Thomas and Frank return to discuss two strange 90s horror films, answering the age-old question, "Is it really that scary if I fell asleep watching it?"
First, Thomas Reviews "Sleepy Hollow" (1999). Then, Frank reviews "The Prophecy" (1995).
It's a 90s Halloween 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
(00:52) Sleepy Hollow (1999)
(42:29) The Prophecy (1995)
(01:28:05) Final Scores and Wrap-Up
(01:40:29) Outro
00:00:09
Tonight on Meet Your Double feature, a Headless Horseman
00:00:13
rides, leaving a trail of decapitated bodies in his wake.
00:00:17
It's up to New York constable Ichabod Crane to solve the case
00:00:21
and put evil to rest in Sleepy Hollow.
00:00:25
Then warring angels descend to Earth, battling to claim a
00:00:28
powerful human soul. It's up to LA policeman Thomas
00:00:32
Daggett to find the soul 1st and end Heaven's war in the
00:00:37
prophecy. It's a Halloween double feature
00:00:40
and it starts right now. Hello and welcome to Meet Your
00:00:53
Double Feature, a double-blind movie review podcast.
00:00:56
My name is Thomas, joined as always by my brother Frank.
00:00:58
Frank, how are you? As always, excited to be here.
00:01:03
Excited to be here, ready to get going.
00:01:04
It's been a minute since we recorded.
00:01:06
We took a week off on our schedule on the back end, so
00:01:09
it's fun to get back into it. Yeah, yeah, totally.
00:01:12
Well, for anybody who has never listened to Meet Your Double
00:01:14
Feature before, I'll go ahead and give a brief rundown of how
00:01:17
things work. Essentially, this is a movie
00:01:19
review show with a slight twist. Frank and I have both selected a
00:01:22
movie for the other to watch and review on the program today that
00:01:25
neither of us had ever previously seen.
00:01:27
We picked it out pretty much based on vibes and we're going
00:01:30
to compete today to see who gave the Better Blind movie
00:01:33
recommendation. After the end of our
00:01:35
conversation about both films, we're going to give each movie a
00:01:38
score out of 10. We've been keeping track of
00:01:40
those scores as we go throughout the episodes.
00:01:42
I think series totals, I am still in the lead.
00:01:45
But Frank, as always, today is a chance to turn that around.
00:01:47
Do you think, do you think today's the day that you get
00:01:50
more points and win an episode? I'm pretty confident.
00:01:52
I think I made some good choices out there in the past.
00:01:56
So we'll see. We'll see.
00:01:58
You tell me even. Arguably in the past you didn't
00:02:00
because you've been losing for like 6 episodes in a row, but
00:02:04
maybe today. We're working on it, we're
00:02:07
putting it together. We're putting it together.
00:02:09
So I'm going to go first today, starting with the movie that
00:02:12
Frank, you asked me to watch, 1999's Sleepy Hollow.
00:02:16
Now, we picked this out at the end of our previous episode, but
00:02:20
as a reminder, Frank, can you tell me and the folks at home
00:02:22
why you selected Sleepy Hollow? Well, I mean, it's spooky
00:02:26
season, you know, Like this seemed like a good Halloween
00:02:30
movie. I don't know if it's necessarily
00:02:33
a scary movie because I haven't seen it myself, but it's one
00:02:37
I've heard of before and it seemed to have a good cast to,
00:02:41
you know, like it's like Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci are the
00:02:44
leads. So I'm, I'm genuinely curious to
00:02:48
to hear how it is because this is 1.
00:02:49
I might want to go check out myself.
00:02:51
Yeah, absolutely. You reminded me that yeah, if
00:02:53
this episode comes out on time, then it should be the day before
00:02:57
Halloween at the time of release.
00:02:58
So spooky season indeed, But following up on your other
00:03:02
point, Sleepy Hollow, not that scary.
00:03:05
I, I was misinformed. I thought it was, I think I said
00:03:10
at the end of the episode last time that I'm not much of A
00:03:13
horror movie guy for that reason.
00:03:15
Like I, I'm just the type who while watching the movie, I'll
00:03:17
be fine, but then sometimes I'll just have like actual nightmares
00:03:21
over stuff I've seen. It's it's scary movies if
00:03:23
they're like a little too much. And I think I had a whole
00:03:26
conversation with my wife where like we were going to watch
00:03:28
Sleepy Hollow and she was looking at the IMDb parents
00:03:31
guide as if I was six years old. And she said, I don't know, this
00:03:35
might be too much for you. Is that what I've seen the movie
00:03:38
insane. It's like not even it's it's Tim
00:03:42
Burton. It's a Tim Burton movie with
00:03:44
like the horror Dial turned up like a little.
00:03:48
She just did not have a lot of faith in you.
00:03:50
She's like, you got to go to bed, you got to go to bed,
00:03:53
watch. 8:00 PM. Drink your juice and just go to
00:03:56
sleep. But yeah, Sleepy Hollow is, I
00:04:00
guess that's one of the main points about it that makes it an
00:04:03
interesting film, is that it's classic Tim Burton.
00:04:05
You know, for anybody who doesn't know, he's the one who
00:04:08
did stuff like Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, what
00:04:13
else? Edward Scissorhands, He's worked
00:04:15
with Johnny. Depp, Edward Scissorhands yes,
00:04:17
so his whole brand is essentially accessible horror
00:04:22
movies, a lot of stuff geared towards kids.
00:04:24
It seems like he puts kids in a lot of his movies.
00:04:26
There's there are fairly family oriented horror films that work
00:04:30
for younger audiences and Sleepy Hollow is probably the most
00:04:34
adult horror film I've seen from him personally.
00:04:37
It is rated R. The violence is definitely tuned
00:04:39
up quite a bit, but it actually still has that familiar Tim
00:04:43
Burton tone. I mean, we still have Danny
00:04:45
Elfman doing the music and those scores are always so like bouncy
00:04:49
and fun. So it's not actually scary.
00:04:51
It's just a little bit more adult in its themes.
00:04:54
Which seems like it would be maybe a good thing.
00:04:56
Like 'cause I think I have mixed feelings about Tim Burton
00:04:59
overall. Like I do really enjoy some of
00:05:03
his movies but I'm not obsessed with his style.
00:05:08
Yeah, I think that's fair. I'm.
00:05:09
I'm kind of in a similar boat. I've enjoyed a number of his
00:05:11
films, but I'm not someone who would be like, Oh my God, new
00:05:14
Tim Burton just dropped. I got to run out the door.
00:05:17
Yeah. Yeah.
00:05:17
Mostly because you could watch movies at home now so I wouldn't
00:05:20
need to go anywhere but. You're running away because
00:05:22
you're scared because it's. Just running away.
00:05:24
Yeah, I got to go to bed and crawl under the bed or
00:05:27
something. Yeah, yeah.
00:05:29
Sleepy Hollow, I don't want to like jump ahead too much in in
00:05:33
talking about how the movie landed, but I do think that the
00:05:35
tone is maybe one of the most divisive elements for me.
00:05:38
Because everything that Tim Burton and company do to make
00:05:42
the movie a little bit more of an adult horror film, in terms
00:05:44
of being a little bit more serious and violent throughout,
00:05:47
is at times undercut by the familiarity of like, the score
00:05:52
and the cast and the overall production style just reminding
00:05:55
me of much sillier movies, you know?
00:05:58
Sure, yeah. Like the production design in
00:06:02
Sleepy Hollow is awesome. It's following the classic
00:06:05
Legend of Sleepy Hollow story, which a lot of people have
00:06:08
probably heard some iteration of with Ichabod Crane and the
00:06:11
Headless Horseman and people getting their heads chopped off.
00:06:13
And it has this very fun kind of pop up storybook quality to it
00:06:19
where there's a lot of very obviously fake sets, but they
00:06:22
have so much depth and detail to them that they really kind of
00:06:26
pop off the screen anyway. Like a lot of the story takes
00:06:28
place in the woods, which are very small spaces.
00:06:32
Like you could tell they don't really go that far back, but
00:06:34
they used a lot of interesting techniques to like pump fog into
00:06:37
the background of shots that give the impression that the
00:06:39
woods go on forever. It's a really interesting
00:06:42
quality, but if the goal was to make the movie a little bit more
00:06:45
authentically scary, it doesn't really get there because the
00:06:50
whole time it does kind of just feel like you're watching a
00:06:52
sillier, more family friendly movie.
00:06:55
But then at the same time, why is it so violent?
00:06:57
Like you could just cut down on the depictions of violence and
00:06:59
then you'd be right back in PG13 Tim Burton territory.
00:07:02
So it's kind of lost in between those two extremes.
00:07:05
I mean, maybe he was trying to push it further than some of his
00:07:09
other films, you know, like maybe this was his attempt at
00:07:13
heading more in that direction, but it is just kind of at odds
00:07:16
with his. So I would describe his style as
00:07:18
very filmic or almost even like theatre esque with like, I'm not
00:07:23
thinking of like what's the musical he did with Johnny Depp.
00:07:28
Sweeney Todd. He did an adaptation of Sweeney
00:07:30
Todd. Yes, I mean, like, again, I
00:07:32
haven't seen how this, what's called this Headless Horseman.
00:07:35
I haven't seen Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow.
00:07:37
Yeah, Yeah. But I'm visually, I'm picturing
00:07:41
it looking somewhat like Sweeney Todd.
00:07:44
Is that accurate? That's pretty spot on.
00:07:46
Sweeney Todd's another film, and I'm sure people who know his
00:07:48
filmography better are like, actually he did much more
00:07:51
serious films at some point. But I would compare this most in
00:07:55
the ones I've seen to Sweeney Todd because that's another one
00:07:58
that I think is a little bit more serious.
00:08:00
And to my memory, Sweeney Todd's probably scarier than this one.
00:08:04
Sleepy Hollow is tinged with comedy underneath the whole
00:08:09
thing that never really gets all too scary, even though I do
00:08:12
think at times it was trying to be so.
00:08:14
So again, I I don't know what was lost in what Burton and
00:08:18
company were attempting to do with this movie versus what
00:08:20
actually ends up on screen, but it is something that just I
00:08:23
found myself thinking about the whole time.
00:08:25
Sure. I mean, that's I, that's seems
00:08:27
like something that's going to take you out of the movie.
00:08:29
In a way, like you said, that stage quality to it, it's not
00:08:32
always a bad thing. That's a lot of what people
00:08:34
appreciate about Tim Burton. I mean, one of the movies of his
00:08:37
that I like a lot is Batman Returns.
00:08:40
He did the. Oh yeah.
00:08:42
Or did he do the first and second live action Batman in the
00:08:45
80s? Or did he just the second one I.
00:08:47
Think he did the 1st 2:00. I think he did as well, Yeah.
00:08:50
So those two to me, probably just 'cause I like the source
00:08:53
material as is and watched it as a kid.
00:08:56
Those land a little bit better as Tim Burton movies that are
00:09:00
not completely recognizable as his.
00:09:02
They do have those elements of like expressionistic
00:09:07
architecture and and interesting backdrops and miniatures and
00:09:11
sets, but they kind of blend into a different aesthetic
00:09:14
quality, which is more like just the Batman proper stuff.
00:09:18
Sleepy Hollow is just, it's just Sweetie Todd, it's just Tim
00:09:21
Burton all over the place, mixed with a couple of key pieces of
00:09:25
iconography from the original story, like the The Headless
00:09:28
Horseman. So it is an interesting movie
00:09:30
and it's very enjoyable. But the whole time, I don't know
00:09:34
if in the end that's bad or good that you spend a lot of the
00:09:36
runtime just thinking about how the movie is made.
00:09:40
You and I do that a lot in general, but I feel like even a
00:09:42
more casual audience would be thinking about the production
00:09:47
while watching the production, and that it's kind of up to
00:09:50
interpretation whether that's a bad thing or not.
00:09:52
Yeah, I mean, I feel like Tim Burton is one of those directors
00:09:57
where it's almost, the film is sold on his name.
00:10:00
You know, there there's some directors where they have such a
00:10:03
stamp on their work that people will go see a new movie.
00:10:06
Like if it is, especially during this time period, like when he
00:10:10
was kind of in his prime. So I think people would go in
00:10:13
expecting that like visual style, at least from him.
00:10:19
But that's kind of what I was saying before.
00:10:20
It's like, I feel like it definitely works better in in
00:10:24
something like Batman and some of his other films, but it
00:10:27
doesn't always land for me. And I feel like he's so
00:10:29
consistent with that visual style that it's like.
00:10:33
Right. You have to be in the mood for
00:10:35
it. I think if you're ready, if it's
00:10:37
Halloween time and you want to watch a movie like others of
00:10:42
his, maybe you're a big fan of Nightmare Before Christmas, but
00:10:44
you've seen it 20 times, Sleepy Hollow is a good one to throw on
00:10:47
to switch things up because it's going to feel like cozy.
00:10:50
It's it's warm and familiar. But if you're looking for again,
00:10:54
this comes back to what the movie's goals are.
00:10:56
If it's trying to be an authentically scary adaptation
00:10:58
of the story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, it achieves that
00:11:01
in some ways, but definitely not in others.
00:11:03
And I guess maybe rather than continue with the top down
00:11:05
summary, I can kind of start to pick out what actually goes on
00:11:08
in this one. Yeah, sure.
00:11:10
I mean, because I don't, I mean, Sleepy Hollow is like, I think
00:11:13
it was a short story originally. So it's one of those things that
00:11:16
can just be iterated on a bunch of different ways.
00:11:19
So I I don't I'm curious as to what actually happens in this
00:11:22
one. It's probably public domain at
00:11:24
this point, given how many different versions there are and
00:11:26
how often those characters come up.
00:11:28
So I don't know, because I haven't read the original
00:11:31
source. I don't know if this is a really
00:11:32
straightforward adaptation of the original short story or not,
00:11:35
but it does have a very simple premise.
00:11:37
Essentially, our lead character, Ichabod Crane, is played by
00:11:40
Johnny Depp, who, when the movie opens, is living in, I think,
00:11:44
London, working as like, a police investigator.
