Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri & We Can Be Heroes

3 Billboards

Reegs: Welcome to bad. Dad's film review the podcast that knows that you once felt her hand touch your leg while you were on the tube and you grabbed it and you shouted whose hand is this, and it turned out to be your own. And yet another tumultuous week. I really couldn't start the show without referring to for covered semi naked, shaman, Jake and jelly, AKA que backer, who helped to storm Capitol Hill with an army of rednecks.

He found in a Walmart car park with the Capitol building that day left defended by a seal team composed entirely of pooled block clones. We can at least enjoy the delightful irony of cue supporters, branding him an Antifa mole. On this side of the Atlantic, no less dramatic scenes in queen Elizabeth Olympic park this weekend, where it's all gone off like shoes in a mask.

Yes. Inflatable blonde idiot. And part-time UK prime minister . Boris Johnson is currently embroiled in a controversy over cycling rules during lockdown. So we also can drop gems like a one-armed African child as ever. It's me reeks. And I'm joined this week by the best friend. You never had Sidey. And the annoying friend. You never wanted

 Howie

Howie: yeah, I'm still my fault.

Reegs:  A man whose face looked like it had been chiseled out of word by someone who learns sculpture through a correspondence course and gave up around less than three.

Howie: was thinking, I looked more like a, that clay model from Lionel Richie's hello video, that the blind, the blind woman, the blind woman scopes, and isn't at all creepy that she then feels his face and she's got shit all over her hands.

Sidey: is how I save.

Reegs: She was sculpting with Ted's

Howie: And didn't you follow that course

Reegs: no, I missed that

Howie: since the collapse of the education system in this dystopian pandemic, that's one of the options sculpting with turds. It's a new series. That's going to be shown on BBC

Reegs: Yeah. On CBeebies with Tom Hardy.

Howie: Yeah. Joe wicks is going to be rubbing all over his bollocks as he does the splits.

Sidey: Just say that

Reegs: this has gone to places. I never thought it would.

Sidey: bears bears is doing an online daily fitness thing to rival J works,

which sounds fucking amazing.

Howie: Yeah. It, it, it looks somewhat frantic.

Sidey: Yeah,

Reegs: Do you remember when Ben was actually kind of, he was actually kind of cool and not just this sort of ridiculous, like.

Sidey: always been ridiculous. That's the coolness of it. It's credit and all the album slaves was just vibes. Just, just bringing the

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: That PreK from the Capitol riots thingy, the. What's his name? Joe,

Howie: Yeah.

Sidey: read

Reegs: Not see it not seeing required.

Sidey: he is effectively on hunger strike because they're not providing organic food. Tim says refusing to meet with what? A pain

Howie: God.  It's

Sidey: fun and games

Did you hear about the guy, one of the guys who died, how he, how he had. Achieve that feat by tasering himself in the politics he was trying to, he was attempting to steal something off the wall and tasered himself with the nuts and had a heart attack. Good effort. You fucking prick.

Reegs: So 20% of the people who died that day died by tasering themselves in the book.

Howie: it's what he would have wanted. It's the way you want it to go.

Sidey: it's the way I wanted him to go.

Reegs: yeah.

Anybody seen anything good this week?

Howie: My kids have been watching future armor and I thought, yeah, that's good. And I didn't re re, re didn't realize there were some episodes of future rom or that are really not kid appropriate, like properly, not kid appropriate. There's one where they get taken in by these Amazonian women who basically shack them and break their pelvises.

And I was like caught the kids, watching it halfway through and was like, I'm we're going off.

Reegs: but they were basically sex slaves on a planet. Weren't they? And did you ever crank one out to that or

Howie: No. Well, no. Well, when it happens to you, it's, it's not very nice and it's, it's hard to maintain any form of eroticism. Like you would, if you were looking at something like Gillian Anderson dressed as Margaret Thatcher now,

Sidey: Let's say your fetish has gone mainstream now. Isn't it.

Howie: yeah, I'm a left wing, left wing pervert, according to that link.

Sidey: Yeah, own it just own it. Embrace

Reegs: This is the big thing.

Howie: Yeah.

Reegs: Dalian Anderson is Margaret Thatcher is the big Wenk challenge for the lefty.

Sidey: yeah. Speaking

Howie: about for the writer here?

Sidey: Completely unrelated topics, we had a top five to complete, which we had some nominations and one in particular stood out.

Reegs: Yes, that's right. There were a few nominations, but Darren lethal, we've managed to find us a three hour cut. The original cut of uncle buck was always get a win this there is a, it includes sort of mostly sort of extensions to existing scenes, but there is a 10 minute unused and unfinished segment where uncle buck invites his gambling buddies over to their house which can see on.

YouTube. The quality of the footage is not amazing, but you can see John candy footage. You've probably never seen before, so that's quite good.

Sidey: Oh, I see.

Reegs: So yeah, that one's in.

Sidey: Or we didn't have any comedy, so you know that it needed a bit of levity in our list.

 Howie: I dunno after three hours that might drag a bit,

Sidey: Okay. Well,

Reegs: there any one way to find out.

 Sidey: This week, how are you? Did all the nominating? We got some stuff to look forward to. Or shy away from

Howie: Well, one of them isn't Brighton rock, so we're good. We'll continue that theme. We got three billboards outside of ebbing, Missouri. And for, for the kids we've got, we can be here on do that for, for Dan. That's it, my contribution for them

Reegs: Connery. Wasn't in this movie.

Howie: neither was his, neither was this slightly West Indian Welsh relative.

And I went for the top list. So this week we are going to be looking at worst special effects in movie history.

Sidey: Alrighty. VFX in movie history. I should point out that my cousin is quite a highly regarded yeah. Effects artists. And if you said to him the phrase special effects, he would stab you in the face. He has, they have a thing about that. Apparently it's VFX, it's strictly VFX visual effects, not special effects.

I don't know. It's the kind of thing you get snooty about. If you

Howie: do they, do

Sidey: of field.

Howie: Do you think they associate special effects with like an explosion or something like

Sidey: I dunno. I, I don't know it well, it's going to try and get him on one day. Cause he's currently working on the Marvel's eternal was movie. He's the lead VFX guy on that. So he'd be cool to talk to, but how are you? This is your

Reegs: you stayed in the special effects on that.

Sidey: He, your special needs effects,

Howie: Okay. Every day for me is a worst special effect. When I look in the fucking mirror I'm going to start off with mummy returns. And whenever we're looking at this, I despair because you see Dwayne Johnson as the scorpion King. It looks like a PST generated into game sequence. That's slightly gone wrong cause someone's scratched the disc.

They've clearly stole some weird. Model idea from a centaur beast, then added some claws on that. Looked like it's just been, I don't know, cut off of deadliest catch and then like a weird rubber dummy mass, like Crighton of red dwarf that they've tried to like shave into what looking like Dwayne Johnson.

It is fucking terrible.

Sidey: really felt like the money ran out when they came to do this bit.

Howie: yeah, it did because the scorpion King itself. Is the actual scoping King. When you go to the scoping and getting film where they've got a bit of cash, they'd actually done a, quite a good job. This is utterly abysmal.

Reegs: I wonder what it's like for the director, when he sits down and reviews the footage and he sees it and he, I mean, he can't be sitting there going, well, that looks photo realistic.

Howie: That's one for the cinema. Yeah. That's going to look great. That's that's gonna look tremendous on a 20 foot high screen and an IMAX. That's going to be amazing. No one will tell is fucking terrible. Well, I use, I think you were gonna say, sorry, I enjoyed that film apart from the stupid little fucking kid that's in it.

That never acted

Sidey: Yeah, he's annoying.

 Reegs: I think it's probably impossible to talk about this subject without talking about Bruce. Which was the name that was given to the shark in jaws. And it mostly, when you see it sort of flails around like a limp penis, I think. It's really incredible. That this movie turned out the way that it did.

And a lot of that is down to the way that Verna fields edited the movie round, the terrible, special effect that you never really saw but was a universally despised. It may have even been the originator of that kind of, you don't see the monster or slasher until the end of the movie type feel to it.

So yeah, an absolutely incredible one. The subject of lots of jokes Including the absolute Corker in back to the future to where the shock comes out of the cinema and all that sort of thing. But yeah, just terrible, terrible, special effects, but an iconic, it came together to create an iconic atmosphere.

Sidey: yeah, it was still a completely triumphant movie in spite of it. Whereas some of the others that we'll probably talk about less. So and for mine,

Reegs: maybe because of it, that's, that's the thing that's interesting. Maybe because of it, because they had to edit their way around the shark. They did loads of point of view stuff. There was probably loads of shots chosen that they wouldn't have done otherwise if they'd had access to so it's really, you

Howie: Make them work harder.

Reegs: Hmm.

Sidey: A lot of the stuff I've gotten here, I would, I was going to start off by saying that I haven't picked like really old stuff, really old movies, like old sort of stop motion, things like that because of because the technology was different. But then I look at my list and I think that a lot of the stuff I have picked is probably shit because the technology wasn't.

Good enough at that point. So something like let's go straight in with jar, jar Binks in the Phantom menace, not just a horrendous sort of racial stereotype, irritating and completely pointless character. But the CGI character, you can see that the, the, the human actors don't really know where to look.

