Midweek Mention... Scrooged

Scrooged

Sidey:  Midweek episodes number, whatever it is, we're sticking with our comedy genre.  but we are taking out Leslie Nelson and adding in bill Murray. With a Christmas theme because we watched Scrooged,

Reegs: Yes.

Sidey: had never seen this before.

Reegs: You're kidding.

Sidey: No,  no, I hadn't. I said last night I put my Scrooge cherry.

Reegs: Oh, wow. I didn't realize until today that it was a Richard Donner film.

Sidey: Yeah. Donna kebab. I didn't go on.

Reegs: No, not at all. They, they, in fact, bill Murray really resented. He said that because he ad-libbed the majority of his lions, but a lot of it ended up on the cutting room floor, which is interesting.

Howie: I saw it was his first film after Ghostbusters. Cause he was a bit, it was still a bit fucked from the whole attention that he was getting from Ghostbusters. So I didn't realize that either after looking into it.

Sidey: Roger Ebert asked if they'd had any disagreements. Murray replied only a few, every single minute of the day. It could have been a really, really great movie. The script was so good. There's maybe one take in the final cut of the movie. That's mine. which is a shame, but, I really enjoyed it.

Reegs: So this is the story of television president Frank Cross, who is played by bill Murray and is looking to put on a extravagant live version of. Scrooge the Christmas, Carol. prior to that, though, we get a kind of cold opening, which I hadn't remembered at all, which was a sort of series of television offerings that include, these were amazing.

you had Cajun Christmas with Robert Goulay, as he sort of paddling in a tux down the Cajun river with a crocodile or an alligator as it

Sidey: I know it was an old fashioned Cajun Christmas.

Reegs: Yeah. An old fashioned cage in Christmas. That's right. we had, father likes Beaver,

Sidey: yeah, yeah. Don't worry. Your father's just out chasing Beaver.

Reegs: but the pinnacle is Lee majors starring in, have you got the name there? So ID

Sidey: The night, the rain day died.

Reegs: the night, the rain deer died, which looks like the greatest story, never told, featuring father Christmas and his band of Mary. Elves, under fire from a sort of paramilitary organization and being rescued by Lee majors, the $6 million man.

Sidey: Yeah. When he appears and he's holding a video, that was a real mini gun.

Reegs: Wow.

Howie: Oh,

Sidey: it was real

Reegs: Let's hope it wasn't loaded.

Sidey: yeah. Not loaded with live rounds, but yeah, it gave him a real medical for that bit. And any time there are fake and ashamed me, these are fake trailers for made up films within a film that always brilliant.

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah,

Sidey: I usually want to watch them more than the actual film that I'm watching.

Reegs: Yes,

Howie: as well. Like the Robocop and the total recall films where you've got the sunscreen 3000, which we've obviously spoke about back in the top 10 lists,

Sidey: Yeah. I really liked the Robert Goulay one because he also had an amazing cameo in the Simpsons episode where he, he was hired by Bart to sing in his

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah.

Sidey: He's he's obviously a top man, but getting onto that, th the that's the initial sort of advertisement that runs, and then we cut to the boardroom with.  bill Murray, just terrorizing these exacts in the boardroom. And he says, that is this, this is all shy. You know, I can't exactly how he does it, but he says, you need to scare people into watching this thing. He's he's really. And so the advert then comes on for his, it's going to be like a live production of, of Scrooge going out on Christmas Eve.

And did you. Did you remember the primary for

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it features an airplane blowing up.

Sidey: Well, the first first show is just people screaming and it

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Acid rain and then cuts to some junkies drug addiction. Then, then you get the plane blow up international terrorism, and then a guy just leaning over to another car and shooting a shotgun

Reegs: yeah. And then it ends with a nuclear explosion

Sidey: I says now than ever, it's more important to remember the true meaning of Christmas

Reegs: and then it just pops up with Scrooge. Yeah. but

Sidey: bet was quite relevant because when this was released, there was the Lockerbie bombing actually occurred. So I'm surprised it didn't get pulled actually, but I suppose in the States, maybe, I don't know, but, yeah, unfortunate bit of timing there.