00:11:47
And the sort of joke underneath the entire opening of the movie
00:11:51
is that he's essentially trying to invent, like, criminology and
00:11:56
being left out the door for it. Like, they're talking about
00:11:58
these murder cases. And he's like, well, what if we
00:12:01
use evidence and deductive reasoning to figure out who
00:12:04
might have done this or even could have physically possibly
00:12:08
done it? And they're just like, Nah, we
00:12:10
already got a guy. We threw him in jail.
00:12:11
We got a guy. It's that guy.
00:12:14
It's that guy. So that's the premise at the
00:12:16
beginning is that Ichabod Crane, Johnny Depp is driven by logic
00:12:22
and reason. He has a lot of strong dialogue
00:12:23
about this, that he's a very, I don't know, he's an
00:12:26
intellectual. He wants to be able to prove
00:12:28
things. He doesn't believe in
00:12:29
superstitious things like a lot of his peers do.
00:12:32
And again, he's kind of getting laughed out the door in London
00:12:35
because of this. But it also gives him a unique
00:12:38
opportunity because he is summoned by, I think, just like
00:12:42
a magistrate or a judge or something who sends him from
00:12:45
London to the town of Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series
00:12:48
of murders that have started taking place, wherein all of the
00:12:51
victims so far have been beheaded and had their heads
00:12:54
stolen. Oh well, that's a fun setup.
00:12:57
I I'm interested. Yeah, no, it's a good way to
00:12:59
kick things off because Depp, you can tell, is like excited.
00:13:02
Or as I come back, Crane is excited to get the opportunity.
00:13:05
But also it's like, what do you mean he stole their heads?
00:13:07
You know, it immediately punches him into interesting territory.
00:13:11
And when he leaves London and goes to Sleepy Hollow, I hope
00:13:14
it's London because I'm going to keep saying that and if it's
00:13:16
wrong, it's going to be very funny.
00:13:17
But he leaves London and goes to Sleepy Hollow.
00:13:20
And essentially the rest of the movie he spends in this small
00:13:23
town with this big cast of characters who live there, which
00:13:26
is sort of a who's who actor wise, which I'll get into.
00:13:29
And he's adamant from the start that while the locals believe
00:13:32
the murderer is the legendary Headless Horseman of folk tale
00:13:36
and myth, he thinks it's just somebody out there doing murders
00:13:39
and he's going to prove who's actually doing it.
00:13:40
He's kind of trying to Scooby-doo the whole thing it.
00:13:43
Is, yeah, it is kind of giving Scooby-doo, which is great.
00:13:46
Yeah. And so that's really the framing
00:13:48
device for the whole rest of the movie.
00:13:49
You get him to Sleepy Hollow within the first like 10
00:13:52
minutes, and then we're kind of just off.
00:13:53
We have this big group of characters, many, many of whom
00:13:57
get beheaded by the horsemen. We lose almost everybody by the
00:13:59
time this movie is done. And they all get their heads
00:14:03
chopped off. Pretty much.
00:14:04
I think almost all of them. That's kind of the horsemen's
00:14:06
gimmick, you know, They didn't take their head then.
00:14:09
He's just horse guy. He's.
00:14:11
Just yeah, he likes it. It's funny to him.
00:14:14
Yeah, that's his whole thing. So early on, you get these whole
00:14:18
sequence where you're introduced to all the important characters
00:14:21
in the story. And I guess here's where I'll
00:14:22
focus in on the cast, because it's probably the most stacked
00:14:24
cast for Tim Burton movie that I've ever seen.
00:14:27
We have Johnny Depp as the lead and we have Christina Ricci as
00:14:30
essentially his love interest in the story.
00:14:32
She's like one of the first people he meets when he gets
00:14:34
into town, and I believe the web of characters here is a little
00:14:38
complex, but I think she is the daughter of essentially the head
00:14:41
of the town. I don't know what their title
00:14:43
is, but like the main person in town, she's part of that family.
00:14:47
He's the town captain. He's the town quarterback and
00:14:51
she is part of that same family, and family trees become
00:14:54
important. So that's why I'm trying to
00:14:55
clarify that as we get into it. But the rest of the town,
00:14:58
there's essentially this tribunal of old white guys who
00:15:02
kind of run things in town. And the grouping here is kind of
00:15:04
insane. We have the actual head of the
00:15:08
town is Michael Gambon, who was the second guy to play
00:15:11
Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies.
00:15:14
So that's fun. And we also get an appearance
00:15:17
from, I don't know the actor's name, but the guy who played
00:15:20
Harry Potter's uncle, Uncle Vernon.
00:15:23
Oh. Really.
00:15:25
Wow. Yeah, so we got back-to-back on
00:15:26
Harry Potter, but then we go full Star Wars because in this
00:15:30
movie, we have Ian McDermott, who you might remember as
00:15:33
Emperor Palpatine. Of course, we get a brief
00:15:37
appearance at the beginning, the guy who sends him to Sleepy
00:15:39
Hollows, played by Christopher Lee, AKA Count Dooku.
00:15:43
And the I'll. I'll leave this to you, Frank.
00:15:45
I'll see if you can get it. Guess who the main stunt
00:15:47
performer was who did all the action scenes for the Headless
00:15:50
Horseman? Oh, Ray Park.
00:15:52
Ray Park AKA Darth Maul. So we literally have like the
00:15:56
Sith trifecta in this one movie. Oh, that's true.
00:15:58
It's, yeah, it's specifically the Sith characters.
00:16:02
Yeah, we get Palpatine, Dooku and Darth Mole.
00:16:04
And this movie came out in the same year as Phantom Menace, so
00:16:07
some of those characters hadn't even shown up yet.
00:16:10
Wow, that's actually really fun. Yeah, so that's fun.
00:16:13
I feel like when the movie started and we got to Sleepy
00:16:15
Hollow and I saw this group unfold, I was like, I'm so on
00:16:17
board. The movie really has you at the
00:16:19
beginning with like almost a Hercule Poirot murder mystery
00:16:22
shaping up where it's like clearly all these guys are
00:16:24
suspicious. Which of them is actually behind
00:16:26
this? And unfortunately, I will say
00:16:29
that while some of these characters get time to shine,
00:16:31
others definitely don't. Like Ian McDermott has like 2
00:16:34
lines in the whole movie I want to say.
00:16:37
That's a bummer that's I feel like I haven't seen him in much
00:16:40
outside of Star Wars. Yeah, that was why it was a
00:16:44
bummer. I was like, oh man, I want to
00:16:45
see him like play somebody else and he's there.
00:16:49
But again, he's not really a focal character.
00:16:51
And so as it like wore on, I was like, oh man, we're not actually
00:16:55
going to get this like group of old guy famous actors having a
00:17:00
lot of dialogue scenes together. It's mostly just a couple of red
00:17:04
herring suspects and then again, people are just getting picked
00:17:07
off left and right, so some of them just don't really make it
00:17:09
that far. Sure, yeah.
00:17:12
So the the cast, again, probably one of the strongest points in
00:17:15
the movie in terms of drumming up interest as it begins.
00:17:17
But then also maybe one of its disappointments is that a lot of
00:17:20
them are arguably wasted. They don't have a lot to do.
00:17:23
I will say that for Christopher Lee, he actually said at around
00:17:27
that time that his career was kind of struggling and that he
00:17:30
credits his brief appearance in Sleepy Hollow with being the
00:17:33
thing that got him noticed and cast in Lord of the Rings, which
00:17:37
in turn got him into Star Wars. So he credits the movie, kind
00:17:39
of, for rejuvenating his like, late stage career.
00:17:43
Wow, that's really interesting because I mean, I've always kind
00:17:46
of had this image of him as this like prolific actor that always
00:17:51
had that status. That's what I thought too.
00:17:54
I was surprised to hear him frame it as in an interview, is
00:17:56
that he was really struggling at that point to get like
00:17:59
significant roles, and even the role in this was not huge.
00:18:02
But it must have just been enough of a showcase that
00:18:04
anything that can get you cast in Lord of the Rings is probably
00:18:07
a win. Yeah, absolutely.
00:18:09
And he's perfect in that too, so.
00:18:10
Exactly. So that's fun.
00:18:12
Again, I just really like that trivia that we have all the Sith
00:18:14
Lords here in Sleepy Hollows. The Sith Lawrence, meet Johnny
00:18:17
Depp. Which I mean, even hearing you
00:18:20
describe it is a fun like if I sat through like that first act
00:18:24
and that set up, I would be I would be hooked with this movie.
00:18:27
I would definitely want to see where this goes.
00:18:29
I think that the combination of those elements, the production
00:18:32
design, it's a really strong opening.
00:18:35
And I think that maybe the hardest thing about it for me
00:18:40
was that the mystery at the center of it all doesn't live up
00:18:42
to that expectation. Because I think when that
00:18:44
starts, I'm like all in Gibby, like an Agatha Christie murder
00:18:48
mystery with a bunch of interesting monologuing and
00:18:51
dialogue between all these fun characters.
00:18:52
But I'm guessing in part because of the constraints of the
00:18:56
original story, it's primarily focused on Johnny Depp and
00:19:00
Christina Ricci, and to a lesser extent Mr. Dumbledore, And the
00:19:04
rest of them are kind of just tertiary characters around that
00:19:06
story. Yeah.
00:19:08
I mean, I guess even still though it is nice that they
00:19:11
filled out those kind of side characters with competent and
00:19:15
like recognizable actors too. Like could be worse.
00:19:19
It adds weight to those performances.
00:19:22
Like I said, maybe this was me being a victim of my own
00:19:24
expectations here of being like, well, I'm assuming if we got all
00:19:27
these guys in a room, it's for a reason.
00:19:28
And instead, it's more so just like these might just be people
00:19:31
Tim Burton knows. Sure.
00:19:33
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
00:19:35
So anyway, that's, that's all I had on casting in terms of the
00:19:37
actual beats of the story here again, the whole first act of
00:19:41
the movie, Johnny Depp's thing is like, there's no mystical
00:19:46
Headless Horseman rising out of his grave to kill people.
00:19:49
That just doesn't make any sense.
00:19:50
I believe in logic and reason. I'm going to get to the bottom
00:19:52
of this case. And sure enough, within the
00:19:54
first day of him being there, multiple other people get killed
00:19:57
in the dead of night. Basically everybody living in
00:20:00
this small town is is being preyed upon by what they think
00:20:03
is the Headless Horseman. And surprisingly.
00:20:06
Near the end of the first act, we do find out that no, it's,
00:20:09
it's real. It's a real mythological murder
00:20:11
creature. Does Johnny Depp figure that
00:20:14
out? Or the audience.
00:20:15
Does he? Does He does.
00:20:16
So he traces the evidence that he has so far alongside this
00:20:22
young boy who's helping him out, whose father has been killed,
00:20:24
and Christina Ricci herself. They all end up going into the
00:20:28
depths of the woods to this big spooky tree that they all heard
00:20:31
about. And when Johnny Depp gets there,
00:20:34
he discovers that all of the heads that have been severed are
00:20:36
being kept inside this tree and that the corpse of the Headless
00:20:40
Horseman is there too, and that the reason he is being called to
00:20:43
life again is because someone stole his skull.
00:20:47
Like, if he was laid to rest properly, that he wouldn't be
00:20:49
out. But somebody has taken the skull
00:20:51
from his grave and is using it to command him to kill people.
00:20:55
So it's kind of both. It is still a person, a living
00:20:57
person responsible for these crimes, but they are doing it by
00:21:01
summoning an undead murder horseman.
00:21:04
I mean, I like that too. I like that too.
00:21:06
Like, I honestly though, I think if I was in Johnny Depp's
00:21:08
position at this point, I'd be like, well, I'm going to go
00:21:10
home. Just be like.
00:21:12
He does amusingly, kind of completely freak out after this
00:21:17
happens. Like, the next scene is just
00:21:19
him, like, holed up in his room. And Michael Gambon goes in to
00:21:22
talk to him. And Johnny Depp's like, you
00:21:24
don't understand. He's, he's real.
00:21:26
He's a real Headless Horseman. And Michael Gambon just goes,
00:21:29
yeah, we know. We told you.
00:21:31
Everyone told you that. So that part's funny.
00:21:33
We do get a realistic reaction where he just completely
00:21:36
shatters his worldview. But then eventually he kind of
00:21:38
gets his mojo back and he's like, hold on, there's still a
00:21:40
mystery here. Clearly somebody is trying to
00:21:43
get specific people killed. I can tell that the horseman has
00:21:46
targets and it's not killing Billy Nilly because in at least
00:21:49
one case, somebody attacks the horseman while he's out doing a
00:21:52
murder. And the horseman tries to just
00:21:55
ignore him and like, leave him be until the guy presses too
00:21:57
hard and then the guy and then the horseman kills him.
00:21:59
So there's an angle here of like, this is targeted.
00:22:02
It's not just random killings, but.
00:22:04
Yeah, but I mean, which that's, that's the thing with like
00:22:08
murder mystery, like movies and stories in general is I feel
00:22:12
like they're inherently captivating at the beginning,
00:22:15
but then they have to not even just stick the landing.
00:22:18
But it's like in the execution of everything that comes after
00:22:21
that, 'cause I feel like it's kind of easy to set up an
00:22:23
interesting murder mystery, but then to like follow up on it is
00:22:28
is where it's more difficult. I'm glad you honed in on that,
00:22:31
cause to me, that's where Sleepy Hollow starts to lose me.
00:22:35
There's a point near the middle, essentially after they find out
00:22:39
that the Horseman is real, where the actual plotting of the
00:22:43
mystery becomes less and less interesting.
00:22:45
Johnny Depp's main theory at this point is that a lot of this
00:22:49
has to do with land ownership and titles.
00:22:53
They're aware that some of the first people to be murdered
00:22:56
owned all of this land and essentially owned the town and
00:23:01
all the riches within it because they had settled it or
00:23:03
something. And he starts to track down
00:23:05
like, who would stand to inherit all of this money and titles if
00:23:09
such and such person died? Well, and then he kind of traces
00:23:12
like, well, that explains why they killed this person next,
00:23:14
because this was the daughter of this first person.
00:23:18
And he eventually traces it all the way back to believing that
00:23:21
Mister Dumbledore is the one behind the whole thing, which
00:23:23
obviously makes his relationship with Christina Ricci much more
00:23:27
tense because he's accusing her dad of being a, you know, evil
00:23:31
murderer mastermind. And so that's where things get
00:23:33
tense for those two. And is it him or is that?
