00:11:19
Whoa. Right, like.
00:11:22
It's a silly power. It's so specific.
00:11:25
It's like super strength, ability to fly, temporary book
00:11:28
learning what's like that feels like the beginning of a much
00:11:33
more specific set of rules about how this superhero story works,
00:11:37
where it's like, well, you can fight crime but only in small
00:11:39
bursts. But instead it's like now he has
00:11:42
like all the usual generic powers but also this one really
00:11:46
specific power that comes into play like twice in the whole
00:11:49
movie and could easily have been cut out completely.
00:11:52
I I think that was kind of a thing with old Superman comics
00:11:55
though, if I'm not mistaken, where like Superman would
00:11:58
sometimes just have whatever powers the writers needed him to
00:12:02
have for that particular story. That's true.
00:12:05
So he would just have nonsense powers sometimes.
00:12:09
It it is sort of a plot device thing.
00:12:10
I think Meteor man also at one point grows a community garden
00:12:15
with his bare hands just because he has superpowers.
00:12:18
He just puts his hands onto some soil and like a giant oversized
00:12:22
garden springs up overnight. So occasionally he does like
00:12:25
plot relevant stuff like that. But for his first introduction
00:12:29
to be, oh, he can absorb book knowledge temporarily, It feels
00:12:34
like you're learning about a superhero called like, Bookman.
00:12:37
And then it's like, Nah, not really.
00:12:38
He's mostly just Superman. Yeah, yeah, that's the first
00:12:44
thing he does. Before he even shows super
00:12:46
strength or anything. He does the book thing.
00:12:48
Correct. His first, his order of
00:12:49
operations here is he essentially is running away from
00:12:53
some local thugs and he gets scared and hides in like a
00:12:58
dumpster until they go away. And then when he comes out of
00:13:01
the dumpster, there's this mysterious green meteor falling
00:13:04
out of the sky and he gets struck with a piece of it.
00:13:07
And then when he wakes up in the hospital, he touches a book on
00:13:10
accident. And that's how he figures out
00:13:11
that he can absorb knowledge temporarily.
00:13:13
And then the next thing he learns is still not super
00:13:16
strength. It's that he can understand his
00:13:18
dog and talk to his dog. So.
00:13:24
And is that funny? Did this make you laugh?
00:13:27
OK, I'm trying to get the premise out of the way here so I
00:13:30
can get into the beat of this, which is that nothing in Meteor
00:13:32
Man is funny and it's very rarely even trying to be funny,
00:13:36
which I find very strange. Interesting.
00:13:40
Like, you know how some comedies people describe as like a mile a
00:13:44
minute with their jokes where they're trying to mine humor out
00:13:47
of every possible situation? Yeah, like I was, I was thinking
00:13:50
of like the recent Naked Gun movie as a comparison point.
00:13:55
Where it's like. That's just all.
00:13:58
Constant jokes. Everything is strung together by
00:14:00
laughs just to keep everything light.
00:14:02
Meteor Man is like that scene in The Office where Michael Scott
00:14:07
is like, oh, my brain's moving a mile an hour.
00:14:10
It's like, yeah, that's a, that's pretty slow, actually.
00:14:13
Like, that's how Meteor Man feels with its comedy, where
00:14:16
something silly will happen or somebody will make a joke, and
00:14:20
then we'll go for multiple scenes without anything
00:14:22
particularly funny happening aside from a couple of like
00:14:25
visual gags that are persistent throughout the movie.
00:14:29
It just doesn't really read as like a comedy in a strong sense.
00:14:33
A lot of it is actually kind of melodramatic.
00:14:36
So it gets really lost for me tonally in terms of like, who is
00:14:39
this movie for and why was it made?
00:14:43
Yeah. Well, so maybe it's like maybe
00:14:46
it was intended to just be more a traditional superhero film
00:14:49
with some laughs in it, almost like what Marvel is now.
00:14:53
Like Marvel skewed really heavily into the comedy side of
00:14:57
things where some of their movies almost feel like comedies
00:14:59
first and then superhero movies. Where is this?
00:15:03
Was maybe trying to be a superhero movie with comedic
00:15:06
elements. It's hard to tell because I
00:15:09
don't know a lot about the production itself, but it comes
00:15:12
across to me in viewing the movie like something that was
00:15:15
trying to be one thing and just was not fully realized.
00:15:19
Because sometimes the jokes in the movie are really goofy.
00:15:23
Like the villains throughout the story is a is like a local gang
00:15:28
called the Golden Lords. And the gimmick with the Golden
00:15:31
Lords is that they all have this like bleached blonde, like high
00:15:35
top hair that looks really silly.
00:15:37
And one of the jokes in the movie, because much like in
00:15:39
Steel, part of the problem is that like the local kids and
00:15:43
teens are getting roped into this gang violence.
00:15:46
The golden Lords consists of a bunch of adult men wearing suits
00:15:48
with their blonde high tops. But then they also have like
00:15:51
teenage golden Lords and actual like baby golden Lords.
00:15:56
There's like 5 year olds robbing people on the street dressed the
00:15:59
same as the adult bad guys. Wait, all is part of one group?
00:16:03
Or they're these are like 3 different groups.
00:16:06
They're all the same, like they have a pipeline.
00:16:08
Like that's one of the movie's jokes.
00:16:10
As like you, you join the gang as like a literal baby and then
00:16:13
just age up into the different ranks.
00:16:15
But that's so cartoonish. It's like Looney Tunes level
00:16:19
stuff. But the movie talks about it in
00:16:22
this kind of like sedate way where nothing is moving with
00:16:26
like the speed or the, I don't know, the intensity of like a
00:16:30
goofy comedy. Like he'll just be like, oh,
00:16:32
yeah, baby criminals. And then like, it's like, that's
00:16:36
funny. We should talk about that.
00:16:37
And it's like, Nah, we're no, I'm going to talk about
00:16:40
something else. Yeah, Yeah.
00:16:42
Well, I mean, comedy is harder to do than drama.
00:16:45
Like, drama's easy comparatively because with comedy, something
00:16:50
like that, like, again, when you describe it, it's like, yeah,
00:16:52
that's a funny idea, but then you have to execute it in a
00:16:55
funny way in the film, too. You have to show it to the
00:16:59
audience in a funny way. You have to, like, punch it up,
00:17:02
basically. You can't just like say
00:17:04
something kind of humorous and then expect the audience to just
00:17:07
go along with that. That's sort of what I mean.
00:17:09
Like nothing that they introduce as a funny quirk, a lot of it is
00:17:13
reoccurring but doesn't have a satisfying pay off.
00:17:15
Like part of the story is that Meteor Man is trying to stop the
00:17:19
children, like the ones at the school he teaches at from like
00:17:21
joining these gangs. But there's like half a dozen
00:17:24
scenes where just like the baby criminals are just there and
00:17:27
they don't really do any additional jokes on top of it.
00:17:30
They're just part of the scenery is that half of the bad guys are
00:17:33
children and there's no like easy layup jokes that they stack
00:17:39
on top of that. Like somebody just had that one
00:17:41
idea. And then every subsequent scene
00:17:43
they're like, well, I guess we still need these baby criminals
00:17:45
to be here, but for no particular reason.
00:17:48
Like how is that not a one off joke where you like whip pan
00:17:51
over to like the Golden Lord's daycare and it's just a bunch of
00:17:54
baby criminals and then you whip back and you never mention it
00:17:56
again. Like that's a joke in a movie.
00:17:58
Whereas this just feels like an odd thing tethered onto the
00:18:03
story that never goes anywhere. Right.
00:18:05
It's it's less of a joke and more of just the lore of the
00:18:07
film at that point. Like, yeah, no, there's babies.
00:18:10
That's just how we do things around here.
00:18:13
There is like a small payoff for one of the kids that Meteor Man
00:18:17
helps earlier in the movie does turn against the gangs.
00:18:20
Like he refuses to give him up early in the movie when they're
00:18:23
chasing him down when he's in the dumpster, like the little
00:18:25
kid finds him, but like doesn't say that he's in there.
00:18:28
And then at the end that kid helps him again.
00:18:30
But like, you could have had those two children be characters
00:18:35
as opposed to just 50 baby criminals who just kind of hang
00:18:39
out with the regular ones. It's just very like poorly
00:18:41
thought out in terms of the editing and like how they
00:18:44
interact with these things they've set up.
00:18:46
Because the fact that you have something that absurd in the
00:18:48
movie should suggest that everything is like a goofy
00:18:52
Looney Tunes esque bit. And there's just very few of
00:18:54
those. A lot of it is like, very sad
00:18:56
and kind of serious and about how people are genuinely afraid
00:19:00
to stand up to criminals in their neighborhoods because it
00:19:03
risks real violence that harms their communities and their
00:19:06
families. And it's like, oh, this is kind
00:19:08
of too much of A bummer to also have baby criminals.
00:19:13
Yeah, it seems like maybe it was just an attempt to lighten the
00:19:16
mood, but then it it almost undercuts the messaging of the
00:19:21
film in a way. Yeah.
00:19:23
Do the do the kids have lines? Do they do like, do the the
00:19:27
young kid characters in this group have like, like jokes or
00:19:32
they're just more of just a presence in the film?
00:19:34
They're just they're the only notable escalation of that joke
00:19:39
is towards the end of the movie, there's a big fight happening in
00:19:42
like the there's just this main like neighborhood St. set that
00:19:45
they use a lot throughout the movie because it's where Meteor
00:19:47
Man's apartment is and they have a big fight outside of there.
00:19:50
And at one point, while Meteor Man's beating everybody up, they
00:19:53
try to send in this kid that they just call Kung Fu master
00:19:57
Larry, who's just like a 12 year old who can do karate.
00:19:59
It's. A funny name.
00:20:01
It is a funny name. We're like, and it's a good
00:20:04
example of what we expect the movie to do throughout its
00:20:06
runtime of like, OK, there's kids in the gang.
00:20:08
Imagine if instead of being like, oh, now we're going to
00:20:11
send in our heavy. We send in a child and they're
00:20:13
like, go get him Kung Fu Master Larry.
00:20:15
And then he just runs at Meteor Man and gets like blown away
00:20:17
with his Superman ice breath and then runs off and there's like
00:20:21
some funny ADR where like you hear the other little kids being
00:20:24
like, where you going Kung Fu Master Larry, like I.
00:20:27
Like that they say his full name.
00:20:29
That's what I mean. Like, that's a funny escalation
00:20:32
of that joke of like, not only do we have kids in the gang, but
00:20:35
it's not just a hierarchy of age.
00:20:38
It's like, no one of these kids is better than a lot of the rest
00:20:41
of the criminals, but it just doesn't go anywhere.
00:20:44
Like theoretically you should have had a kid on Meteor Man's
00:20:48
side the whole time who could have had a smaller conflict with
00:20:51
like a kid criminal, you know what I mean?
00:20:52
Like a like a shrunk it down version of the same conflict but
00:20:54
with two children. That could have worked as a way
00:20:57
to tie that together better. Oh like if Meter Man had like a
00:21:00
sidekick like a Robin with him. Yeah, But anyway, we're spending
00:21:04
a lot of time on that. But it's the most representative
00:21:06
example I have where like the movie thinks it's being funny,
00:21:09
but then just kind of forgets to be funny.
00:21:12
I think the other example is that this movie has like a
00:21:14
surprisingly stacked cast. It's like a lot of famous black
00:21:18
actors from the 90s and a lot of famous musicians too.
00:21:21
Like just in terms of musical cameos.
00:21:23
We have acting appearances from like Naughty By Nature and
00:21:27
Cypress Hill and Biz Marquis, actual popular musicians from
00:21:31
around that time. And then in the actor side, we
00:21:34
have like James Earl Jones is in the movie, but his character,
00:21:38
right? This is one year before Lion
00:21:40
King comes out and we have Mufasa in this movie playing
00:21:44
like a stupid, completely redundant side character whose
00:21:48
only joke in the whole movie is that he wears wigs.
00:21:52
Oh man, I I have a very similar comparison in the movie that I
00:21:56
watched so. We'll do.
00:21:57
That later, yeah, it's unfortunate, but yeah, we'll
00:22:00
yeah, not the wigs thing, but we'll get to.
00:22:01
It not the wigs, but so James Earl Jones, you see him early
00:22:04
on. He lives in the same building as
00:22:08
Jefferson as Meteor Man, and he's his neighbor.
00:22:10
And the only two things you know about him is that he loves his
00:22:13
jazz records and he's putting on obviously fake toupees and
00:22:17
insisting that they look good. And so throughout the movie,
00:22:20
he's constantly wearing different, like dumb looking
00:22:22
toupees. And then he has no real
00:22:26
interactions with Meteor Mantra. Like the entire middle of the
00:22:29
story. He's just always around.
00:22:30
He dresses kind of silly too. He's supposed to be like Comic
00:22:33
Relief. And I guess the joke is mostly
00:22:35
just that James Earl Jones is the one doing it.
