Episode 1146 - Flickchart Forum: Sam Raimi

Welcome to Earth2.net, the show, episode 1146.

As someday it may happen that a victim must be found, I've got a little list, I've got a little list.

He's got a little list, he's got a little list, and they've got a little list, they've got a little list.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another Flickchart forum here on Earth2.net.

I am Ian Wilson, and once again we're looking at lists.

Lists that can be grouped by themes, or characters, or directors.

What's easiest? Directors. What are we doing? Directors.

And in this instance, it is Samuel.

And whilst I had a list of prepared Samuels to read,

to go off of, I've then noted that by saying it's a director, it very much limits my scope.

So, I'll just rip the band-aid off.

It's going swimmingly already.

What is happening right now?

Oh lovely, my guests are introducing themselves before I even get there.

But hell, one take. I'm not doing this again.

We're doing Sam Raimi. You've heard Des Reddick and Dave Probst.

Hello.

People that I both formerly rather liked.

Now, Sam Raimi is best known as a director of horror.

That being said, he has diversified slightly,

which I found out a great deal when doing the homework for this segment.

I would say he made his name in horror.

But he's definitely become a more mainstream filmmaker.

I think that is fair to say.

Yeah.

Obviously, he cut his teeth on the ground-breaking, low-budget horror.

Well, it ended up being a trilogy.

And Vensum, Evil Dead.

Yeah.

A franchise. An honest-to-God franchise.

A franchise.

Now, if my research is correct, Mr. Reddick, Mr. Doomsday, give you a proper title.

Thank you, sir.

You did the Evil Dead films for episode 800 of Dread Media.

Yes.

With Tom DJ.

Yeah.

And then you also did a roadkill review of Drag Me to Hell when it came out as well.

Right. Oh, shit. Yeah.

Wait, yeah. Way back when.

Episode 93.

Wow. Look at you with the research.

Well, I listened back to it earlier today.

Oh, dear.

With your good chum, Daryl.

Right.

And I say that I hope enough time has not passed, but he's no longer your good chum, Daryl.

Yeah. I mean, that's true.

But we don't have to get into that.

Lovely stuff.

But insofar as that is how he came to prominence, and that is kind of the stuff that you covered, Des,

what was your first kind of encounter with Sam Raimi and his ilk?

Oh, man. Like, what was the first Sam Raimi movie I ever saw? It had to be Evil Dead.

I would have seen it at, like, five years old, probably.

Ha ha ha!

I'm not even kidding. I owned the VHS by nine or ten.

Right.

Yeah, I owned the VHS of it. It's one of the... And I owned very few VHSs. Very few.

I had, like, E.T., I had Evil Dead, I had the Godfather trilogy, and then I had, I think, like, the remastered Star Wars VHS trilogy as well.

I think that's... And then I had a couple random, like, fucking microwave machines.

Massacre or something, but that was... That was in a misguided attempt at collecting, because I'm like,

surely if I have this beat-up VHS of Microwave Massacre from 1989, it will be worth thousands of dollars.

Wow, yes.

No, it was... I lost money on shipping when I sold that one.

Ha ha ha!

Jesus Christ.

I think we're getting a bit of insight into how you became you.

Ha ha ha!

I was going to say, we had very different choices.

I was going to say...

Ha ha ha!

Yeah, I mean, I saw Evil Dead quite young, but I think also, like, I think I didn't see Evil Dead 2 until I was, like, 12.

So it was quite a gulf.

And for me, that was shocking.

You know, like...

Right.

I was like, oh!

Like, because I was watching, I'm like, oh, this is basically that same movie.

Yes.

I'm like, the fucking...

I don't even think we had the words for remake.

Back then, right?

Like, I'm like, this is the same movie as Evil Dead.

And then it changed, and I was like, oh, this is a very different movie than Evil Dead.

Well, more on that later.

Right, right.

We'll get there.

But yeah, I mean, I've, you know, I've just sort of been like a pocket Sam Raimi fanboy ever since.

I was purely delighted when it was announced that he was directing the Spider-Man movies.

Right, yeah.

I mean, I would say I followed his career, but there's certainly movies that we're going to talk about today that I have watched for the first time for this specific podcast.

Oh, yes.

So, yeah, I'm not going to say I'm the biggest fan ever.

Although, I will say, I'm not trying to take over the podcast here.

Am I going to get credit for coming up with the idea for this episode, Ian?

I believe it was my suggestion, was it not?

It may well be.

Thank you very much.

I don't care.

As long as the content's there.

It's like, you may have nominated, I'd pick it, and then, you know, get it organized, and, you know, dedicate periods of my life for the homework and everything.

I hear that.

It's almost like you've had a weekly podcast for 15 years.

Almost.

Almost for 862 weeks running.

Oh.

Dave, what's your first foray onto the TechChart forum?

It is, indeed.

So, welcome.

Lovely to be here.

I wish I'd worked with you sooner.

Yeah.

Now, what's your kind of first memories of Sam Raimi and his filmography?

It was probably Army of Darkness.

Right.

I mean, I think I've been well documented in various places.

Saying that, as a kid, I was never really a horror person.

I was always kind of timid.

Yeah.

Like, yeah.

I scared easily.

And I think I just ended up seeing Army of Darkness on, like, a late night TV showing after, like, a shift, after a pub shift, I think it was.

And really enjoyed it.

So, I've actually ended up seeing all the evil deaths, but I saw them in reverse order.

Okay.

Which may well affect how I feel about them.

Yeah, that's definitely the worst way to watch those three movies.

It's the worst way to watch those three movies.

Yeah.

Well, we're going to have some interesting rankings, I think.

Oh, that's what I like to hear.

And then, I think the next movie I definitely remember seeing before would be probably Darkman.

Yeah.

Right.

Which I'd heard of before sort of seeing it.

And, again, I think it was on television one night.

I saw Darkman in the theater.

Oh, nice.

I even own the DVDs for the sequels.

Oh, wow.

I've seen a couple of the sequels.

They're not good.

Yeah.

Arnold Voslu is no Liam Neeson.

No, no.

Darkman fucking rules.

The Darkman sequels do not exist.

No.

We don't talk about Die, Darkman, Die.

No.

In German.

I've never heard anyone talk about Die, Darkman, Die.

Great title, to be fair.

Great title.

Yeah.

Of course, in German, it's The Darkman.

The Darkman, The.

Oh.

If he speaks German, he can't be that bad.

So, yeah.

And then, I think, likewise, after that, just kind of like being familiar with him for the

stuff he did with Spider-Man.

And, yeah, sort of these kind of more modern day.

So, yeah, a lot of these on the list, I've probably had watched for the first time for

this as well, because they are films I think I would normally have gravitated towards.

And, in some cases, I'm pleased with watching them, and in other cases, maybe not so much.

I guess we'll find out.

I have a feeling this is a common theme between all of us, because, for my part, because I'm

so much younger than both of you.

Here we go.

The knives come out.

It's stuck.

Look, if my knee didn't hurt so bad, I'd come over there and kick your ass.

You're eight time zones away, I fear not.

You're safe.

Yeah.

I mean, basically, my kind of first real introduction to Raimi was the Spider-Man trilogy.

Okay.

And, also, when I was in Banff.

I've said this on a previous.

It's flicked up for me.

You were on, Des.

I saw The Quick and the Dead for the first time on the TBS Superstation.

Ah, right.

And, very much enjoyed it, keeping my powder dry.

And, so, I got the feeling as to what a Sam Raimi film was in time I got to see the Evil

Dead trilogy, and we did Darkman for Pulp Diction as well.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Which was...

A nonsense of a recording, because the broadband in my previous accommodation was, shall we

say, patchy.

So, whichever Christmas episode that was, you can hear both the bit when I am desperately

trying to participate in that episode, as the person doing the synopsis, and then being

edited out purposefully.

Garfield, not Garfield.

Garfield, kind of way.

Yikes.

