Barb Wire transcript
Season 2 · Episode 18. Generated automatically, so expect the odd misheard word.
Hello, and welcome to the Worst Movie Podcast. I'm my day.
And I'm Aaron, and this is a podcast where we watch the worst movies ever made in the hopes of finding a hidden gem. Enjoy.
We have our first ever guest on the Worst Movie Podcast. Welcome, Landon. Thanks for having me. Landon's one of my other brother-in-laws. So what does that make you guys to each other? Like you're not brothers and besties. You're not besties.
Second degree brother-in-law. I I wave at him when I see him in public. Yeah. You don't talk to him.
No.
Just like sling around the corner and wave.
No.
No. Well, Landon's a special guest because all three of us went and saw today's movie in the theater together. Indeed. Um that's also a new new thing for the Worst Movie Podcast. I think the first one we saw together, right? And the first one in the theater.
Oh well. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we've done a uh a live viewing of anything. Yeah. I mean of other movies.
Just not for the podcast, I think. Yeah, just not worst movies. Yeah. Yeah.
Well It was kind of a it was a special show though, too. It wasn't just a regular showing.
Yeah.
Are you gonna are you gonna talk about it?
Yeah, we'll talk about it. Uh okay. Let's talk about it when we get to the movie. But it's been it's been so long we've had uh extended summer hiatus. What what have you been watching this summer, Aaron?
Uh I mean a bunch of stuff since we last uh recorded, but um the one that I watched that I liked the most recently was I finally got to see uh Project Hail Mary.
Oh, really?
Yeah, it was so good. Yeah. I loved it. It was um Amanda described it as cute interstellar. Yeah. It is that.
It was really good though. That's kinda I like that description. Yeah. It definitely was a lot more lighthearted and like uh I mean I I like Interstellar a lot, but yeah.
Have you guys seen it? I haven't seen it yet. Uh it's on um HBO, I think, or maybe Prime for free. Oh, nice. If you have those, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I saw it in the theater. Um, I think I talked about it on the pod, but I I really loved it. I yeah, I read the book uh way back when just you know, to put on my snobbery hat. Um the book was better, but uh no, I I think I think I said here it's probably one of the one of the best movie adaptations of a book that uh I've ever seen.
What's your criteria for a good adaptation?
I think just do I really enjoy the movie as a as like expressed through that medium? And then does it like does it still hit a lot of the highlights of the book that I enjoyed emotionally or story-wise? And um, yeah, I I'm usually not like like I'm I'm fine most of the time if they're big changes to the story to make it fit within a movie. I think some of the worst movie adaptations, it's like it's trying to service the book readers too much. And this doesn't make sense unless you like you shouldn't have to walk out of the theater and be like, well, actually, when he went to what blah blah blah, like that's why, and like explaining to people the reason. Like you should be able to enjoy the movie self-contained without reading the book.
Yeah. There's seems to be a wide berth of opinions about what makes a good movie adaptation of a book. So I'm always curious what people think.
Yeah, I mean, mine's right, so uh so strict adherence to the uh the source material isn't a requirement. I I do feel like um Showgirls was that way where you watched it and you were like, I feel like I needed to read the book to to enjoy parts of we're gonna go back and l relitigate that movie.
I I didn't leave watching that movie and feel like, oh, I need more exposure to this world and understanding of it.
Well, like there were just scenes in it that didn't make sense unless uh you you knew the book because there were big chunks of it that I felt like were unexplained.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh I mean, yeah, that's fair enough. I just it it's uh you just enjoyed it more than I did, I'd say. I did almost read Cocktail. Uh that's not really saying much. I almost read a book.
Uh I've almost read a few books myself.
Yeah. I've almost read a lot of books. Uh I downloaded the sample to my Kindle, but I haven't started yet. So that's that's the lowest bar possible. That's more almost than I than I've done. I'll uh I'll update you in a few years when I when I actually open it and get one percent through. So have you guys been watching? Yeah, Landon. What what have you watched this summer?
Uh well the day that we went to see Barbed Wire, uh, went and saw the Odyssey, which was a great juxtaposition. Um That was your Barbenheimer?
Yeah.
Uh yeah, it was good. Uh um uh that's kind of why I was curious about what your criteria for a good adaptation was, because seeing seems like everyone's been out of shape about the Odyssey, and I just I loved it, so I don't know.
I don't think people are bent out of shape for real reasons, though. Yeah.
Yeah. I think the average person that's complaining about it hasn't like grown up reading the Odyssey and loving it, and like that's their Yeah. They're not they're not actually in love with the source material.
I think they grew up reading Elon tweets.
Yeah. Very true. Um Yeah, I still haven't seen the Odyssey yet. I'm I'm really trying to wait till I can see it on 70 millimeter iMacs. I don't think it's gonna happen. It's sold out for like forever. Well, they extended uh the dates through September.
So Okay. I want to go with you and see it in 70.
Well, I might want spoils it for you guys in the meantime.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Uh yeah, I might have to wait till like a uh like a Wednesday morning, like 11 a.m. showing something if you can take off work.
That's a good time to see a movie, really.
Yeah. I do like a good midday movie.
