‘They Live’ LIVE From L.A. With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
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you're listening to the rewatchables on the ringer podcast network where we have done over 300 movies did you know that you can find a bunch of them on youtube now yeah because we've recorded a bunch of them and filmed them and we put them on my youtube channel which is youtube.com bill simmons so if you want to actually see us doing the rewatchables which is now over six years old as a podcast man

The rewatchables is like going to first grade. Hard to believe. Anyway, if you want to see some of those, you can go to youtube.com slash Bill Simmons. So in all the podcasts that we've done, we have never done a live screening of a movie and then a podcast immediately after. But that's what we did last week. We went to the New Beverly Cinema, which is owned by a friend of the podcast, Quentin Tarantino.

It's basically like if the rewatchables had a baby and the baby came out like a movie theater, that would be the new Beverly cinema. It's located right in LA, right off Beverly Boulevard and La Brea, basically. It's in a really cool neighborhood. You know, you could feel the history when you go in there. We were in the second floor kind of waiting for the movie to end and there was just reels everywhere. I thought fantasy was going to lose his mind. You know, he was, there's,

Reels of trailers, all kinds of things. Fantasy's probably going to get buried there when he dies. Anyway, we screened the movie for everybody. They all stuck around, and we did a live podcast. And it is a movie that is 35 years old. It is They Live. It's a classic. We're going to explain why. Coming up next. Here we go. From John Carpenter.

They control what you see. We have been lulled into a trance. They decide what you hear. Wake up! They're all about you. All around you. You think they're people, just like you. What do these things want and why are they here? You're wrong. Dead wrong. John Carpenter's They Live. Rated R. So we're doing They Live. This is what, in The Ringer, we wrote about the 25th anniversary. Steve Hyden.

Our guy, this is what he wrote. Head down any number of online wormholes and you'll discover that skeptics of all political persuasions have embraced the allegorical significance of they live. All that's required is feeling as though you're oppressed by a shadowy cabal of they. Media elites, corporations, globalists, Russian hackers.

blah, blah, blah. Boston Sports Mafia. Or some other evil character that your conspiracy glasses have detected. Chris Ryan. Yeah. Did this movie create conspiracy culture? No. I mean, I think that the JFK assassination and... Fair. You know, there was some other stuff that happened. Caesar's murder. But this movie, Caesar's murder, original... Yeah, Julius Caesar. Reddit, our conspiracy. Yeah, our Rome. Yeah.

How often do you think about that? No? I think that this movie could have been made like eight more times since it's been released, right? And then now we live in a time where they live is just real, right? Like, where it's just like, this is actually manifesting itself in real life. Do you remember when this came out or were you two young? I was six. So this would have been a brain burner, I think, for a six-year-old. But I saw it in the 90s. And it was pretty resonant then, too. I saw it. I was in college.

Loved wrestling. Roddy Piper was in the movie. It just seemed amazing at the time. John Carpenter, I'm a giant Halloween escape from New York person. So we were there first night and it was really super weird, but we kind of liked it. But then the reviews weren't that good and it kind of came and went. And then it had what we call a slow burn.

And I would say by mid nineties, after enough cable rewatches, the fight became legendary, which you saw tonight. And, uh, and now it's like taking this whole other place. What's the place now? Cinematically, Sean.

Um, it's kind of the ultimate studio B movie, you know, like it's a universal put that movie out, that movie that we just watched, which is really unusual. I mean, it's a anti-capitalist satire about aliens and propaganda. Um, and Reaganomics. Yeah. And yeah, it was not really well received critically. Like so many John Carpenter movies, strangely, so many of the movies that he made were not well received when they were initially came out by critics. Um,

And then almost every single movie, all three of the movies that were trailer films ahead of this, you know, almost every single movie he made between like 1978 and 1995, people were like, eh. And then five years later, they're like, you know what the smartest movie ever made? It is also a sci-fi movie. John Carpenter movie. Do you know what movie I've seen 104 times in six years? It's Big Trouble in Little China. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, because Halloween almost immediately became Halloween. It created a whole genre for Hollywood. Then Escape from New York, you could make a case. It kind of created the modern action movie in a lot of ways. It was during that run of First Blood and Blade Runner and all these different types of things that I think set the template for the next 40 years.

This movie, I never felt leaving the theater like something magical had happened. But now rewatching, it's like, holy shit, man. They really went for this. This is like the Reddit conspiracy board blown out as a movie. Can a movie be too prescient? You know what I mean? It's almost like when you watch it today, there's that feeling of it being almost too on the nose. It's like where you're just like, oh my God. There are so many people who straight up believe this.

So it was based on a 1963 short story called eight o'clock in the morning by Ray Nelson and Carpenter wrote it, but he wrote it. He used the pseudonym Frank. What was it? Frank Armitage. But he said it stemmed from his dissatisfaction with the economic policies of Ronald Reagan, as well as an increasing commercialization in both pop culture and politics. This basically is like, like when I was in college, Gen X was kind of forming and,

And it was a lot of like selling out all of a sudden became the worst thing in the world. And just people being distrusting what all the 80s values were of like greed. This was pretty early for this stuff, right? I don't know what the right year for this movie was, but I don't know if it was 1988. Well, I mean, it's also amazing to watch this in comparison to stuff like Stranger Things or things that have really like... Look at the 80s through like rose-tinted glasses and it's like even...

Bush, Reagan Bush signs in the lawn are looked at like kind of like, oh yeah, it's like a Ghostbusters car. And then that sign, it's like these little totems. But this is such a different look at the 80s and the state of the country than compared to like 80 or something like that. Yeah, but a lot of the things that define the Reagan era, not just voodoo economics, but like the hostage crisis or AIDS or and the president not acknowledging AIDS or all these, a lot of things that happened in that his two terms were

If you're just reading the newspaper, you'd be aware of them. But there was this feeling like America had been restored, I think, through the media. And Carpenter obviously really didn't like that. The movie that he made the year before this, Prince of Darkness, which they were in the trailer for, you know, it was a movie about...

the home homeless in big cities and like what happened to those people and how they've been ignored and essentially been like subsumed by evil forces. And this movie is kind of the same thing. It's like, it's people living on the margins, living on skids. That movie is also about Jesus being an alien too. I think. Yes. It's also about Satan living inside of a swirling green orb. Yeah. Uh, it's a fucking cool movie. Um,

But he, I mean, he, you know, he's a, he's a big, he's a major, really cynical person. Yeah. And a lot of his films are about how people are kind of inherently bad and evil. Well, Piper says when he meets, uh, he meets the Keith David character and they're talking about Keith David says the golden rule. He has the most gold makes the rules. And Piper says, I believe in America.

I follow the rules. Everyone has their hard times these days. And then you just watch him completely do a 180 as the movie goes along. But he's, it definitely, Carpenter's trying to say something. We should also mention, we all love John Carpenter, right? He's, I think, um,

I don't know. Genius. I hate throwing the word genius around, but he definitely stood out and was a one of one in a lot of ways. He got pretty kooky as the years went along. And I say this very fondly as somebody who loves John Carpenter, but this is kind of the first sign that there was going to be some weird choices starting late eighties, nineties. And, you know, he had this run where he did, what did he do? He had, he had a dark star was the first one assault and precinct 13 Halloween, the fog escape from New York and the thing.

And then Christine and Starman, which was like his biggest commercial movie. Big Trouble in Little China, Chris Ryan favorite. Prince of Darkness and They Live. Like that's a pretty action-packed 15-year run. Yeah. And then it just kind of starts getting weird right after that. Is that when Vampires happens? Yeah. Memoirs of an Invisible Man. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He tried to...

stay relevant in increasingly competitive and commercial time. And a lot of filmmakers who were kind of ripping him off were inspired by him. He was getting mercilessly ripped off. And you think about everything we watch now, how many times have you seen the John Carpenter font or the John Carpenter sense or...

you know, they just made three new Halloween movies. I mean, like his whole thing has been sort of chewed over so many times since then. Yeah. I feel like he's one of the most ripped off directors who doesn't get enough credit for being one of the most ripped off directors. You know what I mean? Like Halloween basically creates the modern slasher film escape from New York, whatever that movie did.

