#266. 'The Crow' (Paramount+)
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The hosts revisit the 1994 The Crow — streaming on Paramount+ — in the same week the 2024 remake face-planted with a $4.6 million opening. Sonny is the harshest, calling it a bad movie on nearly every level: mediocre acting, ugly overhead flying effects, and a general "knockoff Tim Burton"/"shitty Tim Burton's Detroit" aesthetic, and he goes on an extended, self-aware rant about the film's conflation of crows and ravens (the hero is literally named Eric Draven and recites Poe's "The Raven" in a movie called The Crow). JVL pushes back by asking whether it plays as unintentional camp, and lands instead on the theory that the film endures as a goth-Gen-X touchstone purely on the strength of its iconic face-paint-and-trenchcoat character design — a design so good it got directly ported into pro wrestling, spawning both Sting's late-90s dark "Crow" gimmick in WCW and the ECW/WWF character Raven, which sends the trio into a long, gleeful wrestling tangent about NWO, the Wolfpack, Shawn Michaels, and dead wrestlers. Mike, watching it cold for the first time, dubs it "the most expensive student film ever made," arguing its comic-panel visual grammar (freeze-frame reaction shots, wooden expository dialogue) never translates to film, though he grants it captures a very specific 1994 goth/grunge cultural moment down to its Stone Temple Pilots-adjacent fictional band. The episode opens with a long Dad's Corner about JVL screaming at his 16-year-old son Flash for surfing into a dangerous six-to-eight-foot undertow, Mike bragging on his almost-10-year-old's budding neighborhood odd-jobs business (with JVL pitching him on franchising), and Sonny's extended, delighted recap of Rob Lowe's audiobook memoir — Lowe meeting Liza Minnelli at twelve, befriending Charlie and Emilio Estevez while their dad shot Apocalypse Now, and stumbling onto the X-Wing trench-run filming for Star Wars — before a quick box-office check-in on Deadpool & Wolverine's continued dominance.
From the show notes
more like THE RAVEN amirite
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.
Mike00:00:30Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me, as always, are my two co-hosts, who told me once, it can't rain all the time. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. Become a patron there to listen to the show. Tell your friends and family. If they want to be a part of the conversation, they can only do it at Sub-Beacon.com. Sub-Beacon.com. We're going to be talking about The Crow, the 1994 edition of the film, later on in the show. But first, let's see how everyone is doing. JVL, what is going on with you?
JVL00:01:14Back from North Carolina, I, you know, so I yelled at Flash. Sure. I yelled at Flash. This is, this is, I bring it to you boys. I'm a little bit further ahead of you guys on the ride. But I'll make this parent's corner. I have not yelled like veins popping out of my, my forehead at Flash, who is now 16 in a very long time. But we're down at the beach and it is a very heavy surf day. The red flags are up, meaning that there is a dangerous undertow. And Flash took the longboard out past. The third break. So, so the breaks are numbered by sort of, you know, where the waves break. Right. And on this day, it was so heavy that there were three distinct breaks. I would say he was 150 yards from shore in six to eight foot waves and had, had something gone wrong for him, there is absolutely no way. I could have gotten to him in time. Okay. He just would have died. And, uh, and so I, you know, like went out there and just started like, you know, spittle and flex screaming to get him. And he comes in and I, you know, I was, he wasn't even out of the water and I was up in his ear yelling at him. And I did the full, full, I don't, was it Jester or Viper who yells at Mavericks, you know, son, your ego's writing checks your body can't cash. Because I wanted to make an impression on him.
Mike00:03:03Sure.
JVL00:03:03That you just did something that you could have died doing. Right.
Mike00:03:07And I just don't think he had any recognition that he was in danger.
JVL00:03:13Right. It's one thing to like do something that's a little dangerous because you're pushing the envelope or, or, you know, you're trying to do something a little dangerous, but sort of walking into a situation where, you know, you could die. Yeah.
Mike00:03:27And you're just sort of oblivious to it. But that's the, that isn't, isn't this, isn't this nature as, as God intended, right? Like Darwinism? Six, no, 16 year old, 16 year old boys, not recognizing the date, not even, not even acknowledging, you know, like, like a fish doesn't know what's wet. A 16 year old boy doesn't even really understand.
JVL00:03:51This is why warlords employ child soldiers.
Mike00:03:53That's right. Exactly. Exactly. And, and fathers and mothers. To like, are, can recognize the danger are scared, right? You were scared and your reaction reflects that. So I don't know. This, this seems like, this seems like a very normal parent to a teenager interaction.
JVL00:04:18No, no, I mean, maybe, I don't know. It was new to me. It was new to me. Sonny, you're in, was I in Morton Joe with the war boy?
Sonny00:04:25You know, I'm, uh, I don't know. I'm. I'm kind of torn because on the one hand, uh, on the one hand, I understand why it was scary for you for sure. Like that, I understand your, your frustration.
JVL00:04:41I'd say he is a novice surfer. This is the other, like it, it is not, like he is a very skilled surfer for whom this is no big deal.
Sonny00:04:51It's not like he was intentionally. So I, I, I think what you're, where your anger and frustration stems from is that it's not like he was intentionally. Unintentionally pushing his own limits so much as, uh, unintentionally putting himself in danger, right? That's basically what the issue is. It's one thing if you're like, it's one thing if you're like, all right, I'm going to lift 300 pounds, you know, I'm going to bench press 300 pounds because I've never done it before and I've gotten up to two 80. I want to, I want to hit three century mark as I do on a regular basis at the gym. Um, uh, but, but to like sit down at a, at a, at a, you know, leg press or something and just be like, put six plates on and then do it. You know, that, that would be, that would be something you would get angry at somebody for doing instead because it's foolish.
JVL00:05:39It's more like somebody walking into a field and ignoring that there's a sign saying minds. Yeah. You know, like just, just, you gotta pay attention. Question. Think a little more.
Mike00:05:50Yeah. Question. I'm not asking about his immediate reaction or the, although you can, you can tell me that, but I'm curious what his reaction was like. Or what his attitude about the whole incident was, I don't know, five minutes later, an hour later, the next day, like, like how can, how did you observe his consumption of this teachable moment and, and, and how did it stick?
JVL00:06:19I mean, he took his medicine. Okay. But, uh, I mean, deep down he thought he could handle it. Okay. No, I mean, there was a. Yeah, I mean, you know, that's being overcautious, but, uh, this is, this, see, this is, this
Mike00:06:36is the, the give and take of parenting, right? It's like all of the, uh, you know, you let them sort of make mistakes, but of course you can't make, let them make a mistake like that, but you've got to let them sort of figure out that it's a mistake, but you've got to make sure that the fences that you're putting up are, uh, are. Tall enough. I'm mixing all the metaphors here, but like it, it's this, there's no, there's no guidebook to this JVL. Yeah.
Sonny00:07:07Yeah. So you're doing okay.
JVL00:07:09I, you know, I, when I was his age, I was so terrified that anything I did could break bad and wind up on my permanent record. You know, like I was like, boy, I gotta, you know, Ooh, but if I did that, what if, uh, you know, the teacher writes a slip that goes into my file and then I don't get into Georgetown and right. And then he's just like, Hey man. It's all gonna be okay. All right.
Mike00:07:31All right. All right. Do, do, do we need to bring, we, I think we need to bring back the permanent record. There's that, that, that, that, we, it's the internet, but you know, no, but it's in a
Sonny00:07:45way it's having a folder in a way.
Mike00:07:47It's not because the, there, there's something about the, the way that the internet is just everywhere all the time, all at once, and like, it's hard to pin anything down really bad. I mean, like, yeah, you can cancel somebody. You can do, you know, have the thing, but, but like it's, it was more important that the threat of the permanent record that what JVL is talking about, like that, I don't know
JVL00:08:11that that threat ever worked on anybody other than me.
Mike00:08:13It worked on me. It worked on me. Okay. Well, there you go.