00:22:37
But then he even has like a dramatic turn where after Meteor
00:22:41
Man has been fighting crime for a while, it ends up with a lot
00:22:44
of retaliation against the community.
00:22:46
And so these same people who were like pushing Jefferson to
00:22:49
protect them turn their backs on him because they're like,
00:22:51
actually, you're making things worse.
00:22:53
And the he has this whole scene where like James Earl Jones,
00:22:56
even the comedy guy is like petitioning to kick Jefferson
00:22:59
out of their neighborhood in hopes that the gangs will leave
00:23:01
them alone. And it's this kind of like sad
00:23:04
bottom of the second act thing. So that in the end he changes
00:23:07
his mind and there's a scene of him like taking the toupee off
00:23:10
and like crying, 'cause he betrayed his friend.
00:23:13
And I'm like, this is the most unearned thing in any movie.
00:23:18
This is ridiculous. Yeah, Yeah.
00:23:22
OK. So we have some interesting
00:23:24
tonal swings in this, is there? OK, massive tonal swings in this
00:23:29
movie is there. What's the overarching story
00:23:33
though? Like is there a main antagonist
00:23:37
or goal that Meteor Man has throughout the film?
00:23:41
Great question. It's fairly straightforward.
00:23:43
The Golden Lords are the main antagonists.
00:23:45
They're just the local drug dealers, and they're a gang.
00:23:48
And so there's this escalating conflict between them and Meteor
00:23:51
Man. And even though through most of
00:23:53
the movie he's able to fight them off, he realizes that over
00:23:57
time he's actually losing his superpowers.
00:23:59
So after a while, the bad guys become aware of this too, and
00:24:02
things have reached a point where they're like, meteor Man's
00:24:04
like, Oh no, I can't even defend myself anymore.
00:24:07
And so his moral arc at the end is like, even without these
00:24:10
powers, I have to be ready to risk something in order to
00:24:15
confront these evils in my community.
00:24:18
So in the third act, he goes out to fight the bad guy with no
00:24:21
powers at all. And his bravery in doing so
00:24:24
inspires the rest of the community to come help him.
00:24:27
So at the end, like the townspeople of that neighborhood
00:24:30
like run out with pots and pans and try to fight the gangs
00:24:33
alongside him because he encouraged them.
00:24:36
Like you can't just ignore these problems and then also besmirch.
00:24:42
He he has a weird reference where he talks about like their
00:24:44
reaction to policing, which feels like a heavy thing to
00:24:47
bring up about how like a lot of crime ridden black communities
00:24:50
have understandable issues with the police.
00:24:52
But he kind of makes a comparison where it's like you
00:24:54
can't just badmouth them, but then also do nothing for
00:24:57
yourself to like fix these problems.
00:25:00
I'm like, OK, again, this is kind of heavy stuff for a movie
00:25:03
with baby baby gangs. Well, I was going to say, I
00:25:08
actually like that. Like on paper, the way that you
00:25:11
described that conflict and the fact that he's losing his
00:25:15
powers, it's kind of like the Green Ranger from Power Rangers.
00:25:19
Nice Power Rangers mentioned, add it to the point.
00:25:25
Some similar storyline there, but that's actually fun.
00:25:28
That's actually something I would I would like to see from a
00:25:32
like dramatic superhero from or just a traditional superhero
00:25:35
film. And it sounds like with these
00:25:38
massive tonal swings as you put it, that it almost, it almost
00:25:43
seems like they were trying to package a real message into this
00:25:47
film, like with comedy, though, to make it more palatable.
00:25:52
Definitely, it feels like an attempt to get everybody in the
00:25:56
room in order to deliver a message that the that Townsend
00:25:59
himself probably felt strongly about.
00:26:02
But it's so lost in its execution that by the end, like,
00:26:05
both sides feel harmed by the other.
00:26:08
Like the movie lands as being spectacularly unfunny because
00:26:13
it's not inviting you to make light of any of this stuff
00:26:17
enough. Sometimes it does.
00:26:19
It's like, everything here looks really dumb.
00:26:21
But then it's also like, no, you should care, though.
00:26:23
This is a real problem. And it's like, OK, if that's the
00:26:25
case, then why is there a gag at the end of the movie where he
00:26:29
touches a book called, like, Bruce Lee's Guide to Martial
00:26:31
Arts and then starts doing the, like, like Kung Fu stuff?
00:26:35
Yes, yes. Why is that in there at the end
00:26:37
of the movie? That's about this like real
00:26:39
problem. It, it, it almost seems like if
00:26:42
you were expected to take like one of those like parody films,
00:26:45
like Scary Movie, like if you were expected to take the
00:26:48
narrative of that film seriously, like, and be invested
00:26:52
in that while they were still doing all the, they're like
00:26:54
really crass, like flat humor. That's what I mean.
00:26:59
Like if you made the whole thing a straight up satire and leaned
00:27:03
all of your comedy on that idea, that could be a serviceable
00:27:07
comedy. I don't think it would be very
00:27:09
memorable. But like you were talking about,
00:27:12
the dramatic implications of the story are much more interesting
00:27:15
than the comedic ones. So the whole time I was like,
00:27:17
I'd rather you just ditch the comedy and make it sort of like
00:27:21
a undertone of humor about how the whole situation is a bit
00:27:24
silly. And instead when the comedy does
00:27:26
come into the movie, it's just like a freight train where it's
00:27:29
like, OK, what is this now? Like at 1.2 in that same scene
00:27:33
at the end, the bad guy from the Golden Lords also touches a
00:27:36
piece of the meteor. So they end up with the same
00:27:38
powers because it's a superhero movie.
00:27:40
And then they both touch a book that says like fashion model
00:27:45
walk offs like that. It turns into like the scene
00:27:47
from Zoolander where they're like strutting around as if it's
00:27:50
a fashion runway. And it's like this is dumb put
00:27:53
this away like this shouldn't make it into the edit.
00:27:57
Well, yeah, because I mean, contextually that makes sense in
00:28:00
Zoolander. That's they are models in that
00:28:04
movie. Why would these two, just
00:28:05
because they touched a book about fashion and modeling,
00:28:09
start having a? That's what I mean.
00:28:11
That's, that's the cartoon logic of it.
00:28:13
Like it's not. If you're not taking it
00:28:15
seriously, then you can do whatever you want and it's just
00:28:18
funny. Like if you want to make a
00:28:19
comedy, Meteor Man should have like uppercutted one of those
00:28:22
baby criminals to the moon. You know what?
00:28:24
I. Mean yeah, you should have
00:28:27
treated them equally as adversaries as.
00:28:30
He should have at some point in the movie, like given up on
00:28:33
helping the kids. He should have just been like
00:28:35
you're all. Worthless that would have been
00:28:39
that would have been dark, actually, but.
00:28:41
Like in a comedic sense where like he like maybe at some point
00:28:44
in the middle he's just like, ah, forget it, you're committing
00:28:46
crimes. I don't care.
00:28:48
I don't know, it feels like 2 Lego sets crammed together that
00:28:52
are not trying to make the same thing and it results in like, I
00:28:55
don't care what strength you have on either side of this
00:28:57
coin, you didn't make a movie, you made like a weird story that
00:29:02
has no impact at all. Yeah, yeah.
00:29:06
It's, it's, it's also kind of reminding me of like those SNL
00:29:11
films where they would take like a like sketch characters and try
00:29:14
and make that into like a feature length film.
00:29:16
And it just like almost never worked because it just seems
00:29:18
like they just didn't have enough material to turn that
00:29:22
into a narrative that audiences would care about, which is kind
00:29:26
of the difficulty of just making comedies in general.
00:29:29
But especially with that almost limitation of like overusing
00:29:32
this character that's like kind of just like a A1 note punchline
00:29:39
and then having to make that into a whole movie.
00:29:41
Yeah, pretty much. It feels like a script that
00:29:45
maybe in its first iteration made more sense, but by the time
00:29:48
the movie's over, you're like, why did they even follow through
00:29:51
with this idea? It felt like they didn't have a
00:29:53
whole movie. They didn't even have like fully
00:29:55
formed ideas for who the supporting cast was going to be.
00:29:58
It was just a one off idea that for the time, again, the joke
00:30:04
was kind of like, why don't we get a black superhero?
00:30:06
And it's like, I can understand that being a worthwhile thing
00:30:09
when there had never previously been one.
00:30:11
It's like this is important representation.
00:30:13
And it actually does seem to hold some responsibility for
00:30:16
like, why don't we talk about real crime that superheroes
00:30:20
theoretically would be trying to fix that.
00:30:22
Then it just gets totally lost. Like I can't think of almost
00:30:24
anything else to say about it because that's such such an
00:30:27
overarching problem with the movie.
00:30:28
Oh, that's. Oh, that's a shame.
00:30:31
I mean, I guess my questions would be then, like, how do you
00:30:36
feel about like Robert Townsend is the lead?
00:30:39
Like is he giving a performance that that leans either way?
00:30:43
Is it giving like a dramatic performance at times?
00:30:46
Is he funny, like, or at least humorous?
00:30:49
Great question. It is funny watching this coming
00:30:52
off of Steele because Steele was Shaquille O'Neal as an actor
00:30:57
when he's not an actor by trade and he did a terrible job in the
00:30:59
movie, tried its best to hide it.
00:31:01
Robert Townsend is an actor and he's definitely believable as
00:31:05
this character. Like, I feel like he played it
00:31:07
the way he intended and he's a perfectly competent performer.
00:31:11
But again, it's like the choices at a top level are so bizarre
00:31:15
because one of the other problems the movie has,
00:31:17
regardless of like the drama versus comedy balancing, is that
00:31:20
everything about it is really slow and sedate, both in terms
00:31:25
of the actual pacing of the movie and like the line reading
00:31:29
in the movie. There's so many pieces of
00:31:31
dialogue that are delivered in this kind of like, slow,
00:31:35
effortful pattern that it makes you really legitimately tired
00:31:39
watching the movie. And I don't understand why any
00:31:41
of that happened. Wait, like elaborate on that?
00:31:44
Like tired watching the movie because it's so dull in its
00:31:47
delivery. It's very droll in how they they
00:31:51
perform it. Like there's a better example
00:31:54
towards the end where in addition to the golden Lords,
00:31:56
there's also just kind of these like vague higher up business
00:32:00
people, criminals. There's this like old white man
00:32:02
who shows up towards the end and is trying to escalate things
00:32:04
with Meteor Man. And he has one line of dialogue
00:32:07
that on on the on the page is you've really been giving me a
00:32:10
lot of grief because he's been having trouble with Meteor man
00:32:13
throughout the whole story. And this is their first time
00:32:15
like really interacting. He's like, you've been giving me
00:32:17
a lot of grief, Meteor man. But the actual line read from
00:32:19
the actor is like, you've been giving me a lot of grief.
00:32:24
And it's like not delivered with emphasis.
00:32:26
It's just spoken really slowly. I mean, great line read by you,
00:32:32
of course. Thank you.
00:32:33
We appreciate that. The way you delivered it, it
00:32:37
almost sounds like it. It could have been intended to
00:32:40
be intimidating, you know, like he was.
00:32:43
Like, you give me a lot of grief, Meteor Man.
00:32:45
Like the arch, kind of. But it's not.
00:32:48
It's not Arch, it's not camp, it's just slow.
00:32:52
Like it's an anomaly to me. I can't think of another movie
00:32:56
that does dialogue this way. And even Townsend himself, I
00:33:00
think because the character at the beginning is supposed to be
00:33:02
a very mild mannered and like nervous guy.
00:33:04
He tried to hold on to that even after becoming Meteor Man.
00:33:08
But he never gets out of that gear where he just speaks in
00:33:11
this kind of like quiet, unenthusiastic tone, no matter
00:33:15
how serious or exciting things are getting.
00:33:17
And again, it's not played as a joke.
00:33:19
Like, it would be kind of funny if they were like, oh, he has
00:33:21
the powers of Superman, but he's really uncharismatic, so nobody
00:33:23
likes him or like something like that.
00:33:25
And there's a couple side characters who are, like, giving
00:33:27
it more pizzazz. But like, the main guy in the
00:33:29
movie just doesn't have any emphasis behind any of his
00:33:34
acting. And I find it really strange
00:33:35
because I'm sure he could if he wanted to.
00:33:38
Yeah, yeah. I, I, I'm going to say I'm not
00:33:42
going to try and make too many assumptions, especially because
00:33:46
I haven't seen the film, but it's a good reason.
00:33:48
It's a good reason to not. But but based on everything I'm
00:33:52
hearing, it almost sounds like Robert Townsend himself was
00:33:57
maybe wearing too many hats in this production.
00:34:00
Probably. Because I believe he was writer,
00:34:04
director, star, producer on the movie.
