'80s Movie Montage
Breaking down our favorite decade of flicks. Hosted by Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke.
'80s Movie Montage
Somewhere in Time
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In this episode, Anna and Derek debate the viability of thinking real hard to go back in time, just how romantic Richard's insistence is (or isn't), and much more during their discussion of period piece tearjerker Somewhere in Time (1980).
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Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke are the co-hosts of ‘80s Movie Montage. The idea for the podcast came when they realized just how much they talk – a lot – when watching films from their favorite cinematic era. Their wedding theme was “a light nod to the ‘80s,” so there’s that, too. Both hail from the Midwest but have called Los Angeles home for several years now. Anna is a writer who received her B.A. in Film/Video from Columbia College Chicago and M.A. in Film Studies from Chapman University. Her dark comedy short She Had It Coming was an Official Selection of 25 film festivals with several awards won for it among them. Derek is an attorney who also likes movies. It is a point of pride that most of their podcast episodes are longer than the movies they cover.
You're like to walk with me, young man, I have another class. What's your name? Collier, sir. Richard Collier. Student? Uh yes, I was nine years ago. Well, I tried to make my classes interesting, but nine years. What can I do for you? I have a question for you, sir. Is time travel possible? That is a question.
SPEAKER_01:Hello, and welcome to 80s movie montage. This is Derek.
SPEAKER_04:And this is Anna.
SPEAKER_01:And that was Pat Billingsley as Professor and Christopher Reeve as Richard Collier in 1980s, somewhere in time. Did we get an answer to that?
SPEAKER_04:1912.
SPEAKER_01:We got an answer in terms of is time travel possible? But was it a satisfactory answer?
SPEAKER_04:I mean, I don't know if we did get an answer to okay, so well, I'm getting ahead of myself.
SPEAKER_01:We're getting away ahead of things.
SPEAKER_04:I think that uh I don't I don't want to detract from the film, and I don't often talk about source material and how it differs from something that's been adapted.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But I read that in the book, I think it is uh mentioned that he has like a brain tumor. Oh which may in the book give some doubt on whether or not he actually time traveled or if he was hallucinating based on the tumor.
SPEAKER_01:So that would have been that would have kind of made sense because I already had enough doubt, but if he had some medical condition, that would have at least made the the storyline itself a little bit more plausible, if not the whole time travel device.
SPEAKER_04:Device? You mean like thinking real hard about being in 1912?
SPEAKER_01:So yes. That's the device. The answer to the question of is time travel possible is go to a hotel room, just lay down, trip out, repeat the same thing over and over again, and you too can visit any time that you desire.
SPEAKER_04:I do like I do like the idea of surrounding yourself with things that could only be of that era. I think that's kind of a neat little part of it.
SPEAKER_01:Like that felt that felt it feels and felt. It felt as though the only reason that rule existed was so that we get the penny at the end.
SPEAKER_04:Right. But I do, but I do kind of like there's nothing that makes sense about this methodology of time travel. But that made the most sense to me.
SPEAKER_01:Look, a fucking DeLorean going 88 miles an hour made more sense than what happened in this.
SPEAKER_04:All right. So some more time, which also is kind of funny because we should um, if we ever get to the point in this podcast where we do like compilation type podcasts.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:The 80s is uh there's a plethora of time travel movies.
SPEAKER_01:They were obsessed with traveling back in time.
SPEAKER_04:Obsessed with traveling in time. Anyway, okay, so somewhere in time. Real quick, just because we don't cover this category, it is an Oscar nominated film. Can you can you guess which category it was nominated for?
SPEAKER_01:It has to be for the soundtrack, for the score.
SPEAKER_04:It is not.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god, what was it for?
SPEAKER_04:Take a guess. We're talking about a period piece.
SPEAKER_01:Costume?
SPEAKER_04:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So Which is funny since everyone hated is it because everyone hated his suit?
SPEAKER_04:You know what's funny is that the suit itself, I don't really care, and I and I am not um educated enough in terms of like fashions of the 1910s to know that at that time what he was wearing was considered out of date.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, he was basically wearing late 1800 garbage.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, which I mean that I mean that is kind of funny that everybody was remarking on his outfit. But my whole thing was like, oh my god, dude, you've been wearing the same outfit for days. Like take a shower. Anyway, I I showers, bath? That's the other thing that's always interesting.
SPEAKER_01:There was no Febreze back then.
SPEAKER_04:That's the other thing that's always interesting to me about period pieces, especially something that is like, I don't know, I guess I would say preceding maybe the 1950s. I am always very hyper aware of like what I'm seeing in the film to be like, is that historically accurate? Like, did they have that at that time? Did they not have that at that time? Like I always am kind of clocking that. Not that I am again educated enough to know. I'm just curious.
SPEAKER_01:But well, like when we saw um oh my goodness, what was oh return to Oz and the Flashlights.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, that seemed egregious. But anyway, so just wanted to get that out of the way. That uh it is an Oscar-nominated film. You already mentioned 1980. And so this is very much based on a like a known book. The novel is Bid Time Return.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:And the person who wrote that book also did write the screenplay for this film.
SPEAKER_01:Interesting. So they have no one to complain to but themselves.
SPEAKER_04:He reminds, not in terms of necessarily his work, although I think he does he does have some um horror to his name. But Richard Matheson, so the novelist and the screenwriter for this, he passed in 2013. But if you look through his filmography, it kind of reminds me a little bit of um Stephen King. He's very popular. He's had his stuff adapted a lot. Interestingly. And will probably continue to continue to.
SPEAKER_01:So I had no idea some of these uh credits that I'm seeing were his. Right. And there are some that like I'll let you get through them, but there are some that are somewhat shocking to me.
SPEAKER_04:It's interesting because some of them, and I tried to note the cred the IMDB credits he had that were from his own novel, and and whether or not just somebody else adapted his novel, he also was a screenwriter on it. And then there are other times where he is adapting somebody else's work. So it's really interesting because he himself has had like he's either adapted his own work, somebody else has adapted his work, or he's adapted somebody else's work. So I don't know. I just thought that was kind of interesting. Um, so one of his novels, The Shrinking Man, yeah, has been adapted several times over. So first we have the incredible shrinking man is the name of the movie. Interesting. He did the screenplay for it as well. And then he goes on this um Edgar Allan Poe kind of. I I don't know if he was a fan of the writer, but I believe these are all Poe properties House of Usher, The Pit in the Pendulum, and The Raven.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yeah, very much.
SPEAKER_04:He adapted all of those for different various film versions of those properties. So this is the one that I thought you would find the most interesting. He is the writer of the book I Am Legend.
SPEAKER_01:That's the one. That's the one that like stuck out, yeah, stood out to me when I saw that. I'm like, oh wow, because I know that there were like pretty significant changes made in in that screenplay.
SPEAKER_04:I am not uh familiar enough, but it's the one with Will Smith is hardly the first time this was adapted. So I didn't know that either. Yeah, it's been adapted a couple times over. So, first of all, he did he did his own screenplay f based off the novel for a film called Last Man on Earth. So that was the I think the first time.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Um I guess I could just go through a couple of them right now. So then the next time, so somebody else I believe adapted the novel I Am Legend into the book, or I'm sorry, into the movie, The Omega Man. So that was one version of it. And then later on, we get just the film I Am Legend based off the novel. So there have been a couple times over that it's been adapted.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's one where like the changes they work so well that when you watch the movie or you just kind of accept that like, oh, this this like world, like what they've built, totally makes sense. Zombies things that were results of like human medical things gone wrong. But then when I if you like read the wiki about the differences and like, oh, that sounds like a super big difference if you in terms of like who's responsible for what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_04:I've heard that there are differences, but I don't know enough about that property.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the I am legend has like a different significance based on like one or the other.
SPEAKER_04:He worked on the film Die, die, my darling. I think I've brought that up before. This was another credit that I thought was so interesting. So, Steven Spielberg's first claim to fame was the TV movie Duel.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that guy. That look, everyone, don't mess with uh big regs on the road.
SPEAKER_04:Matheson wrote it. Wow. So that's kind of fun. And like I said, he has uh dabbled in oh, I forgot one of the shrinking men, or no, I don't think I So not the incredible shrinking woman. No, he did. That's actually what I was gonna bring up.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Um, so they adapted that. He did a TV series called Circle of Fear. I don't okay, so I remember when we covered the film Twilight Zone the Movie, there were so many credits to get through because we had four different segments that were all helmed by different directors and they had their own crews for every segment. So I honestly don't remember if we brought him up as a screenwriter for Twilight Zone the movie, but he did work on one of the segments.