I hadn't seen it before in any way, shape or form. What he does with the snake Plissken character. Yeah. Starman's a really cool movie. I'm a huge fan of that movie. And I think it's one of the best Jeff Bridges movies. So he does a lot of good work, but he says in 1988, he says, you're trying to explain this movie. All the aliens are members of the upper class, the rich, and they're slowly exploited in the middle class and everybody's becoming poorer.

And then in 2015, he says, you have to understand something. It's a documentary. It's not science fiction. So I think he really got into this movie somewhat along. I guess the main themes I wrote down as I went along, the sleeping middle class lulled into a trance. Yeah. The human power of elite. Our human spirit is corrupted. And why do we worship greed?

Which one's your favorite? I don't know. What do you want to go with first, CR? The human power of elite. It's hard not to think about if, I mean, I don't know if you guys have ever been to the Reddit conspiracy board, but it can get pretty deep in there. And it's like this whole cabal is running everything and, and,

you know, eyes wide shut was trying to tell us. You could get pretty dark. Yeah. That's why they silenced him. But they literally call it the human power elite or whatever they say. They call that group near the end. And Carpenter's like, it feels like he's trying to tell us, Sean. You didn't listen. I mean, I did. And that's why I plugged in. I was like, sign me up. Aliens, like, I'm ready to play along. Like, let's do this. No, I...

I mean, he was right. I think both things can be true. I think people, and a lot of people have written smartly about this, that we live in a world where shooters will go into public places and they'll kill people with visions that reflect some of the ideas that you could find in a movie like this. But also...

powerful people control society. Like, there's just no question about that. And they do things and they contribute to political parties or they contribute to the media in some ways that influence how we see the world. And in some cases, that keeps certain parts of the world down. So,

Both things are right. This is a conspiracy theory movie that is also a documentary. One of the things I really like about it is that he cuts away so much from... He's somewhat of a minimalist director. He really does strip away. It's the best dialogue. It's the best framing. It's the best camera movement. It's not ornate. It's not showy. And the stuff that he has to say about society, it's all in the first 10 or 15 minutes where...

Piper's outside of that window. The woman's on the TV being like, I just dream of being famous. I dream of being important and going into important places. And it's like, you can just have that. That could just be playing today out of somebody's window. It's like the same sentiment would just be coming out of a phone. Yeah. Yeah. We should mention just in the context of when this movie came out, this was right around it's pre-reality TV.

but it's that era when you could have an affair with a political candidate and become famous, like Donna Rice, people like that, where all of a sudden somebody could

you know, be involved in a scandal. Like current affair kind of era. Yeah. Morton Downey Jr. started taking off and a lot of- A rising tabloid culture. Yeah. And I think that's, I think he was fascinated by that, that there was no barrier for fame anymore, basically. Did you talk about this movie in your Bohemian Grove meetings, CR, or no? What happens? We screen it. We're like, just like dreams right here, you know? Life goals.

This is another Carpenter quote. Carpenter has some insane quotes of the research. I began, this is, he was talking about when he wrote the screenplay. I began watching TV again. I quickly realized that everything we see is designed to sell us something and

The only thing they want to do is take our money. It's as if the aliens have colonized us. That means, of course, that Ted Turner is really a monster from outer space. It's an actual quote he said to a reporter. And then I guess the channel 57, what is it? Channel 54. Cable 54 is supposed to be like TBS, right? Sort of. And Studio 54 and a number of other things, right? Another thing he said was a universal executive asked me,

Where's the threat in that? We all sell out every day. I ended up using that line in the film. So John Carpenter, incredible stuff. I think that's one of the reasons why he doesn't get maybe as much credit as you said for the ways that he's ripped off is because those kinds of interviews are really common for him. And he was like, he would talk shit about his contemporaries. You know, he would be like,

this guy's overrated or this guy kind of sucks or Ted Turner is an alien. And I think that, you know, he had a little bit of a target on his back because of that too. He, um, he made the thing. It didn't do well. And he was supposed to do fire starter, which became the Drew Barrymore movie in 1984, but they actually pulled the job from him. And then when he did big trouble in little China, he was supposed to do golden child with the David Murphy one. And he decided to do a little China instead. And then he turned down Top Gun.

and he turned down fatal attraction in like a year-long span john carpenter's top gun might be like the the movie i see when i like right before i die like when some people's lives flash before their eyes i just have maverick with john carpenter since

it would have been amazing and then i just fucking that's it is he in a spaceship like what is he how is it different no i mean it would be top gun but just with john carpenter sense just like his weird john carpenter music just like a cool vibe fatal attraction i think would have been one of the weirdest movies of the 80s if he directed it could we have gotten him kurt russell instead of uh michael douglas you think oh yeah no question he also turned out in exorcist 3

So did I. What? Three's great. Sorry. I thought it was two. No, three is the scariest scene. One of the scariest ones ever. I think when I think of Carpenter, I think of mood with him. He was always great at, and I think that's one of the reasons I love Halloween and Escape from New York so much. And the premise too. He's really good at simple premises. Halloween is basically like, guy escapes mental institution.

Comes back home to kill some people. Escape from New York. New York City is a maximum security prison. The president's plane crashes inside the island. It's just like, done. I'm in. Let's go. It's just the Vince McMahon meme of like, oh. And they live as, hey man, the aliens are actually controlling us. We didn't realize it. The thing. Put these sunglasses on. There's an alien inside these guys. Man is the warmest host. Yeah. What kind of

what kind of pot do you think carpenter was smoking in the late 70s early 80s like was he like a cancer patient no it was like norcal pure like the kind of the jesus's sun strain really like it must have been the greatest meanwhile roddy piper what a run for hell yeah this is why you guys came tonight yeah yeah

for my opinion, pound for pound, still the greatest WWE heel of all time. I've been watching wrestling since the late seventies. No question. Uh, he comes to WWE in 84. He debuts Piper pit, which was his talk Piper's pay, which is his talk show.

And we're kind of recreating it here. Like I'm kind of waiting to get by a chair. Like any minute. Yeah. Craig is going to come in and just smash me. Well, he attacked Jimmy Snuka with coconuts and it was the most unbelievable thing that ever been on television. And it cemented him as like, this guy is the craziest heel we've ever had leads to WrestleMania. He feuds with Cindy Lauper. They build WrestleMania one around him. He boxed Mr. T in WrestleMania two, and he became the biggest heel in the company there for two, three years.

And eventually decided to leave to do They Live. And Vince McMahon was pissed. It was like, if you do this movie, you're out. And he ended up leaving WWE for two years trying to become an actor. Sean, did he create the wrestlers becoming actors era? Or would you say Hulk Hogan and Thunderlips? Yeah.

Because that was like a cameo. That was 10 minutes. He's not acting in Rocky III. He's being Hulk Hogan. Roddy Piper's trying to act. This is a performance. Yeah. I mean, he's phenomenal. You guys think he's good in this movie? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like a classic...

John Steinbeck character. It's like a lonely man comes to town and he doesn't have shit on him. He's got to fight to get what he deserves, his freedom. Which John Steinbeck novel is this? This is the sequel to The Red Pony. The Red Alien. Just Tom Joad hitting dudes with coconuts. He

He had to leave Denver because, you know, things got tough and 14 banks closed. I hate that. He went all the banks closed. What happened? Some banks closed? That's tough. Now you're in LA? You just don't want that to happen.

What was going on in the Nuggets in 88? Is that Doug Moe? Is that like super fast? End of the Dan Issel, Alex English area. It was getting rough. Elway was there. They figured it out. Jokic is there. They're good now. It's all good. The weird thing about Roddy Piper in this movie, because I think we've all agreed that he was good,

It never happened again. He's in like 30 movies and they're all bad and they're all like, this is literally apex. This is it. It's the all time him as an actor, apex. He gave all jump off of apex mountain. He gave all the credit to Carpenter. He was like, Carpenter is by far the best director I ever worked with. He's the only director who had a true vision. I'm not a good actor. He made me a good actor. Kurt Russell, um, not to step on casting. What ifs, but I'm going to step on casting. What ifs? He wrote this part for Kurt Russell. He'd done four movies with them.