00:34:09
And a lot of this is coming off as I want, I don't want to say
00:34:13
amateur filmmaking, but maybe just like first time, you know,
00:34:19
like directing, first time producing, like, because a lot
00:34:25
of this stuff just seems like, like I mentioned earlier, it's
00:34:28
like with comedy scripts, it's it's talked about where it's
00:34:30
like some sometimes like a script is written and then like
00:34:34
a team of comedy writers will come in to quote UN quote, punch
00:34:39
up the script and like add more jokes or just make it more
00:34:44
cohesive, like comedically, I guess.
00:34:48
And it seems like it needed that on the writing side.
00:34:50
It seems like on the directing, if everyone was coming off as
00:34:55
flat and tired, like then it it needed more that the actors
00:34:59
needed more direction. And as you said too, with James
00:35:03
Earl Jones, it's like, is the joke just that it's James Earl
00:35:07
Jones wearing a wig? Because like, that's a first
00:35:10
draft idea maybe, but you need more than just that.
00:35:14
Like that's less than they would do like on an SNL bit to make.
00:35:18
And you also need him to be in the movie and have like a
00:35:21
purpose in the movie. There is a payoff where the way
00:35:25
they signify that James Earl Jones has come around and
00:35:27
realized that he should not continue to hide and hope that
00:35:30
the gangs will leave him alone, He should help his friend is
00:35:33
that he's up in his apartment window and he throws one of his
00:35:37
precious jazz records at the bad guy to distract him like they
00:35:40
talk about earlier in the movie. He's like, ah, I would never
00:35:43
part with my Billie Holiday records.
00:35:44
And then he throws one and breaks it to like distract the
00:35:48
bad guy. So I'm like, OK, that's it.
00:35:51
That's a button on his character.
00:35:53
Where has he been the whole time?
00:35:56
Have a purpose in the movie beyond that one idea at the
00:35:59
beginning that pays off at the end.
00:36:01
There isn't like a more of a traditional sidekick character
00:36:04
who's Townsend's friend that works with him at the school,
00:36:08
and it's kind of like his support guy, but he doesn't do a
00:36:11
lot either. Like the only real beat with him
00:36:13
is that at one point he steals Meteor Man's suit and pretends
00:36:17
to be Meteor Man to like, pick up women at the mall, and then
00:36:21
that kind of goes nowhere. Yeah, and I'm sure we dedicate a
00:36:25
whole pointless scene to that. Yeah, we dedicate a whole scene
00:36:28
where like the bad guys are going after who they still think
00:36:33
is Meteor Man, even though it's his friend.
00:36:34
And so the real Meteor Man's like, Oh no, I have to save him
00:36:38
without he he wants to do it in like a non confrontational way
00:36:41
because a lot of his problem solving is very nonviolent.
00:36:44
So instead of fighting the bad guys before they can get to his
00:36:48
friend, he like eye lasers the back of their guns so that they
00:36:53
don't fire. And then he telekinesis is his
00:36:57
friend into the sky so it looks like it is the real meteor man.
00:37:00
And then the scene just kind of ends because they didn't know
00:37:02
what they were doing with it. It just kind of ends.
00:37:05
That's the whole movie. Things just sort of happen back
00:37:08
and forth. The Golden Lords show up, then
00:37:11
they leave, then they show up again, then they leave.
00:37:14
Like it. It has no rhythm.
00:37:16
The movie is completely lacking in comedic rhythm or just
00:37:20
storytelling rhythm where a lot of it is fine.
00:37:24
I would even say the movie looks kind of nice, like the
00:37:26
cinematography is basic, but it has sort of this warm orange
00:37:31
lighting quality to it that I really liked.
00:37:33
And even the costuming for the Golden Lords is pretty funny.
00:37:36
But yeah, just a bunch of pieces that never came together.
00:37:40
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I like that you mentioned the
00:37:43
the warm lighting. I'm a I'm a big fan of like warm
00:37:46
lighting and cinematography too, and kind of the emotion that
00:37:49
that evokes. 'Cause I think his he was going
00:37:51
for orange and green as like the color palette, 'cause everything
00:37:54
Meteor Man does is green. And then the orange was used for
00:37:57
like a lot of the fill lights and the backgrounds.
00:37:59
And there's a lot of like just late in the afternoon kind of
00:38:02
shots on these sets that they're doing.
00:38:04
So like the movie's not pointless.
00:38:06
Like there's nice qualities to it.
00:38:08
And clearly it left an impression in terms of like
00:38:10
being a landmark movie for black representation and a very
00:38:14
popular genre. I will say before I forget, the
00:38:18
golden Lords actually show up in a Miles Morales spider man comic
00:38:21
at some point as like a one off. Oh, see, that's what I'm saying.
00:38:24
Yeah. I, I think that's the the Marvel
00:38:28
partnership now. I I think that that somewhere
00:38:30
along the way, these, yeah, these became Marvel characters.
00:38:33
The rights to Meteor Man were purchased by Marvel, and I think
00:38:36
Marvel even made like a short comic series about like the
00:38:40
continuing adventures of Meteor Man.
00:38:42
And then, yeah, as like a Easter egg, some gang people show up in
00:38:46
a Miles Morales story who are like have the signature golden
00:38:49
Lords look. So like, there's an impact
00:38:51
there. I'm sure it resonated with a lot
00:38:53
of people who were like, well, we didn't have anything before
00:38:55
this. And we like elements of what
00:38:58
this movie is choosing to represent.
00:39:00
But if anything, that just makes me more frustrated because I'm
00:39:02
like, you had a good chance here.
00:39:05
And clearly a lot of good ideas. But to your point, Frank, I
00:39:09
think he just, he wore too many hats on this one.
00:39:12
And it he just couldn't keep all those plates spinning at the
00:39:14
same time. Yeah, like, I, I can see the
00:39:18
strong pitch for this movie. Like I, I can see why actors
00:39:22
like James Earl Jones would be a part of it, You know, like it,
00:39:25
it's like you said it it's filling an important void in
00:39:29
terms of representation. It just unfortunately wasn't the
00:39:33
best executed film. Yeah, I would say that I
00:39:37
complimented Steele in our first episode for aiming low because
00:39:41
it knew it didn't have a lot to work with trying to make a movie
00:39:44
starring Shaquille O'Neal where they couldn't even have him do a
00:39:46
lot of stunts because he was training for the Olympics.
00:39:49
There was like a lot of weird context behind that movie where
00:39:51
the end result was like really competent.
00:39:54
It was very A to B, but it hit all the correct beats and was
00:39:58
just kind of ATV movie feel, whereas Meteor Man was like
00:40:02
aiming a bit higher and whiffed it.
00:40:04
And so it ends up feeling like a much worse viewing experience,
00:40:08
even though it was trying to be something a lot better than
00:40:10
Steele ever was. Well, yeah, that's I, I almost
00:40:15
expected this from Meteor Man, to be honest.
00:40:17
I thought it would be an interesting choice because I was
00:40:20
curious to see if it kind of exceeded those expectations.
00:40:24
But it it sounds like it it it fell short.
00:40:28
Wasn't wasn't the best. It it ran out of powers script
00:40:33
writing superpowers before the movie ended, I don't know.
00:40:39
Yeah, you ran out of powers just now.
00:40:41
I did from watching Meteor Man. Well, I but to circle back on
00:40:47
that again though, I do like that that's something I would
00:40:49
like to see revisited. I like the idea of a superhero
00:40:55
gradually losing their superpowers over the course of a
00:40:59
film. You can even do it with like an
00:41:01
established character. We already know their powers and
00:41:05
then they're like slowly actually.
00:41:07
What was it? I think it was Tiger and Bunny,
00:41:10
the anime series that was about superhero characters.
00:41:13
I think the lead character in that Tiger was that was kind of
00:41:15
his story was that he was getting older and and losing his
00:41:18
superpowers. I thought that that was kind of
00:41:20
a fun thing. It's that's an interesting one.
00:41:22
I think the most common version you would see is like the I'm
00:41:26
getting too old for this story where like they have super
00:41:28
strength, but it's not as strong and like their stamina is
00:41:31
worsening. This one was more like, I had
00:41:33
nothing and then I was given everything.
00:41:35
And now I'm watching it slowly slip away, which I think is
00:41:38
interesting framing, like you said, because in that moment
00:41:40
he's like, oh, I have so much responsibility now.
00:41:42
I can fix everything. And there's even dialogue about
00:41:45
like, once you're done saving our neighborhood, like you can
00:41:47
go to the next neighborhood and you'll, you'll rid the whole
00:41:50
planet of crime. And then in the end he's like,
00:41:52
no, I can't do all this myself, You know, no matter how powered
00:41:56
up I am. Like it's up to individual
00:41:58
people to work together to address the problems ailing
00:42:03
their communities. Which is like a strong message
00:42:06
that is immediately dwarfed by him doing a bad Bruce Lee gag in
00:42:10
the good old climax of the story.
00:42:13
It it's a strong. Message and a good take on
00:42:14
superheroes in general in in terms of like superheroes in the
00:42:20
real world context and them being more symbols than actual
00:42:26
beings with unlimited power that could go stop all the crime
00:42:28
because I think I don't know if we've mentioned that in our last
00:42:30
episode or whatever, but that's kind of a thing with
00:42:34
superheroes, especially characters like Superman.
00:42:36
It's like, yeah, why don't you go just stop all the war with
00:42:38
Superman? Like, you know, you can do
00:42:41
anything. That's what the most recent
00:42:43
James Gunn Superman tried to do. And then instead it was like a
00:42:45
15 minute talking to from another character where they're
00:42:49
like, that was bad Superman, you don't understand international
00:42:52
politics. And I was like, why is this in
00:42:54
here? This is so boring.
00:42:58
Did you guys ever think that if Superman was real, that might be
00:43:02
kind of problematic? And it's like, yeah, wow,
00:43:06
thrilling. But but to bring it back to
00:43:10
Meteor man, he tried to address that in in a way, and it may
00:43:14
have just not landed, but I like the idea behind it.
00:43:17
I I do, I do appreciate. That 10 out of 10.
00:43:19
Meteor Man. 10 out of 10 for that concept, that idea, but you
00:43:24
know, again, it's about the execution.
00:43:26
Yeah, 10 out of 10 for effort, soon to be revealed out of 10
00:43:31
for how good the movie was. Soon to be, yeah.
00:43:35
Pretty good actually. Pretty good.
00:43:37
We'll see. So yeah, that's that's it for
00:43:40
Meteor Man for now. We're going to head into our
00:43:41
intermission and then Frank coming in after the break,
00:43:44
you'll talk about the movie I asked you to watch, 1992's The
00:43:47
Shadow. Maybe I might do it.
00:43:51
He might do it, maybe he just didn't see it, Whatever.
00:44:04
All right, Frank, quick note, while we're still in our
00:44:06
intermission, we for the first time are actually going to make
00:44:09
a guest appearance on a different podcast, if you can
00:44:12
believe it. I can't believe it.
00:44:14
Who would let us near their own production?
00:44:20
Yes, we, Frank, you and I, we recorded an episode with Tristan
00:44:24
and Jeff from the Hard Ticket podcast, which also is a movie
00:44:28
podcast that talks about two movies at a time.
00:44:30
They have a different gimmick than us.
00:44:32
Theirs is that you pick 2 movies with some connecting thread
00:44:35
between them and you sort of suppose that they're both
00:44:38
playing at the movies at the same time and you have to decide
00:44:40
which one of them you'd rather go see.
00:44:42
So we made an episode with them talking about two 70s disaster
00:44:46
movies, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, and
00:44:50
had a great conversation with them.
00:44:52
So if you like our show, please go check out our guest
00:44:54
appearance on Hard Ticket. Their show's fantastic as well.
00:44:57
If you like our content, you'll definitely like theirs.
00:44:59
That comes out if you're listening to this episode.
00:45:02
The Hard Ticket appearance releases tomorrow, Friday,
00:45:05
February 20th, So very excited about that.
00:45:08
Yeah, me too. Hope to see you over there.
00:45:10
Believe it or not, Frank's excited.
00:45:12
Weird, right? Right.
00:45:15
OK, bye. Bye.
00:45:24
All right, back from the other side of the intermission, Frank.
00:45:26
Now we turn things over to you to talk about the movie I asked
00:45:28
you to watch, 1994's The Shadow, starring Alec Baldwin in what I
00:45:33
think is sort of like a Hulk comic era superhero movie,
00:45:40
right? That's like a whole different
00:45:42
type of superhero. But there's been a couple movies
00:45:44
like it and I'm curious if you like this one.
00:45:46
Yeah, he is definitely that in this movie.
00:45:50
It's similar to It's funny that this was my first comparison.
00:45:56
The the first time you see his character like in costume in the
00:46:01
movie, I'm like, this reminds me of something.
00:46:04
I was like, you know what he looks like Darkwing Duck and.
00:46:10
You know what? I could see that.
00:46:13
Like if you do a side by side, I literally because I had to look
00:46:16
it up and I was like, what is Darkwing Duck based on?