Yeah. Those are like a Sunday morning when everyone's still in church.
Uh do they really do do you really call it matinee anymore? Like I feel like I don't I mean I guess you do get special pricing.
Yeah. I think they call it matinee. Really? I mean you can call it whatever you want.
If they call it matinee, they should give you special pricing.
Yeah.
I agree.
Yeah. I'm guessing the 70 millimeter um IMAX doesn't have a matinee special price. Probably not. Yeah. One of 40 in the country that that's sold out for three months straight.
Yeah.
Um What are you watching? I'm surprised you didn't say the bear, Aaron.
Uh I know. I mean, I watched so many things, but I did love the final season of The Bear.
Yeah. Uh uh I won't talk about the bear, I'll talk about the hawk. We watched the uh Will Farrell's new show on Netflix. Just kind of binged it. Um it was a lot of fun. I I laughed a lot. I mean, it was it was dumb. It's a golf show? Yeah, it's a golf show. He's he plays a uh old golfer who like is trying to get back on the PJ tour, and is his son is uh is a pro and is like all like I don't know, he works out and it's like all focused and modern uh athlete, and Will Farrell is just like an old drunk and um kind of like a happy Gilmore-esque, like he's just you know, kind of winging it and but is is really good and I was gonna say this is just um Will Farrell's F1 movie? Uh kinda. I mean it's there it's like you'll watch it, and there's so many pieces, it's there's so many pieces from other shows and movies that are just kind of like slapped together. It's not yeah, it's not like high it's not highbrow at all. It's not like super original in its concept or its beats, but it's just Will Farrell cooking, which is really with Will Farrell, I'm surprised that it's not highbrow.
Oh you're getting really critical of Will Farrell. I love Will Farrell, but I'm not expecting highbrow or original necessarily.
I mean, he's tried some serious things. We've talked about yeah, I like them too. Are you still golfing, Aaron?
Yeah, I just got a golf club for my birthday this week.
Oh, okay. Happy birthday.
Thank you. Uh what are you doing to celebrate? Uh dinner tonight. Wait, today your birthday. No, it was uh Thursday. Oh, nice. Yeah. You didn't say happy birthday, so I was gonna send you a card.
Yeah.
He's out of the besties quad.
Yeah.
We're fired. Let's go ahead and edit this in. Happy birthday. Thank you.
I'll put that at the beginning of the episode so it seems like you're proactive about it.
I'm not a birthday person. Like I don't remember other people's birthdays, and I don't ever want to do anything like big for mine. So That's why I didn't tell you happy birthday right away. I know. So thank you.
That was your birthday presentation.
I knew that about you. Yeah.
Yeah. Uh can I mention one other thing that I watched? I I was I wanted you to talk about the bear so I could talk about the hawk and then finish up talking about a movie that I watched called Animal Kingdom.
Uh I'm all you really had plans for me today. I know you didn't.
I always have plans for you, you know that. Uh Animal Kingdom is a movie that's like 12 years old, but it's like this Australian crime drama. Have you ever seen it or heard of it? It stars Ben Mendelson and Joel Edgerton and uh Guy Pierce is in it. It's like the best of all like Australian middle-aged male actors uh in this crime drama. Is Joel Edgerton middle-aged? Well would he be? How old is he? I don't know.
When does middle aged start? I felt really old when you said it. He's 52?
By the way, Mr. Non Birthday Boy, you're you're middle-aged now. Shut up. Um This movie came out in 2010 and just didn't hit my radar for some reason, but it's like everything that it like hits the sweet spot of everything I would like. And uh it kind of blew my mind some of the acting. I mean, I I've talked before about how much I like Ben Mendelssohn, and he's just amazing in it.
Wait, is he playing the same shouty authoritative uh no, he's not the Star Wars guy in this.
He's uh Or Robin Hood? Yeah, or Robin Hood. No, those those are paycheck performances. This is like real performance. Um and not to spoil it, but uh Jackie Weaver, which I didn't know her name, she plays uh like uh the matriarch of this crime family. And like the last quarter of the movie, it's just like holy shit, this is one of like the craziest, or not crazy, this is like such an incredible performance and character. Um not to set the bar too high. Uh and then I also have to say like the last like the ending of it was just like chef's kiss. So animal reference to Animal Kingdom. Chef's kiss. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to bring it all the way around. It was a good one. Well, should we uh should we talk about today's movie? Why not? Uh Barbwire from 1996. So uh you were alluding to this earlier, but we went to a special screening at Ken Can Cinema here in Indianapolis. Um had a lot of fun. Anything you want to say about the theater?
I've never been there before. It seemed like a theater. It was. No, it was cool. At like a bar and uh and the the showing that we went to was like a put on by a drag queen with commentary. Yeah. And I don't know who the other person was that was hosting with them. I don't know what they do, but there were two two hosts and it was it was funny and it was fun. I guess this movie is hard to find, maybe uh uh although I saw it on YouTube. I think you can just rent it on YouTube. Yeah, yeah.
I think it's streaming on Prime.
Oh, okay. Yeah.
Oh, I think the hard to find thing was the roast of Pamela Anderson clip that they played. Oh, maybe when she was talking about how scrubbed from the internet.