 Reegs: so he's got a band of executives, that he's, as you say, terrorizing, including one Elliot Loudermilk played by Bobcat Goldthwait. who had, if you, if that name means anything to you? it was probably police Academy.

Sidey: voice will, will made mostly than his name. I'd imagine

Reegs: Does anybody want to try their hand at an impression?

Howie: No. Cause he see, I think if I tried it was sounded like Charlie out of the band, I can't say. Yeah. It's like, it's all just, it's just skulks

Sidey: It sounds like his voice is being manipulated as it comes out of his mouth.

Reegs: yeah.

Howie: voice breaking at three different pitches, both high and low.

Reegs: so Bobcat Goldthwait Elliot Loudermilk is, is, fired on Christmas Eve. and.

Sidey: is, the secretary says it's Christmas Eve and Frank says, that's right. Make sure he doesn't get his Christmas bonus.

Reegs: so the night before, the show is due to air. Frank is visited by the ghost of his ex boss, Lou Hayward, who died from a heart attack. this is quite a. Scary scene really for a PG movie

Howie: That's the thing. Cause I was I've considered letting the kids watch it, but after watching, no, I

Sidey: stick with the Muppet's Christmas. Carol, I think version of this story

Reegs: because the boss comes up as a sort of decomposing body pulling a golf cart behind it.

Howie: Jack Palance?

Sidey: Possibly. I can't remember, but they worked, there are a lot of, big names sort of, I don't want to say cameos, but they're brief appearances them from decent, you know, I picked nine stars.

Reegs: Yeah. so Lou Hayward, his former mentor, warns him, he will be visited by three ghosts and then proceeds to dangle him by one rotten arm out of the window, which the arm then kind of breaks and Frank falls to his death, but he does, and it was all a dream wakes up in his chair.

And then he's doing the Christmas gift list for his friends and family VHS. He gets a towel, gets a towel, bath towel, bath. They're all bath towels.

Sidey: monogrammed, IBS, whatever the name of the station is to just everyone gets a towel.

Reegs: Yeah. Including his long suffering secretary

Howie: Yes. Yeah.

Reegs: who he compels to work with him.

Sidey: If I weren't late, you work late.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: If you don't work, I can't work. And it's yeah, it just, it just really ups the ante on being a nasty, fucking horrible piece of work, which apparently he really enjoyed playing that side of it.

Reegs: yeah, of course you would. Yeah.

Sidey: obviously, this is an adaptation of the, the usual Christmas Carol story. So it follows. Pretty much, they, they usual fame of saying the different ways, you know, how he came to be like this, what what's going to happen if he carries on like today and in the future, I thought the, the ghost of Christmas yet to come or future, whatever they alleged Skype, it was really cool to this design wise look.

Excellent.

Reegs: Yeah, it did look amazing. Yeah.

Howie: the, the character, well, the ferry, she was ghost of Christmas present, wasn't she? Yeah. And

Sidey: Yeah. She really struggled with it.

Howie: yeah, there's quiet music every so often. Absolutely belting him.

Sidey: Yeah. She, she didn't like having to be so physical, but bill Murray was, let's just go for it, just, you know, and she did injury when she, she ripped his, lived it, and she, when she grabbed his face

Reegs: Yeah, that's right.

Sidey: she kept like breaking down in tears, but having to be so far, but

Reegs: The ghost of Christmas past is a taxi driver, that, takes. Bill Murray back to his childhood, which is very sad. is he gets, five kilos of veal as a Christmas present.

Howie: It's not bill Murray's dad who plays the dad or his

Sidey: no, it was his brother. All three of his brothers are

Howie: He's brothers. Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: And then we get a flashback to a Christmas party where we see some quite credible hair from bill Murray. It's a kind of. Bold. It was sort of Terry Mnuchins S skit was kind of a bold long, cause bill Murray's got a fairly receding hairline, is it? It is.

Sidey: Yeah, it seems to have had that since day one.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: I literally did low when I S when it popped up with his head, that was

Reegs: It's really quite, I mean, if you haven't seen it, you really should check out bill Murray's hair in the flashback sequence. it's, it's really quite something to behold, but it appears obviously that he, this was the first time that he met his lost love from years ago. Claire Phillips.