00:46:20
And and the inspirations listed for Darkwing Duck are Batman,
00:46:24
The Green Hornet and the Shadow. Because the shadow was like I
00:46:29
think it's most popular previous iteration was like a radio
00:46:33
drama, but it was also like a comic strip.
00:46:36
And in terms of the costuming though, the Darkwing Duck is
00:46:40
very literally the shadow. They're wearing like the same
00:46:42
thing. That's awesome.
00:46:44
Yeah, 'cause I guess for someone who maybe can't picture this
00:46:47
because they haven't seen a lot of things like it, these were
00:46:49
like 1930s, you know, pulp action shows or radio serials,
00:46:55
like you said, that often were sort of a combination of like a
00:46:58
noir detective and a superhero. Green Hornet's probably the most
00:47:03
recognizable one of those picture like a guy fighting
00:47:06
crime in a trench coat. And that's kind of where we're
00:47:08
at. Yes, well, it's also very Batman
00:47:11
too. I mean, I would say maybe
00:47:12
Batman's a little more popular. Than Batman is more popular but
00:47:16
is like more blended into regular superhero storytelling.
00:47:19
But he is sort of like a bridge between a Superman and the
00:47:23
shadow. Yes, you're very right.
00:47:26
These guys are definitely way more on the noir detective side
00:47:30
of things, which is a lot of fun honestly.
00:47:32
Like it's it's a great space to play around in.
00:47:35
But this movie, it's crazy. It's I was very excited as from
00:47:47
like the very beginning, like like the first like 20 or so
00:47:51
minutes of this movie, I'm like, well, this is 10 out of 10.
00:47:53
We're just. Nice.
00:47:57
This is I was like, if what you've told me is true, you have
00:48:00
earned my trust for the rest of this movie is.
00:48:04
That case window. Yeah, yeah.
00:48:06
Thank you. This guy out here dropping
00:48:11
obscure Revenge of the Sith chord.
00:48:16
I'm glad you got it though. I'm glad you're paying
00:48:18
attention. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm on my
00:48:19
toes. Yeah, yeah, it's just like, I
00:48:22
almost don't even know where to begin with this because there's
00:48:24
so much to to to talk about that I enjoyed.
00:48:27
Let's start at the beginning. That's usually a good place.
00:48:30
Usually it starts. It starts with an opening title
00:48:37
crawl for the credits. Sorry, not a title crawl, but
00:48:40
like just an opening credits sequence with some fun music.
00:48:44
The score is by Jerry Goldsmith, who also did the score for
00:48:48
Supergirl. So that's that's two in a row.
00:48:52
Yeah. And he more famously has did the
00:48:55
score for all the early Star Trek movies.
00:48:58
And I think he even did the score for Next Generation.
00:49:01
I think he was the one that composed the TNG theme.
00:49:05
Yeah, so the shadow right away has a fun score that's very
00:49:10
reminiscent of like, I would say like the Tim Burton Batman
00:49:15
movies. I think if you want to get get a
00:49:17
sense like visually of what this film is most similar to it, it
00:49:22
would be those those movies. It's kind of like the early 90s,
00:49:25
like Michael Keaton Batman stuff.
00:49:27
Yes, it's kind of like that, but leaning more into like, like you
00:49:31
mentioned earlier, like the Green Hornet side of things,
00:49:35
where it it's not as bombastic in its visual stylistic choices.
00:49:42
But I like that 'cause it almost lands in a in a more tempered
00:49:45
place between the two. Which is good for a live action,
00:49:48
I mean kind of makes it an easier adaptation I think.
00:49:51
Yeah, No, exactly, exactly. And yeah, and you mentioned Alec
00:49:55
Baldwin, who is is great in this movie.
00:50:02
As somebody who's watched a lot of 30 Rock, it was really hard
00:50:06
for me to not picture him like as Jack Donaghy as the Shadow.
00:50:11
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Alec Baldwin's a funny one.
00:50:15
He's like, I mean, modern Alec Baldwin is mired in public
00:50:20
controversy. So not people aren't a big fan
00:50:22
of the person, but as an actor, he's so much the same guy in a
00:50:26
lot of his movies that it does kind of feel like Alec Baldwin,
00:50:30
the character playing the shadow as opposed to like him
00:50:33
inhabiting a new role. Totally.
00:50:35
And and from what I read, the film makers had him in mind for
00:50:39
the role from the very beginning.
00:50:40
So I was almost written specifically for him, which I
00:50:43
think totally works for this. But we have to get into the rest
00:50:49
of the cast a little bit here too because it is also stacked.
00:50:53
I mean, it's crazy, like, just during that opening credit
00:50:58
sequence, like, names were popping up, people I did not
00:51:01
know were in the movie going in. But Ian McKellen is in this
00:51:05
movie. Tim Curry.
00:51:08
Like, those two characters share a lot of screen time.
00:51:13
The main antagonist of the film, who is a direct descendant of
00:51:22
Genghis Khan, but with superpowers.
00:51:26
OK, which is just amazing. This is this is where I was
00:51:29
like, that's what this movie is. I'm so sold on everything you're
00:51:33
telling me right now. Like that's hilarious.
00:51:36
We all know the famously super powered gang is gone.
00:51:39
Yeah, I was like, that's the bad guy.
00:51:41
That's awesome. Like tell me more.
00:51:43
I'm on his team. Honestly, especially because
00:51:46
he's played by John Lone. Who is for me Most famously
00:51:53
known he was Ricky Tan in Rush Hour 2.
00:51:57
Oh, OK, OK, that that is more of a poll than a Ian McKellen.
00:52:01
But honestly, yeah, Rush Hour 2 is great so that makes sense.
00:52:05
Yes, yes, exactly. There's a lot of like actors in
00:52:08
this that just spoke to me specifically.
00:52:11
Like I'm like, oh, that guy said this, this is great.
00:52:14
We had last season, I think, oh gosh, what movie was he in?
00:52:20
I think it was no escape. We had Stuart Wilson, who was
00:52:26
who played Walker, the bad guy from the live action Ninja
00:52:30
Turtles 3 movie. Oh.
00:52:31
Yeah, yeah, Ninja Turtles mentioned.
00:52:33
Put it on the other board. Yeah, yeah, this movie has the
00:52:37
other bad guy from Ninja Turtles. 3.
00:52:40
Yeah, yeah. His name is is SAB Shimono.
00:52:44
And I had to look him up because he was one where I was like, I
00:52:47
know, I recognize this guy. And I was like, oh, OK, OK, it's
00:52:49
that guy from the Trolls 3. And but then I was looking at
00:52:52
his other credits too. And he was also the voice of the
00:52:58
uncle character on Jackie Chan Adventures, which I didn't know
00:53:01
previously. Oh that's awesome.
00:53:03
I love when it really shows how much time we spend watching and
00:53:07
talking about movies that your examples for.
00:53:09
Like this cast is stacked. Is the bad guy from Rush Hour 2
00:53:13
and the uncle from Jackie Chan? Venture Yeah, yeah.
00:53:17
And I have one more. Two.
00:53:18
Well, I have one more that's possibly even more obscure, but
00:53:22
the this is this. This is also the second movie in
00:53:25
a row. We got 22 Jerry Goldsmith scores
00:53:28
in a row, but we also have two die hard alum actors.
00:53:32
In a row. Yes, yes, this movie, it's, it's
00:53:35
a very bit role, as is usually the case for him.
00:53:37
But the actor's name is is Albert Leong, and he's the guy
00:53:41
who eats the crunch bar in Die Hard.
00:53:45
Yeah, where he's just, like, waiting to shoot at the police,
00:53:47
but he's hiding behind, like, the candy counter.
00:53:50
And so he starts eating chocolate.
00:53:52
Yes, that guy is in that like that rare class of actors where
00:53:56
he's like a famous extra almost. He's like made a whole career
00:54:01
out of like, I was looking him up and like some people like his
00:54:05
nickname is that they refer to him as like Asian bad guy
00:54:08
because that's just usually like the role that he's in, right?
00:54:11
Is he like a stuntman too? Is that part of it?
00:54:14
I, he might be, I, I didn't do too much digging in in into
00:54:17
that. I just know I, I've recognized
00:54:19
him in a lot of roles for me, most famously Die Hard.
00:54:23
But he's been in a ton of action franchises.
00:54:25
Like honestly, like pretty much all the big action franchises of
00:54:28
the 90s he's been a part of just in bit roles.
00:54:31
And yeah, he may. He may be a stunt performer as
00:54:33
well. That's The funny thing about
00:54:35
looking back at a lot of films from a certain period of time is
00:54:38
that you do start to see like the actual Hollywood ecosystem,
00:54:42
like people moving from one project to the next and kind of
00:54:45
just combining and recombining. I'm actually pretty interested
00:54:49
in Ian McKellen being in this. Like, so many of his most iconic
00:54:54
roles came later in his career. I wonder what he was best known
00:54:57
for at the time in 94. That's that's an excellent point
00:55:02
because I was thinking too, I'm like, this is like not too long
00:55:06
before he plays Magneto. Well, that's true.
00:55:09
Which is a a big superhero movie.
00:55:12
Yeah, he's still playing Magneto.
00:55:13
He's going to be Magneto in the in end game I think.
00:55:16
He's going to play Magneto long after you and I are dead.
00:55:19
Yes, exactly. Long after he's dead, he's still
00:55:22
going to be Magneto, actually. Yeah, But yeah, this was 94.
00:55:27
I think the original X-Men was 99 or 2000.
00:55:30
But he I will say him and Tim Curry to an extent to are
00:55:36
actually, I guess the biggest disappointments because similar
00:55:40
to what you were saying with James Earl Jones, he's
00:55:43
completely wasted in this movie. He has very little dialogue.
00:55:48
The plot line involving him has him like he's gets like mind
00:55:54
controlled, which is kind of a big thing in this movie
00:55:56
actually. And so he's just kind of like
00:56:00
being a mind controlled puppet for the bad guy, for Ricky Tan
00:56:03
for like most of the movie. Just going to call him Ricky
00:56:06
Tan. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:56:08
Or con, whatever you want to call him.
00:56:09
Whatever works. I just just that's such an ear
00:56:12
worm for me. Is is is Chris Tucker in rush
00:56:15
hour, too? He's like Ricky Tan.
00:56:16
Ricky Tan, get up. I need you to come with me.
00:56:18
Oh yeah, yeah. OK, really fast.
00:56:21
Chris Tucker does an uncredited voice cameo in Not Method Man.
00:56:26
That's a That's a record, Meteor Man.
00:56:30
There's a scene I mentioned at the mall where Meteor Man's
00:56:33
friend is pretending to be him and there's somebody speaking
00:56:35
over APA and that's Chris Tucker.
00:56:38
No way. Oh, that's great.
00:56:39
That's awesome. Chris Tucker does very few film
00:56:43
roles in general. One of the only things he seems
00:56:45
to always want to do is Rush Hour.
00:56:47
Yeah, yeah, that's true. Anyway, so those are Chris
00:56:49
Tucker adjacent double feature. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:56:54
But yeah, but also similar to James Earl Jones character in
00:56:58
Meteor Man, there's this weird thing with Ian Mckellen's
00:57:02
character. It's like the only quirk his
00:57:04
character gets is that like, I honestly don't even know what
00:57:08
they were going for here. They don't explicitly say he's
00:57:13
color blind, but he doesn't seem to know.
00:57:18
Like he confuses red and green. Like he just thinks things that
00:57:24
are red are green and the opposite.
00:57:28
Thrilling. Yeah, well, it comes it like at
00:57:31
first it's just like, OK, that's a weird detail to throw in.
00:57:35
But then in the climax of the film, he has to to disarm a bomb
00:57:41
and like cut the red wire or something, and he goes to cut
00:57:45
the green wire and another character has to be like, no,
00:57:48
not that one. Like so it's like what?
00:57:52
I don't understand. That's not that doesn't seem
00:57:54
like a like a loud enough bit. Like what?
00:57:58
It would be funny if it was like play to the point of absurdity,
00:58:01
but otherwise that's not a dramatic beat.
00:58:04
No, no, and and and this movie, like tonally isn't a good place.
00:58:10
Like it it it never it takes itself too seriously.
00:58:15
It's it's very much inhabiting a world of camp.
00:58:18
I would say it's so it's not like it's out of place
00:58:22
necessarily. It's just odd, you know, and and
00:58:24
not not elaborated on in a way that made sense.
00:58:27
I was genuinely like, I don't get it.
00:58:29
I I really don't understand what the point of this is.
00:58:32
Like why he can't? Is it just these two colours he
00:58:34
can't tell apart? Is he colour blind?
00:58:36
They they don't say enough. That's the most common form I
00:58:38
think is red green colour blind. I would, I would assume if
00:58:41
that's going to be in there as even remotely like silly bit,
00:58:43
you'd have to play it as like, he's constantly driving through
00:58:48
red lights thinking they're green lights.