SPEAKER_01:He worked on um segments three, four. Both of them?
SPEAKER_04:Oh, I bet you we did bring it up because now that's beginning to ring a bell that one of the writers uh worked on a couple segments. So he did that. Uh Jaws 3D.
SPEAKER_01:He wrote the 3D part.
SPEAKER_04:I don't know. I wonder what I wonder as a screenwriter what you hmm. I never I never even thought about writing a script that had like a 3D component to it. I wonder how that changes the way that you would if it does. Would it? I was totally just Well, I mean, like, look, you're not really supposed to put like camera uh instructions in a script, but I wonder if just the way that you described I don't know. Anyway.
SPEAKER_01:Shark breaks through glass, kills audience.
SPEAKER_04:Uh he wrote the novel, What Dreams May Come.
SPEAKER_01:Which is really interesting when you consider like that movie and this movie.
SPEAKER_04:Yes. So he he has kind of this like his own pendulum swing because he has these fantastical films like Somewhere in Time and What Dreams May Come. And then he has a film like, or um, a book like I Am Legend, and he also wrote the book Stir of Echoes.
SPEAKER_01:Which is a great movie. I love that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it is a great underrated actually.
SPEAKER_01:It very much is, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It's been a while since I've watched it. Um, but I will probably wait till next Halloween season. And then uh I already mentioned The Wolvesmith, I Am Legend, and then there was another more recent version of the novel The Shrinking Man. So I I presume people will continue to go to his works to do new films, maybe television, but I have I think mostly films. Okay, moving on to the director. Oh my goodness. This um Jeann Swark. Thank you. I don't even know what accent that was.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I looked at the I looked at the name and I heard the pause and I'm like, I'm just gonna go.
SPEAKER_04:He unfortunately, this is uh this is gonna be an episode where quite a few people have passed away. So uh he he has passed. He's probably the most recent of the individuals who were part of this movie that passed. He passed just a little bit over a year ago, January 14th, uh 2025. So I have even though, okay, this is not first of all the first time we brought him up. I don't know if you remember that. Um, but even though we have brought him up before, he is far more well known for TV. He had a ton, ton, ton of TV work. So I'm just gonna go in chronological order. So it kind of starts with TV, ends with TV.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:So very early in his career, he worked on Marcus Welby MD, Night Gallery, Kojak.
SPEAKER_02:Kojak.
SPEAKER_04:Then he directs Jaws 2, and I think actually off the I think I read that off the success of Jaws 2, that's how he got this gig. Because I think he wanted to he wanted to do this movie.
SPEAKER_01:Jaws 2 wasn't terrible.
SPEAKER_04:I'm I'm kind of okay. Jaws 3D for fun.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And then there is one after that. Michael Kane, right? Yeah, um, like the revenge.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so those are fun. Jaws 2. It makes me sad to watch Jaws 2 because I think that uh Roy Scheider did not, he was just contractually obligated, he did not want to be part of the movie.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's tough to be contractually like that. Like reason for the word blockbuster.
SPEAKER_04:That was like the pinnacle of your career. Yeah. Although I wonder if he thinks that that was the pinnacle of his career. Maybe not. I don't I look. Although he's excellent in that movie. I mean, that's that is a blockbuster film, action/slash horror, that actually has amazing acting in the film. Yeah. That doesn't come along a lot, especially nowadays.
SPEAKER_01:I would say that he had potentially more impressive performance in Sorcerer.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Which was around that similar time, only a couple years or so.
SPEAKER_04:Is he in the French connection? I don't remember. Anyway, so Jaws 2, Enigma, Supergirl. So the time that we brought him up, this is another one of those things where they changed the title of the film. At the time that we covered this film, it was called Santa Claus Colon the movie. Now it's just called Santa Claus, which is super lame.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not not okay with that.
SPEAKER_04:Not okay with that.
SPEAKER_01:Santa Claus.
SPEAKER_04:But he directed that. And now we bounce back to television a lot. A lot, a lot of television. The practice, Jag, Without a Trace, Smallville. So he comes back to the Superman uh franchise. You are watching this right now. He's directed some or he did direct some episodes of Fringe.
SPEAKER_01:Fringe is kind of like what if the X-Files in Supernatural had a bigger budget?
SPEAKER_04:I thought you were gonna say had a baby.
SPEAKER_01:No, that'd be weird.
SPEAKER_04:Well, he also directed some episodes of Supernatural.
SPEAKER_01:I saw that, yeah. There you go. This guy, I mean, it's so wild that so many people involved in this movie that I did not like have done so many things that I have enjoyed.
SPEAKER_04:And uh to top it off, and and this is just a fraction of what he's done. It's just that these are the shows that he had a little bit more like he had like multiple um episodes that he worked on for them. Bones and Grace Anatomy. Okay. Okay, cinematography. Isidore Menkovsky. He too has passed. He passed in 2021. Um it actually, okay, it's been a really long time, but this is not the first time that we've brought him up.
SPEAKER_01:Really?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And honestly, there are there's at least one other time I think he'll he'll come up again, although I don't know how quickly we're gonna cover this movie. So he shot this film, and I have well, he did do a ton of TV movies, very much bread and butter, but did he shoot this film or edit this film?
SPEAKER_01:He should he shot it. He shot it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Did I say edit?
SPEAKER_01:No, you said you said shoot. I said edit because I was looking at the wrong name.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, okay, okay. So some of his credits include I just like uh I like the way this sounds aka Cassius Clay.
SPEAKER_01:Cassius Clay?
SPEAKER_04:Oh.
SPEAKER_01:Like Muhammad Ali?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I never I never really called him by that name. So I never said it out loud, probably No, no, how do you say it? Cassius. Cassius, not Cassius.
SPEAKER_01:Cassius.
SPEAKER_04:Cassius. My apologies. He shot Judd. I love this. Werewolves on wheels. Nice. Scream, and now that I'm like going through, I'm like, oh yeah, I kind of remember going through some of these credits. Scream black Black Cula Scream.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, so the full title is Scream Black Cause Scream. Correct. Got it. Okay.
SPEAKER_04:So he has an uncredited credit for Carrie, and I was like, what's that about? I don't know if this came up the the first time we spoke of him, but basically he and uh De Palma, De Palma fired him off the film. Wow. So but he must have I I'm guessing he had a couple a couple scenes in the can, so but that's what the uncredited credit is for. He did the Muppet movie. Nice. He did the 1980 The Jazz Singer. We covered him for Better Off Dead. Okay. We did that one with Megan. Go check that one out. The other film that I think at some point we will cover is One Crazy Summer.
SPEAKER_01:Probably. That one is almost too silly for silly sake.
SPEAKER_04:It's really silly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It's really silly.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know how else to describe it.
SPEAKER_04:It it will come up at some point, but anyway. And then his final feature credit was 2007's Too Loud a Solitude.
SPEAKER_01:Are you really not gonna mention that he shot Ewoks The Battle for Endor?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I remember seeing that. Sorry, I didn't put that one in.
SPEAKER_01:TV movie.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, so we have definitely brought this gentleman up before John Barry. He was the composer on this. He too has passed. He passed in 2011. So prolific composer. And a lot of people talk about the music in this film.
SPEAKER_01:They do.
SPEAKER_04:I'll be honest, it it doesn't quite grab me the way that it has grabbed others, but that doesn't mean anything.
SPEAKER_01:It's the problem is that it um much like their relationship, it just goes a little bit too heavy too fast, and I'm not feeling it.
SPEAKER_04:I think that it's it's not that it bothered me. I mean, we have um what was the movie we were watching? We're like, oh my god, the score. Oh, color money.
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_04:But it wasn't the score of the soundtrack.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and then also that vampire one.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, near was it near dark?
SPEAKER_01:After before dark, sometime after around dark. Near dark. Near dark. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, yeah. So there have been a handful of times where the music, whether it's like score or soundtrack, has gotten, in my my humble opinion, has gotten in the way of the film.
SPEAKER_01:Do you think it got in the way of this?
SPEAKER_04:I don't, but it I feel like sometimes it has more impact if you're not constantly playing it.
SPEAKER_01:That soundtrack, the the score was writing checks that the rest of the movie could not cash.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, very romantic.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. That's exactly what I mean.