So, for those of you who haven't listened to a flipchart forum before, what is going

to happen is the three of us are going to go through our lists of Sam Raimi films.

Depending on the placement of the film, they will be awarded points, and I will tally up

the points in the background to compose a master list of what we consider, between the

three of us, to be the best and, indeed, the worst Sam Raimi films, whilst also just

saying, basically, what our worst-to-best lists are, and we are going to go from worst

to best.

Now, there are 15 films that we're going to talk about, and some of you will, of course,

be saying, hang on, I think you'll find there are 16 films, to which I will simply respond,

go outside.

Yes.

Touch grass.

That's, exactly.

I am aware that he has directed 16 films, however, the amateur film, It's Murder, doesn't

count.

Yeah, yeah.

Basically.

So, we're going to start...

I've never seen it.

No.

Neither, yeah.

That would be another reason why not to rank it.

So, we're going to start from 1981's The Evil Dead, and go from there, and therefore, on

that basis, there are 15 films.

So, Dave, on the basis that it's his first time on the Flickchart forum, we're going to

start with him, and then we're going to go oldest to youngest, so it will be Des next,

then me.

Ha, ha, ha.

Right.

So...

Again.

I know.

That's kind of my thing.

Comes across so nice.

So nice.

But...

I'm not.

I'm a terrible human being.

So, Dave, if you'd like to kick us off, and what is at the very bottom...

...of your list of Sam Raimi films?

Okay.

Well, I want to preface my entire list by saying that, obviously, I don't think that any of

these films at 1,000% could be called completely bad.

So, I haven't...

You know, I've had to kind of apply a bit of a personal taste approach to a lot of this.

Fair.

So, I've kind of factored in what do I go back to, what did I enjoy, and stuff.

But there is a definite bottom of the list that I...

...wasn't a fan of, and that's Oz the Great and Powerful.

Right.

Oh!

Okay.

So, Oz the Great and Powerful from 2013.

And, again, for people who haven't heard this before, we will stop and talk about an individual

film once all three of us have put it on our lists.

So, given Des's response, I don't think it's going to be an immediate thing.

No.

No, it's not.

So, Oz the Great and the Powerful.

What is at the bottom of Dave's list?

Des, what is at the bottom of yours?

Okay.

So, I have my own little preface, and it's very similar to Dave's.

However, it is slightly different.

So...

Okay.

Like, the preface for me is that we're talking about Sam Raimi.

So, with the exception of the film I'm about to mention, there are no bad films.

Okay.

Even the film I'm about to mention is still...

I consider competent, but in no way can I say I enjoyed Crime Wave.

Okay.

Right?

That is Crime Wave from 1985.

The film that came between The Evil Dead and The Evil Dead 2.

Yeah.

So, if we're going to go preface crazy...

I was completely...

I just thought Irrational would be nice.

No, no, that's fair.

That's fair.

I'll just say that I don't think any of Sam Raimi's films are outright terrible.

That being said, the film I definitely will not watch again, because I've watched it enough,

specifically for podcast purposes, I have really no need to really watch it again, is

Spider-Man 3.

Huh.

Wow.

Really, eh?

Yeah.

Eh?

So...

Damn it.

Who's their own worst stereotype?

Me or Dad?

I know.

Okay.

So, with that set out, all three of those films have scored zero points by being at

the bottom of our list.

However, because they are further up the list of everyone else, they will at least be getting

some points.

So, that is interesting.

Very interesting.

And therefore, we continue on upwards.

And Dave, number 14 on your list.

Number 14 on my list is Crime Wave.

Right-o.

Strike two for Crime Wave.

Des, 14 for you.

14th for me is The Gift.

Okay.

The Gift from 2000.

The Southern Gothic story thing.

More on that later.

And, um...

14 for me is...

Uh, a film that hasn't been brought up as of yet, and that is For the Love of the Game.

Huh.

So, there we go.

This is wild.

This is going to be fun.

This is going to be fun to see the final list.

Crazy.

This is what I love about this segment.

Dave, 13 for you, please.

13 for me is Spider-Man 3.

All righty-ho.

Strike two for Spider-Man 3.

Des, 13, please.

My 13th film is Doctor Strange.

That's a good one.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Gosh, we're not, uh...

Well, I was about to say, we're not getting to an actual review any time soon, apart

from the fact that my number 13 choice is Crime Week.

There it is.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

I mean, that's only so long it can last, I guess.

But I will say, because it's highest on my list, I was charmed by this.

just how off the wall it was i mean it is clearly the work of someone who's still finding their

feet as a filmmaker yeah and um interestingly also scripted by the coen brothers that's right

yeah so uh a very interesting niche film which uh sam raimi absolutely despises

and i believe kind of editing and final cut got taken away from him which again is not something

that would never happen again to him over the course of his career but it's something i did

see for the first time as a result of doing this project and same i was entertained but i could see

that it wasn't good so um there's it's the very bottom of your list give it both barrels

you

yeah i mean this is like you sort of see it like it's an attempt at a live action

you know cartoon right it's like a live action daffy duck movie or something um but for me it

just misses on every level it just misses on every the performances are so crazy like like

just watching it it's like oh my god like why why that's what i felt watching this again

this was i you know i i i jumped in there this was a first time watch for me for uh this and i

was like wow now i know why i haven't seen this movie for so long i know there's other rainy

coen brother efforts uh i can't imagine any of them are proud of this movie i know i i know that

sam ramey isn't but i can't imagine the coen brothers are either but i do say i do have to

say bruce campbell a slight shining light in this movie small he's hysterical in this tiny little

role that's almost a given though isn't it it all yeah i mean it's crazy he's he just has the charm

he just brings it i mean it is but again it's still very early in his own career as well right

but you know even back in the day and he was a producer of this film because that way he and

would still have some

kind of input uh but uh that allowed them to be on somewhat of a par with the backers of the film

although ultimately they lost out the movie's a slog though it's a slog it's yeah it's it's a

very strange watch certainly dave what was your uh kind of impression of crime wave uh well it was

one of the first films i watched as research right we've been preparing for this for a while

so i've actually kind of forgotten it like very little of it actually stuck in my memory when i

was composing the list and then i thought like should i go back and watch it again and then i

was felt i was consumed with a sudden dread in my stomach and i just went you know what no

it's been a while for me if i remember correctly i actually paid to rent this movie

yeah same here yeah

i've been

yeah i mean like you say it's like it's very stylized it's very like i mean it does scream

early director playing around with you know some toys in a sandbox yeah um but yeah i remember not

particularly liking a lot of a lot of the characters uh this style a bit over the top

the plot didn't really make a whole bunch of sense like you know i could see he was going for

something but i'm not sure it achieved it

and i'm probably never going to watch it again so that's why it's kind of like low down on my list

yeah fair enough i mean i i didn't pay to rent it specifically but it did come through my um

dvd rental subscription so money was exchanged

and i don't have the immediate capacity to re-watch it and yeah i've got other films that

i need to re-watch ahead of crime wave

a lot of other films so imagine imagine getting a residuals check for crime wave

fuck i mean i have to assume money on that i have to assume that the star is uh not living well

whatever his name is yes paying in your shame check

now in fairness that's a slightly different thing

uh pandy and i've just reviewed bright for uh

will smith redux yeah yeah that's fair i'm a bright fan i don't care i'll say it i love that

movie i wish there was more of them all right i'm that guy okay um anyway so uh that's that's

crime wave um probably deserving bottom of the list uh dave uh number 12 for you sir

my number 12 is for love of the game

strike two

thank you

ironically it's not pitching the perfect game

dave's number 12 for you yeah this is maybe where i make some enemies uh my number 12 is a simple plan

okay

uh i think i gave away uh you've made an enemy out of me

i say that i've only seen it once um for me saying it's bad

no that was a very conscious preface yes on your part yes um for me number 12 is uh another go for

oz the great and powerful and uh des has picked a simple plan below oz the great and powerful so