00:23:37
That's your first misdirect. They think it's Michael Gambon.
00:23:40
But then in one of the more interesting action beats in the
00:23:43
movie, The horseman shows up at night when everybody's still out
00:23:46
and about, and everybody freaks out and runs into the town
00:23:48
church. And they discover that the
00:23:50
horseman can't actually go into the church.
00:23:52
And so there's a scene in there where everyone's kind of
00:23:55
freaking out and wondering what to do.
00:23:56
And Michael Gammon goes up onto this elevated platform in the
00:23:59
back where you'd presumably give the sermons from.
00:24:02
And then there's a window behind him.
00:24:04
And the horseman shoots like a grapple thing through the window
00:24:08
and impales him with it and just drags him outside the church,
00:24:11
which is just kind of a funny beat that he can't go inside.
00:24:14
So he had to just physically get his body out.
00:24:17
And so then Michael Gammon's dead, too.
00:24:18
And it's like, OK, clearly he didn't do it because he is dead.
00:24:21
What? The horseman has a grappling
00:24:23
hook, though. I don't know what you would call
00:24:25
it. He fires something like a
00:24:27
grappling hook that shoots through a person and then uses
00:24:30
it to drag him through the plate glass window and like all the
00:24:32
way outside the grounds of the church.
00:24:35
Oh that's crazy I didn't know he had like gadgets.
00:24:37
I assume he has like a sword too or what is he cutting people's
00:24:40
heads off with? He's got a sword, He got a
00:24:42
pumpkin head and a sword. And then I guess that grapple
00:24:46
thing, that's really his only other gadget.
00:24:48
It's just an interesting one to pull out of nowhere.
00:24:50
Just like, yeah, cool grapple. Hasn't leveled up enough times
00:24:53
to spec into new gadgets. You know, I think he's gonna
00:24:55
unlock a smoke bomb eventually. Yeah, of course.
00:24:58
Yeah, yeah, for those stealth kills.
00:25:01
So that scene is interesting. I think maybe one thing to
00:25:04
highlight is that the action in this movie is kind of nuts.
00:25:06
Like there's some interesting action stunt work in what is for
00:25:10
the most part supposed to be like a Horror Story because on
00:25:12
occasion people try to fight the Headless Horseman.
00:25:14
And that's where Ray Park shows up to do stunts.
00:25:16
And they're just like interesting little scenes.
00:25:18
They're they're played for horror more than action, but
00:25:21
there is actual like choreography to those little
00:25:23
sword fight sequences. Oh that's cool.
00:25:25
I wouldn't have expected that at all, honestly.
00:25:28
I agree. I I thought it would be pure
00:25:30
like slasher movie stalker imagery of someone just
00:25:33
inevitably failing to get away. But there's this one dude who
00:25:36
shows up with like a musket and just tries to fight him.
00:25:39
And it goes on for a minute. And then that guy is the one who
00:25:43
Johnny Depp is aware the horseman doesn't want to kill
00:25:45
because he has no reason to. But eventually he gets pressed
00:25:47
enough that he does not behead that guy.
00:25:48
He cuts him in half. Wait, why?
00:25:50
Why didn't he cut his head off though?
00:25:52
That's his whole thing. Because he was just, I guess the
00:25:54
horseman was just in self-defense mode.
00:25:56
He didn't need the head. He just was like, get out of
00:25:58
here. Oh, that's interesting.
00:26:00
There's so many rules like with this horse, is he unkillable?
00:26:03
Could they? Were they shooting him and it
00:26:04
wasn't working or? Correct.
00:26:06
He is seemingly immortal, which again is part of Johnny Depp's
00:26:10
evidence that this is like a mythical creature.
00:26:12
There is also a legend given that the Horseman was this weird
00:26:17
vampiric warrior guy hundreds of years prior that just died near
00:26:23
the location of the town and you get a brief flashback and this
00:26:25
is where Christopher Walken shows up.
00:26:27
I know we talked briefly last time that we both picked a movie
00:26:29
with him in it, but the only appearance of Christopher Walken
00:26:32
in Sleepy Hollow is in flashbacks of him as the
00:26:34
Horseman. Oh, he is the horseman.
00:26:38
He's the horseman, but most of the time you're not seeing him.
00:26:40
He's in a couple of scenes at the beginning and then you see
00:26:43
him as himself once towards the end.
00:26:46
Oh, that would have been really funny if it was his voice coming
00:26:48
out of the pumpkin head. That would have been a lot of
00:26:49
fun. That would have been pretty
00:26:51
funny. I I was about to judge do a
00:26:53
Christopher Walken impression like I've never attempted.
00:26:56
There's no way of letting that go on the airwaves.
00:26:59
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead. You want.
00:27:02
Me to feed the horse. The man is the horse and the
00:27:07
pumpkin. The pumpkin I'm picturing like
00:27:10
the pumpkin mouth is like moving to almost like a muppet and
00:27:14
it's. For.
00:27:14
Walken's voice coming out. Yeah, I got a sword, but also a
00:27:19
grappling hook. You know what?
00:27:23
That was not bad. By the time you got to a
00:27:25
grappling hook, I think I, I heard it.
00:27:27
It's like he was in the room with us.
00:27:29
Yeah, that that's something I hear from Impressionists a lot.
00:27:31
You got to find the one phrase that really speaks to that, you
00:27:35
know, that actress performance. And I guess Christopher Walken
00:27:37
just loves to talk about grappling hooks.
00:27:39
It's his favorite thing. It's his favorite thing in the
00:27:41
world. All right, now I'm glad I did
00:27:44
it. There you go.
00:27:46
One's for me anyway. Christopher Walken is in the
00:27:49
film, but if you're wondering, as I went through the cast, why
00:27:52
he didn't show up yet, it's because he's only there a little
00:27:53
bit. He you see him essentially being
00:27:56
killed in the past and he interacts with these two strange
00:28:00
girls in the woods, which feels like it's not related to
00:28:03
anything. But then you find out later that
00:28:05
one of those strange little girls in the woods has grown up
00:28:08
to be the person who is controlling him in the present
00:28:11
day of the story. And the reason I set that up so
00:28:14
kind of lazily is because the movie does too.
00:28:15
We get the most boring reveal at the end of who's involved and
00:28:20
behind all of this. It's just this witch lady who
00:28:26
married into What's up? I just was shocked that there's
00:28:31
a witch now that's that's A twist.
00:28:33
There's a witch in the middle of the story.
00:28:34
I I'm not maybe not doing this justice.
00:28:36
It's been a few weeks since I saw it, but they go to visit a
00:28:39
cave. Witch in the middle of the story
00:28:42
and she gives them a clue about what's going on and basically
00:28:45
where, oh, she tells Johnny Depp where to go find the spooky
00:28:47
tree. So that's like a first act beat.
00:28:50
But in the end, maybe I should reset.
00:28:53
I don't want to leave anybody confused.
00:28:55
So as we talked about, Christina Ricci's dad was not the person
00:28:58
behind the murders because he got murdered himself.
00:29:00
He got grappling hooked out of a church.
00:29:02
So then at that point, Johnny Depp actually starts to suspect
00:29:06
Christina Ricci herself because he sees a couple of weird signs
00:29:09
from her, like she burned some of the evidence that he had
00:29:13
collected that pointed back to her dad.
00:29:15
He finds this inscription under the bed he's been sleeping.
00:29:18
Yeah. That he thinks is some sort of,
00:29:20
like, witch ward. And so he starts to wonder if
00:29:22
maybe she's partially responsible for this.
00:29:25
And then in the end, it turns out that was a misdirect and it
00:29:27
was her stepmother. It was the woman who had married
00:29:32
Dumbledore after Dumbledore's first wife died.
00:29:35
And the reason that's supposed to be somewhat of a surprise is
00:29:38
because we think that she died earlier, but it was never shown.
00:29:41
They like cut away from what looks like her being killed and
00:29:44
then we find out that she was behind the whole thing.
00:29:46
Oh wait, you lost me there. So the.
00:29:49
Stepmother, I got lost. This movie loses me when you're
00:29:52
watching it because it doesn't put enough emphasis on the
00:29:56
actual suspects in a way that feels satisfying when any of
00:29:59
this comes to light. So in the middle of the movie,
00:30:01
yes, Sorry, You tell me what? You tell me where you get lost
00:30:04
and I'll fill in the rest. No, no, no, I was just going to
00:30:06
say like in regards to like murder mysteries in general,
00:30:11
they're so tricky because like I've seen a few recently.
00:30:16
Like there's some fun murder mystery shows like Only Murders
00:30:19
in the Building. I know we've both watched.
00:30:21
I, I recently watched The Residence, which was a Netflix
00:30:25
murder mystery show like set in the White House.
00:30:29
And you have to strike this balance where it's like, you
00:30:32
can't make it too obvious what's going on, but you still need to
00:30:36
leave the audience with like enough bread crumbs.
00:30:38
So that, like, I think if you wanted to be like a satisfying
00:30:42
story, that the audience could kind of figure some things out
00:30:46
on their own if they're paying enough attention.
00:30:48
I think the best case scenario is where the whole thing clicks
00:30:52
for you like 3 seconds before they say it out loud because it
00:30:56
allows you to fill the gap yourself which is like rewarding
00:30:59
but also kind of get back fills everything you've seen and helps
00:31:02
you immediately understand. Like, oh, they were telling me
00:31:04
this, I just didn't know it. Yeah.
00:31:06
Oh, totally. Exactly.
00:31:07
Yeah. Which is hard to do.
00:31:08
You really have to like thread that needle and like most of the
00:31:11
time it winds up being some tertiary character is the one
00:31:15
that's been behind it all along and not like the obvious
00:31:18
suspects, so. I think the reason that it
00:31:21
becomes frustrating in Sleepy Hollow is because we don't
00:31:23
really spend enough time building up suspects in general.
00:31:26
Most of the plotting is just Johnny Depp finding out the
00:31:29
mystery of the horsemen as a whole, and then he finds like 1
00:31:33
suspect. That person dies.
00:31:34
He kind of half heartedly thinks maybe it's somebody else and
00:31:37
then he's like Oh no, it's this witch lady who I just found out
00:31:39
was a witch like 5 minutes ago anyway.
00:31:41
Yeah, that's that's why I was shocked.
00:31:43
I was like, wait a minute, a witch like.
00:31:45
There's more spooky stuff. There was references to a witch
00:31:48
before that, and there's other elements in the movie that
00:31:51
helped get us through the runtime about Johnny Depp's
00:31:53
relationship with like, myth and superstition and why he's so
00:31:57
devoted to logical deduction. There's flashbacks about his
00:32:01
relationship with his mom, who was seemingly married to a very
00:32:05
devoutly Catholic man, and she was kind of just like a free
00:32:08
spirited nature person. And I think the implication is
00:32:12
that she got accused of some kind of witchcraft and was like
00:32:14
killed for it. So Johnny Depp has this like,
00:32:17
traumatic relationship with the same kind of thing of people
00:32:21
being accused of magic when they're really just interacting
00:32:24
with the world in a way that people don't understand, much
00:32:27
like how he is trying to interact with things in a new
00:32:30
way and people write him off because they don't understand
00:32:32
it. So there's like recurring
00:32:33
elements there. But like, that's what the
00:32:35
movie's about. It's not actually really about
00:32:37
the mystery. And I think maybe that's where I
00:32:39
got let down. I wanted a mystery.
00:32:41
Sure, because I mean like when it's done well, I feel like it's
00:32:44
one of my favorite like genres actually.
00:32:46
It's like a good like kind of murder mystery.
00:32:49
But I do like this whole like, you know, again, like scooby-doo
00:32:53
type stuff. Like is it real?
00:32:54
Is it not? Like, it could have been fun if
00:32:57
they'd, like, gotten to the end of the story and ripped the
00:32:59
pumpkin head off and then Christopher Walken was
00:33:01
underneath, like. He's like it.
00:33:03
Was me. All along with the grappling
00:33:05
hook. In the kitchen, like it's like
00:33:10
clue. I realize my my impression is
00:33:14
starting to sound like Barney the Dinosaur if I go.
00:33:18
That would have been good. They'd take the Pumpkinhead off
00:33:20
and then it's Barney the Dinosaur.
00:33:21
Is that Barney the dinosaur head?
00:33:23
Yeah, that's good. That's good.
00:33:24
People would like that. People in the 90s hated Barney
00:33:26
for some reason. Yeah, there was a documentary
00:33:28
about that. I haven't watched it, but I've
00:33:29
been curious about it. There was like, I think it was
00:33:31
like a meme almost like to hate Barney.
00:33:35
A lot of people like they liked it as a kid and then when they
00:33:37
reached a certain age they were like, Nah, I hate this dumb
00:33:39
dinosaur guy so I'd buy it that he was the Headless Horseman.
00:33:43
So anyway, I, I, I'll have to go back in the edit and make sure
00:33:45
that this plotting made sense. But the movie is primarily about
00:33:49
Johnny Depp's relationship with Christina Ricci, his
00:33:51
relationship to the nature of magic and superstition as
00:33:55
opposed to stuff like religion and just things people can't
00:33:58
understand. There's this interesting
00:34:01
recurring imagery, like he has this toy that his mom gave him
00:34:04
that is a little picture of a bird in this little circular
00:34:09
thing that has these strings on it.
00:34:10
And if you pull on the strings, it spins and the other side has
00:34:13
a picture of a cage. But if you spin it fast enough,
00:34:16
the images start to overlap and it creates the illusion of a
00:34:18
bird in a cage. So there's like very specific
00:34:22
visual motifs about illusions and perception that do play into
00:34:27
the whole thing. And I give the movie credit for
00:34:29
that. Like there's consistent thematic
00:34:32
imagery, but you just can't hang so much of this on a murder
00:34:35
mystery and then give like a super uninteresting resolution
00:34:38
to that mystery. Yeah, exactly.
00:34:41
That's it's what was that you'll have to help me out here.
00:34:45
There was there was a murder mystery that you and I watched
00:34:47
together that I that I think both of us really liked like 90%
00:34:51
of the way through until it got to the reveal and it was really
00:34:55
disappointing. Was this like?
00:34:56
A Sam Rockwell movie. Yes, yes it was.
00:34:59
It was pretty recent ish, I don't remember.