SPEAKER_04:So uh, and I I do remember talking about this gentleman the last time we brought him up. Unfortunately, I don't well, no, that's not true. There are a couple. So his whole his biggest claim to claim to fame is like working on a ton of James Bond movies.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I think he worked on like 12 of them.
SPEAKER_01:I have I have like seen the list of all the James Bond films. So yeah, that's that's super cool.
SPEAKER_04:So And he is an Oscar-winning composer, not for any of the James Bond films, but let's go through his credits. So I think the very first p Bond film he worked on was Dr. No.
SPEAKER_01:That is the very first Bond film.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, is it?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, okay. Well, there you go. Um, from Russia with Love.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_04:I put this one in just because we have our little nugget napping alongside us for this episode, the Winston Affair. So he did that. He did the orchestral music, uh, Goldfinger, Thunderball. So he his first Oscar nominations were also his first wins. He got double nominations, best original score, and best original song for Born Free. Did you ever watch that? For some reason, it was like one of those movies that um when I was in school, if it was like, oh, they're just gonna play a movie today.
SPEAKER_01:Really? That's what they would play?
SPEAKER_04:Not every single time, but they did. Swiss Family Robinson was the one that they played all the time. But either that or Glory. We watched Glory in school. That was really hard to watch in school. Um, but Born Free. Anyway, uh, he did Dutchman. You only live twice.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that was another uh Sean Connery, one of the Sean Connery Bond films.
SPEAKER_04:He gets his next next Oscar win for Best Original Score for The Lion in Winter. More Bond Work on Her Majesty's Secret Service. That's the one with the one-off guy, right?
SPEAKER_01:And I think Telly Savalas was in it as the as the Bond villain.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01:In some ways, I think that was almost meant to be like a like a prequel. Why did I say prequel like that? Like a prequel.
SPEAKER_04:What's his name? Is it George Larambie?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think it is. Okay. It look, that one, I feel like people now talk about it like, oh, I love that one. Nobody loved that one.
SPEAKER_04:It's just trendy to. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So he worked on the film. I feel like this has been coming up a lot lately. They might be giants. Yeah. Diamonds are forever. Some more bond work, right?
SPEAKER_01:Sean Connery in Vegas. The whole thing. Yeah, it's based out of Vegas. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Oh. He gets an Oscar nomination best original score for Mary Queen of Scots. Is uh Man with the Golden Gun? That's Bond.
SPEAKER_01:It sure is. Okay. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_04:I do not know that franchise really almost at all.
SPEAKER_01:I don't think it was the first Roger Moore. I don't think so, but it was, yeah, it was one of the Roger Moore movies with the uh guy from Fantasy Island.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, okay. I'm about halfway through his credits. He was prolific.
SPEAKER_01:I'll stop talking about the Bond movies.
SPEAKER_04:He worked on the 76 King Kong Moonraker. Mm-hmm Body Heat. He probably can come up for Body. All these films in the 80s. I'm maybe at some point we'll cover. Body Heat, Octopusy, The Cotton Club, A View to a Kill. He gets his next Oscar win best original score for Out of Africa. Howard. Then he does Howard the Duck. He goes from Out of Africa to Howard the Duck. That's like whiplash. Yes. We brought him up. And actually, I do remember liking the score. Peggy Sue got married.
SPEAKER_01:I was so sure you were going to say the Golden Child.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, I didn't even include that. I missed that one.
SPEAKER_01:Well, he composed some unused music and was uncredited. Oh. But he he's listed it in IMDB as well.
SPEAKER_04:But the music was never used. Yeah. Okay. Well, then I don't feel so bad.
SPEAKER_01:Don't feel bad.
SPEAKER_04:The Living Daylights. He gets his last Oscar win, best original score for Dances with Wolves, but his last Oscar nomination was for Chaplin. He does Indecent Proposal. I don't know why he did a couple, um, I'm sure no, no connection really, except for the fact that Demi Moore stars in both of them. He did Indecent Proposal and The Scarlet Letter. And then his final feature credit was 2001's Enigma.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Whew. Okay. There's a lot of impressive talent associated with this film.
SPEAKER_04:There is. And I it's fine to go through those longer lists because we're gonna act in in stark contrast to the last episode that we did, we're gonna have a pretty tight cast list. So anyway, film editing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Jeff Gorson, when I saw his name, I was like, why does that name sound so familiar? And then I was like, oh, okay, that's why. So uh I'll I'll get to that in a second. Um, that as subtles that so I have okay, so I have all films for him, except he has this one really interesting credit that has nothing to do with his film editing work. So uh we can cover a lot of these films, and actually one I would really love to cover this season because I do it's it's not a perfect movie, but I do love it. Um he this is not the one I'm talking about, but he did cut Tron, the original Tron. I'm sure at some point we'll do that.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe like when I'm 70, they'll make another Tron movie.
SPEAKER_04:He cut the film Perfect with uh, I believe Jamie Lee Curtis and John Travolta.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Flight So we can do Flight of the Navigator. I mean, we could have done the two previous films too, but probably sooner than those, we would do Flight of the Navigator. The one that I would like to do even sooner is Can't Buy Me Love. So he cut that, big top Pee-wee. Now I'm like, oh, that's why I recognize this this name because here are some more of his credits. Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy, Little Nikki, Mr. Deeds, Anger Management, 51st Aights, The Longest Yard, Click. I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry. So he became Adam Sandler's go-to.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, if you get in good.
SPEAKER_04:If you get in good with Adam Sandler's crew, you're good. You're you're good. So and then the one credit that I was talking about that was like, oh, how funny, is that he was he has producing credits, namely the original Quantum Leap show.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So he was a producer on like I think the entirety of it.
SPEAKER_01:That show was good. A lot of things have not aged well. I'm sure people have seen like clips from episodes where he says stuff where it's like, oh.
SPEAKER_04:Not I think he doesn't he use the R word.
SPEAKER_01:He he does, yeah. Yeah. Um for when he leapt into someone with uh some cognitive issues. Yeah. Um I feel like the the rebooted version of it. You really liked it. I thought it it like really had some like I was optimistic that it had somewhere to go. They could never get Bacula to to like come back and she's like, come on, man.
unknown:That's okay.
SPEAKER_01:But he was he's still in that universe. Like they constantly would talk about Dr. Beckett.
SPEAKER_04:Well can give the fans what they want. It just it's just why are you gonna be that way?
SPEAKER_01:You don't have five minutes. Come on.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I look, I I think I've said on this show that like performers aren't necessarily obligated to fans, but it's like, come on, like you know that's what everybody wanted. They wanted you to come back to that. Like, what is the big deal?
SPEAKER_01:Wait on like another CSI, another Star Trek reboot. Come on, Dr. Beckett.
SPEAKER_04:Fuck. Okay, so moving on to the stars of the film. Starting with Christopher Reeve. Mm-hmm. So it's kind of interesting that this is the first time we've brought him up for like maybe he's come up in passing, but this is the first time we're actually featuring him on an episode. Yeah. I'm sure won't be the last. We just um we haven't covered any Superman movies yet.
SPEAKER_01:So we can cover two and three, I think. Can we cover four if we if we are so inclined?
SPEAKER_04:If we are so inclined.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Uh yeah, I mean, yeah. Uh the original Superman. Unfortunately, that's a 70s movie.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Uh, if we did cover Superman 2, I would personally like to do the Donner Cut.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I would propose we're gonna have to watch them both the same night, but we could if we watch both, we'd I think it would be like talking about some of the sure, no problem.
SPEAKER_04:We could do that. But yeah, so this is the first time we've brought him up, and he you mentioned it at the top of the episode because that was the clip you pulled. He plays Richard, how do you say his last name?
SPEAKER_01:Collier.
SPEAKER_04:Collier.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um he was a much beloved actor. I mean, how do you he still to this day is the best Superman ever.
SPEAKER_01:He he is. Like I he is Superman. It's impossible for me to think of the Superman character, and I know that he wasn't the first Superman, but for me, he is like the best Superman.
SPEAKER_04:I think he is the most beloved Superman.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And from I am I am hardly, hardly an expert. I'm not even I can't even scratch the surface of like DC comics and what that character's supposed to be. But from what I have heard, what I have read, he best encapsulated what that character was supposed to be.