It's the first time people have had to sort of act against a completely. Computer generated character and you can see that the interaction, it doesn't feel genuine. It doesn't work. And is that just

Howie: well, I'd say that's also, well, I'd say that's also a, down to some poor acting because well, 15 years previous to that you've got who framed Roger rabbit. You don't get any of that. He's had, he was one of the first to do a complete film where there's probably only maybe one or two other actual humans in the mainstream of the film.

Whereas at least star Wars had various characters. I was just thinking about that now. But yeah, I had jar jar Binks on there and if you watch it, it's it is there's there's this line of vision. From the actor's eyes that doesn't match. So I don't, I don't know if they had a bloke in a,

Sidey: I think it's probably a tennis ball or

Howie: you know, like skin tight.

Yeah. Tennis ball type of thing.

Reegs: I mean, it's tough. It's a tough ask for the actors, especially, you know, a lot of the shots were done on green screens as well. So you're acting in a room, you know, you've only got the props in your hand probably. And you're staring at two, like tennis balls in the sky. So, but it just doesn't work and it's a clusterfuck of design and execution really?

Yes. Terrible one. I did actually have one more from star Wars. If can we just pile into star Wars now

Sidey: Yeah. I've got more. I've got more.

Howie: Yeah.

Reegs: I know. I mean, you can obviously say basically everything that was put in when star Wars was star Wars was rereleased in 1997 and 2005 Jabber Jabber is the one it's just ridiculous. You know, they super impose the CGI Jabber, who is.

at all the same dimensions as the Jabber you see later in the film. And then there's an awful moment that they had to get around where he, Harrison Ford walks round Jabber. And obviously on the date, it was filmed with an actor it's terrible. He stands on his tail and Jabber does it like stupid.

It's the worst bit just didn't need to be in there. Adds nothing

Sidey: Yeah. I don't know what they were trying to prove. I don't know if it was supposed to be, Oh, look, look how much technological advancement we made, but it didn't look like that. It just looked like a real ham-fisted. Pointless attempt to shoe on something in, I don't know what the thought process was or why it didn't need to be there out of nothing.

It just looks shit. And it just highlighted all the other bits in there that you didn't want to see. I also don't like the, the changes they've made to Jabba's palace with that with max Rebo,

you

Reegs: they screwed the song up.

Sidey: they, they fucked the song up and they also took the fucking he song out, which we had a conversation on.

Twist you about yup. Navea was removed. That's not a special thing. That's just another irritant. So yeah, just, just

Reegs: Well, it's sort of was because Lucas Lucas said he wanted to add more gravitas at the end of star Wars with all the scenes of the empire being toppled. And he didn't think that having yup. Now over the top of it would, would help, but I disagree.

Sidey: I said, do I vehemently? 

Howie: . I'm going to go for air force one and air force one with 'em. Harrison Ford playing the ex Vietnam veteran who stops his playing, who cause he's the president now getting hijacked by a treacherous secret service guy and Gary Oldman from, I think he's from Kazakhstan, but there is a particular scene in there where at the end, where air force one crashes.

Into the sea at the end. And it is fucking atrocious because they do this terrible zoom in, on the open door. And you see the secret service guy. Who's the traitor doing? Oh no. And then the plane does like a weird, it looks like a mid nineties, Microsoft flight simulator. Where you th th the, the plane goes slightly square, hits the water, that's solid and square, and then sinks a bit.

And then there is like a splash, and then it does a few flips. And then there's like a, my phone style, I movie explosion effect added to it. And you go, and it just looks fucking terrible. It really is terrible.  It's like is a proper, we've run out of money on this film. We can do this scene. Don't worry about it. I'll just load up the Amiga the ASA, the 8,500, wherever the fuck was. Oh, I'm playing sensible soccer on it and it don't worry. Just cut that off and put this film thing on.

  Reegs: Well, my real pet peeves is CGI blood spatter or gunfire where that's added in later. I really hate that. And the, the Expendables two is a particularly egregious example, especially given the list of action stars that are involved in that movie. You've all used practical effects and squibs, which is obviously the way we should do it, as we all know The fugitive has an amazing Swan dive.

It had a 40, a budget 44 million, which is not inconsiderable back in 1993, but when he Swan dives off the Hoover dam in the sort of iconic piece, then it just turns into a dummy. I mean, it's really, really obvious you think like, could they not try

Howie: it is, it is a lot of the Simpsons where Homer goes to fake his own death and sharks, a corpse off the top of the waterfall.

Sidey: I was just thinking of that. Cause Milhouse does the same. Say it in the radioactive man episode. Doesn't he, if

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah.

Howie: These goggles, they do nothing.

Reegs: One more to submit is the mustache of steel,

Sidey: Oh, Scott was going to be my next

Reegs: Cavill. Thanks to his very busy schedule when it came to doing reshoots for justice league. I think it was. Cavil, who'd already committed to fill mission impossible fallout had quite frankly, very strong mustache, which they then edited out afterwards and it looks really weird and oddly inhuman the mustache and you'd think that removing a mustache would be a fairly trivial job for a decent visual effects person.

But apparently it's not because he looks really odd.

Howie: Silent. Sorry. He had them. He had the mustache for what? Superman.

Reegs: So when he went to do reshoots, he had the mustache for mission impossible. So he's doing reshoots in the Superman suit with them and start, which I really wish I'd seen photos of.

Howie: brilliant. Brilliant,

Sidey: looks like. If we'd had a go at digitally removing it, it probably would have been about as good. Right.

Howie: paintbrush using

Sidey: if, if you're watching a crime watch program and you have to blow out, someone's face, it kind of looks halfway like that. Like the, just, just not quite blurred out his face. Totally. And it's right at the very start of the movie, a little girl

Reegs: it opens the movie. Doesn't it.

Sidey: to him and he says something to her and you should, at that point, go.

Wow. And just try and turn it off. Not watch anymore because it's a great early signal for how fucking shit a film can be. And it is a fucking Turkey. That one, I will obviously get socketed to watching the thing that you're on HBO max,

when it

Reegs: of course you

Sidey: done, but confidence is not high for that one either.  Well, you just stolen that one off me. So I'll go for the matrix reloaded. Which is the

Reegs: You're going to say the brawl on you.

Sidey: am going to say the

Reegs: I still think that's really cool.

Sidey: not, it's not cool. It's the opposite of cool. the agent Smith having been bested a few times has the cutting plan to have a million agents, Smiths fight Neo, and it becomes very, very clearly.

No longer Keanu Reeves. It's a CGI manifestation of him. And it's another one of the PlayStation looking graphics, shit fight. It's just, it's, it's a really ambitious scene that just in my opinion, like Simon was looking at me like what? You're a prick, but it's just not executed

Reegs: Now I just,

Sidey: I don't really like sequels

Reegs: still really love that scene.

Sidey: Hmm. Not for me. That one. It just doesn't look, it doesn't look believable. I know none of it is believable, believable, but it's, it doesn't look like humans anymore. It's just,

Howie: yeah.

Reegs: It's like a video game and it's got that weightless, floaty feeling. That was also at the beginning of blade too,

Howie: Oh, he's just rigs is just stealing everyone's bloody stuff. I was going to say, play to see between him and the vampire princess. Well, she's the Ninja and, but you've summed up correctly. The weightlessness and the fluidity of the movement makes it look like a computer game. That's just, yeah. Painful. It doesn't look like a human that say being articulated through wires or or actually doing it.

It just looks like because the form of the body loses its context and it just looks at utter drivel. It's a dribble.

Reegs: Yeah.

Howie: I liked blade two, actually, apart from

Reegs: Yeah, it's great. And a guy takes off his Ninja hat. And it's like, Oh, it's the cat

Howie: yeah. From red

Reegs: tool.

Sidey: Donnie. John

Howie: I'm big fan of all the blossoms. Yeah. He's got a bit mad as me.

Reegs: It's tonight, but it's

Howie: say that he stormed Capitol

Reegs: or his nephew or something plays for arsenal youth. So there you go.

 Howie:  I should have said this at the time we were talking about Bruce, but other sharks. Which are a disaster for CGI. I've got a couple hair, deep blue sea. There's the whole scene where he jumps out of the water and savages, Seminole Jackson.

Reegs: Brilliant. That's brilliant

Howie: Yeah. I liked the film.

I just think it's harmless fun, but it's just GFE

Sidey: He's doing his, he's doing his big motor facial speech and it goes on, it is quite rousing. And this, yeah, the means of the bad guy mean he's building up as he's giving this, you know, rousing speech to the troops

Howie: we will win.

Sidey: a cartoon shark jumps out of the water and bites him. I th th the, the acting the act it's fucking drastic.

Cause I watched the clip again last night and the reactions of the it's just so fucking shit.

Howie: but the shark jumps out, grabs him. And then the next effect is the shark going back. But Samuel Jackson still all in one piece and he's falling backwards. So it's just like, Oh, Oh shit, we haven't, we can't animate him being bitten enough. Right. We'll we'll fudge

Reegs: We'll just sort that out later

Howie: and the other ones is obviously Sharknado and jaws 3d

Reegs: jaws 3d is a good one. I always remember. Just how bad that is.