Um I see. The whole roast? The roast is scrubbed from the internet, or just uh that's what I inferred, but uh Okay. That makes sense then.
You like watching roasts?
No. I kind of do, but yeah.
Why why are you so demented?
Uh yeah, I don't know.
What's your favorite that that you've watched?
Uh I don't know. I mean it's good, they're all little. It's sometimes hard to watch.
I guess I have to say that so I sound like a good person, but uh I I mean I will say I feel like there was a moment where I don't know if it was like new on Comedy Central, like back on the day, but I feel like the first few I was like, oh, this is great. And then maybe like they just kind of start one-upping each other, and then I also feel a lot of time like you I think I have to ha know the person, like or have know a lot about them to really care. I feel like watching the Pam Anderson Roast is just like I don't know. It it felt a little boring that clip that they played.
Yeah. Well, for context, like they were reading from her uh novel. Isn't that what it was? Yeah, which I never looked at.
It was not a biography, but it was about an actress on a it was like definitely about her.
Yeah. It was yeah, and as one might assume, it was really terrible. Yeah.
That was read by B. Arthur.
No shade on pain. Really. Really?
I assume it was ghostwritten, right? I mean, that was part of it too. I was just like, well, you think she can't.
I don't want to disparage the woman I don't know, but I uh I would assume she's not a novelist.
Yeah, I'm not saying that because I think she doesn't have the capability to write a novel. I just think usually when people are you know at the height of their fame and you know they're not they're not sitting down to write a novel for writing exactly. Fair enough. Yeah, uh well, so so the movie itself, um it came out in 1996, directed by uh somebody who doesn't have a big career in directing, uh didn't didn't recognize the names of the director, the writer, or really most of the cast.
Like I think did you see that the director was the second unit director on Alien 3 and Batman Forever. Batman Forever, like clear the worst examples of each franchise.
No, but the Batman Forever thing's interesting. I don't want to get too ahead of ourselves, but it has a similar aesthetic, like 90, this sort of 90s vision of the future. The um some of the commentary from the host at the screening. My favorite one of my favorite takeaways was she was like, this has to exist in the same universe as the Super Mario Brothers movie. That really that really resonated with me.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was based on a comic book, but I think the comic book like came out the year before, so it was It was several years before.
Um was it?
Yeah. Oh yeah, it was like '92, and this came out in '96. But it was a relatively new comic book at the time, I think.
Which we all should have read beforehand to especially to see if it meets Ade's uh book adaptation criteria.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Did Barbwire capture the spirit of the graphic novel?
That's the important question. We'll never know. And we're not going to answer that today.
Here on the worst movie podcast, we do the minimum amount of research. Um Rotten Tomatoes score 28%, uh budget of 9 million, made 4 million at the box office. Uh had you guys heard of this movie before?
No, not at all. I had. I'd never seen it. My mom worked at a uh video rental store for a period of time when I was a kid, and um as you can imagine, uh a movie with Pamela Anderson on the cover probably caught my eye when I was perusing the aisles as a put this on the wrong shelf.
It's definitely a uh teenager middle school boys uh dream movie.
It's very sexy.
Uh yeah, we'll get to that and I I do have some notes about it. But uh yeah, I for some reason I don't know if I just like memory hold this like I mean this this should have been like prime. I remember strip tease coming out, I remember Showgirls coming out. It was all around the same time, but for some reason I have no recollection at the time of of this coming out, which is kind of weird. I mean, I guess four million dollar box office makes sense, but I kind of wonder if this was the height of her fame, too.
Yeah.
Kind of wonder if she was.
Is she on Baywatch during this time? I think so. Yeah. 96. I cannot find what years she was on Baywatch.
No, like I said, minimal research.
Yeah.
Uh apparently Pamela Anderson signed on without reading the script. She just felt like it was perfect for it.
Her agent told her not to, or her manager.
Uh I I wish there was more information out there about what yeah, why she came to this project. Uh, maybe I should read her novel. Like I would have talked to it. But um it seemed like she was really enthusiastic about it.
She said that she didn't feel that anybody could play the character but her.
Yeah. So I mean that sounds like she was a fan of the of the comic book character. I don't know. Uh did a lot of her own stunt work, um, which curious are we talk about the the amazing stunts in this movie. Uh six uh Razzie nominations, but lost everyone to striptease and Demi Moore.
She won a Razzie though. Oh, she did, I believe. I think she won for her performance. She won uh worst new star for 1996.
Okay, there you go.
Who else was in that category? For '96, um, Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls. Oh. Um, Amy the Talking Gorilla in Congo, uh, David Caruso in Kiss of Death, Cindy Crawford in Fair Game, and Julia Sweeney in It's Pat the Movie.
I forgot about that one. Yeah, that's uh that's foreshadowing for a movie that I definitely want to do on this podcast. Uh I'm sure that ages really well. Oh yeah. Premise of is the whole joke is is it a woman or is it a man? The things we were concerned about in the 90s. Yeah. Um Aaron, do you have a synopsis prepared for this movie?
Kind of. All right. Um go for it. It's it's Casablanca. Is it Casablanca or Casablanca? I don't know.