JVL00:08:17Yeah. I was terrified of that. That's all I got. I got, I had a parenting with those moments where like, oh, teenage boys think they're invincible. Yes. I was confronted with that and all the cliches are true and that, uh, and it made me angry. I did not like it.
Mike00:08:30All right. Sonny, what's going on? What's going on with you? You're, you're not having to rescue your children from, from waves and no, no, I'm not doing
Sonny00:08:41any of that. Um, well, I, I did have one last question. So are there lifeguards on this beach?
JVL00:08:46No, no, no, no.
Sonny00:08:48So it's just, it's just, uh, people just hanging out on the beach, just doing, doing beat. There's no, there's never any lifeguards.
Mike00:08:56Well, there are flags, right? So there, there's somebody who's, who's putting the flag.
Sonny00:08:59The flag's out.
JVL00:09:00That's like beach patrol. So the beach patrol put out the flags and if you called 9 1 1 beach patrol could send a truck or a helicopter over there, but by the time they get there, you'll either be dead or safe.
Sonny00:09:17Yeah. So that's fair. Um, I, uh, yeah, I don't have, I don't, I don't have good suggestions on this, uh, in terms of, I don't know.
JVL00:09:27Was I too coddling? Was I coddling? Was I just like, well, you know, he's got to make his, got to learn the hard way.
Sonny00:09:33No, no, no, no.
JVL00:09:34There's, there's no, I mean, what are you honestly going to do?
Sonny00:09:36Are you going to like ban him from going in the water? Like you're not allowed.
JVL00:09:40No. No. What I'm saying is should I just, should I just let it go? You're like, yeah. This is how to toughen them up. Right. He's got to be out there with the big waves. That's how you learn. You've got to go get some size on as they say, when they're talking about surfing big waves. Right. No, I expected you to tell me Sonny, like, Oh, why are you Molly coddling this kid? No. This is how we made this. This is the problem with America. These days, we've got these parents still in their kids that eight foot waves are dangerous.
Sonny00:10:08You know, it's, it's fascinating. So if we're moving on to me the, the, the thing I had wanted to discuss, it was actually a different element of this, but I'll get to that in a second, but I'm reading, I'm reading or I'm listening to Rob Lowe's memoir. I am a big fan. I've talked about this on the show. Before I think, but I'm a big fan of celebrity memoirs that are read by the celebrities themselves. Incredible. It's just, it's like the lowest stakes listening that I can do at the gym or whatever. I don't have, I don't have to pay that much attention to it. And it's soothing because they sound like people I know from the television and the movies. Um, and it's not like, again, it's not like I, it's something I really need to pay attention to or is going to get me like angry or riled up, like listening to a podcast would. Um, so I, I read. I really enjoy. I really enjoy when I am in the mood to listen to something at the gym instead of like catching up on a TV show. I need to catch up on or whatever, reading a book, you know, whatever, like I, I like to listen to the, the celebrity memoir.
JVL00:11:13So I'm listening to Rob Lowe's and there's that thing five times.
Sonny00:11:17It's great. It's really, it's actually, it's really, well, it's good so far, man, I'm only like 90 minutes into it.
Mike00:11:22Um, but he's talking about his life. What point of his life are you at?
Sonny00:11:25So I'm, I'm at, he is in high school. He has moved from Dayton, Ohio. Right. Uh, where he kind of grew up, uh, early, early part of his, his life. And he has moved to Malibu with his mom. Who's like a crazy, like a natural health woman. You know, she's always looking for new remedies for the problems she's invented in her head. Um, and like Rob Lowe in the book is like starting to really resent this about her, um, at this age is starting to realize that she's like fucking everything up, um, for him, for him and his brother. And like, uh, and it's like, it is the, the problems are clearly in her own head. Um, but the, but there, there's the moment that just happened in the book. It's, it, it's Rob Lowe discussing the mood of raising kids in, you know, late 1970s Malibu, how there were no parents anywhere. How there was just, there were just drugs and kids, you know, skipping school and like he, the, the story that he is just told in this book is, um, about a kid who, uh, who went, you know, skip school, went to the beach with his friends, did a bunch of quaaludes, decided to go for a swim and they just never found him. They just, they never found him. Like he drowned, you know, he like passed out in the ocean and died and drowned and his body washed away and his friends on the beach worried that they would get in trouble for, you know, being degenerates and skipping school and doing quaaludes all the time while their friend died. And not. Not doing anything about it. Buried his clothes at the beach, buried his clothes and his blanket at the beach. And they were like, this never happened. We were never here. Uh, and, and that, that last, that lasted for 24 hours until somebody, you know, broke down and, uh, broke down and confessed. But this was like, it's interesting because this is not Rob Lowe's group of friends. This is like the, this is like the cool kids. This is like the, you know, the.
Mike00:13:27It's hard to imagine Rob Lowe not in the cool kids.
Sonny00:13:29Well, it's so, it's so interesting. So it's, again, it's very, very interesting. And this is the story I wanted to tell. Uh, it's so funny because like, you know, he, so he's, uh, like, I assume Rob Lowe as a child is very much like Rob Lowe as a man. Um, in that he is both like, he's like probably distractingly attractive. Like, you know, he's like, I'm sure he was like a, like, this is weird to say about a young boy, but I'm sure he's like an attractive child. Like, I'm sure. He is like, you know, charming and, you know, whatever. Uh, and the, and, and, and I'm sure he has the same sort of Rob Lowe, like perky, you know, uh, I, I want to do it energy. So like one of the stories he tells early on is when he's still in Ohio, uh, Liza Minnelli is in town for, you know, for a show or something. And this is right after cabaret. She's a huge star. Um, so he's like walking around downtown Dayton or whatever with his, with his mom and, and sees a guy. A guy rolling by, uh, you know, the, the, all her gear, like a big trunk. He's like, what's that, mister? And the guy's like, this is Liza Minnelli stuff. She's staying at this hotel here. And Rob Lowe turns to his mom. He's like, I want to go meet Liza Minnelli. And his mom's like, okay, fine. So they go to the front desk and Rob Lowe, you know, 12 year old Rob Lowe just goes to the front desk and says, Hey mister, which room is Liza Minnelli in? And the guy's like, she's in suite five 20 son. And so he goes up there. He goes, he goes up there and, uh, knocks on the door and nobody answers, knocks on the door again. And somebody kind of shuffles over to the door and opens it up. And it's Liza Minnelli's boyfriend at the, I forget who her boyfriend at the time was. Um, but he's like, no, no, he's, he's like, who are you? I'm like, and he's like, my name's Rob. I want to meet Liza Minnelli. Cause I'm an actor too. He's, you know, doing student plays or whatever at this point. And he's like, all right, come on in. And he goes in and Liza Minnelli sitting on the couch, drinking wine and eating chocolate. And she's like, Hey son, how are you doing? What do you do? Why you want to be in the movies? And it's like, and it's, it's just like, he spends, you know, a couple of hours with Liza Minnelli and her boyfriend and then leaves. And he's like, this was a great story that just happened to me, Rob Lowe. And the whole first 90 minutes or so of the book is like this. I swear to God, it's like him, him just living the most charmed life. I said it. I sent a text to a friend. Let me see if I can, uh, pull it up here real quick. Just like highlighting all of the things that he was, he was up to. So like, again, he, he moves from Dayton to, uh, to California. He moves to Malibu. So he's not quite in LA. And when he gets there, like people, people out there think he's like kind of a weirdo because he wants to be an actor. You know, you would think like, oh, he's in California. Like they'll understand him more out there. But like, he's like, uh, one of the kids. I can't. I can't say this word now. One of the kids calls him the F slur. Like, oh, what are you?
Mike00:16:34Uh, yeah, he's a, he's a theater kid. What are you?
Sonny00:16:37A theater kid?
?00:16:38Yeah.