00:35:01
Exactly when it was released. Newer movie The past few years
00:35:04
but I think it was a period piece setting.
00:35:07
Oh gosh, I don't remember the title, I'll have to.
00:35:09
Maybe I can really awkwardly dub in me saying the title from like
00:35:12
much later. Just say it as Christopher
00:35:15
Walken. And Blondie the dinosaur.
00:35:23
How was that? How was that?
00:35:25
It was Bjarni. Bjarni the dinosaur, I don't
00:35:27
know, I I know which movie you're talking about and I
00:35:29
agree. That one also had a really
00:35:31
interesting build up. It kept the mystery at just the
00:35:33
right level of like, I kind of follow it and I kind of don't.
00:35:36
And then the ending was just like a super flat misdirect that
00:35:39
I don't yeah, if you don't stick the landing, you kind of lose
00:35:42
everything in retrospect. Which you shouldn't.
00:35:45
I mean, like, I feel like, I mean, it's almost unfair to
00:35:49
judge it on that entirely, but it is in that type of film
00:35:52
really important because I, I still remember like it.
00:35:55
Like I said, I feel like we liked we were with that movie
00:35:58
like 90% of the way. And then I mean, a bad ending
00:36:01
can just leave a really sour taste in your mouth though.
00:36:05
It can. And I think that's, I think the
00:36:07
two things that hold back Sleepy Hollow is that the ending to the
00:36:10
mystery is not interesting. And the core relationship
00:36:15
between Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci is complete lack
00:36:19
of chemistry. Like it's not believable at all.
00:36:21
They don't have a lot of scenes to drive home that there's a
00:36:24
romance between them. Even though the movie ends with
00:36:25
them together. It just drags.
00:36:29
Any part that's those two together does not hit.
00:36:31
And I think that mostly just comes down to casting.
00:36:33
Oh really? I mean, do you think their
00:36:35
individual performances were good, but it was just their
00:36:38
chemistry was not there? I think Johnny Depp's
00:36:40
performance was quite good. I think that he gave a
00:36:43
surprisingly muted role as Ichabod Crane.
00:36:47
Like, he's nowhere near the most outlandish character in the
00:36:50
story, and that's so rarely the case for him.
00:36:52
He's always like the big wacky guy.
00:36:53
So for him to kind of be the straight man against a lot of
00:36:56
more strange characters was really fun.
00:36:59
But Christina Ricci, some of it was just in how the character
00:37:02
was written. But I just think that those two
00:37:04
had, like, negative chemistry. And Johnny Depp even made some
00:37:06
allusion to it in an interview where he was like, yeah, I met
00:37:09
this girl when she was like 8 years old on a movie set.
00:37:12
So it's a little bit weird now that we're like, we're playing
00:37:15
romantic leads in the same movie.
00:37:18
Oh, well, yeah, I mean, that's going to translate on screen if
00:37:21
he felt that uncomfortable about it.
00:37:23
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it was some of
00:37:25
it's the scripts. I mean, it's, it's not a very
00:37:28
romantically charged story. It just has that element
00:37:30
underneath it. All right, so that's Sleepy
00:37:33
Hollow. I, I wish I had more to say
00:37:35
about it, but I don't know. I, I don't want to give the
00:37:39
impression that the movie's like a dull watch.
00:37:41
It is kind of like that one you mentioned where I was enjoying
00:37:43
it a lot and just felt deflated by the time it was over because
00:37:47
I didn't like the ending. And so because of that, my
00:37:50
reflections on the movie are skewed a lot more negative than
00:37:53
they otherwise would have been. Yeah, that's, that's that you're
00:37:57
really gambling with that type of story because basically
00:38:04
regardless of how you feel about most of it, if if that ending
00:38:07
does not satisfy audiences, then I think a lot of people would
00:38:12
just consider it a failure of of film at that point.
00:38:15
And. That could be why people don't
00:38:17
talk about this one. I mean, I had not, I didn't even
00:38:20
know it was a Tim Burton movie because I feel like, like you
00:38:23
mentioned, he's an auteur that people Group A lot of his work
00:38:26
together. And despite it having all his
00:38:28
usual collaborators, it like it's not really in the
00:38:30
conversation for him. So I think something about this
00:38:33
kind of works and kind of doesn't.
00:38:36
And so it just fell through the cracks as a result.
00:38:38
I, I think some people like it. I I think at the very least it's
00:38:41
like a Halloween time movie that that.
00:38:43
It is not a bad movie. As always, we harp on the
00:38:46
negative because it's a little bit more interesting to flesh
00:38:49
out how they could have done something differently.
00:38:51
The strengths of the movie are obvious the moment you turn it
00:38:53
on. It's got good performances, an
00:38:55
interesting cast, the production design is very charming.
00:38:58
The dialogue is actually pretty good, which I was not assuming
00:39:01
it would be. I don't always associate
00:39:03
Burton's movies with having really strong scripts or
00:39:05
anything, but Johnny Depp just has a lot of cool dialogue and
00:39:07
interesting. I don't know.
00:39:09
The language is a little, you know, it takes place in the
00:39:13
1800s or whatever, so it's not modern and it has an interesting
00:39:17
kind of flavor to it. Yeah.
00:39:19
I mean, this is probably somebody's favorite movie, and
00:39:23
they really disagree with you. And they're like, if you didn't
00:39:25
have such a good Christopher Walken impression.
00:39:28
Yeah. It's not for the walk in
00:39:30
impression. I would have already turned this
00:39:31
off, but stay tuned when we do our scores at the end.
00:39:35
I'm not that harsh about Sleepy Hollow, I just wanted it to be
00:39:40
even better. I think if they had cleaned up
00:39:42
the mystery element, we could have had like a 10 out of 10 for
00:39:45
what this movie's going for because it hits in all the right
00:39:48
ways except for essentially how the third act plays out.
00:39:53
So you're just watching it. You're like, you know, it'd be
00:39:54
good if this was better. That would be good, yeah.
00:39:57
Basically, that's how movie watching goes.
00:39:58
Sometimes you're like, if the movie starts and you don't vibe
00:40:02
with it immediately, you don't really care where it goes.
00:40:04
At most you're like, well, they they found this towards the end
00:40:07
and they're like that. But this one had me hooked.
00:40:09
It was a really strong opening. Even as we got towards like the
00:40:12
midpoint in the story, I was really engaged and I kept
00:40:15
finding new things to like about it.
00:40:17
And so I was just disappointed by the ending because I was
00:40:19
like, Dang it, Sleepy Hollow. Frank is down by so many points
00:40:23
he needs. This.
00:40:25
Don't worry about me, OK? Don't worry about me.
00:40:29
Yeah, I'll don't. Worry because the movie I gave
00:40:32
him probably sucks. Anything else?
00:40:34
Any questions? Sleepy Hollow.
00:40:38
Honestly, no. I mean, I feel like, I feel like
00:40:41
you did a good job actually, like of talking about the appeal
00:40:45
of the movie because it's, it sounds like there were some
00:40:47
things that you were disappointed by, but I'm not
00:40:50
turned off by it. Like I I'm curious enough that I
00:40:53
would still want to watch this movie based on what you told me.
00:40:56
Here's the benefit for the folks at home, it's the day before
00:40:59
Halloween. But Frank, for you and I, we got
00:41:00
weeks. So you have time as we enter
00:41:02
spooky season to watch Sleepy Hollow.
00:41:04
And I would not recommend against it.
00:41:05
I think it's a fun movie and I think he would like seeing all
00:41:08
the Sith in it. All the Sith.
00:41:10
Out there, all the Star Wars and Harry Potter folks that pop in.
00:41:15
It's a fun movie. Yeah, that's good.
00:41:16
I mean that's, that was that was the impression I got.
00:41:18
So I am curious to to hear your closing thoughts and score on
00:41:24
it. But it sounds like something I I
00:41:26
would be entertained by at least.
00:41:28
I would say so. If you're looking for a
00:41:29
Halloween movie and you want one that you've not already seen 10
00:41:32
times, you know you're tired of watching Hocus Pocus.
00:41:35
Check out Sleepy Hollow. There's something.
00:41:37
There's something to it. Yeah.
00:41:40
And then try out your Christopher Walken impression.
00:41:43
We can all do 1. And he's in the next movie too,
00:41:45
so he's. In the next movie, somebody who
00:41:48
was hoping that that bit was over at the halfway point is
00:41:51
like, no. Never ends.
00:41:55
All right, well, we're going to head into our intermission now,
00:41:57
but stay tuned after the break when we get to hear Frank's
00:42:00
Christopher Walken impression. Uh oh.
00:42:04
Nothing. You got No.
00:42:06
I did. I didn't.
00:42:07
I don't know if you heard me. What'd you do?
00:42:10
I did a uh oh. I did a Christopher Walken.
00:42:11
Uh oh. Uh oh oh.
00:42:16
Sound like some sort of weird cuckoo clock.
00:42:32
Right, coming back after the break, Frank, now we throw
00:42:34
things over to you. The film I asked you to watch
00:42:37
for today is I have forgotten, I want to say 1995's The Prophecy.
00:42:44
The prophecy, like many of our recent picks, is I gave it to
00:42:47
you just based on who's in it. Coincidentally also has
00:42:50
Christopher Walken as we mentioned before the break.
00:42:52
But in addition to that it has Viggo Mortensen, who for the
00:42:56
most people they only really know is Aragorn from Lord of the
00:42:59
Rings and I just honestly can't even really picture him playing
00:43:02
anybody else so I'm curious. I don't know how heavily he
00:43:05
features in the prophecy, but I just thought it'd be neat to see
00:43:07
him do something pretty different it.
00:43:10
Technically has Viggo Mortensen in it.
00:43:15
He is in. He does not show up for the
00:43:19
first time in the film until I think the last 15 minutes
00:43:24
really. But is he like an important
00:43:27
character or is it just like a coincidental appearance?
00:43:31
He's. The devil so Well, Listen, I
00:43:36
know you're mad he wasn't in the rest of the movie but you?
00:43:38
Don't gotta be so mean. No, he's that's his character.
00:43:42
He is Satan, so he's great. He is great in his limited
00:43:49
appearance and role in the film, but we'll get to that at the
00:43:55
end, I guess. I I know it's like a horror
00:43:58
fantasy movie of some kind, but I didn't really read what the
00:44:01
actual plot was so I didn't know the devil was in it.
00:44:04
I'm, I'm curious, my immediate association is like Constantine
00:44:08
or something. Dude, I was thinking of
00:44:10
Constantine too actually. Oh my God.
00:44:14
Like, but like from the content of the film too, just like
00:44:18
visually and like the what they like we're talking about and how
00:44:25
the film right away establishes its own kind of lore.
00:44:31
I'm like, I feel like I've jumped in in the middle of like
00:44:34
the Constantine verse and and that's where where, where the
00:44:38
space we're in right now. I'm trying to pinpoint what
00:44:41
specifically that is. I think it's because of people
00:44:46
in regular spaces, like people in just buildings and cities
00:44:51
talking to men in suits to tell you they're the devil.
00:44:53
Like that's kind of where I go with like Constantine imagery is
00:44:56
It's not pure fantasy imagery. It's just like a weird melding
00:45:01
of that into like very recognizable spaces.
00:45:04
Totally. Yeah, absolutely.
00:45:05
Like I'm looking at my notes for the film and my first note is
00:45:09
the pacing is ridiculous and then my my second note is movie
00:45:14
feels like Constantine. So it wasn't #1 but it was #2.
00:45:21
It was #2 I should really quickly, I think my top.
00:45:25
I always write a note in my movie notes before the movie
00:45:28
actually starts. I don't know if I've really made
00:45:31
that aware to everybody, but at the top of Sleepy Hollow I just
00:45:34
wrote Spooky, and then right below it I wrote Danny Elfman
00:45:38
again. Again.
00:45:40
Wait, what do you mean you make a note before the film begins?
00:45:43
Like what? You.
00:45:45
OK, so logistically I open a note on my phone and I start
00:45:48
like a bulleted list and I find that sometimes if I don't put
00:45:52
something in the first bullet and then I click away, it goes
00:45:55
rid of the bullets. And so I just need to put
00:45:57
something there so that the list exists.
00:45:59
This is a. Technical workaround, yeah.
00:46:02
So I just started writing like what's on my mind, you know?
00:46:04
It's just word association before the movie starts.
00:46:07
OK, that's interesting. You know, I'm not normally like
00:46:09
a text to talk or talk to text kind of guy, but I do find
00:46:13
myself doing that during like when I'm having these screenings
00:46:17
because it's just like I want to pay attention, but I also want
00:46:19
to be taking notes at the same time.
00:46:21
Oh that's an interesting idea. I just paused the movie a bunch.
00:46:24
I do that as well. Yeah, yeah.
00:46:26
Like I was watching Sleepy Hollow with my wife because
00:46:28
she'd already seen it and she likes it.
00:46:30
And I could tell there was a bit of like, OK, you got to stop and
00:46:33
write down Ian Mcdermid. Like, you're going to forget he
00:46:35
was in the movie. Anyway, sorry that was a
00:46:38
tangent, but. No, I like it.
00:46:40
I like it, yeah. Speaking of pausing during the
00:46:45
movie, I did fall asleep while I was watching the prophecy.
00:46:47
Well. Hold on, you can't just bury a
00:46:53
lead like that. What do you mean?
00:46:54
Was it late or was it boring? It was, it was late, I'd had a
00:46:59
long day. This was the day before the
00:47:01
screening and so I was getting a lot of stuff ready for.
00:47:04
The day before one one of those screenings for your film.
00:47:07
Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, yeah, before, before I was
00:47:10
screening here in LA and I was like, but I was like, I gotta I
00:47:15
gotta watch this movie tonight. I gotta stay on schedule here.
00:47:18
Yeah. So it was pretty late when I
00:47:20
started it, which I I knew this might have been an issue.
00:47:23
And then the score was so soothing.
00:47:26
It was just. Oh, OK.
00:47:29
Yeah, it had. Just so it relaxed you to sleep
00:47:31
it really. Did it just kind of rocked me to
00:47:33
sleep. And then I woke up during the
00:47:36
climax of the film, which to Fast forward a bit, is Elias
00:47:40
Coteus hitting Christopher Walken in the face with a tire
00:47:44
iron. And I was like I missed
00:47:46
something here. I missed something, Yeah.