00:58:49
And the joke is like, how would he not understand that by now
00:58:52
that that's how it works? You know what I mean?
00:58:53
Like something more overtly silly.
00:58:56
But it seems like they're like, no, this is just a struggle for
00:58:58
Ian McKellen. Yeah, Yeah.
00:59:01
So it's unfortunate because he is very much wasted.
00:59:05
Like when he's not under mind control, he's kind of just like
00:59:07
this, like doddering old fool. And I'm like, oh, this is such a
00:59:10
bummer. Like, you don't need to like do
00:59:13
Ian McKellen like that. And.
00:59:14
And it's also he's paired up with Tim Curry.
00:59:16
Tim Curry is like his E Mckellen's character is like a
00:59:20
scientist, like researcher, and he's like research assistant is
00:59:24
Tim Curry. But Tim Curry, like, willingly
00:59:28
like, sides with the bad guys because he's just like, kind of
00:59:32
a scummy character. And so they don't get nearly
00:59:35
enough screen time together. And E McKellen just has just a
00:59:38
weak character and he's barely there.
00:59:40
So that was kind of a shame because I was, I went from being
00:59:44
very excited that they were here at all and then on screen
00:59:47
together. And, and I think I even read
00:59:49
too, that Tim Curry only agreed to do the movie because he got
00:59:54
to work with Ian McKellen. Oh interesting.
00:59:56
But why though? Was it from his stage work?
00:59:59
Like what was his biggest movie in 90?
01:00:00
I'm so curious about that. I believe I could be wrong about
01:00:03
this, but I I think the two of them had actually worked
01:00:05
together on stage before. I think Tim Curry and Ian
01:00:08
McKellen. Had a stage before, yeah.
01:00:09
He was like a super accomplished theatrical actor.
01:00:14
And I know he was in stuff even in like the mid to late 90s that
01:00:17
was like very acclaimed. But I don't know, as someone who
01:00:20
grew up in like the 90s into the 2000s, I'm just like Gandalf.
01:00:24
Like that's just all I can think of.
01:00:26
Yeah. So because this is also, again,
01:00:27
not too far removed from the first Lord of the Rings.
01:00:31
And and this is this is just a little bit earlier than that
01:00:33
before his biggest, like commercially successful roles.
01:00:36
So I don't know if audiences would have been like, at the
01:00:39
time been like, Oh my gosh, Ian McKellen, you know, they might
01:00:42
not have. He may have primarily been a
01:00:43
stage actor at this point. And I didn't do enough research
01:00:46
into that. Anyway, who's who's Alec Baldwin
01:00:51
in it? Alec Baldwin's basically Batman.
01:00:54
He, yeah, like everything about him.
01:00:58
Just picture Batman and that's it.
01:01:00
Like he like. Picture Batman changed nothing
01:01:05
Ian Mckell No The Shadow. The shadow, yeah.
01:01:09
So to continue with things I don't actually understand about
01:01:13
the movie, I really don't 100% understand like what the shadows
01:01:19
like superpowers are like. So again, we'll start at the
01:01:24
beginning because that's usually that's, that's a great place to
01:01:26
start. Yeah, yeah.
01:01:27
Yeah, the movie starts in just a hilarious way where like Baldwin
01:01:33
is introduced on screen as this like mustache twirling like evil
01:01:38
character, like living in some. I don't even know if they
01:01:42
specify, but he's in like some Asian like Eastern country and
01:01:48
is like a like mob boss guy of some kind.
01:01:52
He's like killing people. And then he's abducted by these
01:01:59
monks who are like, we're going to train you and teach you how
01:02:04
to like control men's minds is what they say to him.
01:02:08
And the the first action sequence of the film is him
01:02:12
fighting a like dagger that flies around and has a name.
01:02:16
It's got like a little like face on it.
01:02:19
What? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's but, but
01:02:23
it was reminding me again of Power Rangers.
01:02:25
It was reminding me of like the Saba.
01:02:27
Sword. That the White Ranger has, yeah.
01:02:29
And. On the board.
01:02:30
Put it on the board. It's two in one episode.
01:02:35
But I'm like, OK, this is this is kind of silly.
01:02:38
But they're like, yeah, they're like, we're going to, we're
01:02:40
going to teach you to to be the shadow.
01:02:43
And then we flash forward and, oh, actually, so.
01:02:48
So after that, like, movie begins, we have these few scenes
01:02:52
play out. And then when that scene ends,
01:02:54
then we get like a text scroll saying like, you know, the monks
01:02:59
trained him to be the shadow. And then he went back to like,
01:03:02
New York City. I'm like, this is really odd to
01:03:05
have this at this point. Yeah, in the movie.
01:03:08
Why did the what was the monks stated reason for why they chose
01:03:12
him? They're like, you seem like a
01:03:13
really bad, irresponsible person.
01:03:16
He's perfect, I think. I don't know, that's the thing.
01:03:20
Like it's I they don't elaborate a lot they or at all really.
01:03:25
They just, I think it had something to do with like maybe
01:03:29
he was like a descendant of someone that had this ability.
01:03:35
Like I, I there was a specific reason they chose him.
01:03:37
He wasn't just like a random person that they grabbed and
01:03:40
decided that they were going to teach this.
01:03:41
It had to be him for some specific reason.
01:03:44
I believe they did not say just. Picturing these monks being
01:03:49
like, now the shadow has to be disciplined and efficient and
01:03:53
well trained and stoic and they're like, who could do that?
01:03:57
Certainly not a monk. Yeah, exactly.
01:04:00
It's like, why don't you guys do this?
01:04:02
I don't like. They also don't really say why
01:04:05
any of this is necessary. Like they don't get into the
01:04:10
lore and I'm totally fine with that.
01:04:11
I think I said that during the Supergirl review too.
01:04:13
I'm like, I really don't actually care.
01:04:15
If there's a theme for this season, it's that we're we don't
01:04:18
want lore, we don't need it. You don't need it because then
01:04:21
the very next scene after the the the text scroll is like
01:04:25
scroll scroll is not a thing he's.
01:04:27
Well, maybe they scrawled text on the scroll.
01:04:30
That's true. That's how they did it.
01:04:31
Fun fact, he's, he's back in New York and you get this very like
01:04:38
Batman esque scene where there's these, you know, these thugs and
01:04:42
they have this guy like literally they've, they've put a
01:04:46
block of cement on his feet, you know, and they're gonna like
01:04:49
throw him in the river. They're gonna throw him off the
01:04:51
Brooklyn Bridge. And the Shadow does this thing
01:04:55
where he does this like maniacal laugh from the shadows.
01:05:00
And it's really funny 'cause it's just like Alec Baldwin
01:05:03
doing an evil laugh. And I'm like, that's a funny
01:05:05
thing for your superhero character to do.
01:05:08
Yeah, like you said, it's just like, ha ha.
01:05:14
Exactly. And so and then, so this is,
01:05:19
this is like his first action sequence as the shadow.
01:05:22
And like, they can't see him, you know, because he's like a
01:05:25
shadow. He's like beating them up.
01:05:27
Yeah. So it's like, but you do see
01:05:30
there's like this visual effect of like this like smoke man kind
01:05:35
of like punching them and like throwing them around.
01:05:37
And I'm like, oh, wait, So he has like actual shadow man
01:05:42
powers. And then that scene ends where
01:05:45
it's like the one like bad guy that he didn't knock
01:05:48
unconscious, like sees him in his full like the shadow costume
01:05:53
and it's the Darkwing duck. But then he also for some
01:05:57
reason, like when he is the shadow, it's a hell of Baldwin
01:06:01
in this like prosthetic makeup where he has this like goofy,
01:06:05
like almost Freddy Krueger looking mask.
01:06:08
It's like this like rubber mask looking thing.
01:06:13
And I and I think the idea behind it is to make him look
01:06:16
intimidating to these criminals. He's supposed to look like a a
01:06:19
monster man or something. I don't I'm not following any of
01:06:23
this. But no, that's the thing.
01:06:24
It's confusing because like the this, this is the first action
01:06:29
sequence you see. And then the next scene you see
01:06:31
with him is he's doing the Bruce Wayne side of this whole Batman
01:06:34
stick where he's talking to like the police commissioner, you
01:06:37
know, and they're like, oh, we got to catch the shadow guy.
01:06:40
And then he does this like literal Jedi mind trick on the
01:06:44
guy. He like leans back and like this
01:06:46
shadow literally covers Alec Baldwin's face.
01:06:49
And he starts just saying things like, you're not going to look
01:06:52
for the shadow. He doesn't exist.
01:06:53
And then like the police commissioner's like, I'm not
01:06:55
going to look for him. He doesn't exist.
01:06:56
So I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
01:06:58
So he can Jedi mind trick people.
01:07:01
So like I'm like, is that his only ability?
01:07:05
Like he can just trick people into thinking they're seeing
01:07:08
things. It's the whole shadow
01:07:10
presentation of mind trick. That's a good question.
01:07:12
Yes, which is what I thought up until like the midway point in
01:07:17
the movie where he starts doing like other shadow things.
01:07:20
And I'm like, OK, wait a minute. Now I'm more confused because,
01:07:23
like, because later there's a there's an action sequence in
01:07:27
the middle of the film where he's like fighting some more
01:07:30
hench men. And at one point, like one of
01:07:32
them, he's like shining a light around the room trying to, to
01:07:35
find, you know, Alec Baldwin as the shadow.
01:07:38
And like, he sees his shadow up against the wall.
01:07:41
And one of the bad guys, 'cause they're like Genghis Khan, foot
01:07:44
soldier guys, has like a crossbow.
01:07:47
And he like, yeah, of course, 'cause of course he does.
01:07:51
He shoots the crossbow into the shadow That's that's up on the
01:07:55
wall and it like pins him there almost like Peter Pan's shadow,
01:08:00
you know, where it's like this kind of separate entity from
01:08:04
him. And he's like stuck there.
01:08:06
Like he has, he's stuck to the wall for a second because his
01:08:09
shadow got shot to the wall. And I'm like, well, OK, now I'm
01:08:11
just really confused. This is very.
01:08:13
Strange, that's like 3 different concepts for the shadow All in
01:08:17
all in one movie. Yes, and he also has two guns,
01:08:21
so I'm like, OK, so he's also just like a regular guy, like.
01:08:25
My name's the Shadow. I have a Peter Pan shadow and a
01:08:29
gun. It's like, I feel like 2 guns, 2
01:08:32
guns and a shadow. And it's like, well, it's your
01:08:35
shadow. If you're in a dark room, are
01:08:37
there really shadows? And then he's like, well, hold
01:08:39
on. Hey, hey, gun, Wait a minute.
01:08:41
The monks didn't go over this. Yeah, they didn't tell me, they
01:08:44
didn't tell me. Just checking over the the like
01:08:47
script. He's like, well, how does this
01:08:48
work? Because then there's, there's
01:08:50
one other instance too. Again, the whole time I'm trying
01:08:53
to figure out how this works because like, there's like a guy
01:08:55
tailing him at one point and he like steps into like a dark
01:08:59
alley and then like disappears into the shadow.
01:09:02
And then the guy like can't find him.
01:09:03
And then he like walks away. And then Alec Baldwin steps out
01:09:05
of the alley and I'm like, wait, so is that a Jedi mind trick or?
01:09:09
Why would you need anything other than mind trick?
01:09:13
If you can make someone believe whatever you say, why would you
01:09:16
ever need any other tool? Well, I there's it's, it's
01:09:21
literally it's the same rules as Star Wars.
01:09:22
It like only works on like weak minded people is the
01:09:26
explanation. So at one point he's talking to
01:09:33
Ricky Tan, Genghis Khan and. That's actually my Xbox
01:09:37
gamertag, yeah. There's some numbers mixed in
01:09:42
there, though it's not. It's not all letters.
01:09:44
Ricky Tan, Genghis Khan 125 is on my.
01:09:49
And one of his hench men, you know, has a gun pointed at Alec
01:09:55
Baldwin because he's being mind controlled by Genghis Khan.
01:09:59
And then Alec Baldwin uses his Jedi mind trick power to make
01:10:04
that hench men like give him the gun.
01:10:07
So at one point they're like fighting over mind controlling
01:10:10
this guy. And I'm like, this is hilarious.
01:10:12
I love all of this, for the record.
01:10:15
It sounds goofy as heck. Like I as the one who has not
01:10:19
seen the movie, like it's the opposite of Meteor Man.
01:10:21
I'm like, on paper this sounds horrendous.
01:10:24
Yeah, no, but it's actually awesome for most of it.
01:10:27
I will say like, as I said at the beginning, like from like
01:10:32
the first like act of the movie, I'm like everything.
01:10:35
This is like they introduce this whole thing where he's the bad
01:10:39
guy. Then there's the monks, then
01:10:41
he's doing the Batman thing. And this is all before like they
01:10:44
revealed that the bad guy is. Is this like reincarnate Genghis
01:10:48
Khan who who can also Jedi mind trick people?