Sonny00:16:39Limp wrist, et cetera. So the, uh, and, and so he's like, I couldn't re I couldn't really fit in with anybody. I wasn't, I wasn't really able to find my crew. And then one day I saw these, I saw these kids, they had an eight millimeter camera. They were shooting a movie out on the street and I went up to them and I, I, I introduced, I was introduced to them and it was Chris and Sean. Sean and Charlie and his brother, Emilio. Oh, and it, and it was like, I was just like, I was like, oh my God. He just like wanders into the middle of the pens and the machines and the pen.
JVL00:17:15Yeah.
Sonny00:17:15And, and, and he was like, yeah, I started talking to them and I found out that, uh, Charlie and Emilio's dad was, uh, he was off, he was off shooting a movie. He'd be there for a couple of years. It was in the Philippines. Turns out it was apocalypse now. And, and like, all right. So then, uh, so, so he was like, yeah, I couldn't, I didn't really fit in with the cool kids. So I found these other guys to be with and we started making movies together. Uh, and then another one, he's like, I went to a Dodgers game and, uh, my brother was wearing, my brother, Chad was wearing a Yankees hat on it. And a bunch of people wanted to fight him at the Dodgers game. Even though, you know, everyone talks about laid back LA people, they wanted to fight him until somebody in the crowd stuck up for us. And he came over and he was like, Hey kids, I'm the head puppeteer. Here at the Muppets studio, you want to come watch them make some Muppet stuff. And Rob Lowe and Chad Lowe are like, sure, mister, we'd love to go do that. They go there the day they go there, they're shooting the rainbow connection. Like it's, it's not like some random episode of the Muppet show. It's the rainbow connection. Uh, later, like a few pages or a few minutes later in the book, he's like, yeah, you know, friends, aunt and uncle were talking about this, this job that they had. They're rotoscopers, which was like the cool news. Thing, you know, it's like you draw over, you draw over the, the action. And that was like the, that was like the CGI of the day. So we went out to this, we went out to this little, you know, shithole studio in the Valley and it smelled bad. The costumes all smelled bad. And, you know, they had this set that looked like it was put together with, uh, egg cartons and they went to start shooting the thing. And, uh, it was the run on the death star. It was, it was the X-Wing run on the death star. I was there to watch the filming. I mean, it was the coolest thing. He had this cool camera set up. And I was just like, I was like, what is this every single thing? He lives the most charmed life of any human being who has ever existed. I mean, it's, it's, it's the, it is this. It, and you know, sometimes you read these stories. Like I recently read Patrick Stewart's memoir, which is really good and interesting, and he had like kind of a charmed life as well because he's just incredibly talented and like, was, but also it was like coming out in like kind of a golden age of British theater. And, you know, he's, he, but, but even him, you know, there were struggles. He grew up poor and it was like, am I really going to be an actor? I'm bald, you know, people don't really want me to be a lead. And I, I don't want to do these crappy, you know, community productions forever. And like, by the, he, you know, he doesn't really hit it big until he's in his forties. I guess, or like late thirties with, uh, with when he is, when he gets the card roll. Uh, but like. It's just, Rob Lowe's just like, I was walking down the street and a bag full of money hit me in the head. And I was like, this doesn't happen to everyone. What's the deal?
JVL00:20:08If you think back to the Brat Pack documentary, this makes so, it gives so much more context for the moment when Andrew McCarthy interviews Rob Lowe and McCarthy is like, uh, oh, wasn't that terrible? That story they wrote up about us. Rob Lowe is just kind of like, what are you talking about, man? Everything's great. Everything is perfect. How lucky are we?
Sonny00:20:36I, I swear to God, I, I was, I was literally, I'm listening to this book and thinking about that interview the entire time. Cause it's like Andrew McCarthy, clearly like Andrew McCarthy's a working actor. He's in like the top 1% of all actors, you know, like he, like there, there, there is a, there's a, there's a universe in which he should not really be complaining at all. But then he looks at like Rob Lowe and it's like, I should have had that. Yeah. I should have, I should have been that guy. And you know, some of us are just born lucky. Good for Rob Lowe.
Mike00:21:07Yep. Uh, there is also something to what you described as like, I have this, this idea that LA and Hollywood in like the middle, late seventies is just so much, so much smaller than that. You know, it's, it's, it's tiny and it's a company town and like people are just walking around like doing stuff and, and it's not corporatized yet.
JVL00:21:29Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I would just put in a plug here for anybody who has not seen it. The one season Fox series, the grinder, which stars Rob Lowe.
Mike00:21:42Yeah. Have you seen it, Michael? No, but you've talked about it. You've said it is one.
JVL00:21:45It's, you know, it's like 15 or 16, 22 minute episodes and it's not quite at the level of arrested development, but it's operating in the same universe. And yeah. Rob Lowe's amazing in it.
Sonny00:22:01It's a, it's a good show. It's a funny, it's very funny. It's very well written. Uh, and the, um, it, that's the Fred Savage show, right? Fred Savage was the, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a, I did not watch the whole season. I should, I shouldn't go back and rewatch it. I go back.
JVL00:22:15It actually picks up steam. It gets better and better and better. It's a, it's really great. Michael, what are you up to, buddy?
Mike00:22:22Well, um, to return to dad's corner, I just, I'm going to sing praises for my, for my oldest, my nearly 10 year old, uh, oldest son. Um, he's become a bit of an entrepreneur, if you will. Um, I don't know where this bug came from. Maybe it was sort of in the dog days of summer where he sort of was like looking around and going, I don't really have much left to do. And he's getting to that age where like, he has an idea of like what he wants to buy for himself, but he doesn't have any money because he's not even 10 years old. And so he sort of started to explore with his mom. What could I do to make some money? What sort of jobs can I do? What am I qualified to do? What am I able to do?
JVL00:23:11Well, son, good end of the YMCA.
Mike00:23:15Come on. And so he, uh, wrote up these flyers that, um, his mom helpfully posted on the neighborhood Facebook group. Um, but he wrote up the flyers himself. He wrote up the flyers himself to do, um, basically odd jobs, but some specific stuff like, um, like mothers. What's that? Mulch. No, no mulch. You do mulch. That's, that's, that's, that's some manual labor. He's not quite that well. I just assumed he learned from, from your dad.
JVL00:23:49I learned it from watching you.
Mike00:23:51I don't, I don't want him to be stuck in the same cycle that his dad's in. I want him, I want him to dream JVL. I want him to dream. Uh, no, but he's doing some stuff. So it's like he advertised himself to do like mother's morning out for like younger kids who, you know, uh, you know, cause he watches his brothers and, and he has experience doing that. You know, also stuff like getting the mail watering plants and doing things like that for, for people who are leaving. And so he, he posted these and like the, the, the offers or the, the requests like keep coming in. Like he can't. He's like all of a sudden his schedule is loaded with things to do. So he's got a, uh, feed some Koi in a Koi pond, uh, elsewhere in the neighborhood. He's picking up somebody's mail. Who's going to be gone for a week. Um, and he's got sort of, um, it was like a, a kid in the neighborhood, maybe first grade or so, uh, who doesn't, um, who doesn't like to read. And so he's going to like go over there and like read with him. And maybe help kind of kickstart his, anyway, it's all the, so now he's got like all of these jobs and I'm just very impressed. It's, it's like, uh, you know, I don't know if you guys had sort of any kind of jobs you did like that, mowing lawns or, or things like that when you were kids. But, um, I was not, I was not nine years old when I started doing stuff like this. And I'm just impressed.
JVL00:25:23I don't want to tell you how to parent, but you have an opportunity here to teach him the most important life lesson, which is. Franchising.
Mike00:25:31Oh, believe me. That's, that's the next step.
JVL00:25:34Hire your friends. Once he has more work than he can do himself, he brings in his friends to do it and then he takes a taste. Oh yeah.
Sonny00:25:44What's not franchising? That's just, that's just, you, he should move up to management.
JVL00:25:48That's right. That's, that's, that's a management. This is, this is really the key. But you know, you can't have any transparency between the workers and the customers though, right? The customers have to think like, Oh. Oh, my dollar is going, you know, but the, the kids who work for him have to think they only get 75 cents.