00:47:50
I was waiting for that to be like and then I just figured I
00:47:52
got it and I came to the review today.
00:47:55
It was pretty good. Pretty good movie.
00:47:57
I, I don't mean to knock. I growing up, we would watch
00:48:01
movies as a family and I fell asleep during probably 90% of
00:48:04
them. There is something about if you
00:48:06
get the atmosphere right and you're like comfortable enough
00:48:10
that you just fall asleep. And then I always felt that it
00:48:12
was like the movie credits would wake me up.
00:48:14
Something about that transition would instantly wake me up and
00:48:18
I'd be like I've done it again. Yeah, absolutely.
00:48:21
Well, I mean, it's just you're in a relaxed environment, you're
00:48:24
comfortable, you're happy. The devil's there.
00:48:26
The. Devil's there, but it's Aragorn.
00:48:28
So you're like, I guess I'm OK with it.
00:48:30
Like, OK, positive, positive masculinity, devil situation.
00:48:37
Son of Air Thorn over here. But but yeah, but like, people,
00:48:43
people will get mad. People will be like, oh, you
00:48:45
fell asleep during that movie. And I'm like, that's like a
00:48:47
compliment more than anything else.
00:48:52
That's hilarious. I'm just picturing somebody at
00:48:55
your movie screening falling asleep and trying to play it
00:48:57
off. I was like, no, no, no, no.
00:48:58
Just that's how much I liked the movie that I felt safe enough
00:49:01
around it to stop watching and fall asleep.
00:49:04
Yes. I would appreciate it.
00:49:05
I would be like I understand. I understand your logic
00:49:07
completely. Thank you.
00:49:12
I How did we get through multiple unrelated tangents
00:49:15
before I fell asleep during the movie?
00:49:18
So I did have to. I was at that moment where I was
00:49:24
like, do I try and like, because at this point now it's really
00:49:26
late and I'm like, do I, do I power through or do I do I just
00:49:30
come back tomorrow? That's what I did.
00:49:32
I came back the following morning.
00:49:34
The next day. Yeah, came back and watched the
00:49:36
rest of the prophecy and I was like, what is this movie?
00:49:42
Like I thought this might be a weird one.
00:49:43
Everything I read about any time the genre tags have like 6
00:49:46
different things in them, you're you're in for something.
00:49:50
This felt like. A passion project film from the
00:49:54
writer, director OK like he seemed to be really into
00:50:01
whatever this was these. Are some of the most backhanded
00:50:06
compliments I've ever heard. You know what?
00:50:09
It's fine though. It's fine.
00:50:10
I, I I could. Tell this really matter to you,
00:50:13
and that to you, this really must feel like something.
00:50:19
This must feel like something, this jump around a bit here,
00:50:24
though. This film had four sequels.
00:50:28
Like this was a franchise. Yeah.
00:50:31
And Christopher Walken is in the following two.
00:50:35
He's in the second and third one.
00:50:37
Is he the main character in this one?
00:50:39
He's the main antagonist in this film.
00:50:41
The main protagonist is Elias Koteas which is great.
00:50:45
I I love Elias Koteas. Stacey Jones, Casey Jones that
00:50:50
that also, this is just sort of just a non sequitur here, but
00:50:56
the early dialogue in this film, well, I'll get into it a bit.
00:50:59
So Elias Coteus was a former, I don't know the correct
00:51:05
terminology for this. He was a priest in training.
00:51:09
Like, he was like about to pass his priest exams and then he,
00:51:14
like, saw a vision of the devil and he was like, you know what?
00:51:18
I'm going to go be a cop actually.
00:51:20
So I got to go. Wait, wait.
00:51:23
He was training to be a priest, saw the devil and thought, well,
00:51:28
if the devil's involved, I'm going to go.
00:51:29
I think I need a different approach than being a priest.
00:51:33
Yeah, I'm going to need someone to walk me through that.
00:51:37
No, that was it. You got it.
00:51:40
I mean, that's not any more nonsensical than like, well, I
00:51:43
was studying to be a cop but then I heard there was a
00:51:45
murderer on the loose so I decided to become a priest.
00:51:49
It sounds like he just wants to get as far away as possible.
00:51:52
Yeah, he's like, I don't like, I don't like this.
00:51:54
I didn't know if the devil would be involved in any of this, so I
00:51:56
got to. Go.
00:51:56
I thought this whole thing was made-up.
00:51:58
I thought this whole priest thing was just like a gig, you
00:52:05
know? He's like Johnny Depp and he
00:52:07
just doesn't believe in religion, but he's.
00:52:10
Like I was going to pass around the the hat that they put the
00:52:13
money in. He's going to grift everybody.
00:52:16
That was his plan. Well, maybe, OK, I don't want to
00:52:19
make, I don't want to make judgements on fictional Elias
00:52:21
Cateza's behalf about the Church.
00:52:23
But that is insane that he saw the devil and thought, you know
00:52:26
what, I need to beat the devil? A gun, I guess.
00:52:33
Yeah, yeah. So something about that made him
00:52:39
like question his faith and he left and then.
00:52:42
Question his faith. That's like the most literal,
00:52:44
OK, I got to yeah, I got even talking to.
00:52:51
He is just like Johnny Depp. He's going into the church, he's
00:52:53
talking to the priest and he's like, guys, I think this whole
00:52:55
God thing might be real. And they're like, no, we told
00:52:58
you that. That's why we're here.
00:53:02
But he's like the only one that has like, concrete evidence and
00:53:05
like, he's just like, I gotta go like, this is this is this is
00:53:08
crazy, OK. So yeah, this is the first
00:53:16
scene. We're still in the very first
00:53:17
scene. Of the movie, we have proven
00:53:20
that the Christian devil exists and decided to go anywhere, but
00:53:24
it's yours to deal with it, yeah.
00:53:26
Well, he doesn't. OK, I should clarify.
00:53:28
He doesn't see the devil because the devil is Viko Mortensen.
00:53:31
He sees some kind of like chaotic imagery, though it's not
00:53:35
clear what it is but. It's like the Battle Helms deep
00:53:39
or something. Exactly.
00:53:41
Exactly like that. It's like a battle.
00:53:44
It's it is some kind of battle he's seeing like angels being
00:53:47
killed or something. It's very abstract imagery.
00:53:51
But no, exactly, it's your point.
00:53:53
It's like this should really you should like should double down
00:53:55
on what you're currently doing, not go do something else.
00:53:57
But. It really calls into question
00:53:59
what he thought the point of being a priest was.
00:54:04
Like I thought this was going to be just like all good good
00:54:07
vibes. I thought it was going to be all
00:54:08
good time. I was just going to be like a
00:54:10
celibate man and and just hang out with the homies that.
00:54:13
Was that was the selling point for him?
00:54:16
He's like, sex is scary. And I heard there's none of that
00:54:19
here. So yeah.
00:54:22
Well, I don't know. I wish the movie would tell me
00:54:24
because I feel like we just were about to gloss over that and get
00:54:27
back to him being a cop. Oh yeah, yeah, right into right
00:54:30
into cop stuff. So anyway, the very next thing
00:54:39
that happens to him that we see as the audience like this,
00:54:42
obviously we've jumped ahead in time.
00:54:43
He's a but he's a cop now. Yeah.
00:54:45
And the very next thing we see is a literal Angel comes to talk
00:54:49
to him in his apartment. OK.
00:54:52
And then after this is done, he's like, I got to go be like a
00:54:54
cobbler. Yeah, he's like, I don't know
00:54:56
what he just this whole just religious stuff just keeps
00:55:01
following me around. I can't escape it.
00:55:03
Only there was a place I could go to better deal with this
00:55:06
religious imagery. Yeah, so he's really dumb.
00:55:11
OK, so he sees something that he does not yet know is the devil.
00:55:15
He freaks out, he goes to be a cop, and then he gets visited by
00:55:18
a just a human Angel. Yes, exactly.
00:55:21
Yeah, That's, that's good clarification.
00:55:23
It's an Angel in human form who comes to, like, warn him of
00:55:30
what's coming. I don't know why he comes to
00:55:33
talk to him specifically. Maybe he somehow knows he's
00:55:36
going to be involved in this. I don't know what, I don't know
00:55:38
what powers angels have in this universe, but yeah.
00:55:42
Neither does Casey Jones because he refuses to go learn about
00:55:45
him. No, so anyway, this is what was
00:55:47
getting me back to the Casey Jones thing.
00:55:48
So he's he's a cop. Just Fast forward a little bit
00:55:51
that actually, no, I can't. I can't Fast forward over this
00:55:53
part because this part. 'S kind of crazy.
00:55:57
I'm sorry, I was just. I was just going to jump right
00:56:00
past it, but so that Angel comes to talk to Casey Jones, which is
00:56:06
what we're going to call. Him.
00:56:08
I mean, why would you call him anything else?
00:56:09
Stacy Jones, he hits people with a bat.
00:56:12
Yeah, yeah, he hits people with a pipe in this one.
00:56:15
So comes to talk to him and then the next scene is that Angel
00:56:22
gets attacked by like a bad Angel, like full leather trench
00:56:26
coat and everything and. The titular uniform of bad
00:56:31
Angels. Yeah, of course.
00:56:32
Yeah, exactly. That sounds like AK Pop, man.
00:56:35
So they fight in this angel's apartment because he has an
00:56:38
apartment. I don't know how he did this.
00:56:40
Angel good to have a job. The good guy Angel has his own
00:56:42
apartment. Yeah, he does OK.
00:56:46
You know what? I'm gonna stop asking.
00:56:48
I should stop asking for clarification.
00:56:50
And no. No, no, please do, because it's
00:56:51
good. It's good stuff because these
00:56:53
are valid questions to ask. Oh man.
00:56:57
So the good guy Angel gets attacked in his one bedroom
00:56:59
apartment by bad, it might be a studio, who knows by bad trench
00:57:06
coat Angel and he throws him out a window.
00:57:09
Good guy throws bad guy out the window.
00:57:11
Good Guy Angel throws Bad Guy Angel out a window.
00:57:13
And then Rorschach says tonight, a comedian died in New York, and
00:57:17
that's the movie. Yes, but also no.
00:57:20
Not at all, but also no. Yeah.
00:57:23
What's that meme? It's like the like Clamation
00:57:26
Pirate guy where he's just like, well yes, but actually no.
00:57:30
Yeah, yeah. That's.
00:57:31
The whole movie. That's the whole movie.
00:57:34
Yeah. So bad guy Angel gets thrown out
00:57:35
a window, and then Detective Casey Jones comes to investigate
00:57:41
this. And this is this is the point I
00:57:43
was trying to get to, which is totally unimportant, but it
00:57:45
matters to me. They like these cops, they all
00:57:50
like talking one liners. It's crazy.
00:57:51
I'm like the dialogue early on, I'm like, this is just silly.
00:57:54
The way that you're all talking to each other.
00:57:56
It's like exclusively in like buddy cop guy, one liners.
00:58:00
But the cop guy that's explaining to Casey Jones, like
00:58:02
what happened? He was like, yeah, this guy came
00:58:06
out the window, did 1/2 gainer into the back of this garbage
00:58:09
can. And I was like.
00:58:11
Wait a minute. Wait he literally says did 1/2
00:58:13
gainer? Yes, yes.
00:58:15
And I was like, that is that is a line straight out of Ninja
00:58:17
Turtles like. That's yeah, that's right at the
00:58:20
beginning of Secret of the Use. That's how RAF describes what
00:58:23
happened to Shredder. Yes, Yeah.
00:58:25
And I was like, was this just a really?
00:58:28
Do people just love? Like, what is, is that like a
00:58:30
diving term? I don't even actually know.
00:58:32
Yeah. What is 1/2 gain?
00:58:34
Is that surfing or gymnastics? What is that?
00:58:37
Something, but it must have been really popular in the 90s
00:58:40
because I was like, that is such a specific phrase that I have
00:58:44
not heard like since that Ninja Turtles movie until this guy
00:58:48
said it to Casey Jones in this movie.
00:58:50
That's bizarre. Yeah, now I'm now my belief
00:58:53
system is getting all messed up. This is really.
00:58:56
I know, right? So then from there this body
00:58:59
gets taken to the morgue and Casey Jones goes there and the
00:59:04
guy who's the mortician is played by the guy who did the
00:59:08
like that's gold Jerry on Seinfeld, which it was also
00:59:17
funny because like he's also talking in like 1 liners.
00:59:19
But this is like, not a comedy film in any way.
00:59:23
You could have fooled me. But like, he's just his.
00:59:27
That guy's funny. He's got a good screen presence.
00:59:30
Actually, he's. A funny guy.
00:59:32
Yeah. Seinfeld.
00:59:33
He should be on Seinfeld just a few times.
00:59:36
Just a few times. It's not that funny, all right?
00:59:40
We're not talking series regularly.
00:59:42
Just recurring. Just a recurring.
00:59:44
Yeah, Yeah, We know this guy. What?
00:59:46
I thought that was fun. No.
00:59:48
Don't like I'm derailing you, sadly.
00:59:50
OK, so just a recap. I just want to make sure I know
00:59:52
what's going on. So Casey Jones is a dedicated
00:59:55
atheist priest who's almost ready to become a priest until
00:59:58
he realizes that the devil is real.
01:00:00
So he becomes a police officer and then a year later is visited
01:00:03
by an Angel who lives in a studio apartment and gets into a
01:00:05
fight with a bad Angel, throws him out the window.
01:00:07
Casey goes to investigate. Here's a bunch of 1 liners to
01:00:10
Ninja Turtles. And then?
01:00:13
This is right around where I fell asleep.
01:00:14
OK, Yeah, OK. Now when you went back and
01:00:19
watched it again, did you skip this part?
01:00:20
Are we sure this is not you dreaming about a different
01:00:24
movie? No, no, this was not.
01:00:26
These were not Nyquil visions. This was this happened.
01:00:28
This was. This is the first act of the
01:00:34
films, obviously. Oh my God, yeah.
01:00:38
OK, I mean, at least I'm caught up, yeah.
01:00:40
No, that was, that was good. That was actually a really good
01:00:43
synopsis of the beginning there. How does this end with Viggo
01:00:51
Mortensen is the devil? I'm so confused.