Howie: that that's, that that's even before 3d tech was a shit as it is now. Oh my God.

  Reegs: The lawn mower, man.

Howie: Oh, with piss Brooklyn.

Reegs: with Pierce Brosnan, Stephen King is not a fan of the lawnmower man movie. As it. Depicts, basically a guy running around a really ridiculously bad computerized landscape avenging himself against max headroom.

Howie: Yes, it's just, what's the law. What's the law. My, about the same time as Tron.

Sidey: no,

Reegs: Nitron would have been earlier than the lawn mower man.

Howie: Yeah,

Sidey: is that 92? I think Lomo man.

Reegs: Tron was like said yeah, but very early eighties. Yeah.

Sidey: Good Rob.

Reegs: Actually while you've said that Tron, but Tron legacy, the 2010 one,

Howie: No, no, I like Tron legacy. I think it's good.

Reegs: well, I, I quite liked the movie. I really love the soundtrack. It's absolutely amazing.

But the CGI Jeff Bridges is weird. Yeah.

Sidey: well. I've got a

Howie: yeah. There's a whole world of that.

Sidey: I've got a note to, just as any kind of DEMA de aging in any movie ever. I just don't like it, it doesn't

Reegs: Robert Downey Jr. Worked in Avengers. Didn't it?

Howie: Hmm, one that D here's one for you. Spoilers. Have you first seen the end of the Mandalorian? Haven't you?

Sidey: yeah, yeah,

Howie: Yeah. Mark Hamill.

Reegs: Yeah. He looked a bit weird. Didn't he?

Howie: Carrie Fisher as well in the star Wars films. They're the de aging for that is it's like, they can only say a few words. It's basically like Arnold Schwarzenegger in total recall now, ah, I'm here on holiday and the woman's head goes , that's all they can manage.

Just one stock phrase and then the CGI falls apart.

Sidey: Yeah, that's a good point. I'm going to be slightly controversial here. I can. I know you're not, you're going to rally against this one, but Ghostbusters to the statue of Liberty animation.

Howie: Oh, okay. The

Reegs: Well, it's like a dude in a dress. Isn't it? Basically just walking

Sidey: Yeah, but it even it's like the massive fate on the, on the thing, it just. It's shit. It's really shit. And to the film, I think,

Howie: Okay.

Reegs: Oh

Sidey: I don't, I don't like all that positivity nonsense anyway, it's just, but you right. The bit where the dude just didn't address it just fucking pu really, really shit.

Reegs: Yeah, it doesn't look very good. It doesn't look very good.

Sidey: I thought he might shout at me for that one, but okay. I'm happy with that reaction.

Howie: going to go for the monkeys in Jumanji. The face of all the monkeys looks like a squirrel and a practice child with someone stumped on the, the, they seem to have got the motion. They spent all their budget on game in the motion and all the artists were obviously drawing the limbs and the, and the, and the, how they move.

But they forgot about the fact that they don't look like. Just fucking ginger  kids, because they're just, it just got gingery, facial hair, massive, weird eyes and a stumpy nose. And it's like, that's not fucking monkey as a kid. I used to bully at school. That is not it. So yeah, unfortunately monkeys in Jumanji.

Reegs: Robocop has loads of brilliant CGI, but one scene that doesn't is when Dick Jones falls out of the. OCP building and his arms are weirdly about, you know, three times the length of his body for, for absolutely no reason, really. So it's a really terrible bit in the first scene of casino, Robert DeNiro, really and rather conspicuously transformed into a mannequin just before the car blows up.

Howie: We're all gonna have to, I'm gonna have to look for that.

Reegs: There's a F an absolutely cracking combination of awful special effects and crappy editing in the otherwise brilliant. The untouchables when Elliot ness dispatches the white suited assassin, Frank Niti shoves him off the building. And then, because the editing so bad, he falls for about an hour and a half uh, cut between really bad green screen.

But it does that scene does give us the great line. Where's nitty he's in the car. Which is a good one. The Le Superman for the quest for peace, where

Sidey: Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Reegs: the nuclear guy. And you can see like their capes are blowing and stuff. I mean, it's really stupid

Sidey: well, you've

Howie: Well, you're trying to say that it's fake. Fake

moon landings. She

Sidey: you can see black curtains in the background, moving around from the whatever stage they're standing on.

Howie: Oh my God. Didn't he get his power? When the sun came up. Is that what nuclear man had?

Reegs: Nuclear man,

Howie: So he should, if Superman just sort of slept during the day, fuck him up at night.

Reegs: but the

Howie: Plot hole,

Reegs: up when you can fly. Isn't it? I mean

Sidey: well, I've got another Superman one, which is the 1978 original Superman. And it's where the Hoover dam sequence where you can, if you've looked very closely or just have your eyes open, you can tell that it's. Quite clearly a miniature model. That's being destroyed, not actually real

Reegs: just looks like somebody zoomed in on a train set.

Sidey: Yeah. It's about as complex as that. Yeah. It's a real shame cause the rest of it is or certainly was excellent. 

Reegs: well, I've got two more. I wanted to talk about tonight, but that's it.

Sidey: go

Howie: what? My last one. And it's a shocker. I think it could be the worst one. Kite surfing James Bond in dine other day, the worst of all bond films ever with Pittsburgh Roslyn. I put, no it's so bad. I remember watching it in the cinema and someone saying out loud, my gut, that looks shit. And as you said, it really, it just made everyone just chuckle and it's him kite surfing down a wave.

It's clearing out him. It's clearly not a real wave anyway. It looks even like a CGI wave. Yeah. It's just fucked. It's just completely fucked up. It looks, it's just a proper, tragic ending days. It looks really bad.

Reegs: And also it's kinda got that vibe of like, because Pierce Brosnan was sort of knocking on at this point

Howie: it was his last

Reegs: and it's like, you know, Oh, here he is. He's Bond's still cool. He surfs it's a bit like, you know, you're the sad uncle like going, Oh, come on guys. Let's go down the beach for a surf.

Sidey: But the bit where he actually finishes the surfing. I mean, cause he's on a parachute. It's like what? I don't know what they fucking call that, but he lands at any, he comes through on what, you know, what's gone from really shit CGI to obviously live action and he just. Calm relaxed, not out of breath, you know, it's just, so the transition is appalling, like not just the effect, but into it.

Cause it's, it's absolute horseshit. Well

done for allowing that. Well, it would never cause it makes so much money, but that was the best. But when I watched these things, I think that was the best version of that, that you could put on screen fucking out well done. 

Reegs: Invisible car with shit and die

Howie: Oh, it was awful. Isn't it?

Reegs: who wants to watch that flight flying around the Cinnabar, you know, like a blurry bit of screen.

Sidey: have you, you haven't seen wonder woman 84 yet. Have you

Howie: Oh, the invisible jet.

Reegs: it's the invisible jet in it.

Sidey: chat? Yeah.

Reegs: Oh my God. I didn't know it was in there.

Sidey: yeah, it's in there. I've got a couple more I am legend, which has the opening of the movie, but not opening, but the first half of the movie I actually really enjoy, and I'm not really a huge Wellsmith Smith fan, but the deserted sort of New York landscape.

Brilliant. And then when you do finally see the zombies It's such a letdown day. I'd just a generic kind of rubber looking. I think the manner, the mannequins that he was talking to in the shops had more life about them and there's just really not even as good as resume evil. It's just, it's just PO yeah, stinker.

Howie: talking about resident evil on the PlayStation one.

Sidey: know a decent, a decent first hour and a fucking terrible finale, absolute PO.

 Howie: There's two endings to that film. Isn't there. There's the one where I think he dies. And then another one where he gives the, I don't know, he, I think he makes friends with the fucking lunatic

Reegs: well, no, the zombie, the leader of the zombies comes in and Retrieves, one of the bodies that he's been experimenting on. Cause it was his wife when he wasn't a zombie. And I think it's supposed to be a bit like the end of the Twilight zone turns out the bad guy was man, all along. That sort of thing.

Hmm. Yeah. I've got Hercules in New York, which was an Arnie Schwartzenegger gem. It features him fighting a bear. Although the bear is clearly just a man in a bear suit.

Howie: I need to see this.

Reegs: It's really awful. It's on YouTube. It's just put Arnie wrestles bear. You'll be right there. Still, probably better than the Revenant.

And then a movie that actually, I really liked the evidence, so I dunno why it said that it's a good movie. 1957, the giant claw, AKA the Mark of the cloth now. So ID, I know you said about. You know, not looking back with derision of old stuff, but this was shit, even at the time. This is from Columbia, which had made huge hits like Lawrence of Arabia and Jason and the Argonauts.

But they outsource the special effects to a small time Mexican company with results that were highly embarrassing, embarrassing, even at the time the, the. Plot of the movie is that giant vulture like bird from outer space has an anti-matter shield around it, makes it invisible on radar.

It destroys some well-known landmarks in Washington and New York. It's just. You have to see it to believe it. Even as a kid watching this stuff, I couldn't stop laughing. When you finally see the reveal of the giant claw it's not supposed to be funny, but it just looks like a giant Turkey. it's really bad.