Mike00:26:05Exactly. So yeah. Now I'm imagining like a group of neighborhood kids, like sitting out on the, on the corner of the road, just like waiting for, for him to ride by on his bike and like, all right, I got some, I got some, I got some work today.
JVL00:26:21More like 10 year old McKinsey, like they're consultants, not, not, you know, man, day laborers you pick up at the Home Depot, but that's okay.
Mike00:26:29It could, it could be, it could be any of those anyway. So it's, I don't have anything. I don't know. Like I, I seem to remember. Go ahead.
Sonny00:26:35You asked if we, I, so I, I had two such experiences in my, when I was growing up in Virginia and one of them, one of them went very well. It was just like watering plants for neighbors. So I'd go to their house and I just water, I just like walk around and water the, you know, the plants and it was fine. That was easy. It's a couple of bucks a day, whatever. There was a second one where a neighbor, neighbors went out of town for the summer and they wanted me to. And they had this, you know, the little tractor thing that you put on the, on the hose and it like feeds along the hose. Yes. Is this familiar to you guys? I think so. It's like, it's like a sprinkler, but it moves.
Mike00:27:12Correct. I know what you're talking about, Sonny.
Sonny00:27:15So they, uh, another neighbor asked me to, to operate one of those in his yard for a summer. And like, I would say like half the time, the thing just fell over onto its side through no fault of my own. Certainly. Just because it was. It's like a poorly designed thing.
Mike00:27:30You hit a, you hit a hill in the grass, you know, a little divot in the grass and that little tractor thing goes.
Sonny00:27:35And I didn't, I didn't care enough to like, frankly, really pay close attention. So the, the guy's yard mostly died that summer and I felt bad about it. And I did not water his yards anymore. After that, the plants are easy because you just go by with the hose. It's like, but the, but the yard situation was like that dude just needed to invest in a sprinkler system. Cause this, this, this. The, the, the tractor hose thing was not very good at its job. I was great at my job. The tractor, I was failed by the equipment in that situation.
Mike00:28:09And, and, and Hey, you're dealing with what, what he provided, you know? Exactly.
Sonny00:28:13It's not like I brought my tractor hose.
Mike00:28:17Exactly. Um, yeah, I feel like I did. I did some yards when I got a little older and then I did have a summer where instead of getting a job, I did. This was like in high school. It must've been like 14, um, where I would paint or stain decks in the neighborhood. And, um, that was really hard work in the sun, in the Georgia sun, but I got paid pretty well for it actually. So I'm hoping this starts a, a, uh, a movement, uh, for him where, you know, he's not just simply, um, you know, walking around begging us for money. Oh, I want to buy this Lego set. I want to buy this new Pokemon card. Um, and, and he becomes independent and, um, and all that. So, um, I also wanted to mention before we move on, uh, that the conversation that we had last time about the Chronicles of Narnia, a, um, a friend of the show, Amanda, uh, Amanda Ellie. She said that, uh, she texted me about this. She said, um, that the talk about Narnia was perfect timing that her oldest daughter. Uh, just started reading it. And, uh, and Amanda said she was, she thought it was weird that things started with the magician's nephew. And they've in fact got a couple of chapters in before she listened to the show and realized the mistake and, and rectified it as best she could by moving to the changing people's lives. Exactly. That's what I wanted to say. We, this is the show. This show is not just entertainment. This show is not just lives. We're changing the world. The world with this show, Dirk Diggler saving, saving marriages, one relationship at a time.
JVL00:30:04Remember that in the out there, there is in the outtakes of boogie nights, there is a scenes from the documentary that Dirk financed for himself. And he talks about, you know, people coming up to him and saying that his work has saved their marriages. It touches you right here.
Mike00:30:22Uh, all right, well, let's move on though. And talk about the box office, uh, uh, sort of, uh, weird time, uh, end of August here at the box office. Number one, Deadpool and Wolverine, uh, chugging along here at gosh. Now it's, it's over $577 million. Number two, alien Romulus. Yeah. Uh, and number three, it ends with us, uh, rounding out the top five blink twice and the forge. I don't know what those are. Um, but, uh, any box office thoughts we have as a dead. Deadpool and Wolverine.
JVL00:30:59When is the next big release movie coming out?
Sonny00:31:01Sonny Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
JVL00:31:03That's which is, is that a October release?
Sonny00:31:06No, that comes out. Uh, not, not, it's the weekend after labor day.
JVL00:31:10Okay. So Wolverine had like a month of running room.
Sonny00:31:15Yeah. I mean, Deadpool and Wolverine is doing enormous, enormous business because there's really not a whole lot else out there to, uh, to challenge it. I mean, twister, it's interesting. Twisters continues to chug along. It's going to hit. It's going to go. It's going to go over 250 million. If it isn't already, it may already be over 250 million, uh, domestic. Um, it's not quite, it's almost, uh, you know, that, that movie's problem was just overseas. Nobody, nobody overseas wanted to go, to go see it. Uh, the new crow movie.
JVL00:31:46They don't even know what it, what it was.
Sonny00:31:48What's that?
JVL00:31:49It's cause they don't have tornadoes. They don't even know what a twister is.
Sonny00:31:52Right. Uh, that's right.
Mike00:31:54The new crow movie is like way down at, uh, the new crow list.
Sonny00:31:59The new crow movie grossed $4.6 million this weekend. So it's a fairly, fairly disastrous outing for Lionsgate. And, uh, the, it's so funny. The director of the original crow, Alex Proyas was all over Facebook rowing about it, uh,
JVL00:32:17about it, about its failure, which, you know, like he was about the failure of the, well,
Sonny00:32:23he, cause he doesn't, he didn't want them to remake it because, you know, it's such a solemn.
JVL00:32:29Um, I mean, it's not like they hadn't already done a shit ton of sequels.
Sonny00:32:33Direct to video sequels. There's one with, uh, Kirsten Dunst. I agree. I like, I think it's weird and shitty of him. Uh, Proyas is a weird guy too, but it's neither. We can talk about that a little bit.
JVL00:32:44In what way?
Sonny00:32:46What? Just a, like he, Alex Proyas is a, uh, is, is a director who was championed very hard by Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert, huge fan of Alex Proyas. Really? Really loved the crow and dark city and his movie knowing the Nicholas Cage one, um, uh, about the guy who was used numbers to predict the end of the world, basically. Oh yeah. Um, which I like a lot as well. I actually, I like, I like dark city. Okay. I think knowing is very good and very interesting. Um, but you know, he, he is like, he has not really found a footing in the post the, the, I don't know, the, the recent Hollywood. And, and it, he directed robot to the extent. Yeah. He directed I robot back in like 2003. When did that come out?
JVL00:33:37The Will Smith 2004.
Sonny00:33:39Yeah. So anyway, uh, I, I, I don't want, I don't want to go off on an Alex Proyas tangent. Um, but he, uh, he's, he was, he was having some fun at the expense of the crow.
JVL00:33:52Two things in bad taste.
Sonny00:33:53I feel like it's kind of in bad taste. I'm opposed to people cheering for the failure of.
JVL00:33:58A great movie of other people in there. I mean, look, unless he has like a beef with the director and star or producer of this
Sonny00:34:05or something, but I assume there's some sort of financial issue here that he probably got cut out of something.
JVL00:34:10You know, this is, this is like the, what the 1972 dolphins celebrating every year when the last undefeated team loses or something like that. Throw the fuck up.
?00:34:21Exactly.
Mike00:34:22Um, all right. Well, any other box office thoughts or we know let's get to the crow. All right. Well, we're. We're, uh, moving on. We're going to talk about the crow, not the dismally performing, uh, 2024 version of the movie, but the original 1994, the crow, Sonny, do you want to give us a big boy review of this 30 year old movie?
Sonny00:34:45The crow starring Brandon Lee, not Bruce Lee, Brandon Lee, um, uh, as Eric Draven, who is murdered.
JVL00:34:57Get it. D Ray.