I think it's Blanca. I don't know.
It's that movie. Movie. Uh she plays a bounty hunter. You should just stop there. It's it's it's just Casablanca. Scene for scene. It really is just the premise of Casablanca. She's a bounty hunter, badass, but she also owns a nightclub that is called the Hammerhead in um a town called Steel Harbor. It's the last free city in America. America is in the midst of a civil war in 2017, and she uh gets these people that are coming through trying to flee to Canada because they have a special weapon that was devised by the government and they're trying to go through her to get safe passage to Canada. And that's that's the movie.
Was it America's second Civil War in 2017? I think so. Oh, I guess I didn't think about this. Maybe they were referencing the first, the actual Civil War.
I think so. I don't think that there was another one in between, but yes. They didn't erase the first Civil War history. Yeah. So yeah, they're they have um they have a secret weapon that was devised by the government, and they're trying to get some contacts, like some eye contacts that will help them avoid retinal scans to get into Canada and into safety, I guess. So the technology in this movie didn't make a lot of sense, but no, and she's she's trying to help them, but maybe also um double cross them.
Yeah. Uh I did like the Casablanca stuff. And that I mean, I I I thought.
I mean uh Yeah, if you just take a the plot of a good movie and transplant it into a a bad movie.
Yeah, that's true. I it was just thinking fondly about Casablanca. But I I I enjoyed all the nods to it. I mean, it is an interesting premise of like creating this shitty dystopian sci-fi thing around you know, the beats of Casablanca.
Yeah. It didn't seem like they were trying to hide it either. Like it's No, no. It was super fun.
Yeah. I mean, they could have even done more, like, you know, play it again, Pam, or whatever. Yeah.
Or just do like uh psycho and just do an actual shot for shot remake.
Did you enjoy the movie, either of you?
I loved it. I don't know. I was especially hot off the juxtaposed with the mornings viewing of uh the Odyssey. I kind of got the full spectrum of uh you know American cinema. Yeah.
Yeah, achievement.
Um I I I like bad movies a lot. I feel like I can feel like there's some value there that exists outside of like our normal criteria for what is, you know, good. You know, this it was wildly entertaining. Um the the uh plot gaps, the you know, goofy technology, the seemed like the plot was really driven by especially the climax of the movie was really driven by like, oh, we want to do the stunt, let's fit it into the plot. We want to do the stunt. Yeah. But I just I don't know, I appreciate it.
I mean, but you you agree it was a bad movie, right?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But on one value system, on you know, what most people would consider a bad movie.
Yeah.
But in a lot of ways it's so bad it's good. Cause it's entertaining.
I would agree.
Yeah.
I was gonna yeah, I was gonna say the same thing that I it was clearly bad. It was a lot of fun. And uh I think that it it enters the so bad it's good. Because I think that the I think that the thing that makes it good is that it's so sincere, too, that like I I feel like they had to know they were making a bad movie, but nobody's like winking at the camera during the movie. Yes.
Never yeah, when bad stuff breaks the fourth wall, it just doesn't. Yeah. It loses it for me. It's yeah, it is the sincerity. Um and pretty like they're pretty dedicated to the aesthetic, which I appreciated too. Um I'm just fond of that, you know, Super Mario Bros., Batman Forever, 90s vision of the dystopian future aesthetic.
It's hard for me to tell. I I was very entertained too, uh especially because we watch it in the theater with a bunch of people and the hosts and everyone's like kind of you know laughing at it and with it. Um it's hard for me to tell. Like if this was just if if I just stream this by myself uh on a Friday night in preparation for us recording this, like would I be as entertained or would I just be annoyed? Good question.
Like I think I think that uh how you consume a uh a movie is uh a part of whether it's good or not to you.
Yeah, yeah. I I mean I do think it's a testament to the value of seeing movies in theaters with with people.
Yeah.
I mean, I I enjoy like solo viewings too, but um it probably adds adds a lot uh in in the right setting.
Yeah, I'd agree with that for sure. Yeah.
Um well we don't have to talk too much plot you know, plot points, but can we can we can we talk a little bit about the opening scene? I mean, part of part of the the uh uh joy of this movie is just how how out there it is. I mean, it basically starts with this uh Pamela Anderson doing a stripper scene and getting like sprayed by water. I mean, she's not really stripping, like she there's some uh there's nudity. There's there's a you know, she she exposes her breasts briefly. Um, but there actually isn't as much nudity or sex in this movie as you would think, the way it was marketed. I was thinking about afterwards. She there's topless nudity for like five seconds total.
You were thinking about it afterwards. I was thinking about it afterwards. You went home and thought about the nudity in this movie.
I had a few beers, okay. And um yeah, and uh there were no sex scenes. Like she kisses the uh uh what's his name in Casablanca? I don't remember his name in this movie, but the one of the guys that like the guy that's trying to get away in front of his wife, by the way, which Yeah, that was strange. It's a really weird scene. Um there's a kiss, there's like no sex, and then like the both nude scenes, if you will, like one was this opening stripper scene, and the second was like just her walking across the room in a robe and the robe flies open briefly, and then like they cut away like that.