It's basically the Snake Plissken character again. And he decided, I can't do a fifth movie with Kurt Russell. I got to get somebody else. Would you have rather had Kurt Russell, Chris? I think it's a different part. I think it'd probably be a little bit more verbose and wisecracking. But there's something about Roddy, the fact that he has 11 lines in this movie that really works. How about you, Sean? Well, if it was Kurt Russell, you wouldn't get... I came here to do two things. Some of the best parts of this movie...

Roddy digging dirt shirtless in the first five minutes of the movie. If that's Kurt Russell, you'd be like, all right, he's in good shape. I remember him as a fucking tank. That was like the height of the steroids era in the late 80s. I was telling Chris and Craig this earlier. Roddy, when he was wrestling, was not like a super buff bodybuilder. But in this movie, he looks like he's huge. That's the kind of physique you get when you build skyscrapers here, man. It's true. It's all lats.

Skyscrapers are all lats? No, you get lats from putting up skyscrapers. I mean, his hair is magnificent. It's unbelievable. For a guy who arguably does not sleep or bathe for multiple days throughout this movie...

His hair looks great the entire time. Great conditioner. Great feather. It's a feathering. Yeah. It has body. It doesn't get flattened or greasy. It's amazing. So Kurt Russell didn't get this movie and then saw Piper's hair and he's like, I got a one up the end. Then he does tango and cash and he has the same haircut, but it's even like poofier and more beautiful. Um, let's have the Keith David conversation. Let's please. Great.

You remarked that how cool it was that the audience literally clapped for Keith David during the opening credits. I'm so glad you guys clapped for Keith David.

This is his 1982 to 2000. I'm just picking out the highlights. He's in The Thing, Platoon, Roadhouse, Mark for Death with Seagal, Reality Bites, Clockers, Dead Presidents, Armageddon. There's Something About Mary. He's Warren's stepfather. Requiem for a Dream and The Replacements. What a fucking run. Is that unbelievable? And he was in like 150 other things besides that. Yeah. I mean...

What happened, Sean? Where's the Keith David shine? He had one of the best careers of an actor. There's no Keith David conversations. We're having it right now, man. Big picture. Top five Keith David pictures. I don't think that would be the biggest episode we ever did, but I'll do it if you want me to do it. I mean, he's one of the most reliable set of character actor hands in the last four decades in Hollywood. He's so good in this movie. He's tremendous. And also is asked to go toe-to-toe with

with a professional wrestler. Believably. And you buy it or you at least have fun trying to buy it. So we're going to do the fight scene. Obviously when we did most rewatchable scene, you think, um, I did the greatest normal fight scenes ever. Oh, okay. Cause I think when people go to greatest fight scenes, first of all, like I, like Bruce Lee, the raid stuff like that. I feel like that's a different category. That is like a,

It's not like a normal fight that could happen to us, like walking out on Beverly Boulevard in two hours. That's the line. Yeah. Bill would love for you to try it. Could this happen on Beverly Boulevard? Come try me. He'll suplex you. But I think like if we're doing greatest fights ever, comic book movies are out. I think martial arts and all the adjacent martial arts movies are out. All the John Wick Matrix are out. Okay. And it's got to be something that feels like it could happen to a normal person. So my six is,

Mission Impossible Fallout. Wait, Mission Impossible? The bathroom. The bathroom fight. The bathroom fight? Yeah.

Bill, they get this fucking head smash into the sink like a hundred times. It's my list. Then don't make the dumb rule. I love how they squeeze it in. It's Cruz. That fight opens with Henry Cavill, who's the largest man in the world, smashing a guy in the head with a computer and in like 30 seconds that guy gets up. That guy would be dead. It's my list. Also, Tom Cruise kicks his ass. Tom Cruise is like 5'4". I had to get him in.

They live. I have the ending a silent rage. Any silent rage fans out there? It's Chuck Norris fighting the guy who won't die outside. No referee. No rules for like 10 minutes. So far, this list is fallout and silent. Chuck Norris and a guy getting his face smashed. Yeah, I got the Warriors versus the punks in the subway. Yeah, good one. You see that all the time. That's the roller roller.

Eastern Promises, the bathhouse fight. Definitely the greatest fight featuring testicles in cinema history. Until tonight. And then I got Roadhouse. What? Which starts with the guy telling Swayze, I used to fuck guys like you in prison. That's our opener. And then they fight. I fucking love you. You just wanted to name six fights. This had no rules. Those are my six favorites. It's my list.

Somehow the raid is disqualified. The raid's over there. It's on another list. The raid too. That's amazing. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't say that the fight that the fight in this movie is based on is the fight in The Quiet Man, the John Ford movie between John Wayne and Victor McLaughlin. What job is that? Uh,

What job is that? You're like, I wouldn't be doing my job. Quiet band guy? Film asshole on podcasts. That's my job. But that fight is the same thing. It's a long fight and it's a good fight. It's a good movie fight, especially for a movie at that time. Well, what's funny is if you love wrestling, which I'm sure at least a few of you do out there. They do. It feels like one of those wrestling matches where it's like the two counts, two count, two count, and they can never get the pain. It's like, oh, we almost had him. Oh, he didn't get him.

It just keeps going and going. I wish it had gone longer. Some people think it went too long. I could have gone three more minutes. I agree. A couple more suplexes. Did it feel long in the theater? No. I got to say, watching it on Peacock, I thought it did seem a bit long. I checked the timer a couple of times. You're a pacifist. Yeah. So what's your favorite normal fight, C.R.?

I think it's Eastern Promises. Okay. What do you got, Sean? I love just the guys getting naked and working it out. Should we do a theme month? Guys getting naked and working it out? Theme month? Cool. What do you have? Gosh. Old boy. I guess I'm just going to go Silent Rage just to keep it sexy. Thanks. $3 million budget for They Live made $13 million. Roger Ebert. No review. Did not review the film. Well...

Because I think Carpenter takes a swipe at them at the very end. When they're showing the people at the montage, it's basically these Siskel and Ebert-like critics who are aliens. And the Siskel alien says, all the sex and violence on the screen has gone too far for me. I'm fed up with it. Filmmakers like George Romero and John Carpenter have to show some restraint. And you can see the Ebert guy has his back and he's a little chubbier with the sweater that Ebert would wear.

And I don't think Ebert liked it. And he's like, fuck you. I'm not reviewing this movie. I think, do we think he would have liked this if that didn't happen? He wasn't a big Carpenter fan. He gave Halloween four stars and then for 15 straight years, just whiffed on every Carpenter movie. It's kind of amazing. If you go back and look at his reviews where he's just not into his thing at all. And then escape from LA comes out.

Three and a half stars. What? Yeah. That's awesome. Which is so weird because Escape from L.A., which I kind of like, honestly, but it's not. It's like the 15th best John Carpenter movie. Yeah. Where do you stand on Escape from L.A., CR? Compared to like now, it's like pretty great.

Compared to most movies now, you'd be like, yeah, Escape from L.A. is pretty serviceable. I remember being bitterly disappointed in the theater, but now I'm a little more warm with it. Isn't there a whole surfing thing in Escape from L.A.? Yeah. I also didn't know L.A. like I do now, so I probably would enjoy L.A. more now. Wasn't it Rayanne from My So-Called Life? It was like the president's daughter in it. I was in love with her at that time, so I was kind of into it.

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There's nothing bigger than that. Visit homedepot.com to learn more. Let's get back to the live show for the rewatchable scenes. Let's do the categories. Most rewatchable scene. I mean, there's really only like three monster scenes, but so I'll just skip to those. Roddy.