SPEAKER_01:I think the the most current one, like the newest one that came out, um is probably closer to that than the uh Henry Henry Caville one where he was just there there was more of like a harder edge in in that, I think. But then the most current one maybe skewed a little bit, and it's it was James Gunn, right? So it got a little bit goofier, which just is on it was like, what if Superman was a Guardians of the Galaxy type movie?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Uh I haven't watched that one yet, but yeah, I was recently listening to a podcast where they were talking about uh what is it, Batman v Superman?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, the one with uh Affleck. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And I mean, man oh man, were they trashing that film? But part of what I do agree with, okay, so I remember watching the original in the theater with you and our friend Jacqueline, and I didn't I didn't hate that film at all. I didn't really think about it at the end, but like they kept referring to it, and this is like not funny, but they kept referring to the end of the original Superman movie with Cavill as 759-11s because of just all the damage that they did to the city, and so that's the way that it looked at the first, which isn't it is an off base, but because they had like that whole like machine that was that was like going to destroy the entire planet.
SPEAKER_01:So even if you didn't have that, then you have these two guys flying around in the city destroying everything like destroying the entire city, yeah. Like a Dragon Ball anime just like destroying everything.
SPEAKER_04:And I guess I do appreciate that like Batman does bring that up in in Batman v Superman of just how much damage he did to the city. But their biggest complaint about that film and just in general that version of the DC universe is just how dark and bland and unfunny and like super serious it all is.
SPEAKER_01:Well that's why like they overcorrected a little bit in this one that when they made a point of him saving a squirrel. It's like I get it, that's fine. I it doesn't it doesn't bother me, but I like people really seem to think a feel a certain way about this squirrel thing.
SPEAKER_04:All to say, Reeve brought in in not equal parts, but in the correct parts.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Like the the real superhero version of that character, but like the comedy and the like the goofiness of Clark Kent. And actually in this film and somewhere in time, when he first, I guess I'll say arrives in 1912 and he's trying to get out of that hotel room, and he does so successfully, but then the guy opens the door and he's like, Did you just see somebody trying to come in here?
SPEAKER_01:That was very Clark Kent.
SPEAKER_04:That was 1000% Clark Kent, especially when the guy slams the door on him. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, the thing that is Clark Kent.
SPEAKER_04:He the slump shoulder. That is Clark Kent to a T.
SPEAKER_01:He was basically um he was Superman in that half of Superman 2 where he let go of all his powers. Yeah. That's what his character in Somewhere in Time reminded me of. Not in a bad way.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, especially when he um yeah, he's kind of going through it in Superman 2, like figuring out who he is. And like that's kind of what a lot of the like the angsty part of him is very much on display in this film. Uh, I mean, Reeve himself, I think everybody knows the supremely tragic turn of events for him. Yeah. And his his injury, which certainly led to a premature demise. I think he so he passed away in 2004. So it's already been over 20 years ago.
SPEAKER_01:I can't even watch the Superman documentary.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, no way. I I'm sure it's an excellent, excellent doc, but I don't think I have it in me to watch that. Like, I'm getting emotional right now. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm not, I'm not gonna do it.
SPEAKER_04:And then, you know, his wife passed away only a couple years after him. Like, ugh.
SPEAKER_01:And then like his convinced me. I'm gonna I'm gonna do it.
SPEAKER_04:I'll let you know what's his best friend Robin Williams. Like, oh my god, it's just like so much sadness. But he left us like an amazing, amazing legacy in terms of the work that he did. Even if I have feelings about this film that aren't maybe completely positive, I really appreciate who he was as a performer.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And um, of course, he will always be Superman, but I don't want to limit him to just being Superman. Like he was he was a fantastic actor. He, he and um, it's kind of funny when you think about it because he and Robin Williams, two people who may not have realized went to Juilliard, they were like roommates, so that's how they became friends. But in any case, um possibly he would have had a more extensive filmography had it not been for his accident. Hard to say. Uh, but yes, of course he is most well known for the first four Superman films of like the 70s into the 80s. So Superman, Superman 2, 3, and 4, The Quest for Peace. So then Bostonians, that's gotta be 80s. I know I brought this up. Uh I don't remember why. It must have been somebody else we were covering, but he did a film in the 80s called The Aviator that has nothing to do with the Leonardo DiCaprio. Yeah. But he was in that. So now I yeah, we're moving into the 90s. He actually is very funny and noises off. That's a really fun film. Okay. Very underrated. Morning Glory, The Remains of the Day, speechless, and then kind of fitting, I guess. His final credit was on the TV show Smallville.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he that that moment is kind of amazing where he he meets with like, you know, the that show's version of Clark and Superman. Tom Welling. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So that was I watched that whole series, but I I if I'm being really honest, I don't remember that interaction. Yeah. Um but you know, it's hard, it's like who he plays in this film. Uh interesting character. I mean, I think that um I don't know. The movie hour. Okay, so the movie's like an hour 40. It's not a super long movie. I think that if maybe they had what super long. What did I say? Super. Oh, because Superman? Yeah. Um I don't I don't know. Maybe I maybe I'm gonna backtrack on this. Uh what I was gonna say is I think if they maybe would have set him up, I know he just breaks up with his girlfriend before he and he's also dealing with a writer's block.
SPEAKER_01:Because it starts with him having like at the end of the successful play where um where oh my goodness, Jane Seymour, yeah, yeah. Like gives him the watch, and then and then it like kind of time skips eight years ahead, right? Yeah. So he's been hanging on to this for eight years. At that point, she has passed away.
SPEAKER_04:She passed away the night she gave him the watch.
SPEAKER_01:He doesn't know that yet, but he doesn't know that, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, so it's like this this like eight-year time skip uh that leads to his existential crisis that gets him to just hit the road.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Um I think what I was gonna say is like if they had maybe portrayed him as somebody I don't I'm not saying this to be mean, but maybe as somebody who has like compulsive tendencies, because it is it is wild how uh obsessed he immediately becomes with those photographs.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I I I haven't read the book. I might actually read some of this guy's books because it sounds like from the uh from what he's adopted, I'm I'm kind of interested. But for this, maybe if I see a little bit of what may have happened in this eight-year period, that too. You can build up to what we so that if I'm just supposed to believe that like some some stuff has happened that has like kind of pushed him towards this, that would almost make more sense because you're right, like he just went from like like turning on a dime to like this is suddenly the most important thing in my life ever.
SPEAKER_04:And I guess like at first I was like, oh, so he I guess went to school in proximity to Grand Hotel, right? Because at first I was like, okay, he lives in Chicago, why the fuck would he drive all the way up to Michigan? But is it because he was trying to get inspired again by going back to his own college and then he saw the hotel and was just like, oh, I'm gonna stay here?
SPEAKER_01:That's a question.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, like I that that's the way I interpreted it because I at first I was like, why that that is one hell of a drive to like look, it looked really nice out.
SPEAKER_01:He had a cool little car. He did have a cool little car driving along Lakeshore drive on his way out.
SPEAKER_04:That was a funny, that was a really funny scene or like um sequence because like obviously they had somebody filming him while he's actually driving.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And it it's always funny to me when they do that. And like, look, this is like 1980, so you're working with just like what you have, and like just the way that they had like he's he's being filmed in natural light.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And so just I mean, look, he was a very good looking guy, but like it is different when you're seeing somebody in natural light versus when you have like sat lights and key light. And so it was just that was kind of funny to me that his driving face on too. But um, I was like, when they had that sequence of him going Lakeshore drive, I was like, I have driven that so many times. Like the light that he stopped at, I was like, I've stopped at that light a million times. Like that was kind of fun. Um, anyways, so yeah, I but when he is doing the drive, and I'm like, oh my god, why the hell would he go all like Chicago to Michigan? I I'm not sure where Mackinac Island is in Michigan, but I was like, that's gotta be a pretty fucking decent drive. And you didn't bring anything with you, I don't think.
SPEAKER_01:You're just driving along the the lake, and it's it's a it's a great lake, if you will.
SPEAKER_04:But then he so he seems to be like kind of on the fly in spite because I remember thinking, oh, that's so dangerous, the way he puts his car in reverse.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. He just like he just like on a whim, just like, you know what? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, thank you, on a whim. And and I was thinking, that is so far to go. But then when he is doing his research and wants to find out about time travel and he and he presumably goes to his old college, I was like, oh, okay, maybe that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01:Is that I hope you're not commuting back and forth to Chicago.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, well, I was like, if he was trying to work through his writer's block and also the breakup of his relationship, maybe he was like consciously or subconsciously thinking, I'm gonna go back to the last place where I was really happy and successful, which was college. Yeah. Although that was hilarious to me when he was like, Oh my god, they said my play is good enough for Broadway. I'm like, no college kid has a please somebody prove me wrong, but I'm gonna say pretty confidently that no kid with a play in college is going from college to Broadway.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. I I clock that and I'm like, I don't know if that's how that would all pan out.