Howie: Indiana Jones, his wife.

Reegs: Yeah. Hey.

Sidey: Karen Allen.

Reegs: I thought the whole time I was watching it, I was like, Oh, that's Margot Kidder.

But,

Sidey: Yeah, they do look alike. They really do. And both seem to just disappear off the face of the earth really. But then I looked at, Karen Allen's filmography and she has done loads of stuff. She's I haven't seen it, but Margo Kidder did. I think she went bonkers. Didn't she?

Reegs: she did. Yeah.

Sidey: It's Shane

Reegs: so, we get to see a little bit of their backstory and it's quite sad, you know, I think. Frank Cross has understandably difficult emotions around Christmas, given his upbringing anyway. then he there's a series of, circumstances that happened he's is fiercely ambitious and on a particular Christmas Eve, when he's working as Frisbee the dog, he's invited to go to dinner with his boss. which inadvertently ends up killing the relation really with his one. True love Claire. So we, we, you know, you get that typical thing of the guys and absolutely our soul, but at the same time, you certainly empathize with him. because he's been through some

Sidey: It's all those sliding door moments. Isn't it. But he's just chosen that path when he could have done something different, but he's. He's chosen career over love or whatever it, you know, he gets that chance again. Doesn't need to rekindle that, romance it again. He screws it up.

Reegs: Yeah, he's horrible to a homeless man named Herman.

Sidey: Yeah. He like Ronnie. He sees her he's he's frozen to death and he's trapped in that under what was it? A silver or,

Howie: it's a sub level. It's just sub level.

Reegs: do you know it was underneath Trump tower.

Sidey: Oh, nice.

Reegs: Yeah. So that ends, that adds another sort of level of something.

Howie: yeah, that becomes quite few times doesn't it. And he realizes that he can't, he can't change the future, but he can, he can't change things that have happened, but he, it's kind of an allegory for him going forward and making the best of things as they are really.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: when he came out of each vision quest or whatever with the NGOs were really good the way he. Like he'd be on fire. So he would, when he sees his own cremation and he's on five, that he burst out, that those, those moments are really good. I feel it.

Howie: I hate, I hate those films, parts of films that do that. I think when they're in the coffin and they go into the crematorium, like, I think there's one in bond. It's a Sean coronary bond film of similar like that, where he just comes to and there's flames all around him and you're like, gotta be the worst way to go.

Sidey: live living let die in it.

Howie: Yeah.

Reegs: So we get the ghost of Christmas present, who is the sort of angry ferry that, you were mentioning how we M we get the ghost of what is it, the ghost of, what did you call him before

Sidey: think it was Christmas yet to come.

Reegs: Christmas, yet to come, in which he sort of dies cremated without anyone except his brother there. it. And that was his real brother, correct.

so this obviously is the sort of moment where he realizes he can sort of change everything. and we sort of race to the end, the predictable end of the movie.

Sidey: you know, cause the Elliot comes back here. He's he obviously fired,

Reegs: Yes. With a shotgun.

Sidey: and it just makes, it, makes him take over the control room. So that is still a bit, you know, under violent pretense that he gets control of his show bag.

Reegs: Yeah, absolutely.

Sidey: by me.

Reegs: he ends up apologizing to his, secretary, to his brother. he makes a plea for his loss. Love to come back to him. they reunite.

Howie: is that all off a talk, a speech, do you think? Cause it seems really impassioned and he's like, Is he, so he's

Sidey: he ad-libbed. Yeah, they pretty much everything,

Howie: just goes for it and you can tell that as well. And then they end it with, per little of,

Reegs: In your hearts.

Howie: is

Sidey: why, so what did you think? Cause when, when we were watching this last night, he, Karen Allen, obviously he, he, he makes it play to our, over the airwaves to, she comes along, but. He's just not five seconds go snug that girl, you know, the dancer

Howie: Oh yeah,

Sidey: And I was thinking, hang on a minute, you know, they start kissing this automatic.