Which the opening scene is immediately punctuated by her uh uh throwing a high heel into the forehead of uh uh horny pervert in the front row.
Yeah, which is which is how I knew we were in for a treat because um she's like at this club, I guess trying out as a new stripper. And this guy is is like calls her babe, which is a running gag throughout the movie, I guess. Like she really hates it when people call her babe.
Don't call me babe. That's the here's looking at you kid of this movie.
Yeah, pretty equivalent. Um and yeah, she like kills the guy, right? Like, I mean, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I I would assume getting a stiletto heel like through your forehead.
Like, and everyone kind of goes about their business, too. Yeah.
The club owner just laughs. Like that's how depraved this uh this setting is.
It's a civil war. The casualties are to be expected.
Yeah. Uh by the way, the I saw the that opening scene was suggested by Pamela Anderson. She said she had a nightmare where that scene occurred and came back to the director and was like, let's let's film this. And he was under under pressure to include more nudity. So he threw out the original opening scene to include it.
So what was the original scene gonna be? I don't know.
I didn't see anything about that. So um what what does she what does she do by the way? I mean, you said she's a bounty hunter slash club owner, club owner. But we don't so like the opening scene, she's undercover to like rescue this girl, but we don't see her do anything else, right? Like she's not on any other missions. No, I don't think so. And it's never really explained. Like she everyone knows her. She's the you know, Rick of whatever city.
But does she does she bounty the scientists that has the contacts or something? Do you remember that? About halfway through the movie.
Well, I think that that's why they came to her.
Strong plot, really. It's also been a couple weeks since we saw the movie.
So uh Do you remember her like having the guy on the back of her motorcycle? Like he's like thrown over the back of the motorcycle. As if she were on a horse, she drops him to the guy. Oh, yeah, that's why she. I think that's a second little mission.
She sells him to um Ron Howard's brother.
Yes.
Oh, I thought you were joking in the theater when you said that. That's really Ron Howard's brother. That's great. Yeah. Uh I don't want to jump around too much, but I just wanted to shout out my other favorite cameo, uh, Zeus, uh, or uh who you guys may know as Debo from uh the Friday movie. I've never seen Friday.
What? Yeah. I've never seen Friday either. It's one of one of the one of my the big gaps in my I think that Landon should host this podcast.
It's been on my list for a while. I'm I'm not gonna comment whether it would resonate now or not. Watched it a lot when I was uh probably too young to watch it a lot. What's the actor's name? I know him as a pro wrestler Zeus. Was he the fat guy? No, not fat, so my favorite character from the film. Uh who we should most definitely get pretty in-depth on. Um sorry, Tommy Lister Jr. Oh yeah. The bouncer.
Yeah, I know this actor.
Yeah, he's in uh well, you guys probably haven't seen this because it's really terrible, but uh No Holds Barred, uh Hulk Hogan's first movie um made by the WWF at the time.
Uh no business making a movie. I know him mostly from Fifth Element. He was the president or whatever in Fifth Element.
Yeah, he was he was in the Dark Knight too. Yeah. The prisoner on the boat.
Oh, yeah. Awesome. Um one of my favorite scenes was the like one of the early scenes where the bad guy's torturing somebody from the Rebel Alliance or whatever they're called. And I was like, is this like what what kind of tor is this orgasm torture? Like I couldn't tell what's happening here.
He seemed to be really enjoying it. Yeah, it was nearly naked.
Yeah, I think I think I read the actress was actually naked, like under that contraption thing.
Um, but a weird metal sort of chest belt looking thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I was like, what is happening? This is this is very disturbing.
Seemed like she was being electrocuted, but also killed by orgasm, maybe.
Yeah. Uh again, the technology in this movie is really weird. Uh you mean I really enjoyed uh there were a lot of shootouts in this that um have questions about how bullets work. So what what I think they have questions as well. Yeah. Uh one of the the tropes that this used that you see a lot is like so barbed wire gets behind a table while like all these cops are shooting at her. Is it cops? I don't know. Doesn't matter.
They're like Nazis.
Yeah. Uh I guess the the bad part of the Civil War. Um as a as the resident gun expert, like will that really protect you much? Like, I feel like I should do this. Yeah. No.
You die behind that.
Like, what if it's a really thick table?
No. No. Like wood? No. I mean, if it's like inches thick, maybe. But no. Like I don't uh you you're just gonna be able to shoot right through that, especially with as many people we're shooting at like it's just point-blank range, basically. Yeah. Yeah. No, that doesn't work.
Can I digress for a moment? Do you guys mind? Yeah. Uh on this sort of tip of bad 90s movies. Um, and my mom working at the video store. Uh we watched the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Eraser. I don't know if you guys have seen that movie. Oh, yeah. It's been a good time. Bad movie. Uh there's technology in that where they have a weapon that can see through walls. Yeah. And um, Arnold hides, he's protecting someone, and they hide behind a refrigerator that he knocks down to protect them from bullets. You know, just throw it out there to uh if anyone remakes barbed wire, they might try a refrigerator instead of a bullet. But that that scene that technology terrified me when I was uh really young because I thought someone was gonna shoot me through the walls. Yeah, that's the one where it comes out through the floor, right?