Roddy, by the way, doesn't have a name in this movie. He's never introduced. And he's called Nada in the script. I'm going to call him Roddy. Roddy puts the glasses on. It would be pretty funny if in the movie he was like, I'm Roddy. Are you guys hiring? Or Rod. Some of the things that pop up when he puts the glasses on. Obey. Marry and reproduce. Consume. Conform.

No independent thought. Stay asleep. No thought. Watch TV. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check

I like when they do the watch and like, I got one that can see. And he fights aliens, cops, and then he gets to go into the bank and do the... I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum.

A couple mass shootings on his part. Yeah. But we'll get to that. You're on his side because you can see they're aliens, but maybe normal people in the bank might have been a little frightened. Yeah. Some PTSD could have come out of that. Yeah. It's an amazing scene. Really bold choice by him. The movie's a slow burn until he puts the glasses on. And it's really like re-watching is really cool how...

It's like, oh man, is anything going to happen in this movie? And then the glasses go on. It's like, whoa, okay. Yeah, when we were watching it on the big screen, it really does almost feel like a Sergio Leone movie. The way it opens, it's like he comes to town. He's walking through town. That soundtrack? Yeah, it's very cool. Just a short one. Meg Foster sending Roddy out the window. Assistant program director, cable 54. A TV station? Yes. They're sending some kind of signals on TV sets.

Yeah. That's a rewatchable scene for you? I'm going to give it a quickie. And I'm giving it the Big Kahuna Burger Award for Best Use of Food and Drink with the Sparkling Water Bottle. It's a great stunt. Yeah. He crashes out of there and it really feels like Rodney lands. That would have been strike three for Meg Foster for me. I would not have been like, I got to find Holly.

after that yeah he sees her later he's like hey baby how you doing he's like oh you come to this rebel base often can you remember the first time you saw it did you see that coming

that she was going to turn on him? No, I actually hadn't seen this movie in a while, like probably a few years, and I had forgotten how abrupt it was because there's three minutes there where all of a sudden it's like an early 80s CBS 10 o'clock show where they're just making weird small talk and she's nervous and she's like, I'm going to go get some water. And all of a sudden he's crashing out the window. Heart to heart with Roddy Piper. Yeah, it's great. The big fight, five and a half minutes, took three weeks to rehearse.

Has lines that include, you dirty motherfucker. And brother, life's a bitch and she's back in heat. Brother, life's a bitch. She's back in heat. I couldn't resist. I grew up on the HBO punch stats. I broke it down. Power punches. Keith David, 11 and Piper, 11. So they tied. Keith missed five punches. Roddy missed three.

Four jabs for Keith, only one for Roddy, but did have a 2-1 lead in headbutts. Four knees to the groin for Keith, none for Roddy. But Roddy did have two head slams on the concrete, which I just feel like would knock you out in real life. One just regular kick for Keith. That's where you draw the line of believability with this film. I just think that's where it would end. One suplex for Keith, two for Roddy.

And Keith had six knockdown punches or whatever. And Roddy had four. The stats were pretty even, but Roddy gets the last one. And I think it's like, I'm going to have to give him the 10-9 round. Yeah. What is Larry Merchant's first question to Roddy? It's okay, Roddy. Yeah, but I think Roddy, but I think it's close. I think you could talk yourself into Keith because he has more knockdowns.

Roddy said, well, Carpenter indicated, and Roddy was nice about it, that Keith David, not the best fighter in the world. So wait, I just want to stand up for Keith here for a second.

Keith David went to Juilliard. Right. I believe Roddy's quote was, Keith is a dancer. Yeah. Keith David is like, I thought like we were, I was moving towards Hamlet in my life and the three weeks are spent choreographing suplexes with Roddy Piper in an alley in downtown LA. It's like, no, we can't rehearse, but we can make sure you get DDT'd perfectly. Like, you know,

I like the scene when they're hanging out in the hotel room and they're getting philosophical about maybe they love it. Seeing this kill each other. That's fun. The human power elite dinner party where we meet Texas guy, bearded Texas guy. Oh yeah. Yeah. Could it be more excited to welcome these two really smelly guys who've been wearing the same clothes for five days into his life and their little human power elite world.

He explains to us there aren't any countries anymore. Cool. We all sell out every day. Might as well be on the winning team. He's just whipping out cliches. Yeah. You still don't get it, do you, boys? There ain't no countries anymore. No more good guys. They're running the whole show. They own everything. The whole goddamn planet. They can do whatever they want. What's wrong with having a good for a change? And they're going to let us have a good if we just help them. They're going to leave us alone. Let's make some money.

You can have a little taste of that good life, too. I know you want it. Hell, everybody does. You do it to your own kind. What's the threat? We all sell out every day. Might as well be on the winning team. But I kind of enjoyed the party. I like the setup with the...

The balcony seating. So that guy obviously is in the encampment earlier in the movie. And then I just love that. Like he, he goes alien. And the first thing he does is put a tux on. It's just like, I'm dressing for the job. I want, you know, super sellout. So when he goes alien, this is, well, maybe I'll save this for picking it. Okay. And then the big shootout featuring the Helen Thompson heel turn. Hmm.

Who's Helen Thompson? That's, is that Meg Foster? Holly. Holly Thompson. I thought Helen was like a wrestler. Really, she's Meg Foster. Where do you stand on Meg Foster, Sean?

I feel penetrated by her. Her blue eyes. I feel like she has... She's not an alien, but she is an alien. She is disturbing. Her eyes were so blue that they were movies where they made her wear contacts to unblue her blue eyes. In Leviathan, she has to be on another screen. They can't have her in the actual fight. Most rewatchable scenes here are the fight.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, like, I don't know, actually, in the parochial sense of rewatchable scene, if I'm like, I want to watch a six minute fight scene of these guys. But like, I think it's definitely like the signature scene in the movie. Yeah, I agree with that.

I gotta say, I like when he puts on the glasses, I think, a little bit more. Yeah. The encounter with the old woman who's an alien. Real fucking ugly. Real fucking ugly. Yeah, that's the most fun. And then he just turns into a cop killer in like one minute. What do you guys have? The fight or something else? Fight? All right. Glasses. All right. We're split. Okay.

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What's aged the best? This is the next category. The musical score I really like. Simple. It was the last time he collaborated with Alan Haworth, I think his name. Yes. We mentioned Piper's 80s heavy metal wrestling hair, which I just think...

Can't explain that era now in 2023, but it was a haircut that made sense in the late eighties for a lot of heavy metal bands, for wrestlers, uh, porn stars. There's a lot of occupations where you just had that hair. My dad had that haircut. Uh, CR would say the best drifters with a past. Yeah. As opposed to drifters with no past. Yeah.

The movies that start out... Amnesiac Drifters versus Drifters with full pass. When you have the movie that starts out with the guy who clearly looks like he could handle himself in a fight wearing a knapsack strolling into town, it's usually a win. Yeah, it's hard to imagine it not being a good movie. I'm trying to figure out why you didn't wear your flannel and Wranglers tonight. You could have came in character. They mentioned the Roaring 90s at one point.

looking forward to the decade, that's what's aged the best. Because we did feel like the 90s were going to be roaring. Well, what's aged the best is we are now a year away from the predicted full takeover of the aliens of the Earth. They say it's 2025. From Andromedon? Yeah. Andromeda. Andromeda? Yeah. Andromeda. Andromeda.

Not to be a stickler for mythology, but I think it is Andromeda. What happened to the roaring 2020s? Wasn't that supposed to be a thing? Post-COVID, everybody was like, it's going to be crazy. It'll be fucking in the streets. Everybody was like, I'm on my phone. I'm busy. I'm re-watching Yellowstone. So this film entered the pop culture lexicon, especially with street art.

And there was one artist, Shepard Fairey, and he was just putting Obey everywhere. And it was a They Live homage, and it became a thing. Another, probably John Carpenter did not get a check for that. No, probably not. What else do you have for what stage is best here? I think I've come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubblegum has really just lived on. And it can be applied to so many different scenarios. Yeah.