01:10:50
This this sounds like somebody drew Batman Begins from memory.
01:10:57
Yeah, it is. Actually kind of similar to like
01:11:00
the Razo Ghoul Ninja stuff. Obviously that movie came out
01:11:03
way later, but strange. Strange.
01:11:06
Just strange premise. Like that's not at all what I
01:11:08
would have assumed. I would have assumed that he's a
01:11:10
guy with two guns who sticks to the shadows because he's like a
01:11:16
crime fighter. I didn't assume he'd have powers
01:11:17
at all. Right, exactly because because
01:11:20
like his contemporary characters like of like Batman and Green
01:11:26
Hornet don't have powers like but he very much does.
01:11:30
That's his whole thing. But it's interesting too,
01:11:34
because he's also like, vulnerable.
01:11:37
He's not like an indestructible type character, you know, like
01:11:40
at one point Tim Curry almost kills him because for some
01:11:45
reason, again, not explained, they walk into like, he's like
01:11:49
trailing Tim Curry. And Tim Curry walks into this
01:11:51
like giant, spherical, like metal room that fills with water
01:11:57
that's like on a pier. I don't know what the actual
01:11:59
purpose of this thing is. Well, you never heard of a good
01:12:02
old pier sphere? That's a fierce fear.
01:12:04
For some reason. He follows him in there and it
01:12:09
starts to fit. Like Tim Curry is like scared.
01:12:11
He's like running away from the shadow.
01:12:12
But then he starts filling the room with water and like, he can
01:12:16
see where the shadows footsteps are because there's water in the
01:12:19
room now. And then he's able to shoot him.
01:12:23
So he shoots Alec Baldwin like in the shoulder because he's
01:12:25
like, well, you're right there. I can see you.
01:12:28
It's not the line in the movie. He's like, I mean, you're right
01:12:30
there. It's just.
01:12:30
You're right. It's pretty obvious.
01:12:32
Yeah. And then he leaves and, like,
01:12:34
traps Alec Baldwin in there. So it's like, the room is
01:12:37
filling with water. And, like, Alec Baldwin, like,
01:12:41
none of his powers work here. He's just like, well, I'm dead.
01:12:44
Like but which? Does I mean if he can inhabit a
01:12:50
wall as a shadow, can a shadow on a wall drown?
01:12:54
I, I don't know, I, I don't know the, the rules.
01:12:58
Like what are the rules? Which almost makes it more,
01:13:00
yeah, what are the rules? It almost makes it more exciting
01:13:02
because I'm like, I don't know what's going to happen next.
01:13:04
Like what can he do to get out of this situation?
01:13:07
Adding context where he's just like in the middle of the
01:13:09
finale. They're like you're a weakness,
01:13:11
garlic. And he's like, no.
01:13:14
Dang it, I didn't mention that, but that is true.
01:13:16
That is in there. There's a lot of sub items on
01:13:19
the contract I signed. Yeah, yeah.
01:13:22
But so, so then again, like the way he gets out of that
01:13:25
situation is his love interest in the movie is this woman he
01:13:30
meets who, again, completely unexplained, she has like, some
01:13:35
kind of telekinesis. She can read his thoughts.
01:13:40
And so he has to get out of that situation by basically like
01:13:44
calling her with his mind powers and be like, hey, I need you to
01:13:47
help me or I'm going to die. And so then she just has to show
01:13:51
up and like, open the door and let him out.
01:13:53
This guy sounds like a nerd. I'll say it.
01:13:56
Shadow sounds like, frankly, a loser.
01:14:02
He kind of is, but it almost makes him more endearing in that
01:14:05
way, you know, because like just.
01:14:08
Like just a little guy trying to be a shadow.
01:14:10
Just a little guy, he's just trying to hide in the shadows or
01:14:13
something like. But also is the shadow but he's
01:14:17
in it. But he's got a Freddy Krueger.
01:14:19
Face yes yes and he's also like it's like he's trying to be
01:14:24
Batman, but he's just not as good.
01:14:27
So it's like all the things he has to do, he basically has to
01:14:30
like blackmail a bunch of people into helping him do stuff, which
01:14:35
again, is kind of fun, though, because it's like the guy he
01:14:37
saves at the beginning who, who like had the cement on his feet
01:14:40
and they were going to throw him over the bridge.
01:14:42
Who that's that's that's the bad guy from Ninja troubles 3, by
01:14:45
the way, that's that's SAP Shimono.
01:14:48
And this is how they introduced this concept where he was like,
01:14:51
OK, I saved your life, so you work for me now.
01:14:54
And he gives him this like this like ring.
01:14:58
And he's like, he's like the shadow is going to come and need
01:15:02
your help in the future and you're going to help him.
01:15:04
And then so like, you see other characters in the movie that
01:15:09
will have this ring on and that's how, you know, like, oh,
01:15:11
OK, these are the guys that are like helping him.
01:15:15
And like, that's the kind of stuff where it feels way more
01:15:18
tonally like 60s Batman almost where it's just like really
01:15:24
corny camp superhero stuff. But it's fun.
01:15:29
And it's like, you know, again, it's like unlike Batman with his
01:15:31
Batmobile, this guy just has, he gets around New York City
01:15:36
because he has a cab driver who just is his guy who works for
01:15:39
him. He doesn't just like, fly
01:15:42
through the shadows of the night like.
01:15:44
No, no, he's not that good. Listen, first thing you got to
01:15:50
know about the shadow. He stinks, OK.
01:15:53
He's not that good. He's OK.
01:15:56
He's all. Right, he's just not.
01:15:59
He's not Batman though, like, and that's what makes him kind
01:16:02
of more fun. Is that like, it's like, well, I
01:16:06
mean, Tim Curry almost killed you, and that's just some dude
01:16:08
with a gun. Like OK, so the beats of the
01:16:12
story are nonsense. What about the like execution or
01:16:16
the production design here? Is it making this fun to watch?
01:16:19
Is it just like the visuals or the does it have like a good
01:16:22
just like pacing to it? It does it does it, it's it's
01:16:26
really all of those things actually.
01:16:27
I mean, like, the pacing is strong for like the first half
01:16:32
of the movie, and then it it loses momentum, unfortunately.
01:16:35
And then it just it like kind of Peters out by the end, which is
01:16:40
unfortunate because if they've been able to keep up the
01:16:42
momentum of like the first 30 minutes of the movie, it would
01:16:46
have just been an absolute like 11 out of 10 experience because
01:16:50
it was just like, yeah, it was just like every new thing they
01:16:54
introduced. I was like, what?
01:16:55
That's crazy. Tell me more.
01:17:01
So much of our conversation in these first two episodes of this
01:17:03
season is just about like, how to write superpowers.
01:17:07
And I feel like nobody knows how you have to like, have, I don't
01:17:12
know, resonance between the different things.
01:17:14
Even somebody like Superman having, like, ice breath is kind
01:17:17
of a non sequitur. But Shadow has possibly the
01:17:20
weirdest move set I've ever seen.
01:17:22
He does. He does.
01:17:23
Well, I mean, like with with last episode, like Supergirl had
01:17:26
the huge advantage of people already knowing who Superman
01:17:29
was. So you didn't need to explain
01:17:31
her powers. Like she just did all the same
01:17:33
things he did. And it's like, yeah, that's
01:17:34
great. That works.
01:17:36
Shadow. By the end of the movie, I'm
01:17:38
like, I can't tell you exactly what the shadow does.
01:17:41
I just know he's he's all right. He can do.
01:17:44
Some stuff the Shadow's not great, but he puts in his 40
01:17:48
hours a week all right, and he he tips his cab driver
01:17:52
generously and then blackmails them into helping him.
01:17:56
Right, right. But to answer your other
01:17:58
question, it has a very consistent visual style that,
01:18:04
like I said, is, is somewhat reminiscent of like the Tim
01:18:07
Burton Batman movies, but just like dialed down a bit and make
01:18:12
some like stylistically interesting choices.
01:18:15
They do a few of those like split diopter shots which you
01:18:20
might be familiar with where it's like the two halves of the
01:18:26
frame are both in sharp focus. It it's kind of hard to explain
01:18:30
it. What what would be like an
01:18:32
example? An example of it, it's
01:18:34
something, well, it looks sort of like from a production
01:18:38
standpoint, it doesn't look that good.
01:18:39
So I think it was like it's not a very often used technique.
01:18:43
It's something that I think like Sam Raimi would use a lot.
01:18:46
OK. But it's basically like in this
01:18:50
case, the way it's used, it's like 1 character will be in the
01:18:52
foreground and then a character will be in the background.
01:18:56
Were normally like the focus would be shifting between those
01:19:00
two characters where it's like the character in the background
01:19:01
would be in focus and the character in the foreground
01:19:04
would be soft. But in this type of shot,
01:19:06
they're both in sharp focus and it almost looks like it
01:19:09
visually. It's kind of like when the
01:19:12
scenes are shot and spliced together, like if you're doing a
01:19:16
scene where it's like the same actor in two different roles.
01:19:18
And you can kind of. See.
01:19:20
Yeah, don't. They do that in like Citizen
01:19:22
Kane. Isn't there a lot of shots where
01:19:24
like the whole range of the frame is like in focus?
01:19:27
Yes, yes, I don't know if they do it in this same way, but that
01:19:33
was definitely yes, that is definitely something they they
01:19:36
used split diopters in in Citizen Kane as well.
01:19:38
So that's that's a good, OK. That's a good now split diopter.
01:19:40
Is that one of shadows abilities too?
01:19:43
He won't tell you he would not. Won't tell you.
01:19:45
Dare Shadows. Wouldn't tell him.
01:19:48
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, his whole character
01:19:51
too, is like, he's going for this like, broody Batman thing.
01:19:56
But like, the source of it for him is that he like, was like
01:20:00
rehabilitated by these monks in a way.
01:20:02
And he feels really bad about what he did as this.
01:20:06
Like I don't know this like murderous mob boss.
01:20:10
Like he's a loser. Like he.
01:20:15
Tries really hard but he feels really bad.
01:20:18
Yeah, yeah. And so with his Levengers
01:20:22
character, they have that special connection where she can
01:20:26
read his thoughts and and some other characters thoughts as
01:20:28
well. But that's also never explained
01:20:31
why she has that ability. I think the idea is kind of like
01:20:36
the monks will find people that have this unique ability and
01:20:40
then train them to use it. Wait.
01:20:41
Wait, wait, wait. She was trained by monks.
01:20:44
No, she was not. But Ricky Tan was Ricky Tan.
01:20:47
And who is Khan? The Tang gang is Khan, Yes.
01:20:53
They were both trained by the monks.
01:20:55
Alec Baldwin went and became the shadow in New York.
01:20:57
I believe Ricky Tan says that he killed all the monks after they
01:21:01
trained him and he took that magic dagger with him.
01:21:07
That was like the first thing that Alec blah blah blah Alec
01:21:12
Baldwin fought in the movie. It's so hard to.
01:21:20
Follow Yeah, it's not your fault, it's the movie.
01:21:26
Well, I'm, I'm, I'm rambling a bit too because I'm excited
01:21:28
though. I'm like this is this is I can.
01:21:29
Feel engaging for someone who's not.
01:21:32
Honestly this is maybe the first time you have been excited.
01:21:35
I feel like now I'm questioning all the other times.
01:21:39
Yeah, let's not talk about it, but this, this the shadow.
01:21:43
The shadow is. I never felt anything in life
01:21:45
until I saw the show. Woke this awoken something in
01:21:50
me. Awokened.
01:21:54
What? Yeah, that's what I said.
01:21:57
Awokened. Awoken something within me that
01:22:00
only a monk could explain, but they're dead.
01:22:04
OK, Oh man. OK, so shadow is sort of a you
01:22:08
have to you had to be there is what I'm getting from the
01:22:11
shadow. Yeah, it is.
01:22:13
It is in a way. It's just, it's so hard to
01:22:17
explain like totally. And stylistically what an
01:22:22
experience it was. The biggest downside I can say
01:22:25
about it is that like just narratively, it really loses
01:22:29
momentum in the second-half. And there's just not much for
01:22:34
the characters on either side to do.
01:22:36
Because what happens is I almost called him Shao Khan, but the
01:22:43
king Genghis Khan, Ricky Tan character, he, his goal is he
01:22:48
wants to take over the world because Genghis Khan failed to
01:22:51
do that and he's going to succeed where he failed.
01:22:54
OK. And for some reason, part of his
01:22:56
plan to do that is to make a bomb and blow up New York City.
01:23:02
That's like Step 1. He makes, oh, it's this is I, I
01:23:07
this is keep piece of information.
01:23:08
I forgot. It's like a period piece.
01:23:10
It's set in like the 20s. Oh, OK, that helps.
01:23:14
That helps me place it that it's everybody's old timing.