Yeah. They're hiding in the floor. That's so funny.
Because like that, I like I couldn't have told you anything about that movie, but that like I feel like I that scene is imprinted like deep in my brain about like that that technology also came out the same year.
No.
Also, there's like the I'm like, why are um refrigerators super technology in movies? Like Indiana Jones survived a nuclear blast inside of uh which movie is that the uh crystal skull.
Oh, I haven't seen that one. Not the newest. There's nuclear bombs in an Indiana Jones movie.
Yeah, so it takes place in the 50s, uh, and the enemy is the Russians instead of the Nazis this time, and it's takes place the first scene is like on a nuclear test range. He gets captured by the Russians and they drop him out there to kill him. Well, they what like why not just kill him? Why blow him up with a nuke? But we wouldn't have a movie if they just killed him, so and it's in this um like they built these uh like mock towns so that you could see the destruction of like how a house would blow up in a nuclear explosion. And so he's like running around trying to find a safe place to hide, and he gets in the fridge and survives. So magic fridges, yeah. I don't know what that trope's about.
Um I really liked the bar and barbed wire, it was just really crazy. That's that's like right into your like 90s, you know, aesthetic of what the future would look like, just this depraved, like I don't know. I mean there's grading over the bar, like like you would find at a cash advance place or like a pawn shop, like uh, which I don't know. Have you ever been to a bar that seedy either?
Uh not that seedy and futuristic looking. It's usually seedy and like uh oh, this bar hasn't changed in 40 years, sort of like there was a you know, obviously they didn't do this intentionally, but uh I had this train of thought where I was like, oh, it's preposterous that it's 2017 in the film and there's a band that sounds like they're straight out of the 90s playing. But then I thought about it and I was like, oh, that music actually was starting to maybe a little bit later, but kind of starting to come back around uh then so prophetic uh They knew cinema, yeah. They knew when they were making it.
Would you would you if somebody opened a bar today, uh opened up a bar today that looked like that, do you think it would it would do well? Like it it wouldn't necessarily have to have the clientele that's all like in leather and chains and all that, but just that you know it'd be a theme bar.
I think it would be better if it had the clientele and Lily and Jeans.
I don't know how you attract them there, but uh yeah.
Dollar beers.
Yeah, you have to stay in business somehow.
But speaking of the sets though, you really had to like the bar because I feel like there weren't that many sets in this movie. True. They they spent a lot of money on the bar and then they spent a lot of money on the final scene, and then there was basically nothing outside for the rest of the movie. It was all sets.
Yeah, you're right. I think even at some point I leaned over because it like she goes to uh there'd like two scenes outside of the bar, and like the second one, I I'm like, is that does like that guy live in the same place as the first guy? It seemed like it was just the same block, like just around the corner or something. Yeah.
Yeah, whatever uh industrial area they uh rented in LA to shoot. Yeah, somewhere in Burbank. Yeah. Literally the whole movie, it doesn't seem improbable that the whole movie was shot within like a four-block radius. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. I'd believe it. Even the you know, the kind of warehouses where the bar and those things are look like they're probably within proximity to the dock where the final scene takes place.
Yeah. Yeah. Should we jump ahead to the final scene?
Uh we gotta talk about fat so to get there. I think.
All right, let's let's talk about fat so who wants to talk about that character.
I don't have a lot to say, but I was tickled when he was introduced uh probably 80% of the way into the movie. Uh, there's still a snitch further. Uh new villain introduced, who is uh an obese man who is wheeled around in a uh front loader uh about 15 feet in the air. Yeah. He's just eating, isn't he? Yeah, the whole time. Yeah. And uh he's the new villain who, you know, is just no build-up, no mention previously in the film.
I know. Like I don't even remember how we got to him. Why did she go to Fatso to secure passage through the passage for the I don't know. Yeah.
Of course he double crosses her. Why wouldn't he?
Uh yeah, he double crossed her immediately. Like it wasn't even it was like not even a doubt in my mind as soon as he was introduced. I'm like, he's not actually gonna help.
I like his henchmen. Um I feel like they were maybe making the movie and they were like, this doesn't seem futuristic enough. So let's have some like mad max looking henchmen with like catcher's mitts. Yeah. I mean catchers uh masks and modified catcher's masks and uh lots of uh you know 90s dystopian sci-fi henchman tropes. That was kind of a nice smorgasborg of that. Yeah.
Yeah. And they were all sporting equipment. Uh yeah, modified sporting equipment. Yeah. Excellent.
Put spikes on it. So here for it. But they were all gruff and serious in this, like, and and all that you know, gear, and he's just in that front loader in the like a moo moo or something, like a and just laughing the whole time, right? Like as he's eating. It was just a weird, like tonally, it didn't really fit.
Aaron Powell He was like a cartoon character for sure. Yeah. But it did kind of fit in a way.
Like, how would this movie what else could you expect from a movie like this? It it's almost a necessity to have uh it just makes sense. That's what I was trying to get across about this movie being so good. And Aaron's point about it being sincere is like everything that makes zero sense about this film just seems like a necessity still. Like if the plot made any more sense, it I wouldn't like it as much, I feel like. Because then it would just be bad. Right. I don't know. I don't know if that makes sense, but it's like a sense to me. It's like a horseshoe sort of theory of film. Yeah.