And then when you rack in the rest of the film, that's got dialogue like that bird is extra terrestrial. It comes from outer space and it's as big as a battleship. Yeah, it's, it's a terrible movie, a terrible especial effect. I do urge you to look up a, still from the great cloth just to see this miracle.

And yet this is probably the only film in cinema history to star a giant prehistoric. Extra terrestrial, United nations, hating rubber chicken. So points for that.

Sidey: I've got finally via base, which is a really, really good movie with great effects , the reveal of the alien spaceship at the end of the abyss is just a very sad anticlimax for me.

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. And it's just come after that really tense scene where he has to fill up his lungs with the pink liquid, isn't it. And he's gone right to the bottom of the Mariana trench.

Sidey: Yeah. And also the Hulk film from 2003

Howie: Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, I forgot about that,

Sidey: The whole himself is a bit kind of rubbish, but the final battle with McNulty as a sort of cloud monster thing is, is especially shit. I'm not surprised they haven't tried to do another whole movie, even though they have sort of got it right.

These days just don't think a whole movie, maybe

Reegs: I still quite like the ugly.

Sidey: Well, it's

Reegs: Well, there's this thing isn't there they say, they say works better as a supporting character, not as a, you can't

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah. all right, then let's whittle it down. Rigs. Are you going to play

Reegs: I'm going to put it in the giant claws just because more people have to see this.

Howie: I'm going to put in Dawn of the day, the coat surfing bond. Cause it's so bad and it's so cynically devised, as we've just said,

Sidey: I'm going to put in the mummy returns.

And how would you want to check another? Is this your category?

Howie: I will go for one that really annoyed me, which was the blade too. The fight scene between blade and the vampires, because it ultimately own joy. The blade franchise. I enjoyed the film, but

Sidey: It's coming

Howie: it just jumps into something. It is, does it. This is Wesley at a tax. Hell.

Reegs: no, it's got my Herschel uh, Lee

Howie: Ooh, kudos for pronouncing his name correctly.

Sidey: Yeah. So we've got blade to mummy returns, giant claw and die another day. And I think we've had several nominations online already, so good stuff,  this week's main feature was nominated by Howie and it, I reckon it was a cynical nomination on the basis that at one load of awards, correct.

Howie: no genuinely hadn't heard of it before. And I do mind based on the rule of tightness, I is this film free because I subscribe to enough shit as it is. And this came up as the first thing that was free on prime. I'd heard the classic words from my wife. Oh, I've seen that. It's quite good. So she said that was my that was my barometer for excellence. She didn't say that for some of the films that I've chosen, but yeah, so.

This is Mildred Hayes. Francis McDormand is devastated after the rape and murder of her daughter. Months later, she protests and challenges. The police officials played by Sam Rockwell and Woody. Now I can't say his name. Is it Holsten or Harrolson,

Reegs: Just keep trying.

Howie: just, that's the name of my sex type. When they found to capture the culprit by renting three billboards on the outskirts of town on each of the billboards is a red background with bold black letters asking on each with various sentences. Why nothing has been done for the, basically the horrific death by chief Willoughby. Paper would house and, and it provokes much consternation and anger through the town.

And despite the context for the storyline, this is a quarter, an amusing film in places. It's obviously awful topic, but it's, it's played fantastically by faults, dormant, the yielding willpower of her throughout and our motivation. Which at various points are questioned for its validity by the community, her abusive ex husband, who's fucking horrible.

Her son the police and finally herself as soon as society said this got a lot of awards which I found out afterwards genuinely. And you can tell why her acting is tremendous throughout this. She is brilliant and there's quite a few stars in the Sam Rockwell is Dixon, I think gives one of his best performances.

And we'll go into that as we go through the film. it's both shocking in places, but quite quirky. And there it something that I've found myself kind of getting gradually drawn into with

Sidey: well, I was, I was aware of the film. This was, this definitely fell into the category of one that I missed when you know, what was meant to do. So I was aware of what the plot was vaguely, but I wasn't expecting it to have the humor in it that it did had,

Reegs: Yeah, this is Martin Martin McDonald film.

and he did in Bruge and seven psychopaths, which are also an in Bruges is absolutely

a fantastic movie. Really

Howie: I didn't realize that.

Reegs: Yeah. And I think that's what, cause it is funny even though it's definitely not a comedy.

Sidey: Some of the one-liners

that, uh, that Mildred just spits out are quite incredible. She's got, she's got obviously a massive amount of anger within her, but she, she has also these just cutting one-liners that she delivers throughout the movie that are just brilliant. Absolutely incredible.

Howie: Some choice, swear words.

Sidey: There's a lot of seed bombs as well, but a lot more seat bombs than I was expecting.

Howie: I was like, Oh, okay.

Sidey: right at the get go shit. When she goes to the, as the film opens with driving past the, the aforementioned billboards. And then she, you can see the cogs turning as she stares up at these things. And then she marches straight into the ebbing advertising agency and says, Right. So I can put anything out there as long as it's not defamation or swearing.

I think the fellow just says, well, yeah. And she says, so you can't say fuck shale. Can't

Howie: And and I mean, red at the start doesn't even realize that there are three billboards that are vacant. He w well, w

Sidey: to look it up. And it's booked in there.

Howie: Yeah.

Reegs: a backwater road, isn't it sort of in the middle of nowhere, only 500 yards away from where

Howie: it's off the bypass.

Reegs: where they lead them, where the body was found.  So the, the titular billboard, she puts up on them raped while dying. And still no arrests. How come chief will it be?

  it's quite stark and powerful.

It's it's black text on a red background. The billboards themselves are very big. It's not, it's something you can drive past and notice which the town does. It particularly

Howie: The dentist.

Reegs: Bill. Yeah. dentist.

Sidey: that same.

Howie: Okay. Now.

Reegs: Yeah. So if you are, if you're a bit squeamish of the dentist, the scene where Mildred goes to the dentist and takes the drill and drill through his finger, his thumbnail is fingernail dumb now is high on the squeak factor.

Sidey: he fucking deserved it though.

Howie: yeah, it was considering I went to the dentist today. I did not need to have that in my mind. Oh, fuck.

Reegs: Well, she's brought into for questioning. About the bill? Well, ostensibly about drilling the hole through the dentists thumb, but it never really comes up again. I don't think so.

Sidey: She gets away with it.

Reegs: does. But during the interview bill, the terrific Woody, you pronounce it. It's how is it Holsten?

Woody Harrelson.

Sidey: He was, he was incredible in this. He was

Reegs: He was loved.

He was

Howie: was, was an a, he

Reegs: And he coughs up blood. All over Mildred right into her face, actually quite

Howie: and yeah. And instead of reacting in a, you fucking asshole sort of way, she realizes that,

Sidey: Well, everyone knows don't they, everyone in the town knows, which is why there's a lot of sympathy for him, even though there would also be a lot of sympathy for her having gone through what she's gone through, but everyone. He, he seems to be the one decent cop in the, in the crew. The rest of them are, well, maybe not the rest of it, but the ones that were introduced to the set and they have been sadly one massively racist character.

And I suspect probably quite a few

Howie: yeah,

Reegs: Well, you see, they actually discussed this don't they? Because. And it's one of the things it's that feeling of inappropriateness. There's a really uncomfortable line where bill, where Harrolson says you get rid of every cop with vaguely racist leanings, you'd have three cops left and all of them would hate the facts. Um, it it's just a, you know, it's kind of funny the way he says it and the sentiment, but obviously what underlies it is absolutely awful.

Howie: Especially at the current situation that America is finding itself in in the police force, there was in the police station, there was a chap who was like front of desk. Um,

Was

it, was he the guy in high fidelity? He works in the records. He's like in the record store? No, I got that wrong.

Reegs: I recognize the guy though. I did recognize him, but I couldn't play, I couldn't place him to look it up. Yeah. So we are around this point, introduced to Dixon.

Howie: Oh, dear.

Reegs: Which is Sam Rockwell  who plays kind of a cliche really? He's the hick redneck cop with clear racist tendencies. They had some exchange about, she says you were beating up.

Sidey: you touch it? A black man, and while he was in custody, didn't

Reegs: Yeah. And he says, no, I taught you the man of color.

Sidey: it's definitely an error. If anything goes in this town, if you're a policeman, you can get away with wherever you want. There's no one to answer to for

Reegs: there's, there's this strange kind of ecosystem isn't there where they're policing people. And then at night, everybody from the town is in the bar getting plastered and you know, the, the police themselves are more drunk than anybody else. So.

Howie: Dixon, especially.

Reegs:  Will it be is hospitalized, then leaves the hospital and goes on this sort of idyllic picnic with his wife and kids.

Howie: One last good day.

Sidey: I have to say I was fucking blindsided by this. I.

Reegs: yeah. It's yeah.

Sidey: I didn't see it coming at all. The Mrs. Left the room. She, she was fucking in bits to be honest.  So he's clearly got terminal. I think it was at pancreatic

Reegs: Pancreatic cancer.

Sidey: And he is not willing to subject his family to the final months of just misery. And so he has sex with his misses.

He's put the kids to bed. He goes, she asks him to go and sort out the horses. So he goes out there. And then for me, I don't know if you guys would like this, but from nowhere just pulls out, hurt, puts it over his head and I'm straight away. I'm like, Oh no. And it just says, you've got a message attached to the front of the herd.