01:00:55
As you should be. So anyway, we can get into the
01:00:57
like. So this is what this is what
01:00:59
sets up our narrative here. And our narrative is so poorly
01:01:04
explained, like almost intentionally so.
01:01:07
Like it's keeping it vague as to kind of what exactly is
01:01:11
happening. Like it it's they're trying to
01:01:13
keep the audience in the dark as some of these events are
01:01:16
unfolding early on, but to kind of, I guess, skip forward to
01:01:22
what is actually happening to make it easier to understand.
01:01:25
Basically, good guy Angel is there kills bad guy Angel.
01:01:30
Bad Guy Angel worked for Christopher Walken who is head
01:01:35
Bad Guy Angel. Mouth of Sauron.
01:01:38
Exactly. Well, he's he's Gabriel.
01:01:39
So he's an actual, like, biblical figure.
01:01:44
Yeah. So, yeah.
01:01:47
But their objective is so strange because the two of them
01:01:54
are both trying to get this specific soul of this Korean War
01:02:02
veteran. Because apparently this guy,
01:02:06
this Korean War veteran, committed such heinous war
01:02:09
crimes that he was like, he has like the most evil soul there
01:02:14
is. Like, like the mostest evil soul
01:02:20
is this guy. An American veteran of the
01:02:23
Korean War. Yes, correct.
01:02:25
OK. And so they need his soul
01:02:29
because apparently there's a war going on between the angels.
01:02:33
Like there's two sides and whichever side gets this super
01:02:37
evil soul like they're going to win for some reason.
01:02:41
Why would the good angels win by having the most evil personal
01:02:44
life? Well, I don't know.
01:02:46
I don't I don't know as. Far as movie Mac guffins go,
01:02:53
just weird things to drive the plot.
01:02:55
I think we need the most evil soul of a war criminal.
01:02:59
That's that's up there for for weirdness.
01:03:03
I kind of like it because it's not your average like movie
01:03:06
Mcguffin. It's like, no, this is very
01:03:08
specific. It's this guy really sucks and
01:03:11
we need his his evilness. So that's what the bad angels
01:03:18
are who work for the devil I assume are after.
01:03:22
No, they don't work for the devil he is.
01:03:24
Work for the devil? No.
01:03:25
This is a. Angel Civil War correct,
01:03:29
separate from the usual Angel devil situation.
01:03:35
Yes, make sure he didn't. Turn on like an anime or
01:03:37
something. Dude, that's what I'm saying.
01:03:40
This guy that wrote and directed this movie, he knew exactly what
01:03:46
was going on. He was like, this is it, This is
01:03:49
is my thing and people are going to love it.
01:03:52
It's going to make total sense. There's.
01:03:54
Going to be 4 sequels. There is, there is.
01:03:58
This is the only one that went to theaters to my knowledge.
01:04:00
I think the rest were all direct video, but they happened.
01:04:04
He made five films in this franchise.
01:04:07
That is kind of Constantine ish, but I respect him for it.
01:04:10
You know, he did his, he put his weird stuff out there.
01:04:14
There was some weird stuff in it that I really liked.
01:04:17
Like it's kind of morbid, really morbid.
01:04:19
Actually the so Christopher Walken is our main antagonist
01:04:26
cuz he's too bad. And how does he talk?
01:04:34
Sorry, let me phrase Does he have a grappling hook?
01:04:37
He doesn't need one cuz he's got like evil evil Angel powers in
01:04:42
this. One evil Angel powers, not to be
01:04:44
confused with devils and demons. That is Season 2.
01:04:48
Also actually to tie this to anime all the like a weird quirk
01:04:53
that angels on both sides have and the devil Viggo Mortensen
01:04:56
does this too. Is is they all sit.
01:05:00
I don't even know how to describe this on this audio only
01:05:03
platform, but like they kind of sit like Ryuk from Death Note
01:05:08
where they're like like they don't sit in chairs.
01:05:11
They like, they like put their feet up and like sit on their
01:05:15
haunches on a chair. Is that, does that make sense?
01:05:18
They're like balancing atop the back rest.
01:05:21
So they're perching their entire body weight like an owl on the
01:05:25
back rest of chairs Yes yes and it doesn't got it.
01:05:29
OK so and it's supposed to be magical.
01:05:32
Why they don't just tip over and?
01:05:35
I smell. Their faces every time.
01:05:36
OK, Yeah. They all just.
01:05:38
Gonna say I could try that right now.
01:05:39
I don't think it would work. No, but you should try it again
01:05:43
for this audio only podcast and tell us how that goes.
01:05:45
I'm. Gonna download a sound effects
01:05:47
package that's just like cartoon crashing noises?
01:05:50
Crash noises, yeah, probably wouldn't even need to.
01:05:53
You'd probably just make those noises on your own.
01:05:55
Yeah, most likely. But then I might break my
01:05:56
computer on the way down, so we'll see.
01:05:58
Sure. Yeah, Yeah.
01:06:00
So isn't that fun? That's fun.
01:06:02
That fun is a word I would use. To describe, but OK, but that's
01:06:06
yes, but that's not that's not the fun thing I was getting to
01:06:08
the fun morbid thing I was getting to is Oh yeah, that was
01:06:11
morbid walking. Yeah, yeah.
01:06:14
You know, Christopher Walken like after he sent his his
01:06:18
French coat Angel in and he got thrown out a window did a half
01:06:20
gamer out the window. He starts recruiting like people
01:06:24
who have just died. So he finds this guy who just
01:06:30
who had just ended his own life and like reanimates him
01:06:36
basically. Like he doesn't stop that
01:06:39
process. He just kind of like reanimates
01:06:41
his body and and that guy kind of becomes his like sidekick
01:06:47
character throughout the film. But it's really like, again,
01:06:50
kind of fun and interesting in a morbid way because he's like,
01:06:53
each time you see him, he's like slowly, like decomposing and
01:06:57
like. He's like a zombie.
01:06:59
Exactly. Exactly.
01:07:01
Yeah. And so like that guy's, I guess
01:07:05
you could almost call him like a the light Comic Relief in the
01:07:07
movie, but his whole character is just very sad.
01:07:10
You know what this is reminding me of now, too?
01:07:12
Is Spawn like the Marvel character Spawn?
01:07:16
It feels like the OR like the Crow, like the 90s seem to have
01:07:19
this counterculture aesthetic stuff about angels and devils
01:07:24
that was very like, I don't know, kind of grungy.
01:07:28
Like metal. Like, what if he made it like
01:07:30
metal and like, yeah. Like, what about like, yeah, the
01:07:33
Rock'n'roll version of this stuff?
01:07:36
I just feel like that was in a lot of things at the time that I
01:07:39
don't know if those would get the same play today or if people
01:07:41
would be like, maybe we don't, maybe we don't do this.
01:07:44
I'm sure there's a lot of people that love that specific
01:07:48
aesthetic though. It's so of the time.
01:07:50
I think that's what I like about it is I can relate it back to so
01:07:54
many other things that were such peak 90s aesthetic stuff.
01:07:58
And I will say for this, to this film's credit, like from what I
01:08:01
read online, this film does have a cult following.
01:08:04
It's it's sort of become its own kind of cult classic in a way.
01:08:07
I would maybe describe it as like a camp cult classic.
01:08:10
But like people do gravitate towards this film.
01:08:14
I think it did poorly upon release.
01:08:15
But since people have have developed a fondness for like
01:08:18
the whole series cause again Christopher Walken did like the
01:08:23
first 3 movies he's he's in the next two even though they're
01:08:26
like direct to video releases. That's crazy.
01:08:28
I mean it's such a common pipeline in the home video area
01:08:32
to make direct to video sequels. I mean I just mentioned The
01:08:35
Crow. There's like 5 Crow movies too,
01:08:36
but I guess they couldn't have brought back the guy from the
01:08:39
Crow. But either way, they don't
01:08:40
normally bring back the lead actor even for the second one,
01:08:43
and it's especially. Interesting, I didn't look up
01:08:45
the the plot of those following films, but I mean like he's the
01:08:48
he's definitely the antagonist in this film, like but he's the
01:08:52
one that returns and I don't know if it's it's in a different
01:08:54
role in the following movies. But and he's great, honestly, he
01:08:58
he has a great charisma. Like he is kind of chewing the
01:09:01
scenery a bit with this. Performance.
01:09:03
I mean, if you had to put someone in a movie like this,
01:09:06
Walkin is perfect because he's going to go all in on it almost
01:09:09
just out of instinct. And somehow I feel like he could
01:09:13
sell me on all of this making a lot more sense than it does in
01:09:16
summary. Sure, sure.
01:09:19
Yeah, yeah. Hey, I'm just telling you what
01:09:21
happened, man. It's just what happened, all
01:09:22
right. So Walking and his Hells Angels
01:09:27
are after the soul of an evil Korean War veteran who's the
01:09:32
most evil man of all time and not the people who started the
01:09:37
Korean War, but OK. Sure, sure.
01:09:41
It was this guy. This guy specifically.
01:09:42
Who got sent there to be a part of it?
01:09:44
Definitely. Who was almost a victim in his
01:09:46
own way, but. Yeah, So that's like the driving
01:09:50
force of the rest of the story does Is Elias Cateius aware that
01:09:53
this is the Mac Guffin he needs to chase down?
01:09:55
How does how does he come back in So?
01:09:57
He gets involved in this because through, I guess what he found
01:10:03
on the on the body of evil Angel and what he found in the
01:10:08
apartment of good guy Angel, who was also looking for this soul.
01:10:11
He sees, I think the obituary of this army guy.
01:10:17
And so he knows what town to go to because this guy just passed
01:10:20
away. So that's like, I guess why his
01:10:22
soul is up for grabs now. Got it.
01:10:24
And so he he, he goes to this town, good guy Angel gets there
01:10:28
first, gets the soul, and then puts the soul into the body of a
01:10:34
young girl to protect it. I.
01:10:39
Guess I don't know like a. Kid or just like a young adult
01:10:43
one a kid. Like a child, a kid.
01:10:44
OK, yeah. Because I guess because he had
01:10:49
it with him and then I guess he knew that like Christopher
01:10:53
Walken would find him eventually.
01:10:54
So he had to kind of like put the soul somewhere else to like
01:10:57
hide it 'cause then Christopher Walken does show up and like he
01:11:01
kills good guy Angel 'cause he doesn't have the soul with him.
01:11:05
And so, you know, Heis Koteas is doing his detective
01:11:09
investigating stuff. And remember at this point in
01:11:12
the movie, like anytime I'm watching like a movie or TV show
01:11:16
with like detectives, you know, like doing that kind of stuff.
01:11:20
I'm always like. Is this really how this job
01:11:22
works? Like, you know, like, 'cause
01:11:25
this guy's just doing whatever the hell he wants.
01:11:27
He's not reporting to anybody. He's not punching a time card.
01:11:30
He's like, yeah. And then I went into this guy's
01:11:32
house and there was some weird Angel stuff or whatever.
01:11:35
It's like, are you telling your boss this?
01:11:36
Like, are you? This feels like movie.
01:11:38
Leading his jurisdiction. Yeah, I feel like the movie.
01:11:41
Movie Cop is such a different lore and I can actually
01:11:44
understand how in this world if you thought you need to go fight
01:11:48
the devil and Movie Cop was an option, I would actually take
01:11:50
that route too 'cause if the if, if the goal was to become a
01:11:54
regular cop, I'd be like, ah, it's a lot of red tape to fight
01:11:57
the devil, but Movie cop has no rules.
01:12:00
You could be a loose cannon and the most you get is like a stern
01:12:03
talking to. Yeah, they also specify that he
01:12:06
like at the beginning when he's talking to the the guy who tells
01:12:09
him about the half gainer that he like works nights
01:12:11
specifically. And so like this he's like night
01:12:15
cop, but this is all during the day.
01:12:16
So he's like really tired, I guess, a lot of the time.
01:12:21
OK wait, why doesn't he just pursue?
01:12:24
Is he doing regular cop stuff at night?
01:12:26
I don't know. Is he just sleeping through his
01:12:28
shift? He's.
01:12:30
Just I don't know, but this is this is like they called him in
01:12:36
in the morning because of this body and so he had to deal with
01:12:40
it during the day instead of doing his nighttime detective
01:12:43
work. I don't know how movie cop
01:12:44
detectives work. OK, so this.
01:12:46
Was maybe an exception, but it's just the with the pace of the
01:12:49
story, he's he's he's tired. That's like a character beat.
01:12:53
I think so. I think so, But it doesn't come
01:12:55
back that much. It's just kind of which that
01:12:56
would have been kind of fun if he was like always really
01:12:58
sleepy. But I guess that's probably not
01:13:00
good for like your main character to be falling.
01:13:02
I mean, I fell asleep but. Like it's just like, oh man,
01:13:07
who's playing that music? And like what music?
01:13:09
He's just. Dead Asleep can hear the score
01:13:11
of the film. Oh I'm so confused.
01:13:17
Like every new piece of information makes this more
01:13:20
confusing. They're like, well, we got a
01:13:22
body. It's 6:00 in the morning, better
01:13:24
call night cop. And it's like, well, hold on.
01:13:26
Who relieves night cop? Where's Day Cop?
01:13:29
That's true. Who relieves it?
01:13:30
But does anyone really need to relieve him?
01:13:32
Because when they're just doing detective work, they're just
01:13:33
doing whatever they want, seemingly.
01:13:35
So like. Maybe they have somebody ready
01:13:37
to tag in, like he's in the middle of searching someone's
01:13:39
apartment illegally and then he just is like whoops, it's 1:00
01:13:42
AM, better tag in day cop. Day Cop get in here buddy.
01:13:46
The cop's just like, super happy like.
01:13:48
Yeah, it's like the grumpy sunshine like like fanfic trope
01:13:54
thing where one of them super miserable and the other one's
01:13:55
super cheaper all the time. Right.
01:13:57
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, gotta go find the devil.
01:14:04
You bet. You bet your buddy here's a
01:14:07
protein bar anyway. And he's always like walking in
01:14:12
and like taking the booze out of night cops hand.
01:14:14
He's like, no, no, no, remember what your doctor said?