I also just love those two guys going, it's a win, man. They got to meet the A-team. Those two fucking guys are the best. What do you have, Sean? Anything? I wrote down economic inequality, homelessness, the sense that the media and government are manipulating people to get them to shut up and stay distracted, complete social distortion in our culture. Okay. No? No.

The Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness, where for best Nino trap, it's just a theme song over and over again. There's no other songs. Yeah. Right. Well, Rock of Ages is what's playing in the church. Oh, yeah. That is the one thing. Okay. Yeah. Then it thieves Benihana where it seems to own location. 1980s downtown LA was pretty cool as a movie location and was in a lot of bad movies.

Death Wish 3. Just rooted in downtown LA. And it is an awful, awful movie that will not be playing at the Beverly Hills Cinema. Some terrible things happen in that movie. Yeah, that's a bad one. Does Charles Bronson eat at Bestia in that movie? I don't think so. But one for the real heads. That would be pretty funny if Bronson just like walked in. The Bar 3 course in Los Feliz. I'd love a Negroni. Yeah.

I do like seeing this version of LA in movies 35 years ago. Does swingers operate in the death wish universe? No, it's later. It's the post death wish universe. Okay.

What do you got for great shot Gordo for the most cinematic shots here? I love like Carpenter's widescreen anamorphic photography in general, but I guess like the shot of the skyline where he sees the full transformation of the society with all the billboards, even though it's not like cinematography, but it's pretty cool.

Yeah, I really like the opening credits sequence and just the man comes to town, the train kind of moving across the credits, and then he emerges. Do you know that they fucked the train up and it cost them like 80 grand to run it again? I didn't know that. Yeah, a little tidbit. Also, could have just lost the train, probably would have worked fine. So, The Butch's Girlfriend Award for weak link of the film. Meg Foster's character, Holly Thompson? Yep.

Why does she turn evil at the end? What happens there? She was always evil. Yeah, she was a double agent. So he just randomly...

He needs to escape from this 10 person homicide that he just committed along with a, maybe a bank robbery. All the gin joints. He just runs in her. Yeah. Just in a parking lot. Just happens to not only that, but she's basically a producer at the cable station, which is also a portal to the alien world. Yeah. What are the ads? So you think she's evil the whole time? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. She doesn't, she's a collaborator. She's sold out.

She can throw a guy out the window, and then she just turns up at his little spot. And when she shows up there, she shows up as a spy. Great apartment, though. Why is he happy to see her at the cave? I don't think that guy's had a lot of close female relationships. I mean, she's pretty good looking, yeah. The banks in Denver started failing, and I don't think there were a lot of long nights. That bank tower that closed down in Denver. But...

nada is wearing a wedding ring in the movie well but that's because roddy yeah roddy wouldn't take his wedding ring off what are we supposed to assume um what's age the worst well in 2017 um there was some neo-nazi interpretations this movie that carpenter had to refute with a long angry passionate essay i would say that qualifies for this category it's always tough when you have to write a long passionate essay yeah to do that um

On his show Info Wars, Alex Jones called They Live one of my favorite all-time movies and said he saw it a hundred times and it breaks down everything. Yeah. I'm throwing that in. Alex Jones is like in this movie. The guy on the TV is just doing Alex Jones. And we've invited Alex to join us today. Alex, come on down. He's going to do Wayne Jenkins for us. Where do we stand on the ending sex scene?

Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Um...

Like a little gratuitous. I mean, I was happy for it in 1990 when I saw this movie or whatever. I was like, hell yeah. What did you do after that? What did you do after that? I went outside and played stickball. No, I think it feels very of the time. I mean, there's a lot of nudity in roadhouse movies. It's like an active comment though, right? It was like a joke about the joke that you're getting this gratuity in your culture to be distracted, right? I think that's what he was going for. That's what you thought it was?

I mean, when I was nine, I was like, this is incredible. But now I see he's an artist. With something to say. Any other what's aged the worst? No, I had Infowars basically in there as well. Okay. Did you have something what aged the worst? I mean, it's a pretty low-budget movie. It feels very handmade in a fun way, in a way that we can all appreciate. But it's interesting. That's kind of what he loves. It is. But even by his standards...

Like Prince of Darkness looks amazing to this day. Yeah. Like it looks, it doesn't look modern necessarily, but like the effects, the setting, the production design, this movie has kind of a B movie feeling. Like it almost feels like it's purposefully cheap. And I think the fact that like the aliens look good because they're always in black and white, I think they look pretty, pretty believable, I guess is the, for lack of a better term, but.

You're right. I didn't know whether to put this in what's Asia worst or nitpicks, but I do feel like there was some satire they could have pulled off once we got inside cable 54. Like when there's, there's a show going on, right? Yeah. It would have been cool to just get two minutes of that show. And it just would have been a parody of all the terrible shows. If you made they live today, would they, would they walk into a studio while they were doing first take? Right. Right. It'd be more, they'd be undisputed. I think would be probably the one. Um,

There's an entire movie that is like that. You ever see Stay Tuned? The movie from the early... You guys ever see Stay Tuned? Yeah. But that's the whole movie, basically. It's a very similar idea where TV is run by the devil and Satan and hell. And the whole movie is just parodies of active TV shows. UHF was like that, too. That's right. It was. Ron Burgundy flew to our best time for a pee break probably the first four minutes.

You can show up late. Is there a crazy take that the fight is a pee break? Oh my God. Like if you've seen the movie like 10 times. I think if you want to take a quick leak during when Roddy rolls underneath the stilt houses and then shivers for a while in the drainage tunnel. Yeah. Okay. That was weird that they were like, we got to keep this. Yeah. This is great. I'll lose lots of stuff, but not this.

Was there a better title for this movie? I actually probably think there was. I don't even really fully understand what They Live means. What about All Out of Bubblegum? Would you call it like Sunglasses? I wrote down Consume. Consume. You're really, you got your fucking, you're in your Chomsky bag tonight. Oh, Pro They Live, all right. Best quotes to Bubblegum quote.

Alright, so we do the Stephen A. Smith-Pottis take award. You got one, CR? It seems pretty cool to sell out and become an alien sympathizer. You get to drive a BMW and have a house in the Hollywood Hills and work at a TV station instead of building skyscrapers for no money. Buy magazines at a newsstand with a suit on. Yeah. You could work at Spotify. Drive a luxury vehicle. You could have it all. Any hot takes for you? I...

Is this his most memorable 80s movie? Like, I feel like now because of all this conversation that we're having. It's Escape from New York. It's The Thing. You say The Thing. Yeah. I always thought The Thing. The Thing was always my favorite. But this is the movie when you, every time somebody sees it for the first time, they're like, wow, he was really onto something. Yeah. You can't deny that he's had an incredible, The Thing is an awesome movie and a great experience about, and you know, great ideas about paranoia and everything. But this movie works to this moment. Hmm.

I think that there are others that are more entertaining and fun to watch. I do love this movie though. I ride with snake Puskin. Here's my hottest take. I'm actually going to do like a real hot one. Okay. If Sam Jackson just doesn't exist, I think Keith David has 80% of his career. I think he could have been Jules. I think he could have been in diehard three. I think he could have, I just think he could have cooked.

And I think he resents Sam Jackson to this day. That's a hot take. Nice job, Bill. Thank you.

So in this universe, Sam Jackson is alive, but he wanted to be like a postman. Like what happened here? Yeah. He's like, I don't know. He's just coaching little league somewhere. He's just doing like regional theater. Yeah. Okay. It's definitely salesman. Every Brooks looks like Keith David. And he's like, God damn that guy. I remember him from Spencer for hire. All right. Casting. What ifs? We got to ask Quentin about this. Carpenter wrote the role of Frank specifically for Keith David. Yeah.