Sonny00:34:58I want to, I will, we'll get to that. We'll get, cause I got, I got a lot of problems with this movie and that's one of them. Uh, but, uh, he, he stars as Eric Draven, a musician who is along with his fiance murdered on the day before Halloween in, I think it's Detroit, right? This is Detroit.
JVL00:35:18All Detroit.
Sonny00:35:20And, uh, and, uh, the violence of this killing he's tossed out of the window. She's raped and beaten and stabbed. The violence of this event leads to his soul being trapped, uh, on, on planet earth. It is now inhabited in a crow, I guess. And the crow brings him back to life and he takes revenge on the people who murdered him and, uh, also aided in their, uh, their, their death. So, uh, there, there are two ways to look at this movie. One is as a fairly straightforward revenge, uh, action movie. And on that level, it's fine. Like it's, it's, it's fine. Totally fine. Revenge. Supernatural. Supernatural John Wick. Supernatural John Wick. Right. And, you know, Brandon Lee is like, was like convincingly physical. He had some of his father's, uh, gifts. Um, and it's really very tragic. I mean, the big, the big, I said some of, okay. So it's a supernatural revenge flick. It's, it's fine on that level. The, the reason this movie has had, uh, a kind of long lasting, you know, lifespan is because Brandon Lee famously died on the set. He was shot in a, in a freak gun accident. You know, considering, considering how many real guns are on movie sets, it's kind of amazing that there are only two fatal shootings, I think, in the last 30 years. Yeah. The, the, the crow and the rust.
JVL00:36:48Is it really only those two? Brandon Lee and the rust?
Sonny00:36:51I think, well, fatal.
JVL00:36:52I thought it was more common than that.
Sonny00:36:55There, there are, so when people die on movie sets, you know how they die, they die in vehicle crashes.
JVL00:37:00Yeah.
Sonny00:37:00They die. They, it's stuntmen, stuntmen dying in car crashes or motorcycle wrecks or it's like, it's, that's where the real danger is. Guns on set are actually, I mean, almost always incredibly safe because it's like they have a guy on set who is paid to make sure that there are no real bullets in the guns. And this is the real shocking thing about the rust shooting. Was it like, you know, I've spent, I've, I've spent time on movie sets where guns are around and being used. And when I heard about how they were behaving on that set, I was like kind of flabbergasted as just, it's not. Yeah.
JVL00:37:37The armor on that set sounds like a total incompetent.
Sonny00:37:41Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the, the prop master, the gun, the, you know, whatever it was, that was a mess. Anyway. So he, he kind of famously died. And then there was the whole curse of Brandon or Bruce Lee. And, you know, was it, was it actually hit by the tongue, you know, and the, the whatever. But like the, the, the long and the short of it is he, he died and it was very sad. Um, and, and it, this movie is also a touchstone for a certain generation, uh, a certain type of person that we say in, in a certain generation. So if you're like a goth gen X person, this is like your citizen cane. Um, you know, this is the, if you were, if you love wearing eyeliner and white makeup and trench coats and leather pants, and if you, you know, do the shoe gaze thing, and, uh, this is your, this is the movie that most influenced you as a child.
Mike00:38:36Uh, surprisingly no smashing pumpkins on the soundtrack. You know, it's like one missing thing. We get the cure though.
Sonny00:38:41We do definitely get the cure. We get the cure. Stone Temple Pilots. Interestingly, also Stone Temple Pilots. It's very weird. You know, which I was like. Right.
JVL00:38:48There's a grunge aspect to it.
Sonny00:38:50Well, there, it's this weird, it's this weird moment where like the, the kind of new wave goth grunge moments are all coming. They're all kind of crashing together. And, and whatever. I mean, there's, there's a whole, there's somebody who knows music a little better than me. Like me, I'm just excited Oasis is coming back. I'm like, yeah, Oasis reunion fucking rules. I don't care about, you know, the cure and all that. Um, so, uh, I mean, look, I, I'm just going to be very blunt about this. It's, it's a, it's an opinion I've held for many years. I didn't actually see this movie when it came out in 94. I was only 12. I was like 11 or 12.
JVL00:39:28At the time I, and it is R rated, right?
Sonny00:39:30I mean, there's a boobie, but there's nudity and there's a lot of violence. And so I didn't see this movie.
JVL00:39:37It is flash. It's one, one breast for a half a second. And then by Ling's ass. Yeah, that's, that sounds about right. Yeah. And the gore is very off screen. So it's like they wanted the R I, I, I, this seems to me that they went out of their way to get the R rating when they didn't really need to have it. Because they needed an R to fit with the gestalt of how edgy the whole thing was.
Sonny00:40:05Sure. But this is also, this is also a time when like getting an R rated, an R rating wasn't necessarily the stamp of death. You know, this was like before everybody like had to have PG 13 on stuff. There was still a market for, you know, R rated, R rated movies. The, I'll just be blunt about this. It's not a good movie. I don't think it's, I don't think. I don't think it's, I don't, I don't care for it on like any level. I don't think the acting is particularly good, even though I like a lot of the actors in it. I don't think the acting is particularly good. I don't think I hate, I hate just how the whole thing, I hate the special effects of this movie. I hate all of the like special overhead flying. I, it really feels like it's funny. I watched dark city right after this, which is a movie I like a little more. I like much more than this, but it's still, I don't think it's quite great. And it really is like. Alex Proyas saw Tim Burton's Batman and was like, I want gothic cities with weird skyscrapers and we're going to put them all on top of each other and it's going to feel.
Mike00:41:11Disproportionate buildings.
JVL00:41:13Yeah.
Sonny00:41:13Yeah. I, I just, I don't care for the look of this movie at all.
JVL00:41:16It is Tim, Tim Burton's Detroit.
Sonny00:41:18It really is. It really, it's like knockoff. It's like shitty Tim Burton. Um, and, and you know, I have enough shitty Tim Burton movies that I can watch. If I want to watch that. Um, uh, I, again, I just, I don't, I don't care for this movie on any, I don't think it works as a plotting on a plotting level, really outside of the very basic revenge structure of it. It's fine. But the thing I really hate, the thing that I think is like the laziest, it's, it signifies the laziness of everything else in this movie, which is, uh, the conflation of crows and Ravens. They're not the same. They're not the same thing. They're different birds. They're, they're, they are not, they are both big black birds, but they're different. They're just different. Crows are not Ravens. So this movie is called the crow. But as you, as you kind of pointed out, JBL, the, the character's name is Eric Draven, like Erica D Raven, Eric, the Raven. Do you get it? And then like, that would be bad enough. That would be bad enough. But then there's a whole sequence where he recites part of Edgar Allen Poe's the Raven. And I'm just like, I don't know. I'm just like, it's right there in the name. The name of the poem is the Raven. This movie's called the crow. And like, it's fine. It doesn't even bother me that much that they use nothing but Ravens as crows. Like all of the crows are Ravens. If you like, again, if you like know anything about crows or Ravens, they're just, they're just different. There's, and like, I feel like such an, I feel like such an asshole focusing on this. Like I'm doing the, a cinema sins thing, but it. It's just like, it really, I do think it's indicative of the like lack of thought that went into the whole thing. It's just like crows and Ravens are not the same thing and treating them as the same thing is wrong.
Mike00:43:12Are you sure about that Sonny?
Sonny00:43:14We have, we have definite words have meaning. Words have meaning. Animals are different animals. You can't just have a movie called the elephant. And then like, it's like a lion running around.
Mike00:43:25Hold on, hold the phone. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta break. In here with some, you couldn't, you couldn't.
Sonny00:43:30All right, here's, here's, here's what else. You couldn't have flipper. You couldn't make a movie called flipper and have flipper played by a great white shark. Okay.
Mike00:43:38Okay. But I think that's, I think that's, I think that's what if it was a porpoise? What if it was a porpoise? Exactly. Exactly. Sonny. What if dolphin?
JVL00:43:47Speechless. What is the movie dolphin tail? The dolphin was played by a porpoise there.
Sonny00:43:53Which one's dolphin tail?