we're not talking about oz the great and powerful yet i'm not i'm not bitter um

i mean maybe number 12 would be a better fit i guess

происbbe

i mean

okay

yeah

my number 11 isまあ

help me

please

that's so

i had the chance to talk about mystery

y contexts

as well

oh

give

me

something

referred to earlier for crime waivers it's been a while should i re-watch it and i had it all

queued up on disney plus and as the hours counted down i just basically exclaimed a big meh and

didn't bother uh so so there we go i don't know this is one of two phase four films that i've

bothered to watch uh my my days as a comic book movie correspondent have uh well deserted me

and um i mean i i thought it was fine and the things that ramey did bring to the film i think

were particularly telling when you saw strange inhabit an alternate self of himself who was a

corpse right i'm like yeah there's samurai

yeah um there's a little bit of ramey in that movie for sure yeah yeah but there's not a lot

of ramey in this film i think that's fair to say yeah uh it's lowest on your list des

yeah i mean look it's it's better than the first doctor strange movie

for me but i don't know that's that's about all i can say that's positive about it personally well

okay i mean i was never really like

super

a

super

attracted to elizabeth olsen and then evil scarlet witch kind of did it for me i don't know

what that says about me uh probably explains a few things but uh yeah there's there's that but

that's just it's it's a pretty terrible movie in my opinion the whole like america chavez is

she could literally be an infinity stone she's not a character she's a gimmick and and i'm like

they're not even making this they're not even trying to make this movie and they're not even

trying to make this a legitimate character it's just like it's so bland and i don't know i you know

the zombie doctor strange stuff was kind of fun the uh you know the sort of the statues that

kind of come to life it's kind of fun and i got to see rintra in a movie i don't know if you know

who rintra is rintra is that green you're definitely asking the wrong person there he's

that green goat person okay right that's a great movie i don't know if you know who rintra is

a classic comic book friend of dr strange uh and he popped up in that movie so that was cool but

it's yeah it's just such a such a bland movie and and the whole the scarlet witch thing is like

completely overwrought you know just like all the stuff with her kids and stuff it's just like it

didn't feel fully fleshed out to me it just felt like this is the conflict that we're going to

present to make her become a villain and it just yeah like okay

you know they kind of did the villain wanting a version of their family

from an alternate dimension better in the first spider-verse film right yeah so

yeah this this kind of fell flat for me and then also um people with with greater ties to the mcu

like mike uh were more bothered by uh oh they've they've totally destroyed the scarlet witch

character

yeah and i'm i'm like six and two threes on that one it's just like yeah maybe yeah i'm i'm not

invested in in marvel movies enough to you know really care that much but i'm definitely not

anymore yeah if i was to begin with i tried really hard though i did i did i've watched

every single one up until recently a face four yeah okay well that's more than i've done

so

but also yeah like

for for free basically on disney plus but i cancelled disney plus because they upped the

price so right uh yeah so i'm i'm not just gonna not gonna see any more marvel movies i guess

unless like i'll go see the x-men movie you know what i mean i'll see it in the theater but

yeah i'm free well i'll pay to see it in the theater i'll see i'll pay to see an x-men movie

okay cool um uh dave what about you uh i mean i actually don't mind this yeah i mean i think

you've got some yeah it's got some good stuff but i'm not going to see any more marvel movies

but i'm not going to see any more marvel movies

set pieces in it like the different alternative dr strangers are kind of fun and obviously seeing

all the kind of different versions like see i mean like seeing um patrick stewart in the

x-men animated series version of the wheelchair right right like for me yeah yeah yeah the

illuminati part was was super fun right yeah for me being a kid who grew up on the x-men cartoon

in the 90s seeing him come in with that little bit of music in the background i mean that was

kind of worth it

is it to be fair i mean like but yeah i mean i think i think the most interesting things they've

been doing with dr strangers has been in the what if cartoons series they've been doing some really

good stuff with dr strange at that which if you haven't seen it i'd recommend giving it a look if

you get a chance yeah i've seen it yeah but uh but yeah i mean like like you say it's like i do

still kind of like marvel movies but like it is a marvel film but you kind of know what you're

getting and there's very little kind of a ramey's directorial kind of

flair in there yeah that you would that you get into even some of his other superhero work

so yeah like for me it's fine it's okay i probably will watch it again at some point

but it's lower on this list fair enough so uh we go into our top 10s and it is dave to start us off

oh yeah so my number 10 is the gift all right yeah that's the second nomination of the gift

des yeah

okay guys we can talk about oz the great and powerful now

oh hurrah

so what what makes it so brilliant uh des okay okay

look so this was another first time watch because honestly i i never gave a shit to watch this movie

until this came that this came up right i'm like i guess i'll watch this you know and at least i

got this this movie and i got this movie and i got this movie and i got this movie and i got this movie

on disney plus when i had it yes it was yeah i thought it was trivial and dumb but i kind of

enjoyed it like i i don't know there's lots of like innovative stuff with the little like the

porcelain doll girl i really enjoyed i don't know it was just like you know what finley the monkey

right another like fun character like it was just like odd enough you know to sort of like

pique my interest and i ended up like kind of enjoying it i don't know i don't know i don't know

like james franco um but he's okay you're in sight you're in sight company yeah yeah i mean

he's been good you know he's i would say he's good in the spider-man movies i'd say he's great

in spring breakers but he's not great in this movie i just thought it was a really sort of

innovative cool little like basically just the animated stuff for me i was like oh this is so

like creative and fun so that was basically that's basically my impression of the movie

will i watch it again probably

night hmm okie dokie uh dave it is rock bottom of your list yes um well i would preface my this

by saying i don't think this is sam raimi's fault because he does like he does give it like it looks

great there's not kinetic camera movement these yeah stuff when you get to os is all very colorful

and stuff i just think it's a terrible script yeah um like i don't know like given that and

i know this because i'm jimmy and my partner is a very big fan of the movie i don't know if

he's a fan of the os books the original she's read all the original os books and when there's

so many of the original kind of os material that hasn't been translated into film and all of them

have female leading characters and yet we're making a film about os and sort of like why do

we need this prequel when wicked exists right it's it's weird that there's so many prequels

yeah yeah you know it's weird but um but also just like i think os as a movie is a movie that's

written is too unlikable for too much of the film like if he's gonna have his kind of

well using the wrestling terminology his face turn and something like his realization he's

going to be doing the right thing it just kind of comes way too late in the film to make to

and by that point i already hate him and like yeah well i mean you spend the whole movie like

oh this fucking guy you know and and obviously the script maybe didn't factor in the drag factor

of having changed

franco play him as well right honestly i think it's a better movie with almost any other acting

choice yeah and not to mention the fact that i suddenly had the realization that it's like the

last third that this is basically a remake of army of darkness in os like there's even there's

even the same scene where he's showing them how to use black powder that's right that's right jesus

yeah this is it's it's army of darkness in the land of os i know

i never picked up on that oh my god and and the thing is like if bruce campbell had been playing

os i'd have watched their shit out of this 100 would have been amazing 100 bruce campbell would

have would have brought something to that like because a lot of the characters bruce campbell

play are kind of like in the vein of os is in the script but they're like i mean like ash in

army of darkness is very much lovable asshole lovable asshole yeah that's that's his whole

that's his whole gimmick

lovable asshole and also also what he's wearing in spider-man is basically os isn't that yeah

and so so james franco doesn't bring for me the kind of charm you need to be able to get away

with playing a lovable asshole i think it's because he's an asshole yeah exactly he's an

actual asshole yeah so yeah just for me it's a film that has no reason to exist and it doesn't

pull off what it's trying to do very well i don't think but i don't think that's raving's fault i

think he was lumbered with a bad script and some dubious casting choices as well i i feel there

are a couple of people who are a bit miscast in it go on not me two words me the cutest i don't

think he's like i like her as an actor i've seen her with a lot of things really really enjoyed her

but i don't think she works in this and i'm probably not yeah i agree with that rachel vice is

fantastic yes yes she's really good uh i think michelle williams is very good but obviously