SPEAKER_04:I don't think that's how that pans out, but whatever. It's a movie.
SPEAKER_01:So we've been to auto plays out out in Las Vegas. We have. And it's not, you know, it's not New York, there's no Broadway. But that being said, I'm not aware of it being like a kind of thing where like agents are going to to these randomly to like pick and choose like maybe they are.
SPEAKER_04:That's a great point you're making. Does that happen? There it's to my mind, it would make way more sense for there to be an agent or somebody of that nature somewhere in these theaters that we've gone to in Los Angeles versus a college by Mackinac Island in Michigan.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So anyway, unless like he is some fucking prodigy that had a name, but they didn't exactly go that far with it to say that that was the case. He just had a really successful play. But then also is hilarious because um I don't know if I'm saying it right, but we have a friend name Elise, so that's why I'm saying it this way. Uh, the way that she makes her way through the crowd and everybody just fucking stops talking and like just turns to stare at her was like so dramatic.
SPEAKER_01:It was.
SPEAKER_04:Um anyway, and then the look on it, he looks like his face is like ashen when she like hands him the uh pocket watch.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And it just it's so it's so dramatic.
SPEAKER_01:The McGuffin, the watch that that was never made or created, it simply existed. It was passed on from her to him only because he passed it to her after he hypnotized himself into time travel.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, there's no explanation for the watch.
SPEAKER_01:There's there's no explanation for so much. And I'm fine with that, but this this really stretched the limits.
SPEAKER_04:So, yeah, but like I was saying, in terms of uh maybe setting up his compulsive tendencies. You know, I mentioned this last night when we were watching for the show. I know I am looking through all of this, or looking at all of this through a 2026 lens, but this does not strike me as romantic at all.
SPEAKER_01:It it kind of like had a lot of parts of things I expected to see in movies like uh Say Anything.
SPEAKER_04:Mm-hmm. You bring up that one a lot.
SPEAKER_01:Because it it wasn't what I expected. Like, there's that dramatic moment with the boom box, and people feel a certain way about about like that. But I I thought that movie was gonna be more about the like if you just try hard enough, you'll like kind of break down their will and they'll they'll love you. That was like That was this movie. That was very much this movie. Yeah. I mean, there's the like the introductory moments that are like really kind of like creepy and off. There's the moment when he's about to kiss her and she's like, no.
SPEAKER_04:She literally says no. And what does he do? He steps closer to her. She says no. He steps closer to her and literally backs her against a wall. So she has nowhere to go.
SPEAKER_01:But look, does it help if it seemed like she really did want to kiss him?
SPEAKER_04:It I oh oh, it is so troubling that that is the message that they're sending. And like, again, I get it, it's 1988.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's not a this is not a new video.
SPEAKER_04:We're we're talking about a film that it's like insane to say this movie's 46 years old, but it right? Yeah, 46 years old.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, if I had a dollar for every 80s movie that had this kind of thing in it, I could probably start ordering stuff off Grubhub right now.
SPEAKER_04:I get it, I get it. Um, I mean, the the most I can say is like I'm glad that there has been enough conversation. Conversation around these types of depictions of romance that I think we've largely moved away from it.
SPEAKER_01:But I can't have have there been like more current movies that had that happen?
SPEAKER_04:I feel like that's a whole conversation because like a lot of films don't really show romance a lot anymore. Like that's something that's been like talked about in terms of like modern cinema, especially like sex scenes. Sex scenes aren't shown so much anymore. And I'll I'll be honest, like it depends on the context. Like I thought that that sex scene in Oppenheimer was wildly out of like uh like out of tune with the rest of the Make it a nuclear bomb, make a nuclear bomb, let's fuck it was I was like, what? Like, so I don't I don't know where I fall on that argument, but like most of the time I'm like, I don't I don't need to see them getting an I don't know, but um, but anyway, to to get back to this film, like he it's hard for me to really like his character because it gives me the ick, the way that he is so obsessed with her.
SPEAKER_01:It's way too much of a it's just meant to be. Right. Because you gave me this watch, so it and like if I'm really like diving into the story that they've created, he's taking that watch and then going back in time and she hasn't given it to him, like he she doesn't have it yet, she hasn't given that to him yet. So he's like acting as though they're already a thing. Right. Because they will be, right? So maybe that's only because of how he acted. I don't know. The whole thing's a fucking paradox.
SPEAKER_04:Exactly. And you know, when he approaches her, and she does say, and there are little things that it's like, okay, so now it's kind of misleading. I mean, this the whole like when she says, Is it you? And then he just presses the point several times afterwards. Like, why'd you say that? Why'd you say that?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you said that. What'd you mean?
SPEAKER_04:And she she admits to him that it was um, what's his character's name? Christopher Plummer, who told her that she was gonna meet somebody who was gonna derail her career.
SPEAKER_01:And there's I think But that's not what you it takes of him asking like five times before she says that because he thinks, are you the one? And we all think Right. We all think like that somehow she like pulled him through time or something.
SPEAKER_04:Very misleading. Yeah, no, it's just like a nervous manager, even her, but her answer is also to me not satisfactory because it brings up so many questions, and it's fine, like I don't need a film to answer everything for me, but like what are you saying with saying that Robinson told you this? Like, is it because it's just like baseline, he's paranoid that like since you're so beautiful, yes, somebody's gonna come along and want to take you out of this. Or did he like to me, I was like, does he have some kind of intel about this time travel thing?
SPEAKER_01:And they made you think that. Yeah. They they made they led you to believe that there was something going on with Christopher Plummer's character where he yeah, had like some clairvoyance or some ability to understand that this was possible and happening when I think in reality he was just a very overprotective manager.
SPEAKER_04:And that's the other thing that really bothered me about this film. And again, okay, so not only are we talking about a film that was made in 1980, but we're talking about a story that largely takes place in 1912. So I'm not saying it's it's inaccurate, but this woman has no fucking agency almost. Like, I'm so glad that she made the decision to not go with the rest of the troupe to Denver, but that's literally like the only choice she like makes on her own. Like, it's either Christopher Reeve forcing her, and look, I'm being I'm being I'm being like over the top. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But like with like Well, I was just saying, I was I was waffling because like, well, she had her whole improv moment in the play.
SPEAKER_04:That's true. Yeah, that's true. But like between Christopher Reeve basically like forcing her to submission of this romantic relationship or her manager just being completely oppressive and overbearing with like her career stuff, it's like this poor woman, you know. But again, okay, that's 1912.
SPEAKER_01:Miss McKenna had some things to work out.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so I and I feel look, I feel bad because I I say this about a lot of films that like if we ever are saying anything negative about a movie, if whoever's listening to this loves this movie, I think that's great. Like I get it. It's a it's like a cult movie.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's like a cult classic movie. Yeah. They have like conventions every year at that hotel. What? Okay, at that hotel, sure.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So like and where everyone just fucking goes in their room and starts talking to themselves.
unknown:That actually would be amazing.
SPEAKER_01:I completely accept this. I'm in this room. It is 6 p.m.
SPEAKER_04:You know, that's an idea. They I don't know what happens at these conventions, but they should one.
SPEAKER_01:I'd be shocked if they didn't have that as part of it.
SPEAKER_04:They should 1,000% have everybody. Okay, now everybody go into your room and you try you try real hard to go back in time.
SPEAKER_01:Well, so if they all get dressed up and they all do that, yeah, then they all come out and they have like all the decorations change and they just tell them.
SPEAKER_04:That would be really oh, that would be really cool.
SPEAKER_01:That better be what they do.
SPEAKER_04:That that would be so that actually would be really neat. If they tell them to all go in the room, y'all change, y'all do that stuff, and then the the staff of the hotel just whiplash get everything changed out in like a matter of an hour, and and then for the rest of the night they just pretend it's 1912. That would be fun.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we gotta look into this.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that that actually would be a really fun idea. But um yeah, I just I have a hard time because he's so insistent.
SPEAKER_01:They spend they spend a lot of time just him before he even like gets to that timeline, and there's really nothing building up any kind of like real tension, like tension or relationship between them.