JVL00:43:55Uh, the Harry Connors jr. Ashley Judd.
Sonny00:43:58What if it was day of the dolphin, but it was a porpoise? See, that would be a problem. That would be a real problem.
Mike00:44:04Okay. I think because I think that the, the, this is one of these, one of these situations where humans have imposed a distinction that may not be there biologically between crows and ravens is all I'm saying. They're basically like as close as dolphins or if a crow fucked a Raven, would there,
Sonny00:44:27would they have babies? Babies that could produce offspring?
Mike00:44:29There's a bunch of different, there's a bunch of different species. There's a bunch of different species. So I'm just saying they're all, they're all members of the Corvus genus. That's all I'm saying.
Sonny00:44:41I'm sorry. No, I, I disagree. I disagree.
Mike00:44:44But even if I, it's a little more like planet of the apes, like there are, even if I didn't,
Sonny00:44:48even if I didn't disagree again, like focusing on the fact that Ravens play the crows is not the end of the world. It's like, not even the thing that most it's like the thing that actually made me the angriest was. The part of the screen. There's somebody sat down and wrote a screenplay for the crow and was like, what if we just use Edgar Allen Poe's Raven poem? And that was the.
JVL00:45:09Cause they're the same.
Sonny00:45:10Fuck off. It's, that's not the same. It's not a crow tapping at the door, at the window, at the bust, the pallid bust of Athena or whatever.
JVL00:45:19You realize that there is zero chance as they were writing this thing that they were going to be able to resist. Yeah. Using that. Text.
Sonny00:45:28Call it the Raven then.
JVL00:45:30No, because the source material, the source material is a comic book.
Sonny00:45:34The comic book nobody read.
JVL00:45:36But, but just sound wise, the crow to one syllables, it's the stronger title.
Mike00:45:42And I bet the, the Raven Raven makes people think it's a, it's a film adaptation of the Poe poem.
JVL00:45:49Raven was the wrestler care. One of the two professional wrestling characters derived from this film. We'll get to that. Give me a minute. I want to ask a question though, Sonny, does, does this film not succeed as camp for you? Because as you often say, camp cannot be made intentionally. And this movie is very campy and absolutely unintentionally. Everybody who's on this thing with the possible exception of Ernie Hudson thinks they are doing deadly serious work.
Sonny00:46:27Ernie Hudson knew it. Yet Michael Wincott might've also known what movie he was in.
JVL00:46:33Maybe, maybe. Who does he play? Is he like villain?
Sonny00:46:36He's like the villain.
JVL00:46:37He's the guy who plays like Christopher Lambert. Yeah. Like dime store.
Sonny00:46:40Christopher is the guy who looks like Christopher Lambert.
Mike00:46:42No, he's the guy who, he's the guy who looks like James Franco. Actually.
JVL00:46:48Yeah. Tommy from, uh, from the disaster. So camp, does it succeed as camp for you? And it does has become a cultural touch.
Sonny00:46:58Stone, which maybe it, but I don't think I don't, the people who love this movie don't love it because it's bad.
JVL00:47:04Well, not then, but now they do. I don't think at the time they loved it because they felt seen. It was a badge movie, but I think now to the extent that this still occupies a place as a cultural, as a cultural touchstone, it says camp.
Sonny00:47:16Maybe I don't, I don't think I, I, I feel like for it to have worked as camp, it would have had to been accepted as such immediately, but people really love this movie and take it seriously. And it was definitely.
JVL00:47:28I think, I think I side with Sonny on this one, but camp, if your star dies during the movie, right? Cause camp has to be fun. And yeah, this is like actually laugh when somebody dies in your movie.
Mike00:47:41Maybe that's what, what, what do you, what did you make? Did you see the crow can, you know, contemporaneously with, so I know I did, but also I have no
JVL00:47:50memory of it. Okay. So it was one of these, you know, again, my, my little brother and I rented it one, one weekend on VHS or something. And, uh, it's like the most expensive student film ever made. Everything about it looks and feels like a student film from the casting where you're like, you know, like if you were the type of person who grew up in Malibu and like you might have had a friend who like, who Ernie Hudson was your, your buddy's godfather. And so you could get Ernie Hudson to come and appear in your student movie. Right. And, and then you find a bunch of other people who are based. Out of work actors who you're like, yeah, come on, you get good exposure. I think we're going to try to get to some of the festivals. Um, and it's, it's, it's, you get by Ling, who is clearly just a girl hanging around Hollywood, looking to do anything on camera. Um, do you guys remember when by Ling went insane in like the late nineties and early two thousands vaguely? Yeah. She, she was basically like the Bjork of Chinese cinema.
?00:48:58Okay.
Sonny00:48:59It was never clear to me how actual crazy she went versus like if the Chinese government kind of disappeared her. Oh, well maybe that that's, I don't, but I am also like, I'm not a student of by Ling though.
JVL00:49:12No, I thought she was like real full performance art, like, you know, dresses where she laid eggs and stuff like that. Maybe, maybe I'm wrong. Um, it's a, it's, it's a terrible movie that also does feel like a. Cultural touchstone because it, it catches a whole bunch of things that are happening in the culture in both film and comic books. The idea of comic books coming, starting to get mashed up into movies and music and just the age aesthetic about goth and you know, the, the trench coats and all that. And then you've got this guy, Brandon Lee, who everybody talked about as a rising star, but who is not really a. Competent actor, there are a couple moments where he does an interesting line read and almost everything else. You just feel again, student film, like, you know, I've got this buddy who's really handsome. We'll make him our lead. Okay. He's he's not, he was not going to be a movie star.
Sonny00:50:18He had, he, I mean, look, he, I will say he had a sort of live physicality to him. That was again, the reason people liked him. It is because he was Bruce Lee's kid. Yes.
JVL00:50:30That's absolutely the only reason, uh, but I, I don't think there is anything about him in this film, which suggests movie stardom was his future. Uh, and to the extent that the, I mean, it made a lot of money. I think it made like almost, almost a hundred million dollars domestically.
Sonny00:50:51I looked at a 50 million domestic. Oh, really? I thought it was more than that.
JVL00:50:55Okay. Well, that's still, it's not bad for a very small. Yeah. Low budget movie. Um, and, uh, and it has a lot of cultural resonance to it. And we're going to talk, I mean, again, in the world of professional wrestling, two major wrestling figures of the late nineties emerge from this as, as gimmicks and, you know, there are hundreds of movies from the 1990s, which made $50 million, which nobody remembers and everybody remembers the crow.
Mike00:51:28Even if they didn't see it and they know what it is in the end.
JVL00:51:32Yeah. Like I, I don't know, like that's something I guess it's terrible, it's not a good movie, but it's interesting.
Sonny00:51:38Well, this goes back to one of my big theories of film, particularly horror film, but I, and this is like kind of horror adjacent, I guess. But if you have one good character design, you can design, you can build in a whole franchise out of that one good mask or whatever. Right. So like Hellraiser, Hellraiser is a terrible movie. It spawned a number of terrible sequels and there will be, there will, I'm sure be defenders of the Hellraiser movies in my mentions or comments or what, but like, uh, the Hellraiser movies are bad. They're all bad. Right. But the reason that they succeed is because the pin face design is incredibly cool. That's like a, that's like a very cool, iconic thing. It looks great. Right. It looks interesting. Um, and this is the same thing with, uh, with like Friday the 13th, Friday the 13th is the least good of all. Okay. Slasher movies. Right. And, and the only reason that that becomes, uh, that the only reason it really becomes a successful franchise and you don't even see this, I don't think in the first one in the first one, the, the killer is of course, Jason Voorhees mom, but she has like a bag on her head.
Mike00:52:46It's she's not wearing the hockey mask is the hockey mask doesn't, the hockey mask doesn't
Sonny00:52:50get there until the sequel. But then once you add the hockey mask, it becomes like an, uh, it becomes, uh, an enormously popular franchise or like Halloween. With the Halloween mask or, you know, whatever, like you, although Halloween is actually a pretty good competent movie anyway. Um, my point is if you have good design and the, the crow face paint design is great design. Like that is, that's a good iconic look with the hair, with the hair, with the hair and the leather pants and like the leather duster.