He says don't pull off the hurt, just call the boys. And it just takes a gun to his head and pulls the trigger and a fucking out. It was a real shocker.

Reegs: Yes. Wait, there's a few powerful moments in this movie, and this was certainly one of them. You, you felt that he was the sort of only thread of civility running through this redneck police station. So you fear instantly for that. But also I think there, the movie is kind of at pains to point out that he's not responsible for the lack of progress on the case.

It's been a bit of a mixed bag of evidence that they've had and that sort of thing.

Howie: well, yeah, he's, he's pointed out that the police have done everything within their rights and powers to get what they can, but it's just a case of it's one of those, it genuinely is one of those events that they can't find an explanation or a culprit for. And you start to see that. Doubt creep into her head a little bit that she is not justified in having these billboards, but again, she then reverts back to, well, this has got to be done.

This has got to be kept in the public eye. And to top it off, once he's killed himself, the next day, he's written letters for everyone. And one of the letters that's been written is for her. And it is a really funny. Dark letter about how he's paid for an extra two months worth of rent for the billboard.

I hope this makes you feel guilty, but you know, you probably won't because it makes me laugh. Yeah.

Reegs: absolves her of all responsibility says, you know, this was not a factor in it. Basically. It was just. Simple, I guess, is that he didn't want his family to have to go

Sidey: but the lessor itself was delivered. The letter was delivered by his widow was in a quite powerful same where she, she hasn't read the letter. It doesn't know that he's absolved. She, she is still feeling a tremendous amount of anger about these billboards because she probably justifiably at that point.

Thanks that. He might've done a contributing factor to his suicide was that he felt guilt about the unresolved nature of the crime. But of course that's quickly resolved for the audience. W when we have his voice over reading saying that, you know, he knows that she's getting it out of shit about the billboards and he hope she gets another, he pays another month just so she can have another month of angst over there.

You know, having put this up, which is quite funny and his death. Does spark a lot of the, the next sort of few sequences of the film because

Reegs: well, there's genuine grief. Isn't there across the town, but specifically in the police department. And it's actually quite a touching moment where Dixon, the racist asshole is told what's happened

Sidey: Well, there's loads of howling and crying in the, in the station, but he's listening to music. It just, no, it was just a,

Reegs: he's listening to Abba,

Howie: Yeah. Yeah. It's isn't it? Yes.

Reegs: my wife pointed out which I'll bring up again later. Yeah. So he, Dixon is sort of held. By that guy, you were just trying to think of the name of in the toilets, you know, it's real consoling and that sort of animal outpouring of grief. And then what happens next

Sidey: well, he'd actually, he'd even he'd fainted at me. He says, he says, if you can you just stand? Yeah. I said, we don't fucking fight again, but then yeah, like you say, next to the next sequence is quite

Howie: Yeah.

Reegs: It's very well done as well. Like from a directorial. Point of view you follow Dixon as he leads the police station across the across the main street opposite to where the, where red Welby sets, who, the guy who rents out the billboards and the camera follows him as he goes up the stairs and sort of

Howie: well, before he, before he goes up, before he goes upstairs, you say a guy in a suit standing there watching him who means more. The end of the yeah, but

Reegs: So any goes up and then assaults, Welby, and throws him out of a window and it's all done.

Sidey: So

one

Reegs: real immediacy and in, yes, it's one continuous take and it's so raw and immediate, you feel like you're there watching this happen,

Howie: Yeah. He pistol

Reegs: the guy's shoulder. And then he punches the young girl in the face on the way it's a really awful violent attack.

And then he strolls back into the police station past the character. You mentioned how he, which turns out to be less the Freeman from the wire

who is the new incoming

Sidey: he actually says, I I assault white folk too, or something like that as he walks past them, it doesn't me. So he knows, he knows exactly what he's doing. Well, there is obviously in the heat of the moment, it's a properly violent, that quite good in this film of showing the, the violence in a sort of, cause I don't know if you've caught a glimpse of the guy's face when he pistol-whipped

him, but it was, it was pretty grim and they, they almost completely lifted the hood off.

Woody Harrelson as well. You saw a lot of brain matter on the floor. It was fucking grim.

Reegs: Well, I think it's, it's, it's done very detailed. It's not shown for very long and that retains its power and all the violent moments have built up too. Or they come out of nowhere and they're very effective for that.

Sidey: I wasn't sure if he was going to survive that. Red Welby. I thought he might've, might've been dead on the

floor, but as

Howie: thought that too.

Sidey: as he descends and washer street, you can see him calling around. I didn't know. I was expecting to hear someone say phone, ambulance. I was just kind of staring, you know?

Reegs: Then after this week we get another really chilling scene, which is Mildred is at work. Dixon is obviously fired. Although it does take him a while to work out that he's being fired and then takes a good minute and a half to try and find his badge, which he doesn't have. And then we cut to military in her store.

And this is a horrible

Howie: yeah, but this is also a bit where I was like, not sure it. Entirely was justified because it seemed like insert person here. I wasn't sure it seemed a bit too. What

Reegs: Well, you can feel the plot creaking a

Howie: Yeah. That's that's I was just thinking, why does he know her name? Was it because he saw it on the TV?

Sidey: it did seem, yeah. Now you mentioned it is a bit because I was thinking, well, this is the guy, you know I'm still sort of thinking that this is the guy, even like the filmmakers. Clear couldn't possibly have been him, but like you say, why would he, why would he give a shit? Like, why? Like what's he going to do with them if he's just

Reegs: cause he's just a fucking psycho though.

Sidey: But it was, yeah, I suppose he is a psycho, but you know, that the way that scene like says this guy is clearly unhinged and

Reegs: he goes, I don't think we said what happens over here that he

Sidey: where she works, she works in some kind of gift shop. Didn't she, it's a bit of a kind of, sort of general Bricker, Brack kind of place. And he's just sort of perusing.

The items on the shelf, but you know, he's not the kind of guy to buy. Was it, he picks up a, a, a, an ornamental, a rabbit thing or

something and asked how much it is, but you can sell this definite sinister undertones in this scene which he

Reegs: culminates in him telling Mildred that he was, or does he tell her, or just insinuate that he was responsible for the crime

Sidey: He Sydney writes it.

Reegs: and raping and killing her D her daughter willful.

Sidey: Yeah, it's grim. She's saved by the bell as her colleague enters the store.

So Dixon has had a phone call from the fellow that we can't remember where we see him from before saying he has a letter. He has a letter from the captain it's in the station, but probably best he doesn't come to get it right away because everyone's in the station, but he's still got keys.

So he lets himself in

Reegs: It's amazing. Wasn't it? You still got keys, still got the keys to the police station, even though you've been fired.

Howie: come in.

Sidey: So. All the while he's reading this letter and it's a very sort of motivational, it's obviously a bit of a father figure to him. And he's the letter saying, you know, you can still make it, you need to just change the behaviors and blah, blah, blah, blah. And all the while that he's reading it, we can see Mildred is upstairs with four or five Molotov cocktails.

But she doesn't know he's in there,

Reegs: No,

Howie: but she rings twice. She rings twice, but he's got his headphones

Sidey: He's again, he's oblivious because he's got, he's got this favorite music on, so she was just launching these and she's a great shot to be fair. She's

Howie: I thought that, yeah.

Sidey: at the police station. Which again, it's this sort of strangely comedic moment because he's just sitting there reading this letter oblivious, and there's this massive Inferno going

on behind them.

It's so of preposterous. But you know, it does culminate with him. It's quite key because he gets this letter saying, you know, you can still make it because he wants to be a detective, I think, but he's clearly not quite clued up enough to make it, but he takes everything on board and whilst the fire, well, he does realize everything's on fire.

He rescues the case file of the, yeah, the, the debt go. But all the while getting out, he does get some pretty serious burn injuries.

Reegs: He does. He gets really awful injuries.

Howie: I was shouting at the telly for him to use a fucking fire extinguisher.

Reegs: Yes. At this point, Peter Dinklage

Howie: Yes.

Reegs: He had been in the movie before, but now he turns up to play a role where he essentially is the alibi for Mildred.

Howie: On the, on the condition that she goes to dinner with him.

Reegs: Hmm.

Sidey: but I'm not going to fuck you.

Reegs: Dixon is then taken for treatment for his burns. He's completely wrapped up head to foot and he's placed in the same hospital room is Welby red Welby.

The guy he assaulted earlier which seems like really bad planning. Let's be honest from the hospital. And then there's this sort of touching scene, which I think speaks to thematically what the movie's about when. Well be read Welby realizes who it is because obviously his face is completely obscured by bandages.

He doesn't realize who it is, but he gets him an orange juice and a straw,

Sidey: well, he offers them, he offers them an orange juice first. And he does, you know, Dixon says, I'm sorry. And he is all confused, like, sorry, what for,  obviously twigs that who it is, but you still give to them the orange juice because you think, Oh God, what's going to do to him. Is he going to, I thought it was going to like, smell all the bandages across his burns or something, But it is better than that. He's this act of sort of forgiveness. He, I don't know if I'd have that in me, to be honest with you.