01:23:17
It's not just the shadow. Yes, exactly, Exactly.
01:23:20
Yeah. So like he makes like the first
01:23:24
ever nuclear bomb, I think the shadow at one point, like when
01:23:28
he he reaches out to the guy that he saved at the beginning,
01:23:32
because he's trying to figure out like what Ricky Tan is
01:23:35
trying to do. And the guy that he saved is
01:23:38
like this like physicist, professor or something.
01:23:41
And he's trying to explain this bomb that Ricky Tan's going to
01:23:45
make. And and Alec Baldwin's like, you
01:23:47
mean like some kind of atomic bomb.
01:23:49
And he's like, yeah, that's a good name for it.
01:23:50
We'll call it that. I was like, oh, OK.
01:23:56
That is a funny trope. When people retroactively name
01:24:00
things that you like, you're filling in those gaps.
01:24:03
It's like when you do like time paradox stories where like you
01:24:05
only go something only happens because the person who had
01:24:08
already affected goes back in time and makes it happen.
01:24:11
Yeah, yeah. And it makes no sense.
01:24:12
Yeah. So in this case, the Shadow
01:24:14
invented the atomic bomb, or at least the name for it.
01:24:16
He named it. And then he's like, he's like,
01:24:19
yeah, the atomic bomb. I bet they'll drop that during,
01:24:21
I don't know, World War 2. And they're like, what?
01:24:24
What? What too?
01:24:25
It hasn't been the first one. What are your powers, Sir?
01:24:28
Explain to me. Well, the monks would explain,
01:24:31
but they're unavailable because they're dead.
01:24:35
Yeah, won't be joining us for the rest of their life.
01:24:37
Yeah, exactly. Did Bridget Tan kill the same
01:24:39
monks or were there different monks?
01:24:42
Same ones, same guys, because he took he took the magic dagger,
01:24:45
he took that with him. He.
01:24:47
Took the magic dagger. OK.
01:24:48
I feel like it's a funny inversion that the villain got
01:24:52
his like powers after the hero, you know what I mean?
01:24:56
Sometimes. A lot of times I'd say that
01:24:57
happens in reverse, where like you establish that there is an
01:25:00
evil force to incentivize the good guy character to develop
01:25:05
powers of their own or something.
01:25:07
I guess sometimes it happens simultaneously, but it's funny
01:25:09
that he went through the same Ave. as the shadow but just
01:25:12
afterwards. Yeah, and he specifically, like
01:25:14
he shows up to recruit the shadow.
01:25:17
He was like, I want to take over the world.
01:25:19
I heard about what a bad dude you used to be.
01:25:21
You should help me because you also have these cool shadow
01:25:24
powers I do. So we should nuke New York City
01:25:28
I guess is step. One and Ricky Tan's powers are
01:25:31
the same, Yes, same, same powers.
01:25:34
You get a superhero. I will say I think in Steel and
01:25:39
in Supergirl, the villains did not have the same powers as the
01:25:41
heroes, so that's nice. No, I yeah, I pointed out in
01:25:44
Supergirl how fun I thought it was that, like, the antagonist
01:25:47
of that film was like a witch. She just had like, magic powers.
01:25:51
So yeah, very different. This one.
01:25:53
Today Meteor Man and Shadow are falling into that very generic
01:25:57
superhero formula where it has to be holding up a mirror and
01:26:01
showing someone using the same power for bad to reinforce that
01:26:05
the Shadow only uses it for good.
01:26:07
Question mark. Yeah, yeah.
01:26:09
And that's how that scene points out.
01:26:11
He's like, I don't I don't think I want to be a bad guy.
01:26:14
I'm kind of a shadow now. I'm kind of doing the shadow
01:26:16
thing. So we're not going to do that.
01:26:19
But then the movie has like nowhere to go from there because
01:26:22
then it's just like he has this bomb.
01:26:24
That's why he like brain controlled Ian McKellen to like
01:26:26
help him finish making his bomb and the shadows just trying to
01:26:30
like find him. So he's doing like the kind of
01:26:33
detective work to like find out where he is.
01:26:37
And it turns out he's in this like giant building in the
01:26:40
center of the city that he's like mind controlled.
01:26:43
The entire city to believe is not there, so they can't see it.
01:26:48
Nice. Yeah.
01:26:50
And so that's how he finds him in the end.
01:26:52
I feel like there's something with Ian McKellen being
01:26:56
colorblind that should have played into like him being able
01:26:59
to accidentally see through shadow illusions.
01:27:01
That's the only avenue I can think of that would make sense
01:27:04
is if we're already just using magic nonsense, we could be
01:27:06
like, well, in order to create the illusion, he has to play
01:27:09
with the refraction of light. But Ian McKellen sees light
01:27:12
differently. And so he could see the outline
01:27:14
of, you know, just something like that.
01:27:16
Yeah, yeah, you're, I mean you're, you're thinking you're
01:27:19
using that old noggin. That would work.
01:27:20
That would maybe work, and then there'd be like 6000 YouTube
01:27:24
thumbnails with red circles on them about how that's not proper
01:27:26
science. And I'd be like, Oh yeah, what
01:27:27
about the rest of the movie? Yeah, exactly.
01:27:32
Like is it a Peter Pan shadow? Is it not?
01:27:34
What are the rules? Why isn't it me and my shadow?
01:27:37
Why isn't it that he has a shadow that is always following
01:27:40
him on the wall but they can like swap places or something?
01:27:43
You know you. Talking about Peter Pan or Alec
01:27:45
Baldwin. Alec Baldwin, the man.
01:27:47
Why doesn't he have a magical shadow he could swap license?
01:27:54
Maybe he does and we just don't know.
01:27:56
He's mind controlling all of us. He's.
01:27:58
In a giant building in the middle of New York City right
01:28:00
now. Yeah, exactly.
01:28:02
But yeah, that so that eventually it it leads to the
01:28:06
confrontation between the two of them and there's like no way for
01:28:11
them to like use their mind control powers against each
01:28:14
other really. So it just winds up being Alec
01:28:17
Baldwin has to like fight the flying dagger again to like beat
01:28:21
Ricky Tan. And he winds up beating him by
01:28:25
like taking control of the dagger and like stabbing Ricky
01:28:29
Tan with it. And then there's a sequence that
01:28:33
follows that where like they run into this like Hall of Mirrors,
01:28:39
like illusion thing. And from what I read, it was
01:28:44
supposed to be a longer sequence because they built this, like,
01:28:50
sound stage where they were going to do a lot of kind of
01:28:52
like practical and visual effects for this kind of
01:28:56
climactic battle sequence at the end between the two where they
01:29:00
were going to be like, using like illusions on each other and
01:29:03
stuff, I believe. But the 1994 Northridge
01:29:08
earthquake destroyed that set. And so, yeah, they had to, I
01:29:15
don't know if if any of it was salvage or they had to rebuild
01:29:18
it, but they weren't able to film it the way that they
01:29:22
originally wanted to. So it winds up just being this
01:29:25
really short awkward sequence where he like defeats him.
01:29:31
And then like the epilogue for Rick Tan's character is that he
01:29:35
like gets put into like a, a mental ward.
01:29:40
Like because like Alec Baldwin has somehow taken away his
01:29:46
shadow powers. And so now like the people in
01:29:49
this mental ward just think he's crazy.
01:29:51
And cuz he's like telling him like, oh, you know, I'm the
01:29:54
descendant of Genghis Khan. And at this point I'm also like,
01:29:56
wait a minute. I don't even understand like
01:29:58
what, what Like who is this? Where did this character even
01:30:01
come from? Because the way he shows up in
01:30:03
the movie at the beginning is he's in like a, he was like
01:30:08
trapped. He was like sealed away.
01:30:10
And and like these like archaeologists like found this
01:30:14
tomb that they release him from. And so I'm like, wait, what?
01:30:18
This character doesn't make any sense either.
01:30:19
Like. Whoa, wait.
01:30:20
He's the he's the descendant of Genghis Khan, but himself had
01:30:25
been entombed for like hundreds of years.
01:30:28
Yeah, exactly. Something like that, two
01:30:30
generations down from. Genghis Khan, they.
01:30:32
Were like, they were like Grandpa Genghis.
01:30:35
I don't want to sit in this tomb.
01:30:36
And they're like, ah, you'll understand when you're older.
01:30:40
Because it's the 1920s, so it's like, yeah, it's like, I, I
01:30:43
mean, how long has it been, really?
01:30:45
Why would you need both? Why wouldn't it just be Genghis
01:30:48
Khan? Yeah, exactly that.
01:30:50
That's what I was thinking by the end too, because then
01:30:52
there's this whole like, that's the whole thing at the end is
01:30:54
like they, they think he's this crazy person because he's saying
01:30:58
all this stuff, but I'm like, wait, but like, that is actually
01:31:00
him. Just just 23andMe this man like.
01:31:05
Yeah, like, so that was very, very confusing and yeah, yeah.
01:31:12
And, and unfortunately lackluster like second-half and
01:31:15
conclusion and then there's not much after that.
01:31:17
It's very much like, you know, we get Alec Baldwin like kissing
01:31:22
his love interest character and then like disappearing off into
01:31:25
the shadows at the end of the movie and then it's just credits
01:31:27
from there. So by the end I was like, oh
01:31:30
man, you were so you were on to something.
01:31:33
You had some really great elements in here throughout this
01:31:36
movie. It just wasn't like it.
01:31:39
It just wasn't able to keep that momentum going all the way
01:31:42
through and be like interesting and exciting all the way
01:31:44
throughout, unfortunately. I will say I don't think you can
01:31:48
get away anymore with the ending of a story being and they got
01:31:52
taken away to an insane asylum. I feel like that used to be more
01:31:56
of a prominent like, you know, akin to just like send them away
01:31:59
to jail where the implication is like where they'll be unfairly
01:32:04
treated and tortured for the rest of their lives.
01:32:07
And I feel like now it's like, wait a minute, shouldn't that
01:32:09
not be what when someone's in hospitals are for?
01:32:12
Well, that feels again like a carryover from like a Batman
01:32:15
thing. It feels like Arkham Asylum.
01:32:17
Exactly where they all deserve it.
01:32:20
But it's like, hold on, mental hospitals are a real place that
01:32:23
are supposed to be helpful. I I think that's almost like
01:32:28
Arkham Asylum in the Batman lore is almost like a character
01:32:31
within itself. It, it's just very much a
01:32:33
prominent location. And I think the idea is they're
01:32:36
trying to rehabilitate those characters, but because it's
01:32:39
just this serial comic storytelling, they just always
01:32:43
get out of Arkham, you know, it's just this cyclical kind of
01:32:46
thing. It it it works in Batman, it
01:32:50
definitely works in. Batman, which is like kind of
01:32:54
all about these exaggerated depictions of what are frankly a
01:32:57
lot of mental illnesses in the shadow.
01:33:01
I guess you'd have to see it. I, I, I have no mental image of
01:33:05
this movie, even after talking about it for a while.
01:33:07
I might have to go see it just to understand the appeal better.
01:33:12
I think even maybe just watching a trailer would probably give us
01:33:14
a stronger sense of what the angle is because it's very
01:33:18
confusing. Yeah, yeah.
01:33:20
And and again, that that is almost the appeal of it.
01:33:22
It is that it's just, it's so like like flying by the seat of
01:33:27
its pants type storytelling, which is fun and chaotic and
01:33:31
interesting from, from like half it's runtime.
01:33:34
But then it just, it's, it Peters out and I was just like,
01:33:37
by the end I was like, Dang, like I wish you'd been, you
01:33:40
know, been able to keep that kind of like, you know, cuz for
01:33:44
like the first like 30 minutes or so, it's like every few
01:33:46
minutes you're getting this new interesting angle on just
01:33:51
everything that's happening. And it's like fun and exciting
01:33:56
and it doesn't completely fizzle out, but it just doesn't have
01:34:00
that so much by the end and kind of feels like it's going through
01:34:03
like similar beats back and forth.
01:34:06
Yeah, I mean, that's probably the most common place for a
01:34:09
script to fall apart is like middle of the second act.
01:34:11
Because you can set up a lot of interesting threads that sort of
01:34:14
write themselves as a story's beginning.
01:34:16
Because you just start with an idea.
01:34:18
And then as soon as you like, pass the halfway point and all
01:34:21
of those disparate threads have to start converging on a
01:34:23
conclusion and people just lose track of them, and then you end
01:34:26
up with nothing. Yeah, which is a shame.
01:34:29
Which is a shame, but there's still a lot to like about this
01:34:32
movie. I was.
01:34:33
I was thoroughly entertained for for a good portion of it.
01:34:36
Well, that's good. Yeah.
01:34:38
And, and I will say this one almost and in a way did have a
01:34:44
Super Nintendo game. Well, hold on, what does that
01:34:47
mean? So from what I read, there was a
01:34:52
there was big plans for this franchise.