I wonder if Quentin, did he put Keith David in a movie? I mean, I wonder how many times Keith David and Sam Jackson went up for the same part over a 25 year period. You've got to imagine they went up for the same part dozens of times. And we mentioned that Kurt Russell was originally written for him. I have a part about that later. This episode is supported by State Farm. Think about your first reaction after you have an accident. What do you do? You scream, oh no, or man, why did this happen? On the flip side,

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Overacting award. Would you go with the preacher or would you go with Roddy Piper who just dials it up like two or three times? I think when Roddy's character all of a sudden just goes, gets red pilled by his sunglasses and starts screaming. Also all the Keith David and Roddy Piper dialogue during the fight. Yeah. Okay. Put on the glasses. Put on the glasses. All right. This is the word I'm most excited about. The best that guy award.

Goes to my guy, Peter Jason, who played the 48 hours bartender who's running the shelter in this movie. He's the one in the famous, he's the Torchy's bartender. Eddie Murphy orders a drink and he's like, maybe you better have a black Russian. And then Eddie plays off him and ends up like blowing up Torchy's.

And it's that movie and this movie. And I don't remember any other movie. And like 250 other movies. He has 250 IMDB credits. And I only know him from those two movies. My guy is Cy Richardson, who's one of the dudes in the Rebel Compound, but was like a big Alex Cox person. He's in like Repo Man and stuff like that. I also had Peter Jason, who is a legendary that guy. Legendary. Yeah. Yeah.

Dion Waiters Award. Would you go with a drunk human power lead Texas guy or a first alien newsstand guy? Yeah, George Buckflower as the drifter slash collaborator in a tuxedo. That is the definition. All right, recasting couch. So can we upgrade Meg Foster here? You want to go Kirstie Alley? What? Why not? Wow. I'm thinking bigger. What? I'm thinking bigger. Okay.

Who's really coming into her own in the late 80s? Sharon Stone. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes. That was like a... I feel like you and I had telepathic connection. When was Total Recall? 1989? Yeah, but she was like in... She easily could have played Holly Thompson. Yeah.

Should we think bigger? Should we like bigger than Sharon stone? Like Meryl Streep, like Martina, never to Loba, you know, like how, how big can we get Kurt Russell and Margaret Thatcher, Kurt Russell and Sharon stone. Is this a bigger movie? Uh,

Yeah, but how different would it have been, though? Part of the appeal is that it's a professional wrestler, Keith David. It's not like Sharon Stone and Kurt Russell. And it would have just felt like the budget would have been bigger. But nobody knew who Sharon Stone was in 1988. She'd been in two famous movies. She was in a Police Academy movie, right? Yeah. She was in Irreconcilable Differences. That was good. All the Police Academy heads would have been like, that's my gal. Half-assed internet research. So they used a lot of homeless folks...

In the production and gave them food and paychecks and all that stuff. They really like got into that whole culture. Roddy Piper for years after this film was released would tell stories about it. How it was based on an actual incident in the 1950s when a company manufactured a TV that planted subliminal messages in women's brains, instructed to make extravagant purchases.

And he saw this in a documentary, but did not realize it was in fact, a comedy short and was not real.

And does the director's commentary and straight face tells this whole story. Roddy being like the last guy in the world to like get done by War of the Worlds. It's happening. I heard it on the radio. Can I tell another Roddy story from the director's commentary? Director's commentary of this movie is wonderful. It's just Roddy and John Carpenter. They clearly are friends and they're having a great time rewatching the movie like 15 years later. But at one point, about 45 minutes into the movie, a scene is happening and they're talking about how they made it.

And Roddy goes, yeah, you know, my family and I, we had a stalker. Yeah, stalked us for two years. Just took care of him. Just got rid of him. Yep. Turns out he was an arms dealer. And John Carpenter is like,

It feels apropos of almost nothing that they're talking about. And then John Carpenter is like, do I ask my friend about how he had a stalker or do I continue on the director's commentary of the movie we made together? And he finds a way and he's like, anyway, the thing about this shot is, and he tries to pivot away. It's also funny that they left it in. It's a quiz.

It's crazy. It's crazy. I thought it was something he followed him back and he was like, oh, there's the address. And Rod is like, don't give the address. That might have been what it was. That might have been the setup for it. I once had a stalker. It is so disorienting. It stops you in your tracks when you're listening to it. There's also my favorite half-assed internet research from this was...

From ProWrestlingStories.com, which is a site I go to probably every day. And Carpenter explained in this interview, he goes, when I wrote the fight scene, the screenplay had a blank page that said, the fight.

And then the next page said, the fight continues. And then the next page said, the fight continues. It just keeps going. Roddy said they had to pay the gangs off in downtown LA to keep shooting. He said that they're in the director's commentary and

There was like a carpenter silence and then they just kind of moved on. The carpenter was like, Jesus, Roddy. So I did some Meg Foster research to figure out like, was it ever close to really happening for her? Was it quite close to happening? I don't know, like becoming a star. She never like totally, you know, she floated around and was in some stuff but never totally made it. And she was initially in Cagney and Lacey and they fired her after season one.

And it's pretty interesting, actually. They replaced her with Sharon Gless because they felt, you know, at the time, they felt like... Wait, so the first season of Cagney and Lacey is Meg Foster as a cop? Yes. With Tyne Daly. And this is what an unnamed TV executive said to TV Guide in 1982.

about the show, why they fired her. Too tough, too hard, not feminine. They were too harshly women's lib. The American public doesn't respond to the bra burners, the fighters, the women who insist on calling manhole covers, peoplehole covers. These women on Cagney and Lacey seem more intent on fighting the system than doing police work. We perceive them as, and he says a gay slur, and this is in TV Guide in 1982. Okay.

This would be the biggest story in the world if this happened now. Anyway, so she got fired and replaced by Sharon Glass. But yeah, that came up in my research. Did you have that back issue of TV Guide? I did. I didn't. Anything else? No, just the pro wrestling stories. Also, they rehearsed the fight in John Carpenter's backyard, which I thought would be hilarious to be John Carpenter's neighbor.

She's like, what's going on over there? Oh, it's just Roddy Piper's suplexing Keith David for the third week. So Apex Mountain, I think yes for Roddy. Yeah. He was huge from WWE. And this was a real movie that came out and, you know, came out in October, came out, I think a week before, a week after Halloween four.

And it won the weekend. It was the number one movie that weekend. Well, it was released four days before the 1988 election, which is fascinating. And John Carpenter legitimately had hoped that this movie and its message would convince people to not reelect the Republican ticket. I guess so. I mean, he talked about that. But about Roddy, I mentioned this to you earlier today, like,

Maybe this should have been my hottest take, but I really feel like without Roddy Piper, there is no Dwayne The Rock Johnson in so many ways. As a professional wrestler, his whole persona in so many ways is clearly inspired by Roddy Piper. The heel who is just so quick-witted and so fiery and yet so likable, even if he's not the person you're supposed to be rooting for. And then as an action star, the persona is kind of similar. Do you think Roddy would have been better in Black Adam?

I mean, God bless the dead. If he were alive, I would have preferred it because Black Adam sucked. I wouldn't be surprised. John Carpenter, no in the moment, but Sean was making the case. I still feel like Halloween's got to be apex mount for him. It paves the way for 10 years of doing whatever you want. We can argue about what apex. I mean, because Starman in some ways is his biggest movie, right? Yeah. No, I think Halloween. I meant the 80s. I think of Halloween as a 70s movie.

Reagan critiques. Probably not. Probably somebody did a better Reagan critique, but it's in the conversation. I wasn't prepared for that one. What are the greatest Reagan critiques? I don't have them in my back pocket, unfortunately. 1980s downtown LA movies? He's dumping me here. I'm going to say yes. Well, Prince of Darkness, the one that comes right before this, is a downtown LA movie. Meg Foster. No.

i don't know i don't know what it was masters of the universe maybe leviathan how about keith david what about our guy platoon platoon okay i mean he was great and there's something about mary got the beans mixed with the frank uh how about street fight scenes we can give apex mount for that right what was a better street fight scene i mean probably the would you consider the warriors a street fight scene

Oh, when they fight the Yankees? I mean, is there anything that's happened in a Mission Impossible movie that happens on the street? The baseball furies. They're not the Yankees. Well, they're dressed like the freaking Yankees. They're dressed like crazed clowns with bats. They look like the Yankees. And they lost. Where are you from? What do you have for best racehorse name?