Reegs: It's terrific performance from Sam Rockwell there because he's, you can only see his eyes. And yet there is an amazing amount of acting going on there.

Sidey: Yeah. That's pretty good.

Reegs: Meanwhile Mildred goes on a date. Is that right now with a

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: Yes. She goes on dinner with Peter Dinklage.

Howie: Well, she she's, she's having a conversation and she spies her ex with his 19 year old girlfriend. Her is beyond

Sidey: bit of an airhead in

Howie: Yeah.

Reegs: weaving from two pretty decent horror movies. Netflix is the babysitter and probably a bit better than that ready or not. It's also pretty good. So Sumara weaving fans, try that out.

Sidey: okay. Or that that's the same where the ex-husband had mentioned that it was him

Reegs: Who burned down the

Sidey: had burned out the billboards. And there's a lot of scenes where you think they're going to go one way, but actually don't quite play out as you expected. So you think she's going to.

Howie: Smashing ball

Sidey: Go go nuts then, because he's also told her earlier on that we've not mentioned it, but just before she died, the daughter had asked to go and live with him and he throws that in her face and says, if she, if you'd fucking said, yes, You know, she'd come and live with me.

She'd still be alive now. And it's really fucking painful thing to say to her. As though she's, there's a lot of anger there and in the end she can't sat down. She just gives him the bottle of wine and says, just look after your girlfriends, you know, don't be an asshole.

Howie: Yeah, that's what she says. Isn't it? Yeah.

Sidey: and she's just said something really fucking stupid and daft as well.

And you're thinking this guy is just having a fucking midlife crisis.

Howie: And he put he's we we've, we've not spoken that earlier on in the film. He comes around the house and his behavior towards her becomes Rev is revealed in the, as soon as there is, he is super violent to her and the whole conflict is broken up by the song, holding a knife to his throat and his girlfriend walking him going hi, is this the right time to ask?

Can I use the toilets? And it's this weird, weird moment of utter horrific violence, family, family tension. And then the bizarre. Comedy of just this girl walking in, asking to use the toilet, but he's an awful character. He said he's ex police as well. Isn't he? Yeah. He's an ex

policeman as well. Yeah.

 Reegs: Dixon who has now suddenly, I'm not really sure what, what kind of time period this has taken place in, but it's suddenly healed quite dramatically from his wounds, even though being very disfigured then goes to a bar and he overhears a man the guy who threatened Mildred earlier.

Talking about having raped and killed a girl in the same manner as a, as is, as Mildred's daughter. He then provokes a weird sort of fight with the guy where he scratches a whole load of skin and then gets the shit kicked out of him.

Sidey: sort of his skills go up and not share. Cause it goes outside for a ciggie and clocks, the license plate say knows where the guy's from. Then he he's kind of staring at them and just kind of being awkward to provoke this, this fight eventually sitting down and you're like you said, he scratches his face, which I didn't get initially.

I thought that was a strange way to divide, but obviously he's trying to get the DNA. But he does get a right fucking kicking.

Howie: Oh yeah.

Sidey: Maybe Wednesday of it.

Reegs: anyone into forensics here? I wondered why he didn't just take the two bottles that were on the table that the guy had been drinking from.

Sidey: Yeah. That would have worked.

Reegs: It seems a bit of an easier way to do it then, but it may be that if you're listening and you're a violent psychopath or a forensics person, perhaps you could let us know

Howie: you could have, he could have played like a, a gay role in giving him a hand job as well, could have done that. That have been less violent.

Reegs: Well, it's funny. You should say that because I think there were more than a few hints over the film that Dixon was gay and was repressed. There's a scene where he's talking, he lives with his mother and there's a scene where he's talking with his mother and she says something about the fancy woman.

And he says, there's no such fancy women. Of the whole line about if you took out all the racists, all you'd have is the ones who hate the homosexuals or repressed homosexuals, maybe. And also he was listening to Abba, which I think is the main thing for me because, you know,

Sidey: If you listen to Abba, you must be a homosexual.

Howie: it must be, must be but, but With Dixon though, this, this is kind of towards the end of his redemptive arc. But it's it, as the story progresses, it's not a complete full circle of a stereotypical sort of character redemptive narrative because what he aims to do once these got this DNA evidence and he announces two Mildred's is the East.

Got it. And what he's done. And she says, thank you. It's then revealed that due to the fact that this guy was in the military, his commanding officer has said that he wasn't in the country, which I think leaves it open to. But what rigs was mentioning, which is, I think we can either assume it's a coverup or he actually wasn't in there.

It turns out that both he and Mildred then basically decided to go on a little road trip which obviously involves in a state lot of shotguns and a, an attempt to find this killer. Well, Ms.

Sidey: yeah, we get the phone call is quite upsetting cause he phones own and has to break the news that

Reegs: the DNA doesn't

Sidey: And so she's obviously devastated because this potential closure is now just as far away as it was before, but they agreed to go on this road trip. He says, I've got a, I've got a gun. And then you get them going away on this road trip.

But both with pretty big doubts about whether this plan of just rock up to the guy's house and shooting him dead is the right thing to do. It's the kind of ending that me Kate's this, this ambiguous, cause they just say, well, let's, we'll

Reegs: sort of sets up this idea that they're going to kind of go cross-country and kill bad guys. Like it's sort of weird vigilante team.

Sidey: I think the thinking is that, although he may not be the, the perpetrator of this particular crime, he certainly has this, this is their Mo you know,

Reegs: Yeah, but there's no, I mean, you said a redemptive arc for Dixon. There is no redemption for Dixon. Really? He still a violent lunatic. He's just

Sidey: Yeah. But it's a, it means, well, it means, well now,

Howie: he means, well, I liked the way you're in the car. She says I need to tell you, it was me that torched the police station and he's like, well, who the hell else was it?

Sidey: I, I didn't think they were going to go and kill anyone. That's the way I interpreted it, but it's, doesn't really matter. Does it, I suppose, the other way to just say, well, let's just decide on the way, like they're going for something to eat fancy Italian or Chinese and we

just decided, yeah.

it was good.

Reegs: This is an acting tour de force, this movie all of the. Main characters are sensational. I think it's fair to say Frances McDormand, as you said, right at the beginning, how he is, is amazing in this as a woman tormented by her grief and anger. But most of it is internal. It's always, you know, you can see the pain underneath the surface, but it's, it's just the curl of a lip fighting back tears or a glance to aside or, yeah, it's, it's all small stuff, but she is simmering, like you said will it be, Harrelson is amazing in this Sam Rockwell is, is really good with, putting a little bit of depth to what was otherwise a fairly one-note character.

You know, the list goes on and on those three themselves though, are all brilliant. I don't know if they won awards, but they really should have done. They were fantastic.

Sidey: I thought she got the Oscar

Reegs: She got the Oscar didn't she?

Howie: How the fuck did I miss all this? And I'd never heard of it.

Sidey: I love Francis McDormand. I think she's absolutely wonderful. She doesn't really have a bad film for football performance. I can think of off the top of my head. She's incredible. And also married to Joel Cohen mates. They're like just the perfect cinematic marriage.

It's just absolutely incredible. I'm a really big fan of. Sam Rockwell. I think he's, he's great. And this is probably the best role. I think I've seen him in to date. Where do you house? And I've always been a bit, not dislike him. I just say he's just someone who's around, but in this, especially the way he went out, it was fucking light.

So, yeah, I was blown away. It was incredible. It's always really charismatic guy. So to play someone who was like the standout charismatic guide amongst all these arseholes and then go out, like that was just like, Oh man, that was fucking hard to take.

Howie: And have you watched him in true detective, the first

series a now strongly recommend it? It's a, it's a, it's eight parts, easy to burn through during these times, get that, get that under your belt and it's really you. Oh, actually I like the whole, all of the, the true detective series, but what else? The one with Matthew mahogany had is brilliant.

It's brilliant.

Sidey: The budget for this was just $15 million,

which seems like nothing to me. So what'd you reckon winner or loser at the box office?

Reegs: A winner.

Sidey: Yeah, it was big one, 160 mil. Which is. Pretty decent for a film about of rape homicide. You big fan of Google street view

Reegs: Yeah, definitely. Boy, what have you found for us?

Sidey: because when they were making this film it just so happened that the Google street view car was driving around. So if you go onto Google street view for this town, which is there's no such town called ebbing, Missouri It's got all the crew and everything like that, working on the film as

Reegs: no way.

Sidey: around second fires.

So

Reegs: that's mildly

Sidey: that's a good Google straight thief trivia.

Howie: was it shot? So did you just, you just need to find out where it was shot and then you just guess work

Sidey: I have got it written down somewhere. Silver, North Carolina, S Y L V I.

Reegs: They spelled that wrong.

Sidey: Yeah. Ample evidence of crew, including set decoration. Second assistant directors gaffers. Property has been worked on, on the main street. Dressing crew can be seen putting up plywood on on the burn building. 

Reegs: I. Like the fact that the mystery around what happened to Angela is both unresolved and over shadows, but doesn't dominate this story. The movie's not really interested in a cat and mouse, you know, there is a, there is a sort of through line of trying to. Catch the person that did this, but the movie doesn't go that way.