sort of like in the early stages of the film it's black and white and i'm having to put up

with both james franco and zach braff on my screen this this isn't going well

so oh yeah dream team

um yeah i just wasn't a fan of the uh the story it was telling or the some of the performances

um yeah that's why it's got a rock bottom on my list nobody knew yet yeah i will say that

my choice is in the middle i definitely agree but i think ramey's flair for visuals is basically

what saves the film yeah um because it's quite frankly stunning to look at in the way that the

original wizard of oz was and honestly like the whole the production design of the movie is yeah

undeniable

undeniable to me right absolutely you know i mean and and like honestly like it is like oscar

worthy to be it's it's it's a wonderful sight to behold it just happens to have people in it

yeah and i think that very much comes across with the michelle williams character because i think

the visuals best come across when they're in the bubbles floating towards the munchkins they see

and everything right

again the whole circus aspect being shot in black and white or sepia or whatever again i think that

very much works in the film's favor it does not help that james franco is a massive sex pest

but even then but even then i don't think he's a strong enough leading man for any film basically

but no no no i don't know yeah i get it i don't know

i say that in all seriousness even even even before the sex pest shit i was like i don't like

this guy i don't like you and it's it's one thing that oz is meant to be a charlatan because you

know that that's that's the whole reveal uh at the end of the wizard of oz it's like he's a con

man pure and simple so that's the film is asking you to get on board with a con man and there's

got to be reason for you to like him and for him to get from a to b yeah literally to get from a to b

fucking anybody else i mean yes we said bruce campbell but literally anybody else

would have been so much better yeah because this was zach braff would have been better as

i think dave might disagree i mean it's a photo finish

i'll just imagine that sprint ducking for the line um but no ostensibly i think

you just changed the the guy playing the protagonist and it would probably be a better

film with or without uh the mila kunis casting but i think mila kunis has the the problem of

the fact she has to transform into the wicked witch of the west so

you know

she's kind of on a hiding to nothing but then again building on what dave was saying

it's a very badly underwritten pass anyway because the the love story that is is meant

to kind of have broken her heart is barely there barely there as dave said just not a very good

script but yeah ultimately i think the the visuals and the direction kind of save it but

you know

because this was ramey's last film for like years like six seven years before dr strange

he's not super prolific well not anymore yeah and he honestly he makes weird choices to me

like these are the movies that he's directing well that's the thing because when i was doing

the homework to make oz the great and powerful he wants to make dr strange too when i was doing

the homework for this it's like wow sam ramey was weirdly prolific in the 90s right right

yes he was yeah then he did spider-man and then it's just like that that oh and then dr strange

i mean to be fair he was very prolific in television sort of not so much yes

he is a prolific producer he is yes he is yeah tons and tons of titles he does that yeah like

he was his production company that was behind the spartacus series the early 2000s right

your beloved spartacus series it's an

amazing show it is it's really good uh and also they've got a quite famously produced

um hercules legendary journeys and zeta warrior princess did did they do sea quest

no i don't think they did i only ask is ted ramey's in it and you know right the chances are

yes because ted ramey's the one the one time ted ramey didn't get nepotism it was sea quest

uh well it needed addressing

did it really the issue of ted ramey's casting in sea quest dsv is that just a dangling thing

no one's been talking about it's my segment that's just an issue that no one no one's

had their guts to face up to until now we're just speaking the truth people

take that ted

uh anyway

yeah right so um my number 10 pick is uh the gift so we can talk about that now

um for me uh so dave and i've ranked this on a par and for me this is a film that basically

lives and dies on uh kate blanchett's central performance yeah because uh it's kind of the

reverse thing of oz the great and powerful

it's like because you cast kate blanchett as the lead the film is eons better than it had any right

to be i mean if you cast james franco in the lead of the gift then it wouldn't work on a number of

levels but um but the fact that you had kate blanchett at her pomp leading this kind of

spiritual horror film that had a very

interesting supporting cast going on yeah it's oddly compelling but at the same time

forgettable is the wrong word because there are certain things that set it apart but not just

because like the first thing keanu reeves decides to do after the matrix is this i'm just like oh

that's a strange choice right um but it's a weird film to be sure dave again you you put it in the

top 10

little bit of the lower reaches what were you thinking i do like it a lot uh i mean it's kind

of on its place in the list not because i don't think it's good but i just think there are other

films that are better so yeah i think i really like the kind of creepy sort of gothic vibe it

was kind of quite unsettling to see keanu reeves playing such an out and out nasty piece of work

yeah especially when you know what a nice man he is in real life he said no don't do that

you're neo now

you're a fluffy man we all know this to be true um but yeah i thought he was good at it yeah

obviously kate blanchett is amazing because she's kate blanchett uh but yeah i think there's like a

there's a really nice kind of unsettling tone all the way through so even in the kind of more

even the more mundane scenes feel like there's like a tension there which i think is a quality

he brings to some of the other films on the list as well but oh necessarily out and out horror films

it's a good mystery

with a interesting kind of ending i generally enjoyed it but it's just like yeah it's lower

on the list just because i've enjoyed some other things more that's all

des this is one up from crimeway for you yeah i mean and it's again it's not because it's bad

it's just for me it feels like a bog standard thriller um but like yeah i'll watch kate

blanchett in anything she's incredible but for me this is like the least sam raimi mood

v of all the sam raimi movies it just seems like a real standard 90s thriller to me and i just i

just didn't feel his stamp on it personally that's why it's so low on my list not even with the kind

of visions of dead katie holmes yeah i mean not really okay not really i mean that that that stuff

was a dime a dozen in the 90s yeah i understand what you're saying because

that example notwithstanding i am racking my brains as to what would really suggest the

hallmarks of sam raimi and i'm really drawing a blank right i'll be the ultimobiles in it

that is true that is true and yeah it's it's interesting to see kiana reeves as the villain

that which you don't tend to see so kind of interesting so there there is that again you

know it's it's not crime wave so to me it's still like not a bad movie it's just

not a movie i'll ever go back to if we were working like a trod system they would be like

crime wave and then everything else that is how the points are looking at the moment

certainly and i i would say that um we're into his uh uh fruitful relationship working with jk

simmons yeah yep which began with phil over the game but uh kept on with this film and i dare say

spider-man trilogy um thank god thank you perhaps perhaps the greatest casting choice in cinema

history yeah that is hard hard to dispute yeah like a man so irreplaceable they brought him back

yes yeah he's literally he was in the mcu he couldn't find anyone else's good yeah before

the multiverse he was just brought into the mcu they're like fuck it he's he's jjo jjona jameson

for life before we uh get away from the game

i would say that um one thing that i knew the gift from uh it was the internet in the year 2000

and um is this to do with katie holmes's um state of undress it is yes

fair enough i just might use the comic book guy now

waiting for the picture to load ah the internet king maybe he can

imitate faster new disease yeah yep i was a teenager get off my case anyway

this the final brazil

right so uh so number nine on your list dave uh number nine on my list is drag me to hell

all righty then that is strike two for drag me to hell and does yeah number nine that's i guess

the

i guess the

state of the matter he is mr moran and did he try to Перв幸 turnover

and did he try to scorch over everyone else's heart

well one thing i will say he's really his

last name yet

his name

just that his name his type of name yeah number nine on your list i'm gonna go love you

yourself this is very much like a very standard sports movie again it's like this is what sam

wanted to do but you know like why you know but uh but i have to say uh having seen a few episodes

of yellowstone um by just like being in the room when stacy's watching it because i don't really

recommend it but uh stacy was like you know he still looks pretty much the same and i really

have to agree because kevin costner has looked like 47 since he was like 17 right

uh but i think i think he's charming in this and my god 90s kelly preston my god

yeah yeah i mean and but and i just love like i think he shoots the baseball

playing in

incredibly you know when you when you see these sports movies it's not often that like the sports

as presented in the film is actually any good or exciting you know or interesting you know