I think they live is actually a really good racehorse name. Hmm. I had cable 54. Oh, that's good. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. I'd bet on cable 54. What'd you have? Obey. Oh, Obey is good. Yeah. All right. Pick a knits, man. Piper, uh,

He shoots like six people in the bank and then just goes out the back door and it's just cool. And there's just like, just right out the back. Yeah. And I think it's chased by one cop. Yeah. It's really easy. There's 90 cops show up and he just back door and he's, he's out. So this is when I noticed, I've watched this movie a couple of times over the last couple of days. Piper doesn't know how to shoot a machine gun. And he's like,

I think because they spent all of the rehearsal time on the fight. No small arms training. I don't think he had ever held a gun before. And he's shooting it. It looks like somebody who's holding a fire hose that got turned on too high. And he's just like doing this and making this crazy face.

And once you see it, you can't unsee it. And I'm glad I didn't tell all of you before we watched the movie. Did you notice in the Big Trouble in Little China trailer too, I never really thought about this, but it's the same thing with Kurt Russell when he's shooting the gun in that movie. It's like, it just doesn't look like these. This is why Keanu is the fucking man with John Wick. Like when he's shooting firearms, it looks like he's practiced for years. Yeah. That's what I want from my attention to detail. Yeah.

I mean, this is an obvious picking it. Their faces would have been so much more fucked up after the fight. I mean, you're like, think of those UFC fighters. Brains would have been coming out of their ears. UFC fighters with like their cheeks are coming out and like, just no way. They're just, you guys crushing Budweiser's in their hotel room, telling stories about their, their childhood. Yeah.

What else do you have for big nits? One of the things that I just forgot until the last time I watched this was like, do the rebels have a fucking optometrist working for them? Like,

They're just like, guess what? New tech. We got these contact lenses. They're fucking perfect. Don't worry about the headaches. It's like, you guys can do all this, but you can't plan a revolution? I had the exact same thing. The whole Rebel Alliance is one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. They're in a broken down church. They have no money. They're being managed globally by an alien civilization, but they have this incredible eye tech. Where did those glasses come from? Where were they manufactured?

Yeah, and it also just doesn't seem like too much of an ask to be like, try these glasses on. Like Keith David would be like, I have to kick your ass for six minutes. I won't put the glasses on. It's like, what do you have to lose?

They don't make you go blind. Just check it out and you can see the fucking aliens and we'll be on the same page. Great point. How did they make the glasses? That's what I'm saying. No, but I mean like now you got my head spinning. This is the weirdest thing about the movie. He's like, I found these glasses. Holy shit. And he's like, I have to go kill cops.

My cousin works for Ray-Ban. He made us some glasses. Also, what's the side effect? You know when it's like, oh, it makes you feel really terrible if you keep them on too long. Why? What was in the glasses? Explain it to us. It's a really good dip. But then that woman's just like, oh, you got the version 1.0. Check out these lenses. Yeah.

That is what it feels like, though, when you switch to contact lenses. You should switch to contact lenses. I don't like touching my eyes because of this movie. I don't touch my eyes. That's not how you put contact lenses on. Well, I know, but then sometimes you'll be like, oh, my contacts are dry. I'm going to die. You will freak out when your contacts get too dry. I had to get hypnotized to put my contacts in when I was like 14. Yeah, I don't need to add anything to my menu. I couldn't do it. I was like, ah!

And I got literally hypnotized.

You made they live too. You let them hypnotize you? Yeah. Guess what? It worked. Been wearing contacts for 40 years. No regrets. You got hypnotized as a child? Yeah, I was going into the ninth grade. And your parents were like, we're taking you to the hypnotist. Did they try any other methods first? I couldn't put my fingers in my eyes. I don't know. I was afraid. So they were like, hypnotize our child? Yeah, it worked.

I guess. Now I can be on an airplane and just ramming them in. This show is the best thing I've ever been involved with professionally by far. Listen, hypnosis is powerful. What do you think the Rebels, what do you think that they would have gotten into with LASIK? Game changer. Sequel, prequel, prestige, TV, all black cast are untouchable. What do you got, Sean?

All black cast, but Roddy Piper as Keith David. That's fun. I think Prestige TV in 2023 would be amazing. What would you want to know more about? How would you want it to be set? Well, because now we'd have the internet.

Yeah. I think it would be cool if they made like it was like the newsroom, but it was set in cable 54. Sorkin. Yeah. It's just like aliens covering the Reagan administration. Keith David's doing five minute monologues. I do actually want to know the prequel of how like when did the aliens come? How did they insert themselves into society? Did you think that the implication is that

the aliens came when Roddy Piper's dad becomes an asshole or that they are always there. Because in that speech, he's like, my dad was cool. And then all of a sudden, he got real mean. Reganomics. No. You think that's like a commentary on how the promise of the 1950s suburban American dream was taken away from people? You're really doing like... You're David Halberstraming out on me. And I think it's just like... I just was wondering whether... Is it supposed to be like they come...

Yeah, like mid-century America. Don't fight, guys. That was the point I was making, and he was like, don't be David Halberstam. I'll make your point for you. I would, if they did a prestige TV, would probably depend on the streamer.

But if it was like HBO and they were like, we're redoing They Live and we have this awesome showrunner for it. Four episodes of just working at the construction site. We get to plant the seeds. What happened with the banking in Denver? We get a whole backstory. The Denver bottle episode would be amazing. I think, I mean, Peacock has the rights, you said, right? So it sounds like it'd be maybe not as good. Probably not. Probably not.

Probably not going to experiment with the They Live remake on Peacock. Did they do the John Wick thing? Yeah. Yeah, I didn't watch that. Yeah, same. You watched it? I watched the first episode. How'd it go? You got four John Wick movies. It's okay. Kickstart the school year with Apple Gift Card. You can send it via email or send a physical card to your loved ones. Inspire their curiosity with a world of apps. Boost their productivity with Apple products like iPhone and iPad.

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It's a Camry vibe. Learn more at toyota.com slash Camry. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Catherine Hahn, Steve Buscemi, Sam Jackson, Frank Vincent, JT Walsh, or Philip Baker Hall? Do you guys have any before I do this? God damn it! I was working with the chief executive officer of Sunglasses Hut!

That's some good fucking conspiracy theorizing, man. Alien invasion. Some subliminal messaging. You're going to be teaching semiotics a long fucking time, big boy. Thanks. Oh, man. It is wild to imagine this movie told from Wayne Jenkins' perspective when he finds out 12 cops just got shot. It's just like, what the fuck? Like...

Yeah, this wrestler is just rolling through downtown L.A. mowing down cops. I do think JT Wall should be good at this. I was thinking Trejo would be amazing. Trejo would be amazing. Trejo would be really good. Just one Oscar, who gets it? Keith David? I think John Carpenter. Yeah, I think Carpenter. For what? Director? Sure. Screenplay? Both?

Just won an Oscar. Can you really get a best Oscar screenplay? I'm going to win the best supporting actor. Who won best supporting actor this year? Love Keith David. I couldn't come up with one for that. Is this like when Anthony Hopkins wins for Howard's End? You're like, no, you got to give it to Keith David for They Live. Change it. Probably unanswerable questions. I did though. If this movie was 2023, it's replaced with the internet. What is They Live? It's kind of interesting.

I think it would be a lot more computer time. Yeah. But I think like,

TikTok would replace whatever TV show you were watching and the magazines and things like that. All right. Unanswerable for me, the big one. What's going on with Andromeda Airlines? Oh, yeah. Jumping into the other dimensions. David, bearded, drunk Texan guy, tries to explain. He's like, some sort of gravitational lens deal. Yeah. What? What?