It's not about that. It's about cause and effect that more than it is about crime and resolution.

Sidey: Although having said that we get a brief glimpse of the case file where you see it. Not only was she raped and killed, but she was burned as well. And how do you see the ground is still kind of dark and scorched where it went down. So it was fucking gruesome.

Reegs: Awful.

Sidey: Yeah. On that cheery note, there's also Martin Madonna. Has a white rabbit in all of his films. Did you know that

Reegs: I didn't know that. Oh, is that what the, what, what, what is it in this.

Howie: gift shop.

Reegs: Yeah. I wanted to fit with the gift shop rabbit, the $7 gift. Short

Sidey: yeah, it would be, it would be that. Yeah. It's something to look out for in all of his films a bit like John Ray has doves doesn't he.

Reegs: Yeah,

Sidey: So, yeah, that's pretty cool. And there's all this, the tortoise kind of took me out of the film a little bit.

Howie: Oh, yeah. And asleep. Well, they'll they'll racist. Dare horrible woman. Mum. Just how the fuck was she asleep? Microsoft? I thought she was dead. I thought that was going to be another one as well. Fuck. And how awful people

Sidey: This was kind of inspired by real billboards.

Reegs: That we used in this way.

Sidey: It's a town called Vidor. The IDO are Texas just outside of Beaumont. The police, again, hadn't found anyone for this crime. And so this sort of this billboards went up and they're still there on interstate 10,

Reegs: all right.

Sidey: So yeah,

Reegs: probably see those on Google street view as well.

Sidey: kind of gruesome.

So should we wrap up,

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Howie, were you not entertained?

Howie: yeah. Was brilliant thought. It was just w I, I, I, I can't believe I missed it first time round. I'm pathetic.

Reegs: I had actually seen this movie before which was quite rare for me for this. And I did really like it and I still do really like it. The acting is, is really fantastic. I think even though it was only made in 2017, it's already aged really, really badly. Because I think it's really difficult, you know, although the larger point about how anger corrodes the soul is, of course, like really interesting.

I don't think you're really in a good place right now to watch a movie about police racism, which isn't really interested in the issue of police racism. And ultimately that whole element of it is, is unexplored in this movie. And given what happened over the summer, Probably, you know, it would be a very different movie.

So in that sense, it's aged really badly, but now it's, it's terrifically funny considering it's not a comedy but it will emotionally, it will hit you like a ton of bricks. Acting is, is absolutely amazing. Yeah. Grateful.

Sidey: yeah, I really enjoyed it. It was my missus couldn't carry on with it after Woody and exit from the film. But I'm inspired that though, like you say, there were some some very amusing moments, not least when she's driving past the news reporter and. Interject with some choice language that was fucking brilliant.

A trio of fucking great performances as we mentioned, and one that I'm very happy that you nominated how he well done.

  Reegs: Howie, you nominated this week for the kids choice and you nominated a film. You cruel bastard.

Howie: Yeah, I did. But there was a, a

reason behind it.

Sidey: But it's like, you're going to say it's really good.

Reegs: There was a reason. Go on. What's the reason.

Howie: The reason was my kids are going nuts and I wanted to put something on TV that would last nearly two hours. So I could basically vegetate in a, in a pit of despair because I'd been, I'd walked them the length of the local sand dunes and tried to wear them down. And it hadn't worked. They're like dogs, they just get fitter.

Reegs: Yeah. You just need to run them and run them and run them. Don't

Howie: and they, I think I just riled them rather than run them. And so I chose. The fucking edit. It goes against anything I would ever choose normally. And that's why I chose it. We can be heroes, a bizarrely. It was may, it was 20, 20 American superhero film written and directed by Robert Richard Rodriguez.

It's a standalone sequel to the adventures of shark boy and lava girl in 3d. It stalls

Reegs: Important plot point though. It's actually set in an alternate continuity.

Howie: Yes.

Reegs: Yeah,

But it is set in the same universe as the machete films,

Sidey: Wow.

Reegs: is really something.

Howie: It stars, Priyanka Chopra, Jonas. Who's the villain at Baywatch.

Sidey: Oh man. She is fit.

Reegs: Yeah, but she cannot act

Howie: it features, it features shockingly the Mandalorian Petro per skull various other people.  Christian Slater. Um,  It, it was released on Christmas day on Netflix. So if you've got A superhero daughter of Petra Prasco called Missy and due to various events that go on involving aliens or something she gets shoved into a bunker to protect the children of the superheroes who have got to go and save the world again.

And they get shoved into like a lockdown crash for annoying kids. And the children are introduced as wheels whose. By the way, surprisingly in a wheelchair.

Reegs: Oh, honestly, they call the kid in a wheelchair

Howie: Whales who possesses superintelligence noodles so you can stretch his body. Oh, Joe, who is mute and draws on an iPad acapella, who is the most fucking

Sidey: I hate it. Huh?

Howie: by removes objects by singing. And then the weirdest one, which was slow-mo whose dad was super quick, but he was always in slow motion.

I didn't understand what was going on

Reegs: No, I didn't understand this, but he was probably the best power

Howie: well well, the, the best power was coming up in a minute. There was rewind and fast-forward twins that can alter time through like

Reegs: when the plot needs

Howie: W plot needs them. The, the worst one, the best one was face maker who can make any face. That was this . What can you do?

Oh, look at you. So you're a mirror. Oh yeah. Wildcard who has immense power, but no control over it. And Guppy the kid who my kids loved, who has shark

Reegs: my God.

Howie: they can shape water into anything. The kids, the battle between the aliens and heroics, that's the name of the superheroes on TV. And it all ends with the heroics being captured.

Missy realizes that the only don't talk, who draws on the iPad OCIOs drawings tell the future five minutes in advance and they realize the aliens are coming for them. So when the drawing shows the aliens breaking into the volt, the kids hatch a plan to escape. All sorts of shenanigans take place who

Sidey: a sort of she's just so of

Reegs: go back

Sidey: and shape.

Howie: yeah.

Reegs: we go back to Guppy for a minute?

Howie: Guppy.

Sidey: she was a highlight it wasn't Shea

Howie: Yes. Yes.

Reegs: this was shock girls

shock girl. And love a boy. No. What is

Howie: No shark. Shark. Boy

Reegs: Shark boy and lava girl's daughter.

Sidey: Yes. She

Reegs: Why wasn't she either a love, a shark or a boy, girl.

Sidey: know,

Reegs: know, it's lucky the way it turned out or like, love the shark girl or shark lover boy, like one is a shark made of lava and the other is lava made of sharks.

Sidey: must be dominant, but she was probably the most outright powerful in terms of strength,

Reegs: Oh, I thought you were gonna say the most outright hateful.

Sidey: at no, I was going to say that I hadn't gone to it yet. certainly the most irritating what I think is quite strange is that this is a Robert Rodriguez thing because he could obviously make a decent film and is a very talented guy.

But this, and I know he's got previous with all these other things that he likes to just make these things for his kids, I suppose. But it was fucking whore shit.

Howie: Yeah. I actually think most of it was, I know most of it was, it was made this year. So most of it must have been made in a really just green screen environment. Not near anybody. It must've been a hell of a thing to even produce a make because of the, the, the, cause of all the restrictions.

Reegs: looks like it costs about six pound

Sidey: Basically. So the three, the three most dominant the three most dominant characters would be noodle that fucking acapella who just,

Howie: Sang to get them lifted up in the Willy Wonka lift.

Sidey: And, and Guthy because basically their powers cost nothing to do. So noodle. Noodle basically did everything because just stretching his arms was about as cheap and budget, especially sorry, VFX that you could possibly do

Howie: Yeah.

Sidey: inexplicably having singing make you give things the ability to fly.

Reegs: Well, but I did a little bit of research. So idea and acoustic levitation is in fact, a real phenomenon that uses sound waves to counteract gravitational force. But here I hear you cry. The effect actually utilizes supersonic frequencies, which are extremely high pitched. Rather than low pitched waves.

So I assume they didn't do it that way to avoid agitated dogs from attacking the children on set.

Howie: exactly. Exactly. And, and, and if we're still talking about superpowers, can you explain slow-mo what was it? What w so his

Reegs: my God. And then in the, in the climax as well, he's like his special power is being in slow motion and yet they speed him up.

Sidey: I thought that because they say it, they say it's intro, he's too fast for us to see or something like that. So he's in a permanent sort of time vortex bubble thing. And I thought that's the setup for, at some point in the film, that's going to be important and they will fuck that off, but they never do.

Howie: Well, they Chuck him down a pit and he falls slowly. That's your super power you fall in slow motion now. I'm sure though, scientifically I'm sure if he fell in slow motion, you'd still impact the ground with full motion because then your power

Reegs: Well, yes, you do you to retain inertia

Howie: Yes. There,

Reegs: any sense. You're quite

Sidey: but having, having people in your team who have the ability to wind back time means that you can never lose.

the, so the first thing the fillings would have to do is take him out because it's like Thanos having the time, stone is whatever you do will just get reversed

Reegs: You just fucked.

Sidey: until you've lost. So they, they were always, always, always from the star.