JVL00:53:23Yeah.
?00:53:24Yeah.
JVL00:53:25Yeah. I, I, I would agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing, it also functions as a superhero origin story. Yeah. Like it, it is a very, very much a comic book movie in the way that like origin comic book movies are. I'm sorry, Michael, please.
Mike00:53:42No, no, no. I, I was gonna say the, my thought watching this movie for the first time as a, as I prepared for this show, the whole time I kept thinking, this feels like what reading a comic book is like. If you could move a movify filmify what like a comic book, like everything from sort of the angles of the shots to the, the sort of cutting to like the flashbacks and the wooden dialogue. Like there's even a moment where and, and you guys are right about Ernie Hudson, like leaning into the, the campiness of it all. But like there's a, there's a scene where he, remember where he shows up to John Pulido's shop after it's blown up and he, and then he sees Draven and he talks to him for a bit and then he like turns around and he's like, not sure to shoot or not. And then he turns around and it's like, Draven's gone. And then he has this like monologue, this like four line monologue as the other cops are showing up behind him. And it's like, oh, that's just like, that would be a, that would be a thought block over several. For several frames and a comic book. And so it just feels like a, they having not read the original comic series, like, I don't know this for sure, but it feels like they just picked up the comic book and like translated it into movie. And I think that's a big reason why it's not very good. It's because like it, that actually doesn't translate well, like the, the success of the comic book superhero movies is like. Because they're movies first and the, and they draw on the comic book for the IP or the inspiration, but not like the actual forms of it.
Sonny00:55:37Yeah. I mean, it's a lazy screenplay. That's what you're describing. You're describing a lazy screenplay.
JVL00:55:41Does it feel to you guys like a distant cousin of the sin city movies?
Mike00:55:47A bit. I did think of, so I did think of sin city. I thought of, I mean, obviously I thought of, uh, uh, of Nolan's joker. Um, the makeup, like that seemed like, it seems like not just the makeup, but like the scene where he goes to, um, you know, evil gruff voiced, uh, James Franco and like his little meeting of, of all the bad guys like that, that all of a sudden I could see where Nolan got a little inspiration from this movie.
JVL00:56:17Um, yeah, that does feel like the joker showing up with the, uh, the mafia.
Sonny00:56:22Oh no, totally.
JVL00:56:24Yeah.
Mike00:56:25Um, yeah.
Sonny00:56:26So anyway, I, I, but, uh.
Mike00:56:28Um, I can't remember what your question was, JBL, but no, I, I, the, the, the bottom line is I did not like this movie. Um, I was, frankly, I was bored by it, but I was struck by how 1994 it felt. It just felt like of time capsule totally and, and, and even looked like, you know, it looked like, okay, we're not quite at the point of the second half of the nineties where like the quality of the film. Gets better. And it like looks more modern. Like this is still in a, in like a pre modern movie look, uh, to it, um, the, the slow motion moments where like everything slows down, just felt very old fashioned twisting focus when we, um, it was all bad. And like, but I also, like, I can totally see the appeal of this movie to people, to what it is directed, right? Like all of the goth stuff, the music stuff, the, um, it, it also struck me was so funny. The way they sort of showed this kind of hellish underground music culture at the, you know, in the concert and like what they're playing is like, again, it's, it's not smashing pumpkins, but it's essentially like smashing pumpkins type music. It's whole right. Right.
JVL00:57:52And, and, but it's like, I mean, I don't think it's literally whole, but it's a, it's a different
Mike00:57:55it's a, the band is called, uh, medicine actually as well. I don't know what the actual band is called. Um, but it's like, it's so tame, but it's like sort of presented as like hardcore.
JVL00:58:05This is some hardcore.
Mike00:58:07This feels to you like a window into stuff that you think is just bad ass. But it's so weird to contrast it with like the actual bad guys, like the actual gang members are like are really hardcore and nasty and, and, and awful. And it just, there's no bullets.
JVL00:58:24Yeah. They're, they're, they're taking shots with bullets.
Mike00:58:28They got like all the, uh, what's the name? Tin tin gets all those knives stuck in it. It's like gruesome. And, and then it's, and can I also say the whole storyline with the, the girl Sarah and her like junkie mom, like, I don't know, I don't know how much of this was like retooled when they killed, uh, when they, when, when Brandon Lee died, but like the emphasis on, I was just like, get on with it. I do not care.
Sonny00:58:51Well, they have to show how they have to show how his vengeance is, uh, ridiculous. Redemptive and aiding everybody else. It's okay. No, it's not. It's not just getting revenge. She's also improving society by getting revenge.
Mike00:59:05All right. Hey, all right. I'm done with this movie. Should we talk about the influences JBL alluded to on wrestling and particularly on sting
JVL00:59:15on stairs, the stinger and Raven who, uh, two characters. So, uh, for people of our age, WCW it's not. It's answer to Hulk Hogan, but a very, it's most successful Hulk Hogan like character was a guy named sting and he had a blonde buzz cut and he was a surfer dude, super cool and chill. And he always had like day glow face paint kind of like ultimate warrior, but he was way cool with an ultimate warrior.
Mike00:59:47And it was like blue, like on his, on his upper cheeks and stuff.
JVL00:59:52And he was great. And the stinger was awesome and fun to watch. And I want to say it was 98. He basically disappeared and then all of a sudden it was before that it was like before
Mike01:00:04that it was like 96 or so 96.
JVL01:00:06Yeah. So two years after, after the crow comes out and what happens is we start getting a series of promos in which we see a guy at shows for WCW nitro, I guess it is. Um, and he, which is WCW answer to raw and he is up just in the rafters. Uh, with long stringy black hair and the leather leather trench coat and over for weeks we get this and then ultimately finally get him to see the face and the reveal and it is, he's wearing the crow makeup with the long stringy black hair and the trench coat and it is sting and sting has returned to wrestling and he's now playing the same character but as the crow. Has not changed his, his, his gimmick has changed, but the, the name of the character has not changed and he becomes wildly successful. Like people just love it. He walks around with a baseball bat committing, you know, vengeance upon the bad guys on his shirt. Yeah. And uh, it's all, I mean, just taken directly from the movie and they're not subtle about it. Uh, and he's so successful, the then spawns another knockoff character called Raven, which is I think an ECW and he eventually migrates to WWF who's, who's essentially the same gimmick. Uh, you know, he hangs out up in rafters and yeah, he's got the stringy hair and it's, it just is interesting to me that here is this idea and you're right, Sonny, it's mostly about a look, right? It's the character design and people in wrestling saw the character design like, Oh, we can use that.
Sonny01:01:53Well, staying, staying also like has a total personality shift at this point in his career, from like the kind of, again, like kind of the bubbly to taciturn. And it's fascinating because I always assumed he would switch back after like, this was also, remember, this was also like a response to NWO and the invasion storyline. So like he had to, like, he had to get dark to overcome the bad guys who have invaded WCW. And I always kind of assumed that that gimmick would go away, that he would go back to being like sting, like proper sting and he just never was. So like in my head. It's so funny. In my head, there's this two, there's this idea of sting as having two halves to his career where he's like the kind of light colored good guy and then the dark colored good guy. But really that light colored part was like 10 years. It was like 10 years. And then like the last 25 years he was pro sting. And it's all, it's like, it's like, uh, it's like Shawn Michaels, where like, if you, if you started watching WWF when Shawn Michaels got a start, he was part of the heartbreak. He was the, he was a part of the rockers with Marty Jannetty and there's like, there's like this entire moment where it's like, it's like pre heart break kid phase where he's with Marty Jannetty and like kicks him through the window.
JVL01:03:06Right.