like other baseball movies you're you're watching the guy at bat you know what i mean this fucking

movie you're coming in on the ball you know it's fucking yeah it's it's wild you know it's it's

very fun so uh i that's what i appreciated about it the most other other

than kelly preston um but i mean it is easily the weakest of uh kevin costner's baseball trilogy

i mean i'll take your word for that certainly yeah um but i mean we were just talking about

what is the least sam raimi film there is i think this is a strong contender i was about i was going

to say the same thing because i mean the thing is notwithstanding a

apparently the reason he did it was because he himself is a massive fan of baseball so you get

him and costner together then obviously they're going to make a film like this yeah but what

makes it a sam raimi film i mean i suppose as you say the actual direction of the baseball

he says as a foreigner who knows fuck i do appreciate it to teach me what a perfect game

is

meant to be and how how rare it is yeah but i still found it very hard to get invested because

okay kevin costner is a guy who looks the same throughout his career also in the 90s he was

well known for being involved in very self-indulgent films he stars in and has final cut of

and this film is that to a t

slightly different sport but um yeah he was like the biggest movie star in the world for a couple

years for the weirdly like 91 through well i suppose this was 98 like bodyguard through

like knowing the postman or something is that what it was like prince of thieves through right

i don't know water world but um i don't enjoy water world i gotta say i like i i i'll hold my

hands up i've never seen it but um i don't know and the other thing that kind of rubbed me the

wrong way is the the kind of opening montage titles of he's a young all-american boy growing

up and he's great at baseball with his dads and everything it's like i have no connection to this

whatsoever yeah i will contend without the cool looking baseball this movie is dog shit like

it's not good i wouldn't i will still never watch this again but just like the baseball looked fun

it looked and and sports don't look fun in movies to me no i don't i don't enjoy sports period you

know very much but i do enjoy sports movies but often the sports look like dog shit in sports

movies and it absolutely does not in this one that's really what i appreciate okay uh dave uh

yeah i mean as i say like you know

like well anyone could have made it not like it's not competent perfectly competently shot but

like it's just sort of fine it's there like is it the um the framing of the story is interesting

of him kind of reflecting on his life as he's bowling this game and then kind of halfway through

sort of pitching this game so um getting confused with cricket um anyone for cricket

but um but yes and then he just sort of realizing halfway through that yeah

that no one's like on the yankees i've actually scored yet because he's been so kind of

in his own head he's actually he actually hasn't noticed was kind of interesting

but yeah like you know i mean the performances are fine i mean like also the like well no like

i think john c reilly's really good at it this is kind of like uh as the catcher

gus it's fine but i probably won't watch it again like i didn't hate it but like i didn't

come away going well that's a movie that's changed my life either so you know

it was a perfectly acceptable way to spend a couple of hours i yeah yeah not not a couple dave

three i might be unfair no no no it was it was two hours and 17 minutes i was very

i was very aware of the time that was yeah yeah a little long in the tooth yeah

yeah that's kevin costner uh i mean to be fair like yeah if if everything

little america thought it was was made into a human being it would look like kevin costa

yeah i suppose that's the appeal yeah i mean it's difficult to be more generic than the

kevin costa baseball film than being a kevin costa western yeah i'm i'm certain that at least

one year in the 90s he was voted sexiest man alive or whatever oh yeah yeah yeah that all

happened that happened right yeah okay yeah

i don't see it i don't yeah oh yeah no honestly i don't either um well it's not like any of us

were boasting no but like you'd be surprised how often it crops up as a conversation in my

household really yeah yeah yeah what is jillian's favorite kevin costner film

oh robin hoods of thieves no okay

which i i think is a fantastic film but i think he's the worst thing it is

oh i'm right there with you

i don't know i love it i love his accent yeah it's it's flawless for a man from wherever he's

from yeah it's right up there with christian slaters yeah yeah two english born sons of the

soil he's too busy doing a jack nicholson impression to put an accent on and the other

and the other thing you're going i wouldn't mind if they'd cast somebody with a similar

accent as their dad but their dad's brian blessed

it's gonna be brian blessed

that's it has a son that sounds like he's from michigan

he clearly married an american wife dave

that's all it is okay um so it's um my number nine pick and uh here's a cat amongst the pigeons

um evil dead 2 wow okay yeah wow

now you've made an enemy

wow

okay uh number eight dave well i'm possibly about to make an enemy because by the breaks the evil

dead the original evil dad the original evil right that's fair that's fair

uh eight on your list s uh the quick and the dead the quick and the dead

and for me number eight is drag me to hell

so this is our opportunity to talk about that film as i say it's uh something that day has covered

way back in the day on uh dread media and then sam raimi had uh the good grace not to release

any other films for the next however many yeah ages just ages i mean not not that i remember

dread media's review of oz and the great and the powerful but

so

but uh that that being said that being said this was an interesting one because it came

after raimi had done the spider-man trilogy and had just been dropped from making a fourth

spider-man film yeah and they decided to go in a different direction for the worse donovan for sure

for sure in my head bruce campbell is mysterio

and joel john malkovich is the vulture

we finally get the dylan baker lizard that everyone was after

but ian still hates him

not that lizard oh yeah i'm just saying that if he had played if he had a bit the lizard

he probably would have had the same plan yeah we'll never know we'll never know

as such i just hate

risa farms

so um with regards to this film this is the one i've watched most recently up to the date of

recording and this was it was very much seen as a kind of return to form for raimi insofar as he

was deciding just to do straight horror as such and it was and it wasn't because it was more kind

of horror comedy and it was more kind of like a kind of like a kind of like a kind of kind of

comedy um which is why i kind of take points off it because if this film had been a straight

horror film i could just see this being right up there like right up there the fact that they had

a lot of the gypsy woman antagonist somehow managing to expel all manner of bodily fluids

throughout the film yeah and then you've got the bit in the grave where it's filling with water

and then you've got the bit in the grave where it's filling with water and then you've got the bit in the grave

and then you've got the bit in the grave where it's filling with water and mud and british reference

all you needed was dave benton phillips to stand over it cackling not to look like a children's

game show that would have been a very different film it would have been a very haunted by dave

benton phillips laughing i didn't i didn't even understand the reference and i thought it was

funny that that that's why they pay me the big bucks um so like but literally if this was a

straight horror film because i found the the ending very effective i'm not entirely sure the

film went a to b i think it meandered a lot getting to where it needed to to get to which i kind of

would expect more of ramey based upon his track record and longevity but be that as it may i still

found it an affecting film but not not without its flaws i say it's lowest sundays list but it's not

solo and but that being said you have done a review on it previously contemporaneously so

i'll start with dave okay um yeah i first i watched me on this one as well and again pretty recently

yeah i liked it a lot i think it kind of speaks to the way that horror in general it made in

mainstream film that it kind of feels a bit more muted because it was like i think it was just kind

of a way to hard r yeah and so like you have to be creepy in other ways because the kind of horror

film which gets you an r rating these days isn't considered marketable as mainstream film like even

with action films they're much more muted these days i mean the latter diehards were all like 12

a's compared to the original you know right because in order to shoot for the widest possible

audience you have to kind of aim for the most kind of generic content essentially yeah so yeah i'm

not kind of not surprised that it's had its wings clicked a little bit but apparently it was old

scripts that him and i even really have been kicking around for years and years yeah right

then yeah it's not like it's something they just kind of came up with they just kind of went back

to the script and kind of redid it so so yeah i kind of like the idea of it it's um this woman

having a terrible time um but the kind of the the interesting kind of moral implication of it as

well what sort of like what like when she finally admits that

she deliberately chose to do the wrong thing and it's entirely her fault

yeah she thinks she's when she thinks she's free of the curse

and just kind of like thrown in there to make you just to make sure you understand that she

absolutely deserves this kind of thing you know i mean when i say deserves it yeah there is

obviously in the in the morality of horror films yes people have to have a yeah there has to be a

certain deservingness to it for some reason a justification for their fate yeah yeah