Lennon's horseshoe theory.
It does hit that sweet spot of being like crazy um not boring, which is important. Like I don't I was never bored. The performance and runtime on this thing.
It was perfect.
Yeah. It was like
Five minutes or something.
They nailed it, whatever it was. But yeah, it felt like just right for that so bad it's good. And I I get why it would have a cult following and and it it's it's uh yeah, it wasn't it was not a bad uh what let's see, let's see what I rated on my scale.
It was uh I already forget what Aaron's scale is.
I think the higher the higher it is, the uh uh it would be like yeah. The higher it is, the less I like it. So it would be like a a two, a two-star bad movie.
Out of five, right? Out of five, yeah. It was it was ninety-eight minutes, by the way. That does hit the sweet spot.
That is a great runtime. More I need more 98-minute movies. Yeah. I think we're I think we're due for a sequel. Yeah. Uh scene for scene remake.
Who who would who would play Pamela Anderson's character? Who would play Barb Wyatt?
Oh, that's a good question. Margot Robbie Do you think that uh Sydney Sweeney.
Well, they're the popular blonde actress.
If the liberals made it, they would make her flat-chested and the right would be annoyed like um Lola Bunny. Was that the controversy?
Yeah.
That was a very weird controversy.
Like when they made the Green Eminem not sexy anymore. Yeah. Oh boy, the green MM.
That's the liber that's the America liberals want. Yeah.
Well, the final scene, uh they yeah, I don't know what to say about it. Like you said earlier, Lane and I think they were just like, here's some stunts we can do. Um there's like a big chase, and one of the heroes just like runs to the top of this crane and this like to a complete dead end. Shipyard. Like for some reason.
There's no escape from up there. No.
Oh, let's point out that they're going through a shipyard to get to the airport. Yeah. Being in an industrial area. Yeah, we know. I'm not familiar with the layout of uh Steel Harbor or whatever the city's called, but uh seems like bad city planning. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
I mean harbor isn't the name, so maybe that's like central too. Uh and then yeah, Barbwire is in this fight with I don't really remember the specifics of it, but um the other hero like saves her by picking up the car, her like bike and this car like smashed together or whatever.
The forklift picked her bike up.
Yeah.
And then the crane picked them all up.
Yeah. Yeah. Was it the bike and a car?
Wasn't there a third? It sounded like there was a car involved.
Yeah. I think it was like her bike and a car picked up by the forklift, which which her the guy that ran to the top of the crane started operating the crane, and she was fighting on this uh vehicle uh you know, Frankenstein situation here. And and to help her out, he picked the uh forklift up about 50 feet in the air.
Yeah.
It's a lot safer to help her out.
Hang him above the concrete.
It's just like the idea is let's add more chaos. Uh yeah.
Just set him down.
Just shoot the the bad guy.
Like, you're introducing an element of danger.
He shot like half a dozen guys from up there on the crane. Like, why not just shoot the other guy?
He didn't seem to take out all the henchmen either, but they disappeared. Yeah. It wasn't clear. Uh yeah.
They ran out of budget for the day.
Yeah.
Yeah. It is a great. Like, I do I do want to go back and rewatch the the finale, like the the final few scenes. Um because yeah, it was it was pretty hilarious.
Yeah. The crane drops the uh forklift and uh and all the associated vehicles, and there's a massive explosion. Huge explosion. Which was pretty great. Um unnecessarily large explosion. Yeah.
That's where that's where the um henchmen went. They couldn't afford to pay them because it went uh the budget went into the explosion at the end. Yeah. Fair enough, you know. I'll yeah. Um I don't know.
You gotta do what the art requires. Yeah.
Yeah.
I do have a few quotes written down. Um and by the way, I should I should mention this is the again, this is the first time I've watched a worst movie in the theater, so I was like, I had like a little piece of paper. So some of these quotes are probably a little off, and I don't remember most of the context. So one was drink when you want to remember, not when you want to forget, which I thought was was pretty, you know, pretty good head scratcher.
That sounds like something from cocktail. Yeah. Didn't they say something like that?
Goglin's Law. Yeah, what was it? Maybe I think you're right. Well, he hasn't had read the book yet, so he doesn't know what he's doing.
He thought about it.
Yeah.
He almost read it.
You are yeah. There's some I'm just I'm cheating and looking up some quotes from the film, and there's some pretty good narration quotes in particular. Port Steel Harbor, what a shithole. It was the middle of the second American Civil War. The world had gone to hell. The year was 2017, the worst year of my life.
Mine too. Yeah, we didn't even mention there was it started with narrators. Voice over and then like yeah, voiceover narration, which disappeared until the end, right? Yeah. Um Well, there was voiceover, but from different people too. Yeah, yeah. I was trying to remember that too. Like she was she she wasn't the narrator the whole time, right?
There wasn't didn't it start with a male narrator? It did, I think. An unseen, unnamed male narrator.
Yeah. And I think it was very it was supposed to be kind of like a noir. Yeah. Like Casablanca, Casablanca type movie, but yeah. Anytime there's voiceover, I'm skeptical.