01:14:17
You don't get any of that. You don't really get a lot of
01:14:20
like, depressed, like Elias Coteus, you know, like.
01:14:25
OK, so he's not like a hard nosed cop who's who's seen too
01:14:29
much. He's just sleepy.
01:14:30
He's just sleepy. And his main thing is that he's
01:14:33
really like, it's supposed to be.
01:14:35
His crisis of faith is his main kind of thing, which again, like
01:14:40
you said, you shouldn't have one because you.
01:14:42
Had you should not have one. I mean, I can understand if it
01:14:46
was like, well, the church isn't prepared to deal with this, but
01:14:48
he just what does having a being a policeman have to do with
01:14:52
that? That was his backup plan.
01:14:55
He was like, I'm going to be one of two things.
01:14:57
A no sex heaven priest. He.
01:15:02
Probably thinks that's a rule of being a cop too.
01:15:04
He's like, good. There's two jobs.
01:15:07
There's two jobs where sex can't get you.
01:15:10
Those women will leave you alone.
01:15:13
Policeman and a priest. Oh my God.
01:15:19
Anyway, so. God, this show has the heaviest
01:15:24
anyways that I have ever heard. Well, especially with this film,
01:15:28
I mean, it's just like, I'm so lost.
01:15:31
Of soul lost so we are OK framing wise it sounds like
01:15:35
we're bouncing you. Tell me, you tell me what's?
01:15:37
Happening. I'm telling you my understanding
01:15:39
as a stand in for our audience who's also very confused.
01:15:42
So we're tracking between Gabriel the Devil Angel
01:15:47
searching for the soul, not the devil.
01:15:49
Because the devil is here, he just hasn't shown up.
01:15:50
Yet he'll be here. Gabriel, the misguided Angel
01:15:54
searching for the most evilest of souls, and Casey Jones
01:15:59
filling out his cop paperwork. It just kind of, but not.
01:16:03
And he's just on the trail. He's just trying to catch up.
01:16:06
Does he find where the good guy Angel got killed?
01:16:09
Does he find the girl? Yes, so OK, he finds she's not
01:16:15
even really a love interest, but his like, you know, female Co
01:16:18
star of the film. Oh, it's a different person,
01:16:22
yes. We just said that was a kid.
01:16:25
No, no, no. I'm sorry.
01:16:26
Yes, yes, yes. To clarify, she is the teacher.
01:16:29
The person that he meets is the teacher at this school where
01:16:32
this kid. There was like half a sentence
01:16:36
missing in there, and I knew what you meant, but I was like,
01:16:38
let's be really specific. The teacher of the girl who's
01:16:41
imbued with the soul of the evilest war veteran, which would
01:16:46
be the title of the series if it was an anime.
01:16:50
Just so people know exactly what they're getting into and they're
01:16:53
like, and also I was turned into a fridge or something but.
01:16:55
So I was turned into a fridge vending machine.
01:17:00
Yes. So he eventually his
01:17:04
investigation leads him to this girl who was possessed and they.
01:17:11
Wait, she's possessed by the spirit.
01:17:13
She's she's semi possessed. Semi just a little possessed.
01:17:17
Just a. Little she's like saying things
01:17:20
that this warrior guy would have said.
01:17:22
I guess cuz like, you know, you know how it goes.
01:17:27
You know how it goes. We've seen movies.
01:17:30
We've seen movies, not this one, but.
01:17:32
Not this one, OK? So he finds that they they
01:17:40
discover that they need to have this soul exercised from her.
01:17:46
And this girl lives coincidentally on a Native
01:17:52
American preserve. Is she Native American?
01:17:56
I don't know. I assume so.
01:17:58
She might have been a adopted. There were some details.
01:18:01
There was. I felt I fell asleep.
01:18:02
Remember, there was. Every time the movie was right.
01:18:10
We should just, I don't know, she lived there.
01:18:12
She lived there. OK, We're just mixing
01:18:15
mythologies again. I'm sure we're gonna get some
01:18:16
Native American spiritualism. Exactly.
01:18:19
So they're like, we need to exercise this soul from her
01:18:23
body. And Christopher Walken doesn't
01:18:26
want that to happen. So there's an initial
01:18:29
interaction where Christopher Walken finds her, but Eliza
01:18:32
Koteas and his teacher, they like intervene or able to rescue
01:18:36
her. Eliza Koteas, like, shoots and
01:18:38
kills Christopher Walken's like, sidekick guy.
01:18:43
And he's like. He killed the undead zombie.
01:18:45
Yeah, and, and he, like, thanks him.
01:18:46
He's like, thanks. You're a real pal.
01:18:49
Zombie thanks him. Yeah, cuz he wanted to die.
01:18:52
He wanted so he wasn't like cool because he came back.
01:18:56
He's like, no, I was trying to be.
01:18:57
No, yeah, he hated it the whole time.
01:18:59
He hated Christopher Walken. He was just like, why are you
01:19:02
doing this? Like.
01:19:05
Man, yeah. And so Christopher Walken goes
01:19:08
and does that to another person. He gets like another sidekick
01:19:12
person, which I'm like, this felt unnecessary.
01:19:14
I feel like we could have just done this with the one.
01:19:15
We could do. You don't want to do too many
01:19:17
zombie sidekicks. That's a common trap people fall
01:19:19
into, and they're scripted. Yeah, especially.
01:19:22
Rule of three zombie sidekicks. He only does the 2 but anyway
01:19:28
they get the girl away. Another anyway they get.
01:19:30
The girl away. And they're figuring out what
01:19:33
they're going to do. I think they're figuring out how
01:19:35
they're going to do this exorcism.
01:19:37
And this is near the end of the film.
01:19:38
And this is where Aragorn the devil shows up.
01:19:43
And. Yeah, cuz that, you know, now I
01:19:46
feel like we're going to tie everything up.
01:19:48
This is the crazy thing. OK, So I'm just going to lead
01:19:50
into like the end of the movie here.
01:19:54
Aragorn devil Aragorn. He he solves all their problems.
01:19:58
He is basically he solves the problem like he like he just he
01:20:04
shows up and he's talking to the the teacher woman and he's like,
01:20:09
he's like, hey, you know what? I don't like what's going on
01:20:12
here because if evil, evil Christopher Walken Angel like
01:20:16
gets his way, then he's going to turn heaven into hell.
01:20:19
And that's my business. So we should stop him in what
01:20:22
he's doing. And like, so in the climax of
01:20:26
the film, like Elias Koteas and this woman, I think they like
01:20:30
hit him with a car, the Christopher Walken that is.
01:20:32
And they like shoot him with a gun and it's just like he's like
01:20:35
semi immortal. So they like can't stop him.
01:20:38
But then Devil Aragorn just shows up and and like rips his
01:20:43
heart out and it's just like, oh, well, OK, well, thanks,
01:20:46
devil. That kind of solves all our
01:20:48
problems actually. Like yeah, you.
01:20:51
Know I've always said not so bad.
01:20:55
So bad that Satan guy. That Satan dude, if you take the
01:20:58
time to listen. Really, in this case, he he does
01:21:04
nothing to what you're going to say.
01:21:06
Put down your what because. I put down your phones.
01:21:08
Put. Down your.
01:21:10
Phones and just live in the moment with Satan, Lord of
01:21:14
Darkness. I think you'll find he's got a
01:21:17
lot of, he's got a lot of interesting stuff to say.
01:21:19
Yeah, he's just popping a squat there like an owl and.
01:21:21
That's right, I forgot. He's just like an owl saying you
01:21:24
guys are weird. Yeah, and then they finished
01:21:29
their exorcism or whatever, and Airborne Satan's like, hey, you
01:21:33
guys want to come with me to hell?
01:21:34
It's pretty cool. And they're like, now we're
01:21:36
good. And he's like, all right, well,
01:21:38
see you later. Well, and that's, that's how the
01:21:41
movie ends. Wait.
01:21:43
Why did he want them to go to hell?
01:21:45
Like actually. I don't know, he's just always
01:21:48
recruiting, I guess. Just looking for He's just like,
01:21:50
before I go fill out this survey card, Yeah, tell me how likely
01:21:55
you'd be a recommend hell to a friend.
01:21:59
Yes, yes, exactly. OK, so he has like maybe 5
01:22:02
minutes of screen time, but he solves all their problems.
01:22:05
He just just kind of wins the movie at the end.
01:22:08
OK, so understanding that the plot is intentionally vague and
01:22:12
a lot of this he's just kind of going on vibes and that we do
01:22:15
have somewhat of a resolution to the story.
01:22:17
Is any of this movie any good? Dude, I was weirdly except for
01:22:24
the time, so I fell asleep weirdly.
01:22:26
It just like engrossed in it. I was like, yeah, just in a way
01:22:31
of like, what what? What is happening?
01:22:33
What am I looking at like? You're just like rubbing your
01:22:38
eyes. You're still not convinced
01:22:39
you're actually awaiting at this point.
01:22:41
Yeah, I was just like, this is something's happening here.
01:22:44
Somebody's somebody's trying to do something.
01:22:47
I feel like this is either I see what you're going for but this
01:22:50
bored me to tears or it's like I don't even know what's going on
01:22:54
but I liked it. I, I, it's tough, it's tough to
01:22:59
say because like, from a filming, like film production
01:23:02
standpoint, it had a certain aesthetic to it, but it, it
01:23:06
wasn't, it didn't have a large budget.
01:23:09
Like, I mean, like I was just glancing at like the budget of
01:23:13
like Sleepy Hollow and that was like $100 million film.
01:23:16
This was a $16 film. So it looks a little rough
01:23:21
around the edges. So I mean, that's still a lot of
01:23:24
money. But, you know, in terms of film
01:23:28
at this scale with the story they're trying to tell, it
01:23:32
looked a little cheap at points. You know, visually it wasn't
01:23:36
awful, though. And like Elias Koteas, I haven't
01:23:39
talked about him a lot, but he was a, a good lead.
01:23:43
You know, he, he, he like he, he didn't bring a lot of energy to
01:23:47
the role, but he, he had, he brought a certain charisma to.
01:23:50
It well, he would say he he told you he's.
01:23:52
Sleepy. So sleepy, I mean.
01:23:54
And he did that really well, you know, so.
01:23:58
This is reminding me that this happened.
01:24:01
We talk every now and again about I think you should leave
01:24:03
the show, Tim Robinson comedy show.
01:24:05
And there's that one skit where he's trying to eat a hot dog out
01:24:09
of his sleeve during a business meeting without anybody
01:24:11
noticing. And the first person who clues
01:24:13
in, she's just like, are you, are you trying to eat a hot dog
01:24:15
out of your shirt sleeve? And he just goes, I'm so tired.
01:24:21
That's his. That's his like excuse.
01:24:26
That's yeah, that's exactly Elias Koteas trying to eat a hot
01:24:31
dog out of his sleeve while he's doing his detective work like.
01:24:33
I cannot get my head like you, I could take this description of
01:24:38
the plot and jumble up all the segments and put them out of
01:24:41
order and I don't think I'd have any better idea of like what
01:24:43
this movie was trying to say. Oh yeah, yeah.
01:24:47
In terms of the message of the film, something about faith,
01:24:51
something, something, again, I'm convinced there's one man out
01:24:56
there that knows exactly what he wanted it to be, and it's the
01:24:58
guy who wrote it. Yeah, but I didn't hate it.
01:25:03
It was like, it was interesting. It was new.
01:25:07
It was like you took, you took some stuff.
01:25:10
Like, again, it's so silly in a way and like, funny that it's
01:25:15
like, this is what they want. And it's like, this one dude was
01:25:17
just the worst and we just need his soul specifically.
01:25:22
Like, like there's been nobody worse than him.
01:25:25
I would like this guy like maybe he was super statistic or
01:25:29
whatever, but it just immediately, as soon as you put
01:25:31
it in a military context, like who is his commanding officer?
01:25:34
Who is his? Who sent him there in the 1st
01:25:36
place? Did he volunteer?
01:25:38
Did he start the Korean War? Did he manufacture the entire
01:25:41
conflict? Sure.
01:25:43
And I'm sure this guy sucked. I'm sure he was super bad, like
01:25:46
you know. I just feel like if you're
01:25:47
trying to pitch this as worst guy ever, why wouldn't you just
01:25:51
go like crazy famous like Jack the Ripper serial killer, You
01:25:56
know, I just that that yes, that's such a weird way to frame
01:26:00
like worst person to ever live is one of an invading army.
01:26:05
Yeah, exactly. I'm sure there were people just
01:26:08
as awful as him. Like, why?
01:26:09
What did he do? That was because they don't.
01:26:11
They're vague about it. They don't go into a lot of
01:26:12
detail. They're like, this guy was just
01:26:14
really bad, let me tell you. OK, ever washed his hands?
01:26:20
Yeah, like sure, yeah, OK. I.
01:26:24
Don't, and this is normally the part where I'd be like, all
01:26:28
right, what wrap up questions do I have to get a sense of what
01:26:32
the prophecy was about? I have no questions.
01:26:34
I mean, I have questions. I have no helpful questions.
01:26:37
Sure. Yeah, of course.
01:26:38
Of course. Yeah.
01:26:39
It was just, it's so hard to even surmise my own feelings
01:26:43
about it because I don't even, I was like, did I like this?
01:26:48
I don't know. We're going to find out shortly
01:26:51
when we do scores. But you know, art is meant to be
01:26:55
challenging at times. I think it is also meant to be
01:26:58
comforting if it's entertainment.
01:27:00
But sometimes someone comes along and really wants to ask
01:27:03
the big questions, like why is why is a cop better prepared to
01:27:06
fight the devil than a priest? And why doesn't anybody tell
01:27:10
these priests that all this stuff they're talking about is
01:27:12
real? Cause 'cause faith or something
01:27:16
right like that. Yeah, there's a theme in there
01:27:18
somewhere. What's 1/2 gainer also is an
01:27:21
important question. What is 1/2 gainer?
01:27:23
Yeah, please let us know. Yeah, let us know.
01:27:26
We don't normally ask for feedback, but let us know in the
01:27:28
comments of you, without looking it up, know what a half gainer
01:27:31
is. Because we have assumptions.
01:27:34
We have assumptions. We have assumptions.
01:27:35
Just don't know exactly. Maybe it's a term for throwing
01:27:38
people off of tall places in New York City into trash,
01:27:42
specifically into trash bins or a garbage truck.