SPEAKER_04:So for them to like it just all like happened weirdly fast and weirdly fast, but the movie itself is a very slow burn.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean things things kind of like pick up, like he gets the shit beat out of him, and then tied up in a stable, he makes it out. They, you know. Apparently apparently, like, she gets over the no, please don't kiss me, let's just have sex.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean, that's a huge deal for 1912.
SPEAKER_01:Huge isn't it for somebody you met a day ago? I don't know. Maybe I don't know what it was like 1912. Maybe that's what people did.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, maybe we're giving too much like Puritan, whatever Puritan-ness to that time.
SPEAKER_01:But look, so we all we all know, spoilers, we all know that he starts rummaging through his pockets and pulls out a penny from 1979.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And that's what he fucking just like pulls him back out of whatever however this works.
SPEAKER_04:I really want to know what is she seeing when that happens. Because we see it from his POV.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And it's kind of like um what's the image?
SPEAKER_01:It's it's just like it's almost like if you get tunnel vision and you're just like it's getting deeper and deeper and then black.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like that's kind of what it felt a little bit like.
SPEAKER_04:And I and I will say that's a clever way of taking him out of that scene because what are you gonna do? Have him like kind of disappearing like Marty McFly. Like, I don't know what what else they could have done, but I am very, very curious for from her character's POV, what is she seeing when when that happens?
SPEAKER_01:Is he just like something because she's like is is he is he like getting shrink like is he like shrinking while he's like moving away from like I think it probably was something more like Marty, like where he's just like fading from fading away. But so this was a 1979 penny. He was in 1912, right? Right. What what was their end game? How long so like what's what's the line? Like, does he get something? So let's say he's there for two years. What what's the line gonna be where he sees something where he's like, oh shit, and then he like suddenly comes back to the regular time.
SPEAKER_04:The other thing too is that like he still has a physical body in 1980.
SPEAKER_01:Sure.
SPEAKER_04:So there was going to come a point where like somebody from the hotel, like what actually ends up happening, yeah, but if he had stayed in 1912, somebody's eventually gonna knock on that door and come into his room.
SPEAKER_01:But hypothetically, he could spend an entire lifetime starting like at that 1912 moment and come back, and there's not they don't really tell us like how much time has elapsed when he comes back into his body.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, but the but because they don't, to me, the the assumption is it wouldn't be a one-to-one you don't think so?
SPEAKER_01:I don't think so. I think he comes back into his body at the moment he left.
SPEAKER_04:Interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Only because that's how usually these time travel.
SPEAKER_04:But who's who set that trope up? Like that's just arbitrary.
SPEAKER_01:So is just telling yourself that you're in 1912. I completely accept this. I'm going to walk downstairs. There will be a pizza. I totally accept this. I totally accept this.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, so um okay. But there was something else I wanted to say. Oh, but you're totally right. I mean um because the thing that I was thinking about is like if they okay, so to your earlier point about telling us something about what happened in that eight-year interlude between him finishing college and when he goes off.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I know he breaks up with his girlfriend, but is there literally not a single thing tethering him to his actual life? Because he is so ready. He is so ready to just completely forget everything about his life.
SPEAKER_01:This is the kind of behavior that would make a lot more sense if I knew there was a brain tumor involved.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, like so I that was the thing too. Like, I mean, okay, fine. Like, if you I mean, like, I was thinking about it's like, would I literally give everything up in my life for you? Yeah. Like I but it's like for there to be no conflict whatsoever, for for there to be not even like a pause of like, I have I have parents, I have siblings, I have friends, I have a career, I have all these things that I still love in my life.
SPEAKER_01:He has on one hand all the knowledge of the future, and yet if he thinks about any of that stuff too much, boom, he just goes, he gets zapped right back.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and that's the other thing too. It's that it's like, okay, 1912 might be nice for a day or two, but we haven't yet, there's no polio vaccination right yet, or like any of the things that like are kind of nice for modern day living.
SPEAKER_01:What about that song that that he made a reference to that didn't actually it wasn't out yet or hadn't been That's interesting Why didn't that flip it back?
SPEAKER_04:That's an excellent point.
SPEAKER_01:God damn this move.
SPEAKER_04:That's an I was reading that like so yes, the the the piece of music's real. Her saying that she's heard that composer before could have plausibly happened because that person there are records of him being on tour.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:And so presumably, like some of the people do fucking deep dives into this shit. Presumably she would have seen him in concert in 1909. Okay, but the piece of music that Reeve's character is specifically referencing, I believe, was not composed until 1924. Something like that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So now this now this is holding up.
SPEAKER_04:Speaking of Elise, played by Jane Seymour, so Elise McKenna. We gotta keep moving. Um, even though we don't have a lot of people to go over. She we one one quick thing. It is very weird to me that Plummer's character just calls her McKenna for most of the time.
SPEAKER_01:Which is a a viable first name, potentially.
SPEAKER_04:I knew somebody named McKenna as a first name. But like for that era, very strange that he would just refer to her not as like Ms. McKenna.
SPEAKER_01:Miss.
SPEAKER_04:Miss McKenna.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um yeah, but played by Jane Seymour. It was nice to see her in some I what do I know her most from? Um is it Wedding Crashers? It might be. I uh Dr. Quinn Messenwin was like a little bit too too like not adult, but like I was young young enough at the time that I was like, I'm not interested in that show. Um, but she's done, I mean, she's still very much working, she's very busy, she's done a ton of stuff over the course of her career. And uh let's go through some of her credits. I have a fair mix of TV and film. So I ended this one as well for our little munchkin. She was in a film called Young Winston.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Everything's coming up Winston.
SPEAKER_04:Everything's coming up Winston. She was in you you mentioned it that she was she a Bond girl?
SPEAKER_01:She was in Live and Let Die. There you go. Yeah, she was solitaire, and that character kind of reminded me of McKenna. Okay. Miss McKenna, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Is she like Demir or something?
SPEAKER_01:Or she is like um like Live and Let Die. There's a lot of like uh voodoo and tarot reading and stuff, and so she's like predicting she predicts her own affair with James Bond. That's funny. Anyone that's watching a James Bond movie could have also predicted that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, because he just sleeps with anything.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. So she's in that. Uh she was in a TV miniseries called Our Mutual Friend, some fun films, Simbad and The Eye of the Tiger. She was in the film Battlestar Galactica. Uh oh. Yeah. There was a film version of it. Oh Heavenly Dog, which I think came out the same year as this film. But I would say that for like a certain segment of the population, she is most well known because it it went on for quite a while. Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So she was in that. I thought this was nice. She also, not she didn't have like an extensive arc, but she was also on Smallville.
SPEAKER_02:Hmm. I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_04:She did that. Uh, you already mentioned it. I think the first thing I probably think of is Wedding Crashers uh that she is in. And the rest that I have TV, so she she I think has um dipped her toe in like the whole like seasonal Christmas TV movie world. So she's done a couple of them. Uh she did a TV movie called The Royal Christmas, uh, a couple TV series, Let's Get Physical, The Kaminsky Method. I watched her the first season of that and then I just kind of dropped out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Be Positive, Harry Wilde, and then more recently, a TV miniseries called The 12 Dates Till Christmas.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. So we're already halfway through our cast that we are featuring. Next up, another Christopher, Christopher Plummer, who we actually have brought up not too long ago. He's come up. Yeah. He's come up. So he plays, I don't know what WF stands for, but WF Robinson. And he has passed. He pa he passed in 2021, so a couple years ago. So this character is Elisa's manager.
SPEAKER_01:He exists solely that there's some goddamn conflict in this. Otherwise, it would just be like, I love you. I love you too. Credits.
SPEAKER_04:He unfortunately he's, I think, a little one note.
SPEAKER_01:Um No, he's he's all one note. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I I think that the conversation between him and Richard, where so Richard, I believe, accuses him of having like a sexual interest in McKenna.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because he does.
SPEAKER_04:Does he?
SPEAKER_01:Wait. Richard accuses him.
SPEAKER_04:Yes. I don't think he does.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's that's fair. I don't think he does.
SPEAKER_04:Because he is so indignant in a way that felt authentic to me, of like, that's disgusting. Yeah. That you would think that that's like what my where my intentions lie.
SPEAKER_01:I don't care about sex. I'm more worried about money.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, he just he's very much on the like money slash success train.