There's going to be triumphant because they had apart from Missy who didn't have any powers, did she

Howie: Oh, she had the power of power of

Sidey: bossy, being bossy? They ha they, I suppose the point of it is teamwork makes the dream work. And once they figured out how to work as a unit, but it was just fucking painful.

Howie: The after you alluded to the the start side, he, but Priyanka, whatever a bloody name is, she cannot act for

Reegs: Oh, she's absolutely awful in this

Howie: Is she, is she in there? Yeah, but sh is she in there for the to get the, to get the APAC audience? You know, just

go, Oh, we got.

Sidey: she must've been there to keep the dads happy because she was wearing an outfit that was, you know, she had a lot of cleavage on display, which probably isn't there for the kids market. and she didn't have a, an outfit. James Jo, she maintained that sort of slightly secretary look basically throughout the whole movie which basically was all fine with

Howie: I would have been, you'd been happier with Christian Slater had had the slutty secretary look cause I felt sorry. He, what was he doing? He's

Sidey: Has he been in any other ones,

Howie: As he print in anything. Has he been in anything? When was the last time you saw Christian Slater? It's

Reegs: It's pretty weird when you've got this film, that's mostly made out of people you've never seen before in children that you've never seen before. And then suddenly you've got Pedro Pascal. Who's one of the hottest actors in the world

Sidey: Yeah. Well, I've just seen him in wonder woman 84, and he's probably the best thing in that.

Reegs: Barely use him

Sidey: Hey dolls

Reegs: Christine

Howie: He, he phones that

Sidey: Hey dolls in a few lines, you know, when crusty goes into the recording booth in the Simpsons to record his lines, right? That's that's the equivalent is just literally right. What we've got to say, bang my bag.

That's dance. Fuck off. See you later. Christian Slater's bizarrely in it, the the dude from fast and furious Tokyo drift

Howie: coach him.

No.

Sidey: for some reason.

Um,

Reegs: Oh, that wasn't that guy, the father of slow Mo was

it

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: because we knew he was fine. Repeating one of my most hated things from a few weeks ago, we knew he was funny because he moved in fast motion.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah.

Howie: He must've been tied into some contractual obligations to have been in that. The worst thing about this film, the very worst thing about this film is that my kids really liked it. Oh my. God, it's a society. What they have, they know what they're doing. This is the disturbing thing my kids laughed. They loved it.

They said, is there going to be any extra ones? I start, I don't know. Especially if I cancel my Netflix subscription.

Sidey: Yeah. Yeah. Don't tell him about shark boy and lava girl and all that shit, because you'll be stuck up. But this is the, one of the things that really pains me is when you mentioned this and people will say, well, you know, it's just a kids thing as if like there can't be any quality or like, taken about making something like let's just put any old fucking shit out.

Cause kids are mugged and they'll watch it.

Reegs: Yeah, exactly. It's a kid's movie. It's not a good argument for a terrible movie. And just because something is like inept, moronic, garbage doesn't mean it should be, I've always thought the same thing. And there were plenty of examples of kids stuff. That's absolutely brilliant. Like upside D for instance, or, 

Howie:  And then to top it all off to make us even more angry dads, it's got one of those and it was all a dream endings in where we know is like, Oh, and surprise. The reveal is, Oh, Joe is an alien. And the actual reveal is this is just a test.

Sidey: It's a

Reegs: I had to watch sadly as well. I had to watch the ending about five times because I kept like there's a bit where What's that fucking thing called Guppy. She's got the liquid metal shark that she makes out of nowhere. And then they go to the pyramid and they take it off for some reason, the minute and a half that happens around there.

I like rebound it, watch it, and then just completely phased out. So I was like, all right, I don't know what happened. I'll rewatch that. So I rewind it a minute and a half just totally phase out again, as soon as I've done it. And I'm like, Oh God, I don't know what's happened.

Howie: But they must that's cleverly designed so that kids just go, Oh, it must've been good. Cause it's over. Or some there was, there was lots of flashing

Reegs: wife said about when the conception of our children.

Howie: Well, lots of flashing lights.

Reegs: it must've been good. Cause it's over.

Sidey: There's nothing to redeem this really I mean, okay. My daughter did like it, so I suppose it's got that going for it. But like I say, it's just shiny and colorful. There's not really anything that it teaches them other than maybe a bit of teamwork, I suppose, but really it's just a shameless kind of, I don't know.

I

Howie: Franchise starter. That's a friend. It's a

franchise

Sidey: it's a franchise continuation because it's, although you

Reegs: I think it's really weird though, because in, because shark boy and lava girl was a 2005 movie, I

Howie: yeah, yeah,

Reegs: So now it's like, and it was played by kids obviously at the time. In fact, one of them was tailored a lot.

Sidey: yeah, it was yeah. Yeah. Twilight.

Reegs: Twilight. Yeah. So now he's a huge star, but obviously they've gone.

Like here's these kid characters that you saw in 2005, Hey, they grew up been fucked

Sidey: Yeah. Basically,

Reegs: and kind of honing that because Taylor Lawton is not in this, the sharp boy and sharp boy, it's really annoying. I don't know if he was annoying in the original thing. I think a better way for them to have gone would have been, to have had him brutally murdered at the beginning and then Guppy going off to event.

Yeah, exactly.

Sidey: maybe even better would be to have Guppy brutally murdered.

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Because there was no fate that would have been too hideous for her. Robert Rodriguez directed to one of the episodes of the Mandalorian.

And I think he probably extracted a better performance South Padre postcard of that than he did in this.

He's also going to be doing the whole of the book of Boba Fett when that comes out.

Reegs: Oh, he's

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: okay.

Sidey: So obviously like that's, that's why I don't really sort of understand is that. He's, you know, he's a, he's a creative, talented bloke. And occasionally just veers into this territory where he's just contempt to put out any old fucking bullshit.

I don't really get it.

Howie: show me the money.

Reegs: how his kids loved it, your kid loved it. I haven't let mine seen it, but I think she probably would.

Sidey: But someone as a filmmaker, you know, and he does everything, he writes, he edits, he does the, you know, does everything on his productions. So for me, I would want to make something that I thought, Oh, he probably, maybe he does, but you know, I would want to make something that's that stood up. That was fucking really good.

You know, in the way that like Pixar stuff certainly the classic ones is great for the whole family. This isn't great for the whole family at all. One bit. This is, this is enjoyable for the kids of a certain age at that. Is it like, because they don't fucking

Reegs: Yeah, I have to say 2005, I think it was sky high with Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston is a far superior movie that takes on the same sort of scene where it's young kids growing up with super powers, that sort of thing. I'd rather watch that movie than this one.

Sidey: I'd rather watch Anthony, and this is

Reegs:  I know it's it makes me a really bad human, but I. Pissed myself laughing when they introduced the kid in a wheelchair, his wheels. Cause it was just like the lowest rent joke that you could possibly have. You're going to have to edit all

Howie: I've just now I've just remembered a fact about the kid that played wheels that was bizarrely linked. He plays Ralphie. In the TV and stage adaptation of that bloody Christmas film that we watched,

a Christmas story that

Yeah, the Christmas story. So Ralphie. Yeah. So he plays the, the TV version made for TV version and the theatrical Broadway style play thing.

Sidey: Did you note the name of the planet, where the aliens come from?

Reegs: No,

Howie: No.

Reegs: right.

Sidey: amigo spelled backwards.

Reegs: I didn't get it. It was a very eclectic looking cast. Wasn't it? I mean, you had everybody was in there weren't they?

Howie: It takes a lot of boxes.

Sidey: you mean it was costing by So tick box got to have,

Reegs: No, I'm no, I I'm not being that cynical. I'm just saying they were a very varied team.

Sidey: well, yeah, that's true. Yeah. I can't go over how rotating coffee was and a winnowing acapella was, and I did get about half an hour in and I thought, please don't do the fucking David Berry thing. Please. Don't fucking do

Howie: Yeah.

Sidey: And they fucking did it. And it was, one of the most excruciating things I've had to fucking sit through. was absolutely dreadful

Howie: It was wasn't it, it was so bad. Oh, I knew. He'd say that.

Sidey: yes. Predictable material from Briggs as usual. So let's say overall then Howie, where you not entertained.

Howie: I wasn't my kids were, which means it's a children's success. Great success.

Reegs: No, I, this was garbage.

Sidey: Did your kids watch it?

Reegs: No, I might let Ella watch it though, but she might enjoy it, but now it's horseshit my numbing garbage.

Sidey: Yeah. One third of our household really enjoyed this and they're two thirds. Not as, not quite so much. No, not for us.

Thanks for that chapter. That was another fun week of film chat. I need to go and wash my hands because I've somehow I skipped battery acid all over them. Rigs, what we, what we w what we're looking at next week.

Reegs: Top five is top five fridges.

Sidey: Oh, nice.

Reegs: Main feature is American Mary, which is on Netflix at the moment. And the kids feature is going to be blue Peter,

Sidey: Oh, nice.

Reegs: but yeah, so, Probably this week's episode, something like that, but I'll, we'll, we'll chat about which specific episode.

Sidey: All right. Cool. That's a classic. Alright, nice one. I will go and wash my hands. So Sidey is signing out.

Reegs: Meats out.

Howie: goodbye.