Yeah. Uh I wrote down, he doesn't have any retinas, you moron, which I think was when they tried to scan her blind.
Yeah.
Was it her brother? No, I don't.
Yeah.
Okay. Yeah.
Wasn't it? It was. Yeah. And they were like, or were they in the military together too? Damn, we're we're really not doing this movie justice. There's some kid. We skipped over the the DJ in the club who's playing simultaneously with the live rock band.
Yeah, yeah. He's like a soul DJ that's and he they show him a few times, and I never really understood, yeah, who is he playing to because we never heard his music in the club. And like why they even introduce the character because he had nothing to do.
Prime character for comedic relief within the action sequences. I mean, I feel like this is a thing that happens over and over in 90s movies where you kind of get this like character, this side character that, you know, is uh something slapsticky happens to them in a or they're like a coward in the action sequence or whatever. Like no tying this guy into the plot line at all. It really could have been in terms of like operating within the tropes of these sorts of 90 mo nineties movies, like just an absolute missed opportunity.
Yeah. Yeah. Do you think this movie would be better if it had more comedy in it?
Uh intentional comedy, no. Please don't even try. Just keep doing what you're doing. That's what we're here for.
My last quote, and I have no idea what this is from. It's a little sticky. Does that ring a bell? Apparently it was funny enough that I wrote it down, but I don't remember what happened. You're the creep over there in the back taking notes. It's a little sticky. Maybe it was just about the movie theater.
I don't know. I was gonna make a joke, but I know my mother-in-law listens to this.
I was like, who's your mother-in-law? Like, is that my mom? I think I think she dropped off a long time ago.
She's reading along right now. Yeah.
Beautifully. Uh we didn't mention the uh we made no mention of the um sort of butler slash bar manager slash server guy. He's like the majority sort of fella. Yeah. He was he was quintessential to the movie.
Quick interlude. This is me, Ade from the future, while I'm editing this episode, realized that we lost the last five to ten minutes of Landon's recording. So when you don't hear him anymore for the rest of the episode, just know that it was a technical glitch. It wasn't that we just kicked him off the episode. We we try not to do that to our guests uh here at the worst movie podcast. So thank you, Landon, and sorry. Uh, but here's the rest of the episode with Aaron and I talking. And we're also talking to Landon. It's just not recording his audio. So if it's a little confusing, sorry for that. Back to the episode. What are your ultimate picks for this?
I picked Civil War, the 2024. Um, it's so good. Have you seen it on it? I like that movie. Yeah, I like that movie. The reason I picked it is because the thing I like about it is um in Civil War movies, I like to see like what the countryside looks like, like what regular America look would look like in a Civil War. So it's kind of like why I liked um Cold Mountain, because it takes place in the Civil War, but it's him just like crossing the country trying to get home. So I like those kind of stories, and that's what Civil War is about is a journalist is trying to get to Washington, D.C. to document basically the end of the Civil War. Um, like the US government's about to fall, and she's trying to get there to document it. It's just a it's like kind of an interesting look at um just America in general and and the importance of journalism and stuff like that. But um it's a cool movie.
But part of why I liked it is like it doesn't get much into the war part of it or even like the why Yeah, of like what sides are what or anything like that.
They specifically chose um in that movie that the it was the US government versus California and Texas, like they split off and seceded, um, and they picked those states specifically so it wasn't like a Republican-Democrat thing.
I think Jesse Plumens like wins the some award for that movie terrifying. Yeah, for he's just like in a one scene basically, but uh yeah, it was amazing. Yep. Great movie. Can my pick be Casablanca? Is that cheating? Uh I also put as my backup uh the naked gun. She's in that, right? Yeah, yeah. She co-stared. She's just love interest. Love interest. Uh Frank Drebin. And I and I think she was actually pretty good in it. Like I I only watched it the ones, but um I thought it was really funny. And I thought she was like she she was a lot better comedically than playing it straight.
She's in the new one, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it was Priscilla Presley, I think, in the old ones. Uh I don't remember who was in the old ones. I think it was. She's having a moment. Yeah.
Yeah. I think she is. Good for her. I I wish her no no ill will.
I'm sure she put up with a whole lot of shit in the industry that she deserves her, huh? She deserves her renaissance.
I think that's about it for Barbwire. Uh I should say we don't really have a theme this month yet. This is kind of a special episode. So we we may once we decide what we're gonna cover next, maybe we'll figure out how it fits into uh this month's release. If anybody has any questions or comments, hit us up at the worst moviepodcast at gmail.com. And I'm just not realizing that I haven't checked our email in like two months. So uh maybe maybe we just have an inbox like flowing with questions and comments.
So tell us which MM you think is sexiest.
Uh yes. Uh thanks to Landon for joining us on this special episode. Uh I'm Ade.
I'm Aaron. Thanks for listening to the worst movie podcast.
Yeah, Landon uh uh also made our theme song. So if you've heard his name before. Yeah. Well, we already gave you a shout-out before, but I didn't connect the dots. So yeah. Well, that that's probably your special our first special guest. So uh yeah, thanks to Landon.