SPEAKER_01:Like he and and he takes representing her very seriously.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I think in his own very warped way, he he does see in her, like I'm trying to think of a comparison. He's like the mentor that just like is so steadfastly like on a single track of like success success. I can't say that word success. Successfully like in uh multiple times in a row. But like he just wants her to I guess, according to him, achieve her potential. No distractions.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So I say time traveling Christopher Reeve is a distraction.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, he is. So that's who this character is, and he just, you know, he's just kind of like the evil dude in the movie.
SPEAKER_01:Um the first time he sees him, he's like, Do you have a room here?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I mean, fair enough question because he's being kind of creepy with her.
SPEAKER_02:I think he was, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So fair enough. Um, I'm glad that Elise kind of stands up to him a couple times. He, I mean, I love Christopher Plummer. I wish that he was given a more rounded out role in this film.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I think it actually could have been, and who knows what what his character is like in the book. I think it could have been really interesting if he did have some sort of awareness of the time travel element. I don't know how he would, but I think that just kind of could have been interesting.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, if he was aware of it somehow, and anyway. But his career, I mean, amazing career in especially uh I probably said this the last time we talked about him. At the tail end of his career, he got a ton of Oscar attention. So I'm I'm happy for that. But let's go through I almost all entirely films, of course, the sound of music. I think that regardless of generation, probably most people think of the sound of music when they think of Christopher Plummer. So he was in that. Okay. Exclamation point. The Return of the Pink Panther, The Man Who Would Be King. The one very notable TV miniseries that he was part of was the Thornbirds. Oh god. Very much along the same track as far as like romance and that kind of thing. Uh so the film that we brought him up for not too long ago was Dreamscape.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Was he the evil guy?
SPEAKER_04:One of them?
SPEAKER_01:I think so. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Was he the one that actually was like, I want to kill the president?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think he was, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:There, because um, who was the other guy that was like kind of the evil guy? It was it, but he died early. Was that Max Von Sendau?
SPEAKER_01:That's it, yeah. Yeah. I get them a little confused sometimes.
SPEAKER_04:There they're kind of there's some similarity there. But uh, so he did voice one of the characters in American Tale. He was in Dragnet. Um, so then he goes on the kind of this like spree of being so more voice work of all these like Madeline animated movies. So he did a lot of that. He was in Malcolm X, Wolf, 12 Monkeys, The Insider.
SPEAKER_01:He played uh like Mike Wallace from 60 Minutes on that, right?
SPEAKER_04:I don't remember specifically, but I do remember thinking, wow, what a great movie.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Dracula 2000. Oh. Uh he reteams with Russell Crowe for A Beautiful Mind, National Treasure, Seriana. He does more voice work. He was uh he did some voice work in the movie Up. Then he gets his first so all of his Oscar noms came in the best supporting actor category. First nomination was for The Last Station. He wins for the film Beginners, and then this definitely came up when we talked about him. So he gets another nomination for all the money in the world, and that's when he very much at the last minute uh replaced Kevin Spacey, I believe, in that role. Um oh my gosh, what's the name of the rich dude that he played?
SPEAKER_01:Don't I don't know. Anyway, he played that rich dude.
SPEAKER_04:Uh Getty. There you go. Thank you. Uh he did I rem I I mean, I liked Knives Out. I don't I I don't know if it was just hyped up way too much by the time I got around to seeing it. I think it was hyped up quite a bit. It it's a lot of telling not showing, which it's a lot of them talking about what their version of what happened in the past, um, like past events.
SPEAKER_01:It it feels like um maybe that's just not the style of movie for me.
SPEAKER_04:Same. You know, but I think he's like the patriarch in in that that movie.
SPEAKER_01:It's like what what if we took like an Agatha Christie type of thing and just dialed it up to 11.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And we're gonna hide anything that could possibly get you to. So many twists you will not know what the fuck is happening. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And then his final on-screen credit was for uh the TV series Departure. Okay, so the final gentleman that we are gonna bring up, because look, it's a very contained cast.
SPEAKER_03:It is.
SPEAKER_04:And there are some minor characters, but I was like, uh, I don't know if they really Pushed along the story in a meaningful way. It really is mostly those top three characters. But I do want to bring up, well, with uh with uh a notable cameo in addition, Bill Erwin. So he plays Arthur.
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_04:So adult uh Arthur.
SPEAKER_01:Adult Arthur, yes, because you get you get ball bouncing kid Arthur.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Uh what would it be, 70 years earlier?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And which that kid I was like, that kid looks really familiar to me, but the only other credit he had was Blues Brothers. Wow. But he looked very familiar. Um, but yes, adult art uh senior Arthur, I should say. Senior Arthur. Yeah. So Irwin, he passed in 2010. He is very much one of those, oh, it's that guy.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_04:Because he had 254 credits.
SPEAKER_01:You would recognize this guy.
SPEAKER_04:You would 1000% recognize this guy. And so uh extensive career, so many so many TV appearances, but like most mostly one-offs and two offs. I do have though, of the credits that I've listed, mostly television, because like he he he was one of those actors where um if you see him credited like say four or five times on a show, more than half the time he's like played different characters for for those shows. But let's go over some of them. So he was on the TV show Richard Diamond, private detective. That's a cool name. Zane Gray Theater, My Three Sons, Perry Mason, the TV series. Um this is all still TV, The Fugitive, Gunsmoke, Forever Fernwood. So he um I guess is a I think he's a plane passenger in planes, trains, and automobiles.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I saw that.
SPEAKER_04:I don't recognize I'd have to I don't recognize him from that, but I do very much recognize him from home alone because he so when um Catherine O'Hara R.I.P. um is trying to barter with that older woman for her ticket, yeah, he's the husband.
SPEAKER_02:Got it.
SPEAKER_04:So that's him in that film. More TV work, just ten of us, growing pains, and then his final TV credit was for final credit was for the TV show My Name is Earl. And then also I think maybe the nature of the industry, because like I think his first credit was like in 1941, and they were not um, I mean, now especially like with like SAG, like people are gonna get credited. Uh, it's kind of funny to me because even George Wendt, who had scenes in this film that got cut, has a credit for the film.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_04:But way back in the day, that wasn't necessarily the case. So it's only in retrospect that he has like a ton of uncredited credits for things earlier in his career that they just like by and large weren't giving credits to everybody in a project. So which they should, but and you know what, another thing that I thought was really interesting is um just randomly while I was looking up his credits, I didn't really think about it, but I I saw like under like kind of notable things about him, he was 6'4. He doesn't yeah, because he was next to Christopher Reeve the entire time. Oh yeah, and Christopher Reeve, I think, is about the same height.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So neither of them looked remarkably taller than than the other because they were both just super tall guys.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Um, which I thought was really funny. The one cameo that I wanted to bring up was the elderly Elise.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:She, so we haven't covered this film yet, but she is Aunt Elizabeth from House.
SPEAKER_02:Oh.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Which is okay. Has her like her own ghost and and like presumably took her life. And but like that's that same because I was like, wait a minute, I know her from something. That's what I know her from. Alright.
SPEAKER_01:So film synopsis. Her credits are like Jaws 2, old lady.
SPEAKER_04:I know. It's kind of tough when that's how they just refer to you, but all right, film synopsis. Alright, what do we got? A Chicago playwright uses self-hypnosis to travel back in time and meet the actress whose vintage portrait hangs in a grand hotel. I think it's actually called Grand Hotel, so it's not just a grand hotel. It is it is the Grand Hotel.
SPEAKER_01:One of several grand hotels, probably, but yeah, as soon as you hit the self-hypnosis, I almost lost it. Um, because that's just super funny.
SPEAKER_04:Hypnosis does not equate to time travel. Uh I shouldn't have to even say that.
SPEAKER_01:Obviously, it does.
SPEAKER_04:But obviously, I guess in this film, but I mean that that's always gonna be a real I'm really curious how it's described in the book, because that's gonna always really be a blocker for me with this film that he goes back in time.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe I'll I might I might check it out just to see because I'm always curious about those types of change, possible changes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Uh because like what we were saying at the top of the episode, if there was something else that was part of his story in terms of like the fact that I guess in the book he has like that brain tumor. I think that that could have been a little bit more compelling, but just just for him to be a normal dude and then without really any other train, like even if he I am confident there's gonna be more substance going on in even if, even if you're like, I'm gonna try self-hypnosis, I feel pretty confident you would want to go to like a psychotherapist or somebody who has actual expertise and this the skill set to to like mentor you or guide you. Like, I feel like you wouldn't just like go ask a professor, him say, Oh, well, it's self-hypnosis, and then totally on your own.