01:34:54
This was going to be like the first film in a series.
01:34:56
There was going to be a bunch of like merchandise, tie insurance.
01:35:00
They made a game that was finished but was never released
01:35:05
because of the like horrendously bad box office returns on this
01:35:09
movie. It it just did very poorly
01:35:11
financially. And so all of those bigger plans
01:35:15
for the Shadow were scrapped, but apparently the game was done
01:35:18
and like ready to ship, but they just, they never released it.
01:35:21
So it's it's so somebody has a shadow game somewhere.
01:35:25
Yeah, Shadow the Hedgehog 2005 is what it actually turned into.
01:35:30
Weird, right? How the script included Sonic
01:35:32
the Hedgehog in the 1st place? Yeah, yeah.
01:35:35
Wow. Well, that's sad.
01:35:37
I was. I thought I was going to have to
01:35:38
get footage for that. I know, I know last like fun bit
01:35:43
of trivia I'll I'll bring in though was so the movie as I
01:35:47
mentioned it had those opening credits and then the ending
01:35:50
credits. The first person that's credited
01:35:53
was the first AD on the movie and it's Louis Despacito, who I
01:35:58
was like that name looks really familiar.
01:36:00
And I looked it up and he has actually been he was the first
01:36:03
idea on this film and and a bunch of films previous, but
01:36:07
he's been the executive producer for essentially every MCU film.
01:36:15
He he's become a big part of like modern superhero film
01:36:19
making. So it's kind of fun to see him.
01:36:21
Yeah, like tied in with this. And then he'd worked on some
01:36:24
like in other roles, like first AD some earlier superhero films
01:36:29
too. So he's been a big part of like
01:36:30
the behind the scenes of of this genre of movies for a while.
01:36:35
So. What you're saying is the Shadow
01:36:37
will return an Avengers doomsday?
01:36:40
He was supposed to. He was supposed to return.
01:36:43
He was supposed to have his old, his whole franchise played out,
01:36:46
but it just didn't. It just didn't happen.
01:36:49
It just nobody liked it. So they're just like it.
01:36:53
No thanks. Hey, Frank, great discussion
01:37:01
about the Shadow and about Meteor Man.
01:37:04
We move now into our final scoring and wrap up.
01:37:07
I guess I will start giving some final thoughts about Meteor Man.
01:37:12
I would say that I like what the movie was going for, but it did
01:37:16
too many things wrong and came together too poorly for me to
01:37:20
give it a good score. I mean, I want to like Meteor
01:37:24
Man because it's kind of a landmark film and had a strong
01:37:28
message, but it was so muddled and genuinely dull to watch that
01:37:36
I don't know. I want to say 3 out of 10 for
01:37:40
Meteor Man Pretty slow movie. I was forgiving towards Steel
01:37:47
last time and some people might think that's crazy and that that
01:37:50
movie's way worse or something. But I found that Steel knew what
01:37:53
it was and stuck the landing of unimpressive landing but they
01:37:57
stuck it, whereas Meteor Man just had no idea what it wanted
01:38:02
to be. And I did see IMDb trivia like
01:38:04
claimed that it's rumoured the movie got rewritten a lot while
01:38:07
it was in production. It just kind of is one of those
01:38:10
like, we lost it, you know, making the movies hard if this
01:38:13
one didn't really work. Oh that makes sense if there was
01:38:16
a ton ton of rewrites for that one.
01:38:19
I think there was, I don't know. I don't know if that ever got
01:38:21
confirmed, but yeah, just didn't work out.
01:38:24
So I'm going to unfortunately. 3 out of 10 for Meteor Man.
01:38:29
Yeah, it didn't. It didn't sound like you had a
01:38:31
very good time watching it. Yeah, and it was hard to find
01:38:34
which should not count against it, but does a little.
01:38:37
But it does, as it turns out. Making me buy a DVDI just own
01:38:42
meteor man now. Good for you.
01:38:46
All right, that was short and sweet, but that's kind of all I
01:38:49
had left about Meteor Man. Over to you.
01:38:51
What a What are your final thoughts on The Shadow?
01:38:55
Gosh, it's so hard to say. This is a really hard one for me
01:38:58
to encapsulate because I was so excited about it like a decent
01:39:06
way into its runtime and I lost excitement over time watching
01:39:10
the movie. So it's hard for me to place it
01:39:14
because I I almost want to score it based on my early impression
01:39:19
of it, which leaves it in a weird place.
01:39:23
So I. I mean, you can't ignore a bad
01:39:27
ending. I mean it's.
01:39:28
Yeah, it's. Quite a detriment if it like
01:39:31
falls apart part way through. I think I'm going to go with a
01:39:35
six out of 10 for the shadow. Six out of. 10 and it could have
01:39:40
been higher. There was just a lot like I, I
01:39:44
really have to give credit to a movie like this, especially in,
01:39:48
in such a tired genre at this point that just does new and
01:39:52
interesting things. And it was, it was pulling from
01:39:55
a lot of previously existing material and, and things I was
01:39:58
very familiar with. But that almost makes it more
01:40:01
impressive that so much of it felt unique.
01:40:03
Because of the way it was like put together and and packaged.
01:40:07
So I, I do, I do give it a lot of credit for that and, and
01:40:10
there was a lot that I appreciated about it.
01:40:12
But yeah, I think, I think 6 out of 10 feels feels right.
01:40:15
Well that means that at the end of episode 2 Frank I have once
01:40:19
again won the episode 2 and O to start our superhero season.
01:40:24
How you feeling 2 episodes in? Are we starting to crack?
01:40:29
Good boss I not. Your boss does that.
01:40:35
Sorry. No, I got a good line up.
01:40:40
I got I, I think the next few I'm looking at here are pretty
01:40:44
strong contenders. So I, I, I think, I think
01:40:47
somebody will like these maybe. Somebody, me, hopefully quite a
01:40:51
listeners. Hopefully that's not you're not.
01:40:53
I'm not the only audience for this.
01:40:55
Yeah, yeah. Jeez, OK, so now we have to pick
01:40:58
our movies for next time and I have to go first because I won
01:41:01
this episode and honestly I wish I didn't have to 'cause I have
01:41:05
some good ideas for forgotten superhero movies.
01:41:07
But they're all 90s films, as we just talked about.
01:41:11
That was the theme of season 1. So I'm wondering if I need to
01:41:15
make more of an effort to avoid doing too many 90s movies in a
01:41:18
row. I don't think so.
01:41:19
This is our show. We can do whatever we want.
01:41:21
This is our show. That's true.
01:41:23
We ain't sold out yet because no one's given us the chance.
01:41:28
We will, though. We.
01:41:29
Will we will whatever you whatever you want.
01:41:33
It's just bad. OK, in that case, I'll go with
01:41:41
one that has been kind of at the top of my list because it is a
01:41:45
superhero movie, but in a much less traditional sense.
01:41:49
Frank, I would like you to watch for next time. 1990 Fives
01:41:53
mechanical violator. Hakaidra.
01:41:57
Oh my goodness, what did you just call me?
01:41:59
Yeah, no, I know, right? It's a Japanese tokusatsu film.
01:42:05
We talked, we we put Power Rangers on the board multiple
01:42:07
times today, and we have an affinity for that kind of
01:42:09
storytelling. Japan has a lot of series in
01:42:12
that style that are not Power Rangers or its original version,
01:42:17
Super Sentai. There's just other things more
01:42:19
like in the style of common writer or something like this.
01:42:23
And to my knowledge mechanical Violator Hakaider was an anti
01:42:27
hero character on ATV series who later got his own spin off movie
01:42:32
where he is the protagonist. Wait, he was an antagonist that
01:42:36
got a spin off movie? He was either a bad guy or like
01:42:39
an anti hero in a larger, you know, Power Rangers esque show
01:42:44
of some kind. OK.
01:42:46
All right. Wait, give me the title one more
01:42:48
time. Mechanical violator Hakaider.
01:42:54
OK, got it. I am likely mispronouncing that
01:42:56
last part. Nah.
01:42:58
Now I got it. You got it.
01:43:00
Anyway, that's yours for next time.
01:43:02
Very much not an American serial superhero movie, but I think the
01:43:09
tokusasu genre pretty much the same, just a different take.
01:43:12
You know, they're still, like, transforming into beings with
01:43:16
superpowers. Yeah.
01:43:18
Oh yeah, totally. And this is, you know, this is
01:43:21
actually not what I was going to pick for you, but I think you're
01:43:28
kind of forcing my hand here into making this a tokasatsu
01:43:32
double feature because I think I have one for you, too.
01:43:36
I mean that episode title will write itself.
01:43:38
That sounds fun. Yes, I am requesting slash
01:43:44
demanding that you watch 1975's the Super Inframan.
01:43:51
The Super Inframan. OK, OK, that's a little bit
01:43:56
easier to spell, yeah. Yeah, I think so.
01:44:00
OK, so a tokasatsu double feature.
01:44:02
This will be interesting because again, we've been talking a lot
01:44:05
about like, comic book storytelling conventions, and
01:44:09
these are not in that same camp at all.
01:44:11
They have their own set of tropes and histories that are
01:44:16
more closely aligned to like a Magical Girl anime than anything
01:44:19
we've talked about so far. Yeah, it's, it's definitely,
01:44:24
we've talked about the broader like umbrella term of tokusatsu,
01:44:27
but this is even like a more specific category underneath
01:44:32
that. So, but they are superheroes.
01:44:35
They're very much superheroes in their own way.
01:44:38
We we said at the beginning, we're not stretching that
01:44:40
definition too much, but this is like a farther end of it that I
01:44:44
think would be interesting to talk about because it is so
01:44:46
different, but ultimately the same kind of story.
01:44:48
So that's exciting. I guess two weeks from now we
01:44:51
will have a tokosatsu double feature where we will likely
01:44:55
mispronounce many a Japanese word and name, and we're already
01:44:59
sorry about it. I'm looking forward to it.
01:45:17
Thank you for listening to today's episode of Meet Your
01:45:20
Double Feature. And Frank, thank you as always
01:45:21
for joining me. First off, please, if you
01:45:24
enjoyed tonight's episode of the show, like it, favorite it,
01:45:26
share it, anything you can do will help us out with expanding
01:45:29
our reach and hopefully giving us the runway to make more
01:45:32
episodes in the future. So appreciate that support.
01:45:35
If you would like to follow us. Frank, do you think you remember
01:45:38
the social handles this time off the top of your head?
01:45:41
Not even a little bit, boss. Not even a little bit.
01:45:43
Not your boss. OK, so you can follow us on
01:45:46
Instagram at Meet Your Double feature.
01:45:48
You can find us on Blue Sky at mydf Pod and newly unveiled
01:45:54
Frank. We now have a letterbox to count
01:45:56
because that's where the kids are, I hear.
01:45:59
Cool. So how do you do?
01:46:03
We have a letterbox to count? It is actually the same username
01:46:06
on there as on Blue Sky, so you can search mydf under score pod.
01:46:11
We will be posting. Essentially, it's a way to keep
01:46:13
track of everything we've talked about on the podcast.
01:46:15
We'll post short written reviews and blurbs to summarize our
01:46:18
findings. We'll have those same ratings
01:46:20
that we give on each episode in there.
01:46:22
Great way to follow our content and we'll occasionally maybe
01:46:25
even write about other movies that have not been covered on
01:46:27
the show if we have time. Fun.
01:46:30
I like it. Neat, Frank anything?
01:46:36
Or just undermine your own advertising like that.
01:46:40
Frank, do you have anything to plug?
01:46:41
I guess we can hit him with the usual.
01:46:43
Frank has a movie coming out on streaming probably sometime this
01:46:46
year, although those details are still pending, called Nate and
01:46:48
Mariah in Venice which he Co produced and was director of
01:46:51
photography on Frank. What is the what's the website
01:46:54
where people can find info about your movie?
01:46:55
It's. Going to be sardonic mp.com and
01:47:00
you can check back in. We'll mention it here as well.
01:47:03
There will be some future updates in the near future it
01:47:07
it's going to be first, first quarter of this year in all
01:47:11
likelihood when it'll be landing on streaming.
01:47:13
So we'll be happy to share that once it does.
01:47:15
Yes, that's why we're talking about it now.
01:47:17
The details are still being finalized, but hopefully even
01:47:20
within the same season 2, we'll be able to formally direct you
01:47:24
to a place where you can watch the movie that Frank's been
01:47:26
working on for years. Very, very exciting.
01:47:29
So please stay tuned to that as well.
01:47:31
I guess that'll do it, Frank. Anything else we need to plug or
01:47:34
are we? Are we good?
01:47:38
Nope, that's it. Bye.
01:47:40
That's it. OK, see you later.
01:47:42
We'll be back in two weeks with our next episode of Meet Your
01:47:44
Double Feature. Coming up next, it's Mechanical
01:47:55
Violator Hakider, followed by Super Inframan on Meet Your
01:48:00
Double feature.