I guess another unanswerable question there would be like, does the drunk Texan guy not have an NDA? Because he's just like, hey, let me tell you all the secrets of alien civilization, brother, because you're standing next to me. He assumes that they have joined the group. But you don't have to do like a Mason's handshake or anything? Well, that's the thing. He's in the tuxedo and Roddy is still rocking the flannel. And he's like, but you're on the team now, my friend. Roddy's covered in dread blood and has probably the worst BO imaginable. It's like, welcome to the team.

I have more Andromeda Airlines questions. Why are you bringing a suitcase to go to these foreign outer space? You're spending time on other planets. Two changes of jockey shorts. Yeah. Need the extra pants. Don't know what's going to happen in Andromeda. It's an amazing take. Sweaters, jackets. Is it colder in Andromeda? I can't argue with that. These guys had big bulky suitcases. Like, go to Andromeda. Be back in two weeks. Yeah.

Thinking of going to the cliff stair. Got a cabin. Do you think that they have like a Four Seasons? Yeah. Is there like a luxury hotel that you can stay at? Just feel like, are there clothes on Andromeda? Like if, but,

Why are these aliens having such a hard time with these rebels if they have this incredible technology? They can make themselves disappear. How is this even a battle? Why is this a fight? How did they lose Cable 54 in the end? Jesus. Because Roddy shoots it with a .22 and it all explodes. And you know what the lesson there is? All it takes is one man. That's true.

I wanted to know whether or not, like, what kind of contracts do the human sellouts get? Like, is it a lifetime deal or are you up for renewal after a few years? Yeah. It's kind of like the Harden contract. You know, that one year, $35 million, and then you're on the trading block. Well, it's also just like no one talks about this. Like, we've kept this a secret successfully while half of the world is apparently on the books for the aliens.

What do you think the alien salary cap is like? Are they like way over leveraged super techs? Aliens are trying to get traded in different teams. Any more Andromeda questions? I don't think I even really closh it. How long was the trip you think? I think, you know what, honestly, like two minutes or three hours. Season two of They Live, the prestige show would be like, what was the impact of all this in Andromeda? Like, were they just like reeling from this? Were they like, God, these fucking rebels. Yeah.

They got these eye drops now. Best double feature choice with this movie, Sean. Would you go double carpenter? I think you could do any of the thing, Prince of Darkness, anything like that. But I thought...

I'll give you two. One, I think Invasion of the Body Snatcher is kind of a no-brainer. Either the original or the 70s remake. But there's a really good movie from the 30s called I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, which is kind of a similar idea. Like a man comes to town and he gets wrongly accused of something and he goes on the run. And then it seems like he's figured things out in his life

And then they realize who he actually is and he's basically on the run again. It's a very similar like society is attacking you. Is this your audition tape to work at the Beverly Theater? No, no. I would love it if they screen that film. I love that film, but no.

We were upstairs as you guys were finishing the movie and there's all these reels up there. I thought Sean was going to pass out. You were like Collinsworth with Zach Wilson last night. Like, my God. Oh, Mike. Look at Zach Wilson. You gotta love how he's swinging around. Oh, my God.

Look at these throws. How's he doing this? This guy's taking a lot of guff, but look at him out there just like a kid. I was like, ah, it's the real, the almost famous trailer. My God. That's Quentin Tarantino's Jason Goes to Hell print. You can't get any better than that. That's sisters with Margot Kidder. My God.

It's amazing stuff. Oh, Mike. It's all true. It's all leading up to this. I had Escape from New York for a double feature, but I love your Invasion of the Body Snatchers call. But the Sutherland one, which is an elite movie. I like that one. Some good Warriors footage. I had Parallax View or Three Days of the Condor, the idea of coming across a huge conspiracy. The Andy and Red's Wanton Air Award for What Happened the Next Day.

I narrowed my choices down to World War III. Or the aliens are like,

basically become prisoners and they just, anyone who looks like an alien, you get thrown into a camp. But that's... Or they put them on Catalina. Like, what do they do? What do you think, I mean, we got to distribute these sunglasses. That's the number one thing is we got to... You don't need the sunglasses because they kill the signal. Oh, yeah. So you can see the aliens. Right. So then they got to either kill the aliens or round them up and put them somewhere.

But can they make themselves disappear at this point? I had more questions. Well, they all got those watches, right? Did the tech short out with that? Again, these aliens are capable of teleportation and interstellar travel like we've never seen. I have to assume that just because we got one satellite shot down, they're going to figure it out. Yeah, what did this mean for Andromeda Airlines? Yeah.

I mean, we don't even really know anything about their weapons tech. Who knows? They were just trying to suck our resources up, use us as a third world nation. Imagine if they were like, fuck these guys were dropping bombs. It would have been a problem. I think. Would Reagan being an Andromeda alien be the biggest political scandal we've had? Bigger than, bigger than John Edwards. You mean? Uh, yeah. Gosh. I mean, that makes Hunter Biden look like nothing. That's right. Um,

CR, what piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? The sunglasses. The first pair? Or Meg's car. But as a personal thing. The first pair. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How about you, Sean? I would say the sunglasses. Did you say what they were named and what they were named after? No. What's the answer? They were called Hoffman lenses. And they were named after Albert Hoffman, who was the creator of LSD. John Carpenter, man.

Just sliding those little nuggets in there. Pretty good. The Coach Finstock Award for Best Life Lesson. I don't even know if I want to touch this. What was the best life lesson from this movie? We're being sedated. Probably. Don't trust power. Don't obey. Don't trust power. Don't consume. But please listen to the rewatchables. Who won the movie? The movie opened at number one at the box office. Yeah.

But it only made $4 million. And then as John Carpenter said, it was basically disappeared almost immediately after that. Roger Ebert refused to review it. And I think this is his last truly great movie. I had Carpenter as well. For me, it's Carpenter. I'll go Roddy just to be different, but also just because it's such a distinctive performance and it's unlike anything really in Carpenter's whole thing. I thought about Peter Jason, but

I couldn't get there. I think also, yeah, he's just living in the shadow of Torchy's. Yeah. Maybe Sam Jackson. Carpenter. Sam Jackson. Sam Jackson. I'm with you. I think this is the end of the Carpenter, this peak prime run. And it keeps going, but this is the... It's really from...

Halloween to this movie. This is an 11-year run of just some incredible pop culture. And I think in the 35 years since, he's been ripped off over and over again.

His life now is so cool, though. He just watches NBA games, plays video games, and rips bongs. He has an incredible life. That was in the research that when he made movies in the 80s, he would have a satellite dish so he could watch NBA. He kind of seemed like a regular NBA podcast. He did, yeah. He loves hoops. Why haven't we given him a podcast? Imagine John Carpenter's NBA podcast. Yeah.

Like him weighing in on the Drew Holiday trade. What if that was like the third season of Winning Time was just John Carpenter watching NBA while editing They Live? John Carpenter here. I want to talk about the Drew Holiday trade. It just felt like... Emergency pod. Yeah.

John Carpenter's film room. He's just breaking down tape all day. I'm here with Kevin O'Connor. That's it for the rewatchables. Thanks for spending so much for coming out. How many hours was this? Three and a half, four hours. This is really fun. Thanks to the, thanks to the new Beverly as well. Thanks for everybody for coming out. Appreciate it. And we'll see you next time on the rewatch. Thanks guys. Thanks everybody.

All right, that's it for this week's episode of The Rewatchables. Thanks again to New Beverly Cinema for having us. Thanks to Sean Fennessey and Chris Ryan. Thanks to Craig Horlbeck for producing. And we will see you next week on The Rewatchables. By the way, I'm thinking about a theme month for November. A lot of weird options. It's really a question of how weird do we want to get for a theme month? I don't know if we could ever get weirder than Family Dysfunction Month or Divorce Month or whatever that one was when we were just doing divorce movies.

We did courtroom month. Got to come up with a weird gimmick, but I think it's going to be November that we're just going to get super weird. It's time. Anyway, I will see you next week on the rewatch.