SPEAKER_01:You can even practice. Yeah. You went and did it.
SPEAKER_04:Exactly. Like, I know you had a couple failed attempts, but I feel like the same night though. Yeah, like I feel like it would, it would take a ton of practice if you were if I'm gonna even entertain the idea of self-hypnosis leading to time travel.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I feel like you're not gonna do it totally on your own if you don't have a background in in in what that is.
SPEAKER_01:Have you considered that it was really just the love that brought them together the whole time?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I mean, I and then and then I gotta say, like at the at the end, you know, we have just like a 10-minute sequence of him like being depressed and walking the grounds of the hotel. I guess he like I know that the night that he comes back, he kind of does these like desperate couple of attempts to to go back, which of course are never gonna work. But I'm kind of surprised that he didn't say, Okay, I'm gonna like uh regroup, I'm gonna rest up a little bit. Cause apparently, like, you know, the professor says that it like drains you physically to even attempt it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Time as as often is the case with time travel.
SPEAKER_04:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:It's tiring.
SPEAKER_04:Tiring. So, you know, I I know you just gotta end the movie somehow, but like it wouldn't make more sense if he was like, okay, this totally sucks that I like came back, but I'm gonna I'm gonna hang for a couple and the thing is he doesn't necessarily have to does he have to be at the hotel?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, because he already was.
SPEAKER_04:So if you're gonna travel back in time, you have to be wherever it is that you want to travel back to.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I don't know if he had to be there to travel, but he already knew from looking from going to the hotel and looking in the registry that he was checked into that hotel.
SPEAKER_04:Right, but like if I wouldn't the same room, so you're right. If I wanted to go to Victorian England, I'd have to take a plane to England so that I could self-hip hypnotize myself into being into Victorian England. I would have to be there.
SPEAKER_01:Are you asking me how to time travel?
SPEAKER_04:I'm I'm asking according to like the rules of this film.
SPEAKER_01:Oh.
SPEAKER_04:So you have to be in the place. You have to be where you want to travel time travel to.
SPEAKER_01:I think you want to, but you don't have to.
SPEAKER_04:So I could, under the the guise, the rules of this film, yeah. I could go into our bedroom right now and self-hypnotize myself to go back to Victorian England. So if I knew a place over there and I could visualize it.
SPEAKER_01:I think what you'd have to consider is where are you going to get up here? Because he knew at the hotel that he was gonna get up in that hotel, that same room is gonna be there in 1912. You're just gonna like wake up on a pile of dirt here.
SPEAKER_04:That's oh no.
SPEAKER_01:How far back are you going? Was this land developed?
SPEAKER_04:The other thing too is that like I feel like there's some real limitations to the self-hypnosis because like Well, the biggest limitation is that it wouldn't work. Anyway, I mean, so he comes he comes back, and instead of like trying to regroup and try to attempt to go back again, he just like totally died. Yeah, yeah. He just he dies of heartbreak.
SPEAKER_01:Which is kind of two things. One, his agent, Christopher Ree's agent, laughed in the face of whoever presented this, uh, tried to get him to sign up for this movie because he had just like like Superman was a huge hit. Sure. And this movie was not gonna have that same kind of budget. So the the guy did that thing. Uh, let's see, uh producer, producer Steven Deutsch did that thing where he literally slid the script under a door to get Reeves to to read it. He liked it so much that he like called back the next day and see he wanted to be part of it, just like that that agent must have been pissed.
SPEAKER_04:Those things just don't happen anymore. They don't happen anymore. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But then second, his biggest concern, Reeves' biggest like fear or concern with the movie, was he wanted to know whether it really was possible to die from a broken heart.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I mean, you hear quite a quite often about elderly couples where one of them passes and then the other one passes in pretty quick succession.
SPEAKER_01:I just appreciate that that was his concern and not the um time travel element.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, they did do a great like I will say that at one point he's the makeup and uh like everything at the end was like very like that's what I was just gonna say.
SPEAKER_01:Like, holy shit.
SPEAKER_04:Especially the the bloodshot eyes. Yeah. I was like, how the fuck did they do that?
SPEAKER_01:Because like his sports and lemon in his eye or something.
SPEAKER_04:His eyes are really fucked up. Like they're super, like it looks like somebody threw vinegar into his eyes. Like it, they are so bloodshot.
SPEAKER_01:So then he dies. So then he dies. And fortunately for them, when they when they reunite in basically the same train station that you see in the Deathly Hallows part two.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's like they're both they're they're both in like the hottest versions of them of themselves, respectively. So that worked out.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, you know, I I know that that's like kind of the cap on the whole romance part of this film.
SPEAKER_01:So they can be together forever.
SPEAKER_04:They reunite in the afterlife.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um because it was always meant to be.
SPEAKER_04:He's still wearing the bad suit. Why?
SPEAKER_01:Because he went he did like just momentarily go back, right? That's why he was in the suit, or was he just still wearing it?
SPEAKER_04:When he Say that again?
SPEAKER_01:When he at the very end, did he like go back in time again, or was he just like dying in the present and then meets her in the afterlife? Or did he like slip back into the past one last time and then I think they just It's like um at the end of Titanic. Oh.
SPEAKER_04:Where she's like what fucking 90, whatever, but then after she bites it, yeah, she goes back and she's like her 18-year-old self and and Leonardo DiCaprio's his young self. So uh would you watch this film again?
SPEAKER_01:I'm more inclined to possibly read. Yeah, I'll read about the book.
SPEAKER_04:I'll read about the book.
SPEAKER_01:And then I might read the book.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. Yeah. Fair enough.
SPEAKER_01:But I'm more likely to do that than than watch the movie again.
SPEAKER_04:I'm very glad that I finally got to watch the movie because I've I kind of have seen parts of it, but like never saw it in its entirety. And yeah, I mean, I know I know that this film has like cult status. Like, there are people who really, really love this movie. So I was curious about it. And so I'm glad that I finally saw it, but I don't need to see it again. Um, but if you oh well okay, so I mean, look, we've talked a lot about this whole time travel element.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So I'm just very curious, as far as like time travel movies go, what people think about this whole self-hypnosis idea. I don't mean the validity of it, but can you buy into it enough for the purposes of a movie?
SPEAKER_01:I I mean my answer is no, but I'm I'm willing to listen to some uh some other thoughts on on the metaphysical nature of this method of time travel.
SPEAKER_04:So that's question one A. Question one B is is he super creepy to you or is he just romantic to you?
SPEAKER_01:Those are good questions.
SPEAKER_04:So if you want to get in touch, we'd love to hear from you. You can reach out through Facebook, Instagram, or Blue Sky. It's the same handle at all three.
SPEAKER_01:It's a good thing that he looked like Christopher Reeves.
SPEAKER_04:Right? That's exactly what I was thinking. Yep. If he didn't look like Christopher Reeve, uh-uh, you could reach out. Uh same handle, it is at 80smontage pod, and 80s is 80S. Okay, so we are swinging totally in a different direction. Although, well, period peace, maybe if you believe in it. Um I'm trying to think of clues for you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Uh Burgess Meredith.
SPEAKER_01:It's uh Clash of the Titans.
SPEAKER_04:Oh my god, you got wow. That was like like um, what is that? What's that game show where you give words as clues?
SPEAKER_01:Password?
SPEAKER_04:That was really good. That was really good. Yes, Clash of the Titans.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I I'm like, we're not talking about Rocky again. And I know that he's been in a bunch of other movies, but yeah, so that was my guess. Um God.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, but we're kind of sticking to the earlier part of this decade for uh a lot of the season so far.
SPEAKER_01:I'm gonna say right off the bat, I already know that the effects in this movie are gonna look pretty dated.
SPEAKER_04:But they're endearing.
SPEAKER_01:And and I still prefer this to like the remakes that they that they uh put up.
SPEAKER_04:I haven't watched any any remake, but I do have very distinct memories of seeing this film very young. And I even like more specifically remember the Medusa scenes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Medusa scenes are very, very much stuck in my burned into my memory. So but that is it coming up next, Clash of the Titans. In the meantime, just thank you to everyone for hanging with us with all the very many, many, many podcast options you have. So many. So many. We really appreciate you uh wanting to spend some time with us, and we'll talk to you again in two weeks' time.