but i thought it was quite you know there was some quite tense moments when she was considering kind

of passing the curse on to somebody else uh the whole sequence of when they kind of some of the

some of the spirits and try to kill it was really good and again very ramey and probably the most

ramey thing in it is the fight between allison logan and the old woman in the car like there

was a bit of that where she was basically a female ash like i can i can absolutely see that

like like a fight that that was like a fight that ash would be having with a dead eye in a case

using a stapler and all sorts of stuff that was yeah yeah that felt very old school ramey to me

and the aforementioned bodily fluids yes i so i i enjoyed that a lot so yeah like it's

it i don't it's maybe not as good as some of these more classic stuff but it's definitely

a perfectly fine horror film and again i think it's about an hour and 40 so it kind of gets in

and gets out doesn't that stay it's welcome either yeah yeah it's true kind of like a

kind of knows what it's doing um yeah like generally speaking i enjoyed it over the u days

i mean i i enjoyed it too i just i i don't think it holds up as well as my first viewing i think

it's it's probably a great movie to see in the theater i think i i think i liked it a lot more

having seen it in the theater than if i saw it on my couch but i think i think meandering is a good

word for it i like the setup uh and i think it's got one of those things that's kind of like a

one of honestly one of the great movie endings actually i fucking love the ending but but like

the story just like runs in circles for me it's like it was a boring watch this time for me

honestly but it does you know and then it sort of uh boils down to a few gross out moments i love i

love the fight in the car and the great ending and also funnily enough this just occurred to me like

perhaps the ramiest

movie of all of them you know like very possibly yeah and uh yeah i mean since the evil dead

certainly yeah for sure for sure yeah uh but i mean it it kind of rings hollow on a rewatch for

me so that that's interesting that made me want me and ian have scored it higher then

yeah because it was your first viewing as well viewing as well wasn't it oh yeah yeah yeah yeah

so so you know i watched it the first time we've scored it a bit higher it was your second watch

so you ended up lower so that's yeah that's interesting i think walking walking out of the

theater after that ending i think i would i was definitely pretty fucking jazzed i was definitely

pretty jazzed about it uh but you know watching it again uh yeah it's a fucking great ending it's a

great ending but yeah the movie just doesn't hang together for me you know like i don't know if you

guys have seen or even heard of thinner i've heard yeah yeah yeah it's like a movie based on a lesser

stephen king novel

but i mean honestly for me that movie does this story so much better

well also um and i covered this on a previous flip chart forum on the basis it was name checked

in science fiction double feature in rocky horror show um there is a film called nice of the demon

from the 50s which is very much about passing on a curse to avoid a supernatural demon

um true

that's based that's based on casting the runes by mr it is yes yeah yeah and um i i seem to

remember myself uh and uh dan toland and professor chris from the forums i don't remember if we all

loved it but i enjoyed it and uh that's what counts so um i will also say um something that

i did find interesting about this is more kind of trivia around the film

is our protagonist is played by allison lohman who was uh stepping in for elliot page who was

meant to be uh in the title role but uh scheduling conflicts meant that it didn't pan out that way

and basically uh lohman retired after this film she got married to one of the directors from crank

and um basically cuts and uh basically uh concentrated on raising her family so um

ostensibly if you think about it the end scene of this film would theoretically be the end of her

filmic career that's funny it is i mean unfortunately she's had cameos here and

there for other things that her husband's made but um unfortunately she's continued to work

ruined the metaphor that i mean yeah it's world's the matter

i'm not i'm not gonna begrudge her you know

something for the benefits of her family why can't people stick to my narrative

i'm not a newspaper editor

so then number seven uh over to you to dave uh my number seven is spider-man 2

spider-man 2 the return of jafar

i'll let you google it

no return of jafar um des number seven for you my number seven is spider-man 3

right i i was wondering has dave said spider-man 3 he has yes okay i must have missed that

at number 30 that's that's that's why i that's why i gasped a little bit when you said spider-man 2

i'm like yeah we're going we're spider-man 3

i think we'd all gasp at that um yeah

that's that would be a legitimate response man this this final list is gonna be weird

i'll say i'm telling you that right now so we're going from the very bottom of my list

to two up from the bottom of dave's list to number seven on the on the on the higher side of mine yeah

yeah okay explain yourself ready look i have given this film its share of

it over the years okay right i've there's you can go back and look at the forums i'm sure it's still

there i was fucking merciless to this movie hated it hated it and i'd like to say with hindsight that

i think a lot of that was undeserved um it's goofy it's too goofy for sure it's too goofy

but all three of the movies are kind of goofy this one just pushes it a little too far yes um but uh

you know it's that whole studio mandated three villains thing um is is a little much but

i don't know i don't know i like topher grace as i did as eddie brock yeah um i don't know i think

the movie's all right you know i think it's better than your typical mcu film it's just the

worst of his spider-man movies yeah by a long shot by a long shot i don't know i don't know i don't

shot still but like watching watching it again which has to be like the i don't know third time

i've watched it i really did like i'm like that's pretty fun it's pretty fun you know

yeah the mary jane watson character fun really fun

perhaps not the greatest casting though it's a bit of a mess like the introduction of

stacy and captain stacy does it add anything much i'm gonna say no uh the three villains

the three villains you were looking for us to answer were you i will say i i again i

i'm not nearly as down on topher grace as most people are as you say des um and then i also like

um i will say when i when i reviewed it for comic release i was like oh my god i'm not gonna say

i i was quite kind on the film but i think because my girlfriend at the time was also high

on it i've kind of influenced my decision um whereas i've re-watched this and i'm like oh no

it's a mess that being said i do enjoy corrupted douchebag peter you've got the memes of the

dancing yeah and everything that's good fun and the effects of sandman i i laughed more at that

this time and but the first time i was like like i i had stink face watching

i was angry about that shit but watching it this time like it's fucking stupid but

but i mean it's just such a come down from the level of diversity which i think really hurts it

but sorry i i walked all over you saying sandman's awesome sandman oh yeah yeah sandman

beautiful design

really good characterization not that big a fan of him being implicated in uncle ben's death

but yeah that stuff's dumb but that's yeah that's classic

third film of the trilogy stuff isn't it yeah yeah yeah you got to tie them into the lore somehow

but honestly like if you're talking about like translating a comic book character directly from

the comic books

i don't know if there's a better example than sandman in this movie

and and honestly most of the time that would probably be horrible

yeah i think it really worked for sandman i mean that's that's something that ramey's very good at

doing is making villain origins plausible right right despite the fact that you know they're

obviously you know they're based on comics they're they're obviously nonsense but

you know the fact that there's a degree of plausibility it's like when you know when

peter's come across him for the first time and it's like like getting rid of sand out of his boot

and he's just casually saying where do these guys come from

which is a very good way of saying that yeah you know how every film creates a villain for me to

fight um and uh again we've we've got the disappointing

james franco being disappointing yeah and um the whole butler clues him in on his dad's villainy

like right at the third act of the final film of the trilogy

when the antipathy has been fueling harry since the end of the first film

yeah that's just clunky and bad yeah so uh and i've i've said a lot about we've had

a spider-man flick chart forum no less so i'm not gonna retread old ground that much more uh dave

spider-man 3 yeah i mean i i feel a lot of the fault for spider-man 3

lies at the feet of abby arad's massive hard-on for venom yeah

because like i think part of the reason i think the look the dark spider-man stuff is is

so goofy is because basically ramey just doesn't give a shit about the character

right like he honestly couldn't give a toss yeah um because like i think you can see in this there

you can see the film that ramey wanted to make which is very clearly sad man is the main villain

with harry and then harry having to turn around and and and dying and like theoretically you

kind of lift venom out of that and that film that kind of plot structure would work yeah and so

you've had but because they've insisted on bringing venom into it yeah it feels really

crowbarly like i mean i've got no issue with tophagrace's eddie brock i mean i think like

if you're going to cast something as essentially the anti-tobey maguire tophagrace isn't a bad

choice right right um but yeah i mean i think that's

that's some real that's some casting with some real cultural understanding

actually yeah right like if there was social media back then people would have been losing

their fucking minds yeah uh like real you know what i mean real social you know like

oh absolutely you were critical of every single fucking thing on earth social media you know

hmm yeah i think thomas hayden church is fantastic is uh flip barco um

like i don't understand

why the green goblin has a snowboard um right right it really takes the sting out of like

the goblin glider you know yeah when he looks like he looks like a like a character from a movie