01:27:45
If there's enough litter, it counts.
01:27:48
Yeah, yeah, we'll make exceptions.
01:27:51
Yeah. OK.
01:27:54
Moving on. Yeah.
01:27:56
Thank you. Thank you for your time.
01:27:57
Welcome. Thanks for coming to my Ted
01:27:59
Talk. I can't.
01:28:01
I can't with any of this. OK, so after that illuminating
01:28:10
conversation about the prophecy, Frank, I think we need to move
01:28:13
into scoring. I am at a loss for Sleepy
01:28:17
Hollow. I know a lot of what I talked
01:28:20
about today was criticisms of the storytelling and the
01:28:24
mystery, but there's so much to like about the movie overall.
01:28:28
I don't think I've ever come closer to wanting to give a
01:28:31
movie A7 out of 10. Here we go.
01:28:34
It's happening. As we established in our very
01:28:37
first episode, giving a movie A7 makes you a coward with no thing
01:28:41
to say. Oh, not literally though.
01:28:44
You can give a movie A7. It is a loud and acceptable.
01:28:47
My original point was that people love to just say this
01:28:52
one's a 7 out of 10 with no context and no elaboration
01:28:55
because it's a really hard opinion to tear down because
01:28:58
anything could be a 7, because it's basically saying it's OK, I
01:29:02
didn't love it. And that's up to me.
01:29:04
That's my interpretation. Like how am I supposed to argue
01:29:07
against someone saying, ah, it's a 7 out of 10?
01:29:09
If you go any lower or any higher, I could be like, come
01:29:11
on, like, gosh Dang it, Sleepy Hollow might be a 7 out of 10.
01:29:17
It's all right. Exactly in the middle of being
01:29:21
on the side of the coin of like, I like it.
01:29:22
It's a fun movie and it's good, but it messes up some very
01:29:26
crucial things that would stop me from rating it any higher
01:29:29
than that. I mean, that's fair.
01:29:31
Like what? But what would you say, I guess
01:29:34
I didn't get from your review like what it what it messed up
01:29:36
the most in terms of like how they handled the the end of the
01:29:40
film? I think that the story after the
01:29:44
first portion where he's in Sleepy Hollow, like everything
01:29:47
from like the halfway point onwards, because the mystery is
01:29:50
not very clear and the way they're going about solving it
01:29:54
is kind of aimless feeling. The movie just starts to drag
01:29:58
and it's kept up by some strong performances and some
01:30:02
interesting sets and just production elements.
01:30:05
But by the time you get to the third act and the stepmom, which
01:30:09
lady is revealed as the villain, the actual resolution with her,
01:30:12
it's just odd. Just a series of odd choices and
01:30:17
story directions that by the time it was over I was like
01:30:20
really deflated. But that doesn't discount that
01:30:22
like 1/2 to 2/3 of the movie were pretty engrossing.
01:30:27
OK. I mean 7 out of 10.
01:30:30
How was that? Anyway, so that's our first, our
01:30:33
first 7 out of 10. I really didn't think we would
01:30:35
happen across 1 so soon. But over to you now for a
01:30:39
complete mystery of a movie from my end, The Prophecy.
01:30:44
The prophecy gosh question mark out of 10 is that a is.
01:30:49
That a like I don't what I don't.
01:30:54
I have no conclusive thoughts about what we talked about.
01:31:01
I'm floating. I'm floating between a couple
01:31:02
numbers right now, OK, Like I did not like, I don't think I
01:31:08
hated this film. I'm I'm going to say, I'm going
01:31:11
to say 4 out of 10. 4 out of 10. OK, yeah, that seems acceptable.
01:31:17
Yeah, right. Because there was definitely
01:31:20
things I enjoyed. I like the cast.
01:31:23
Like, you know, Viggo Mortensen, for all 5 minutes that he was
01:31:26
there, he killed it, you know? Yeah.
01:31:29
Sounds great. That was like his silence at the
01:31:31
lamps. You know, few minutes of screen
01:31:33
time. Academy Award.
01:31:34
Except he did that one cuz nobody saw this weird movie.
01:31:37
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Christopher Walken, of course,
01:31:42
like did what Christopher Walken needed to do in that role.
01:31:48
Like, and Eliz Koteas, it was fun seeing him in like the
01:31:51
leading man role, even though he was he was a little sleepy.
01:31:55
Made you sleepy. Yeah.
01:31:59
And just the weirdness of it. Like I always, I've maybe said
01:32:04
this before on the podcast, but I advocate for like, let's get
01:32:06
weird, you know, let's not make traditional choices.
01:32:10
And it's refreshing to see those abstract, out-of-the-box choices
01:32:16
being made in something that has a sizable budget.
01:32:20
You know, I, as I mentioned, this one has a smaller budget
01:32:22
than maybe some like contemporary films of the era.
01:32:25
But it was still, you know, like, I'm not sure what studio
01:32:28
put this film out, but for somebody like a writer, director
01:32:32
to get this weird movie made, like, I appreciate that.
01:32:37
It's something you wouldn't get now.
01:32:39
This was a cheap movie, but the fact that it made it to theaters
01:32:42
and I'm sure some people saw it, that's something you wouldn't
01:32:44
see anymore. This would have been somebody's
01:32:46
weird to be original. I mean, we've talked about like
01:32:49
Blockbuster, yeah, exactly. Like, or like a 2B.
01:32:52
Like there's a lot of stuff buried on, like, streaming
01:32:54
services that like, only a few people have ever seen.
01:32:57
But like, we've talked about like those, like them, you know,
01:33:00
go to Blockbuster on the weekend, take something home.
01:33:02
You'd get some stuff like this. Sometimes you'd get some.
01:33:04
Stuff like, what the heck is this?
01:33:06
What did I just watch? I don't know if we just weren't
01:33:08
discerning enough, but when we would go grab stuff from the
01:33:10
Blockbuster, it kind of felt like everything was on equal
01:33:12
footing. Like, everything had poll quotes
01:33:14
on it claiming it was good and you couldn't always tell from
01:33:17
the cover what you were actually getting.
01:33:19
I mean, that's why I didn't know from looking at it now if what
01:33:22
it was going to be. So sometimes you'd go in and put
01:33:24
the movie on and just be like, Oh no, what have we done?
01:33:28
Family Movie night has taken a turn.
01:33:30
Yes, exactly. Like but that's how movie like
01:33:33
movie marketing has always it's always been sold on the stars.
01:33:36
You look at like, OK, I recognize people in this film.
01:33:39
You look at like the genre of the movie and you're like, OK,
01:33:42
you know, spooky, maybe it's Halloween time.
01:33:44
Like so like that's how it's always worked and how it
01:33:48
continues to work in a lot of ways.
01:33:50
So like that's where these movies come in.
01:33:53
And then yeah, somebody sees them.
01:33:54
And like, I'm happy for that guy that made this and clearly
01:33:59
really cared about the lore of this, that a lot of people have
01:34:04
seen it. You know, he got his stuff out
01:34:06
there and he got 5 movies out of.
01:34:08
It so 5 movies. I cannot imagine what happens in
01:34:13
those other prophecy movies. I don't want to watch them.
01:34:16
I really actually kind of want to watch the other prophecy.
01:34:19
Movies which like, we're still looking at, you know, prizes and
01:34:24
punishments for who wins cumulative points wise for
01:34:27
season. One my gosh, you have to watch.
01:34:29
If we have to sentence somebody to watch 5 prophecy movies and
01:34:33
do like a bonus episode about it wouldn't.
01:34:36
Be bad. Write that down.
01:34:38
Write that down. Because that might be.
01:34:41
Especially because if I I lose the season, I'd have to start
01:34:44
with the first one. I'd have to watch a whole extra
01:34:46
movie. Hey, listen, it happens, all
01:34:48
right? I watched an extra movie for.
01:34:50
You did watch. Kick fighter, shoot fighter,
01:34:52
you. Whatever the hell it's called,
01:34:53
shoot. A fighter movie?
01:34:55
OK, well we'll earmark that as a potential option.
01:34:58
Whoever loses season 1 has to do a book report on the prophecy
01:35:03
verse. Report whatever.
01:35:06
Yeah, I like that. Yeah.
01:35:10
All right. Well, that brings us to the end
01:35:12
of what I believe is Episode 8 of our programs.
01:35:15
So 2/3 of the way now through Season 1 in terms of our 90s
01:35:18
movie theme. Frank, for the first time since
01:35:21
Episode 2, you have won the episode of Meteor double
01:35:25
feature. Congratulations.
01:35:26
You don't gotta phrase it like that.
01:35:29
That's a big deal. You're turning your life around.
01:35:33
Oh my God, it was all the prophecy.
01:35:34
I'd like to thank the prophecy. Prophecy Prophecy Prophecy 2.
01:35:38
Prophecy 3. So what?
01:35:41
That means it hasn't come up in a while.
01:35:43
You get to pick first and selecting a movie for me to
01:35:46
watch for next time. All right, let me relish in this
01:35:50
for a moment. Also, you've closed the gap on
01:35:53
Season 1 totals, so going into this episode you were like the
01:35:57
total score of the movies you designed me was like 6 points
01:36:00
lower than the ones I've given to you, and you've cut that lead
01:36:03
from six points down to three. OK.
01:36:06
He's coming back. I told you that pep talk.
01:36:07
Remember that pep talk? Remember the halftime pep talk?
01:36:10
Yeah, he's coming back. We still don't know who is going
01:36:12
to be assigned the prophecy verse by the end of Season 1.
01:36:16
I might just watch him my other way, but.
01:36:18
Wow. Well, don't you know it's
01:36:20
supposed to be a punishment? Oh yeah, yeah, you're right.
01:36:22
Yeah, Oh no. The prophecy verse.
01:36:27
OK, so you want a movie? Yeah, I love a movie.
01:36:30
What are we watching for? For episode 9.
01:36:33
You are watching 1998's Rushmore. 1998 Rushmore.
01:36:39
Why do I feel like I've heard of this?
01:36:41
You've heard of this because it is a Wes Anderson movie.
01:36:44
Oh OK, but must be. Was this like his first movie?
01:36:48
It might be, yeah. I didn't actually double check
01:36:51
that, but it was at least one of his first movies, if not
01:36:55
actually his first one. I mean, I know he was already
01:36:57
working in the 90s. Maybe this won't be literally
01:36:59
his first feature film, but yeah, that's interesting.
01:37:01
I, I've seen a lot of his more recent stuff, so I'd be very
01:37:05
curious to see one. That is, I'm going to guess that
01:37:07
this would be before his filmmaking style was, was
01:37:12
completely solidified, because if you watch a Wes Anderson
01:37:14
movie now, they all are. So Wes Anderson, you know,
01:37:19
they're, they're like flat frames, the geometric shapes and
01:37:22
the arrangements. It's unmistakable.
01:37:24
And I wonder if when he was making stuff earlier in his
01:37:26
career, it was a little bit more fluid between that style versus
01:37:30
more traditional like filmmaking imagery.
01:37:33
I mean, his early career. I know I I'm not up on my Wes
01:37:38
Anderson lore. That's it's all prophecy now.
01:37:41
But him and Owen Wilson have always been, I think they went
01:37:47
to film school together maybe like they've always been like
01:37:50
collaborators like this. The screenplay for this film was
01:37:53
like Owen Wilson's in it, but it was also written by Wes Anderson
01:37:56
and Owen Wilson. So OK, I'm on board.
01:37:58
This sounds great. I I like Wes Anderson's stuff.
01:38:02
I feel like this might turn into a conversation next time about
01:38:04
his filmography as a whole. Because I do think that he's
01:38:06
been, he's like boxed himself in of late.
01:38:09
And a lot of his most recent movies have been like more
01:38:11
middling in their critical reception.
01:38:13
Because I feel like he's just stuck in his ways now.
01:38:16
Well, it's similar to Tim Burton, who we talked about
01:38:18
earlier. I mean, I think I think both of
01:38:20
them have maybe failed to adapt their style later in their
01:38:26
career, which it would have been interesting to see both of them
01:38:30
branch out from what they're so heavily associated with.
01:38:35
OK, so Rushmore 1998, I have been struggling with what to
01:38:40
pick for you next, but I know that up until now, despite
01:38:44
picking like 20 movies, we still haven't had 1 from 1994.
01:38:47
It's the only year that we haven't touched on.
01:38:49
So I'm going to, I'm going to hone in on that.
01:38:51
I think that Frank, for next time, I'd like you to watch
01:38:54
1994's No Escape, a science fiction action film starring Ray
01:39:01
Liotta. Ray Liotta Oh, OK, Mr.
01:39:04
Goodfellow, That's not not. I was expecting that sentence to
01:39:07
end, but yeah. Ray Liotta.
01:39:09
It's got Ray Liotta. I think it has Ernie Hudson from
01:39:11
Ghostbusters. OK, my interest is peaked.
01:39:16
Yeah, 1990. 4 We've covered all the years now.
01:39:18
If you look back at our list, we have at least one movie from
01:39:21
every year of the 90s, which is good because we're we're trying
01:39:24
to help people find the the forgotten gems and flops of that
01:39:28
decade. And maybe, yeah, some that they
01:39:31
might be familiar with. I feel like, you know,
01:39:32
Rushmore's people have seen this movie, but we haven't so.
01:39:36
Yeah, and it's still arguably kind of overlooked because it's
01:39:39
just not even remotely the thing that comes to mind when you talk
01:39:42
about Wes Anderson now, because it's just not in his most
01:39:45
famous. I think this is one for the
01:39:47
diehards, you know the the big fans, the prophecy years.
01:39:51
Prophecy years, it's true. OK, well, that's gonna do it.
01:39:56
We have our picks for next time. Frank, as always, thank you for
01:39:58
joining me, and thank you, everyone for listening to Meet
01:40:01
Your Double Feature. We'll be back in two weeks with
01:40:05
probably more conversation about the prophecy, if I had to guess.
01:40:09
Probably, probably right. All right.
01:40:11
Well, we'll see you then. Bye.
01:40:14
That's not keeping that in. There's no way we have kept in
01:40:18
the buy like 6 times. Coming up next, it's No Escape,
01:40:34
followed by Rushmore on Meet Your Double feature.