Like you just go off with someone else two minutes ago. It hasn't completely changed. This

Howie: Aye. We've also forgotten that throughout, present and Christmas yet to come is the secretary's son. Who's been psychologically scarred by something that happened in it and he's become mute. Was

Sidey: it's me. Yeah, I'd hate. Does he say that? Is it the very last bit of the film

Reegs: I think it is pretty much.

Howie: At the very last thing he does the classic tiny Tim. God bless us, everyone type of thing.

Reegs: I really enjoyed, John Glover as the sort of slimy executive who's brought in, basically making the same role that you had in gremlins to pretty much, he he's after bill Murray's job, The difference, I guess, is that Frank is just obviously really nasty. Whereas Bryce, is it, is that what his name is?

He is kind of underhand about everything much slimy or, he's very good, but the film really is carried by a fantastic performance from bill Murray.

Sidey: Yeah. I, it realize, that he had effectively not quit, but it had really long hiatus. This was his first film for four years.

Reegs: He'd been living in Paris, Sydney.

Sidey: so obviously had the success of Ghostbusters and then he had. He had insisted that he wanted to make the Razor's edge, which was a massive commercial flop. And it really upset him.

And they had knocked him the six. So he hadn't worked basically. Hadn't had, I don't think he fished, he said I'm not making any more films, but he was. I don't know if it's confidence has taken a, a hit or he just wasn't enthused about making any more of these sort of films, but he was tempted out of semi-retirement I guess, to, to make this.

But I didn't there's that big, long gap.

Howie: No, I didn't

Sidey: completely new to me.

Dan's a big fan of the rises. H I think he might've known about that.

Reegs: Yeah, we get a sort of fairly typical Danny Elfman score. and, the cinematographer is Michael Chapman. Who's the guy who did taxi driver Ghostbusters to space jam. And you do get, you know, the, the physical and special effects are integrated quite well into this movie considering it's 1984

Sidey: Yeah. I thought I was really good.

Reegs: Davis plays one of the street musicians that Frank.

Orders of, the, the front steps of the IBC building, which has an interesting little cameo. you haven't seen it Saturday. What did you think?

 Sidey: I really enjoyed it. I mean, I don't know why doorstep so long maybe cause it's Christmas and I just wasn't that fussed about watching another Christmas film, but I mean, bill Murray, you know, and it's, it's a lot of bill Murray in this film. I think it probably in every single scene.

Reegs: Yeah, it felt like it.

Sidey: it's fantastic.

Really good. Toss up for me between this and Muppets that we've already mentioned for the best version of this story. really like it. Although I did know when I was, looking around that, what's that film credit you liked so much.

Howie: Roger

Sidey: Roger EBA. So this is the worst version. They absolutely hated it.

It didn't like this at all.

Reegs: Did he know? That's interesting.

Howie:  interesting that it's a PG cause that I think today it would be a 12, a, you know, parental guidance, is,

Sidey: yeah, yeah, no, you made, it was quite, quite spooky. It's definitely got the, the feel, you know, that era, the eighties survive that sort of comedy, I suppose, because it's got with the people that you associate with it, but, yeah. I've kind of seen it now cause I done it. I wish I had dodged it for so long.

Cause it was really, really good.

Howie: Oh, good. It's a nice feel-good thing at the end. I know it's cheesy and Smoltz with the singing and stuff, but

Sidey: well, I preferred it when he was at Alsop, to be

Reegs: Yeah, of course, of course,

Sidey: That's where all the Hebrew is, you know, when it gets all happy and, you know, whatever. yeah, it's good. so let's wrap it up. How were you not entertained

Howie: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one.

Reegs: Yeah. So wanted to mention just quickly that there's a bit where Frank's boss is telling him about. There's 27 million cats and 48 million dogs. And they need to make programs, especially for cats and dogs. And I believe that is now a real thing that they do. So what was satire back in 1984 is now reality, which is interesting.

Yeah, I like this movie. I mean, it's predictable of course, but, it's funny and feel good. Christmas stuff. Yeah. Loved it.

Sidey: Like you say, feel good by preferred to feel bad bear of it. it was still, it was funny, you know, it was built Marie, so ticking a lot of boxes. and it's probably a little bit too spooky to show my daughter, but, I still really enjoyed it. So God bless us.