10 years prior you know what i mean yeah yeah an extreme sports was big yeah yeah yeah why not

just bring rocket racer in as a character

yeah so yeah i think what

it's it's mainly due to the fact that like

ramey was handed a character and a plot line which he wasn't interested in doing and didn't

want to include and had no original plans to include in the film he was insisted upon so he

phoned it in and you know he clearly could not give the slightest shit about venom like like

right right down to the character design like it's just like the black suit there's some teeth

on it especially when you can like when you see kind of what's been done with venom since i mean

whether you like although the other venom for like the tom hardy better films better looks like

venom yeah yeah you know so yeah i think that's kind of like the main problem with it for me

these days like you like you can you can see where like something some something unwelcome

has been just been shoved into the script and obviously sort of that means that that's kind

of taking up space where sort of more character development for the other people could have

happened yeah i mean

you could have just had eddie brock as an annoyance throughout the film yeah

for the fourth movie right yeah or do like you know tag on at the very end of the movie

uh you know the the sim the symbiote comes to eddie's apartment or whatever you know like

just yeah yeah lead it's too much for this movie too much yeah whereas like and i think like the

whole thing with the butler explaining things at the end sort of like had there not been

you know all the venom stuff shoved in there there might have been some time for some genuine

subtle explanation for that for harry to come around but because you know the film was he's

kind of running out of time they have to have sort of like uh the butler took oh yeah by the

way your dad was a dick he's willem dafoe don't you know yeah and also as you can see it's running

out of time venom approaches sandham you're a bad guy i'm a bad guy let's team up sure yeah

yeah so that that's kind of like my main problem i can see the actual third spider-man film in there

and what i can see if it's actually pretty good but there's this kind of like

like venom has been sort of like like shoved into the script in random parts and it's kind

of like taking away from the film i actually want to see yeah yeah it is it is a bit of a momentum

stopper that yeah that whole plot line even though even though again tover grace pulled it off very

yeah not his fault at all no no i don't yeah i mean i don't think that like anything particularly

badly acted it's just like it hot the whole thing reeks of studio interference and it's yeah

yeah it just doesn't work no just a mess basically okay um so number seven on my list

it is a strike two for the evil dead well so we get

into the number six picks on our list over to dave uh my number six is spider-man

the original spider-man the original spider-man your actual spider-man

uh there's number six please my number six is the evil dead the evil dead three strikes

three strikes so let's talk about the film that started it all off yeah there is no better

person to open this dialogue than mr deemsday himself oh all right um look uh it's number six

on my list but there is no denying that this is just like a revolutionary movie for the genre

certainly for sam raimi um bruce campbell bruce campbell yeah i mean but for what it was and you

it's a fucking masterpiece and what he was able to do on that budget making that movie look so good

that camera movement it like it it really is it's sam raimi birthing himself fully formed

in a lot of ways right yeah it's just like holy shit this is so inventive it's so cool and and uh

it's a little nasty too you know a little a little mean-spirited which is always helpful

when i'm watching a movie i like a little mean-spirited movie

i don't know uh you know it's for me it's it's overshadowed by its sequels uh but but i i still

think that the evil dead is a masterpiece in a lot of ways a masterpiece of independent cinema

yeah fair enough dave i very much agree i mean like you know there's no denying

the achievements of what sam raimi pulled off in making the evil dead i mean like yeah

if you've read any of the movies i mean like i don't know if you've read any of the movies i

kind of stories of everything they went through yeah while making that kind of staying in a

freezing cold cabin in the woods and like bruce campbell getting regularly punked with sticks

to remind sam raimi to wake him up and tell him to do it better

oh that's right sam raimi's an arsehole

and also kind of very interesting for the horror genre itself in so far that it doesn't have a

final girl it has a final guy

yeah and even though he's a guy with a gun at the end like there's still a palpable sense of terror

for that character like yeah so that's quite innovative as well because like yeah he's not

like a ash isn't like he's very different from the ash that we think of as ash obviously later

on down the line but showing like what is a very a very terrified man yeah as you're um

was quite you know

probably the sort of thing of like a mainstream production company that i wouldn't have touched

yeah right they probably would probably would have said like you know can't you make that a woman

so yeah everything they achieved with that absolutely should be saluted and it's not

and the reason it's got a lower on my list is not again not because it is bad it's because i prefer

some some other things more yeah right but yeah absolutely completely everything that

well the fact that it launched our

ramey's career was entirely deserved because like look at it like it was like made for

throbbings of the pickled egg yeah and think of any genre movie in the past 30 years

that has that shot of racing up towards somebody and coming in on them tight at the very end yeah

think about how many times that's been used and then think about who invented it

and that was sam ramey in this movie like

long-lasting impact on cinema as well you know like just so innovative for this young

cantankerous kid from what michigan right but yeah wild what an achievement but still i mean

he went to he went on to make better movies too right yeah yeah but and it is scary as hell like

it's a scary old film and not just because of the goal because there is that kind of sense of

unsettling creepiness right

right even even in the scenes where there isn't anything kind of horrific happening there is

there's that tension that kind of what you're on edge definitely definitely yeah i mean the whole

possession of because ostensibly i mean so you've got ash's sister in there

as well as his girlfriend and a mate and their girlfriend yeah obviously they're relatively

snipped and the idea that they've been possessed and turned into deadites so you've got the

moral quandary of what to do with them and their their their eyes glazed over giggling inanely

which could i mean in this film it's creepy but at the same time a less sympathetic audience member

could see it as ajekt after it's done there's that407 whichليfuss right and there's the film

is ridiculous yeah um but at the same time it has the kind of aesthetic as a kind of

video nasty from the 70s say like this was a video nasty right oh yeah it was on the list

well that that's the thing but it's kind of subtly different from a last house on the left

right of course yeah yeah yeah because it's not as graphic in the the sadism i mean yes you do

have a woman who gets sexually assaulted by a tree tree but but it's a tree which is different

yeah um and i don't know so it doesn't feel like it is quite in the same

league it i mean it feels like something apart

and it's it's not got the humor of the sequels but in some ways i think that's a good thing for

this film because i think that the humor goes a bit overboard with certain evil dead too

but with this film it's stay on that well what what's i mean to say does is that in this film

it isn't kind of played for yucks in a way it's like

no definitely not this is serious this movie yeah it's like cam campbell's not mugging to the

camera i mean you do have like but as you say the massive zoom in on his face at the end as he's

screaming in terror but everything that comes before that he's forced into out of necessity

because he's been toyed with by demonic forces but he's basically playing it straight yeah for sure

which makes it more interesting in my book

stabbing the ankle good stuff

yeah when you look at something you're like fuck that looks like it hurts

you know yeah that's good shit right there

one of those moments where you just kind of go oh yeah yeah you just have an immediate

visible reaction to it you can't not yeah perfect perfect but the fact that you know

by the time one of the most sympathetic members of the movie is dead

of the cast has been turned into a dreadite and they're basically a rotting rubber mask under a

trap door right right for like the rest of the it's like i could be po-faced and say well it

doesn't go into the the completely ridiculous uh comedy of you've still got her under the

trap door going i'll get you

exactly yeah so um yeah but no i've

very much appreciated its place in um horror cinema and again it's seventh on my list which

is about mid-table but again it's just really because i think everything else on my list i just

prefer a bit more um yeah yeah i mean i mean what is it is it my sixth it's your sixth yes

yes my it's my sixth and i called it a masterpiece so oh there we go i'm getting kubrick flashbacks