Sonny01:03:07Glass window glass window. And Marty Jannetty's face is disfigured and it's like the greatest heel turn in the history of wrestling. And then, uh, and then there's the second part of his career where it's like Shawn Michaels heartbreak kid, but like he was the heartbreak kid for 90% of his career. Like that was like, that was a much longer portion. You just have to. You just have to have kind of been there anyway. It's so I think about, I think about this all the time. Like why did sting never go back to being old sting?
Mike01:03:34Because he was so much for a while and he was so much cooler. He was so much cooler and he got big and he blew up and, and, and a lot of this has to do probably with my generation of wrestling watchers, cuz all of this hit the, the NWO and then the, the, then, you know, and, and, uh, Hulk Hogan becoming Hollywood Hogan being the heel and the new world order, like all of that stuff happens. And then like sting comes and, and you said this video JBL, I think, uh, on, on our text thread, like where he, he comes into the ring and just kicks everybody in the NWO's ass. Like one afternoon, like boom, boom, boom, boom, drops the bat, drops the bat and it, it just kicks everybody's ass. It's great. And then I share this with you guys. What I remember the formative, like really the guide wasn't into wrestling for very long, but the formative thing that I remember, uh, for me and my wrestling fandom was when Sting joined the wolf pack, because there was a question whether he was going to join because the, because the NWO split and there was Hollywood and there was the wolf pack and Hogan and the giant were Hollywood and, uh, and, and, and, and there was the wolf pack were like the upstarts and everybody thought sting was going to join and Hogan thought he was going to join. And he had the shirt that had the white, uh, lettering on the black that's an NWO, which was the sign for Hollywood. And then he rips it open and it's the red lettering and he's wolf pack. Oh, that was really nice.
JVL01:05:08And there's fake sting.
Mike01:05:10No fake sting. There was fake sting. It was like in Japan for a while. And like, yeah. And, and fake sting was all, all he, I believe.
JVL01:05:17He's like the under faker. Remember we had the fake. Yeah, there was, that's right.
Mike01:05:20But, but I believe sting and, and, and Lex Luger, like kick, like they, they kicked fake stings ass, uh, all, all. We'll run up to that. So those were the days. Those were the days.
Sonny01:05:32It's, it's why we're, we're doing, we're, we're going way too long on this, but it is, it is wild to think back to like the, the, like last few years. Cause really this is the end of WCW really is, is what it comes down to. But like WCW does the NWO thing in the NWO is so incredibly popular that they have to eventually just have two NWOs. Like it's, it's no longer NWO versus. Like traditional WCW and you have like bad guys invading versus the good guys who were defending their home turf. It's like, everybody loved the NWO so much. They were just like, I guess we have to do NWO versus NWO. I like, I like this. This isn't working.
Mike01:06:11This is, you know, Sonny, Sonny, there was a very clear break and it was serious and it was ideological.
Sonny01:06:17It's like the reds versus the whites in 1919.
JVL01:06:20It was a, this is a, this is a, an example of catastrophic success where a success within product becomes so, so bad for the product that it kills the product. And you see this in Dave Ramis, who's listening to this. You see this in watches. Audemars Piguet has the Royal Oak. It put, put out this, you know, it was a, this sort of sleepy brand. It puts out this sports watch and it's all that anybody wants. And so the entire rest of the catalog withers and it's just, they can't, they're owned now by this sports watch that everybody within the company actually hates. And, uh, do you want a, you want a little trivia tidbit to get us out of here?
Mike01:07:02Yeah, let's hear it.
JVL01:07:05The lovely Miss Elizabeth, the kayfabe paramour of a Randy Macho Man Savage. Sure. She died at Lex Luger's house. So IRL, she overdosed, uh, at Lex Luger's house. And it was one of those like, wow, that's what no kayfabe looks like. Well,
Sonny01:07:27you, it's funny. You sent too real to me. You, you guys sent us the, or JBL, I think you sent us the clip of like sting rushing into the ring and fighting a bunch of guys. And like, I was just going through the list of the people in the ring and like half of them are dead.
JVL01:07:41Almost all dead. It's so sad.
Sonny01:07:45Anyway, you know who just, you know, who just died? God, again, we're, we're going away, but you know, who just died was Sid, Sid vicious, Sid vicious. Yeah. Psycho, Sid justice, you know, whatever that, that guy, the, the big blonde guy with the wallet, who was, uh, mostly a bill. I feel like he was mostly a bad guy.
JVL01:08:01He was absolutely hated within the industry.
Sonny01:08:04Well, he was like, he was an actual crazy person, right?
JVL01:08:08Like he was a crazy person who worked stiff as they, as they like to say, meaning basically with no regard for, uh, his, his colleagues in the ring and didn't really know what he was doing. And so, you know, like actual professionals were always worried that he was going to seriously hurt him.
Mike01:08:25Do you, do you guys think that the. I'm sure deaths and wrestling have anything to do with steroid use.
Sonny01:08:30I mean, all right, let's, let's move on that and the cocaine, probably all kinds of drugs.
Mike01:08:39Who could say who could say that? Uh, all right. Well, that is all the time. Uh, no more thoughts on the crow. See, see how quickly we moved on from the group. Uh, no more thoughts on the crow. That is all the time we're giving to this episode. Join us over at sub beacon.com. Tell your friends and family, and we'll talk to you next time. But yeah, so that, by the way, that stone temple pilot song, um, big empty, like apparently was like written for the crow soundtrack and, and then like, they put it on like their next album, but it's just, it's so odd to think that like, cause you know, when I think of like a big band, like writing a song for a soundtrack, it's good. It's like for like, like when smashing pumpkins did a song for Batman forever. Super soundtrack, that sort of thing. But like for the crow, really?
Sonny01:09:31And like, it turned out to be like, I think, I think smashing pumpkins did their song for Batman and Robin.
Mike01:09:37Maybe you're right.
Sonny01:09:38You too. Batman forever was you two and seal seal.
Mike01:09:41Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right actually. Well, the point being that it just seems like such a low, uh, a low rent movie.
Sonny01:09:50Prince did a whole album for the original Batman.
Mike01:09:54Yeah, I know. But I'm saying that's best album.
Sonny01:09:57That dance is his only good album. Um, but my, no, trying to see how far I can push JBL here before he, before he breaks
Mike01:10:04dangerous, dangerous. No, but my point is that that was a big water brothers, Hollywood movie. Like this is like, my point is that the crow is like, kind of like who would have, but
Sonny01:10:13also stone temple pilots wasn't huge at this point. It's 1994. They haven't, they haven't blown up yet. I don't think, uh, I feel like this is right about the time that they're, cause you know, they probably commissioned nine inch nails has a song on this. Um, I, I gotta say, so I, as we're, as we're headed out. Here, uh, the, so, uh, you know, I, I have this new car and it comes with a serious XM, uh, uh, you know, trial subscription and that's going on right now. And I spent all, uh, the only thing I listened to on it is the lithium channel, which is like the nineties alternative and grunge station. And the, the amount of stone temple pilots on, on this station, I find vaguely disconcerting. There's, there are several songs that I hear over and over again that I'm always kind of surprised by, even though I like them, like what's the frequency, Kenneth. They play it all the time. I'm like, I like this song. I'm not sure why I keep hearing it. Um, uh, but the, uh, but so much stone phrase from Dan rather. Yeah. From Dan rather. Yeah. There you go. We know those things. We know things, but the, but they play, they play a ton of stone temple pilots and specifically a sour girl. The, which I only really remember because it was the music video was Sarah Michelle Gellar in that one. Big fan of that music video.
Mike01:11:24Stone temple pilots is like the, like that. That's the one kind of like, uh, was it candle box? Like everybody, everybody in the grunge movement hated them because they were, you know, they were the, the nickel back of Pearl jam. Correct. Correct.
Sonny01:11:39But I thought Creed was the nickel back of Pearl jam.
Mike01:11:43Hey, Hey, enough, enough out of, enough out of you. Sonny on Creed. Don't keep, keep Creed's name out.
Sonny01:11:50Stone temple pilots is the Bush of Pearl jams. All right. I'm sure it's fine.
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