here

it's like des and chris going oh yes the killing it's such a perfect great wonderful film it's

number seven in my list

the killing is fucking awesome but uh yeah it's just the thing about this segment really

yeah exactly exactly right yeah uh right so number six for me um we're not veering too far

off we're in the evil dead trilogy and

my number six and it's the first mention of this film is uh army of darkness right there we go

uh we're into the top fives so dave what uh is your number five my number five is evil dead two

return of jafar okay so uh die dark man die

okay

daz what's your number five were we recording at that point um

my number five is army of darkness is army of darkness

uh my number five is the quick and the dead and that's only a strike two

wow okay so we get to number four for dave well it's strike three because my number four

four is the quick of the day lovely lovely lovely um okay well dave it's for just uh the

topic of the day so i'm going to go with the quick and the dead um i'm going to go with the

top of your list uh well the top choice uh for you uh what do you want to say about the quick and

the dead i absolutely love this i mean i i because i like i enjoy kind of an offbeat western

of many kinds as as me and he occasionally enjoy wild wild west

the most offbeat of westerns that goes too far

that goes too far what what's

like far about a giant mechanical spider

i mean there was something about this that kind of almost made it feel like it was like

it was an adaptation of a video game that didn't exist yes yeah very much so yeah like this it

feels like this could be sort of like like street fighter with six uses because you've got because

you've got because you've got all the kind of different kind of individual characters with

their backstories and stuff and you know there's the the tough one the silent one the cocky one

the girl one and then there's the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the

one yeah yeah one hundred percent and the lance hendrickson one yeah but yeah i'm gonna say but

also just like just such a top draw cast of great character actors actors who were kind of on the

way up yeah and sort of some legends and stuff i mean like these days the idea of that there

is a film which has gene hackman russell crowe leonardo dicaprio sharon stone keith david and

lance hymickson in it yeah right and pat hingle for christ's sake yeah it's just a

it's a hell of a cast gary sinise you know like it's yeah this cast goes so deep it's crazy cast

jigsaw and yep and there's just and it's it's a very rainy film as well he's clearly having a lot

of fun like all like building up the tension for the quick draws the camera angles in the

yeah yeah yeah yeah and the big the big dutch angle on the clock

all things go off

and yeah they're like each of the gunfighters got their own personalities and styles so you

got like lance hymickson being kind of like the kind of like the traveling the traveling kind of

fairground shooter kind of guy you've got a lot of people and you've got like

keith david with his um swivel gun mechanism thing on his and at the top of it all you've

got gene hackman just being kind of basically reprising his role for

for my

unforgiven with a bit more mustache twirling yeah right and yeah it's it's it's great like

everyone just seems to be having a great time it's like it's it's a really simple story

um yeah well i i just had a lot of fun with it i want to say that if there's one thing that this

film shows with regards to sam raimi in abundance it's his love of subtlety

yeah yeah our villain is called herod

yeah yeah for sure yeah there's not a lot to this movie you know but it it's a fun time at the movies

oh absolutely i mean everything dave just said yeah it's not quite an all-star cast it's like

an all b-list cast from yeah but it's but it's a top tier cast though oh absolutely absolutely yeah

and the fact you've got all these people who are clearly very good are just adding everything to

to raise the sum of its parts and what you get is this i mean it's only i mean it's number five on

my list it's like if it weren't quite relatively lightweight it might be higher but yeah even then

there's some really dark bit it's like you mentioned gary sinise

the scene he's involved in yeah yeah that's fucking dark there's there's an intensity to

this movie and look like everything from the quick and the dead up is a movie i love on my lists

it's probably the lowest on mine right yeah it's easy i think so yeah but i still it's i just had a

shitload of fun and all the like the innovative like gunslinging camera work stuff is just

and uh you know and it does have some like fun surprises as well script wise even though yeah

there's just like there's not a lot to the story there's it still has a couple moments where it

surprises you and i mean anytime you've got gene hackman as the villain you've got my attention

yeah yeah and except for like except for like superman 3 he's not in superman oh superman 4 i

even though i i sort of kind of love that movie movie superman 4 he has the most cutting burn on

john crier possible it's like because john crier is playing his nephew it's like yeah i consider

you to be the dutch elm disease of my family tree it has its moments it does it does

honestly there's not a

lot to say it's just a very fun western yeah i mean it's a really simple premise really well

yeah yeah it's it's funny i mean one of the more surprising things is like why did

sharon stone choose this as her next movie you know what i mean like

yes as far as people uh you know it's like sort of b b list actors you know like gary

certainly wasn't at his popularity peak at this point i mean you know leonardo dicaprio was still

on on the way up right but like sharon stone was a legitimate huge movie star well it's

interesting that she yeah right like she definitely wanted to make this movie yeah

you know it's interesting she wanted she wanted to be picked ramey as the director

right right yeah she really just wanted to be a gunslinger and i i really

you know i respect that i think i think she's really good at it as well yeah it's a great

departure from obviously she got famous for playing a lot of kind of femme fatale yeah kind

of roles so this being like like she gets to show a lot more vulnerability in this but also a lot

more kind of steel as well and yes i think she's excellent at all of it yeah i think one of my

favorite things one of my favorite sharon stone films she kicks commissioner gordon off a chair

for just assuming that she's going to be a good actor and she's going to be a good actor and she's

going to be a good actor and she's going to be a good actor and she's going to be a good actor and she

was a whore

so well who who hasn't

well it's the last time you disrespect me jim gordon

right uh number four for you vendez oh uh my number four is spider-man

spider-man strike two for spider-man and for me uh

number four and i think this is the first mention of it is uh dark man all right um so uh

we're coming up to our top three we still have six films to discuss this is exciting times

so weird very weird very weird you feel the tension of the air

so into the top three dave what is your bronze medal uh dark man dark man there we go

there's mine is also dark man there we go we're talking about dark man um uh there's dave and i did

a whole pulp diction on this nonsense so um if you want to kick things off sure i mean

the 90s were just like rife with like weird superhero movies and weird comic book adaptations

uh and original films uh superhero films

uh but for me this is this is the movie that kicked the door down for that you know like

ramey said over and over he wanted to make a batman movie he wanted to make the shadow

uh and when he got tired of not being able to do that he just said fuck it i'll make up dark man

yeah he did he did you know he's a he's a pulp superhero he's a universal monster

you know it's it's it's just so cool and again top-notch

cast yeah uh fucking durant is one of the best movie villains of the 90s like easily on and on

and on dark man fucking rules i will stand by that forever and i will stand at your side

now ian answer for answer for yourself why did you give such a low rating

so everyone uh so it's number three on desi's list number three on dave's list number four

why do i shit on dark man so much um

you know what this means this means dark man is going to be the number one sam ramey movie

i'm calling it now really i haven't done i haven't done the math but i'm calling it now

no yeah

you haven't um okay so well what i'll say is um first of all you say oh what an amazing

they got fucking liam neeson to star in this film yeah yeah i mean granted pre-schindler's list

liam neeson but still still a movie star at that time yeah yeah and yeah and they were so big on

durant as the villain

but they started the film off with him yeah um and and and showing off his villainy

uh before we we get into the the opening credits and when when when did this movie come out 1990

1990 yeah 1990 look that uh cigar cutter yeah scene has stayed with me every day

since i saw this in the theater in 1990 one of the meanest and cruelest things you'll see

in movies in the 90s for sure gotta love durant i have seven more points

oh yeah yeah it's kind of great to see larry drake being such a shit right yeah

yeah usually usually pretty lovable right

yeah and the thing is like funny he's actually not even the main villain

right like like the main villain is colin frills and he's like the rivet gun

well as i said when we did it on pulp diction there's more than a few nods to robocop here

and they're very similar movies yeah durant is very much the bodica of yes

yeah yeah uh with uh colin frills being the ronnie cox guy um i would say just because

it is a superhero film with man in the title why dark master wayne

dark frightens me alfred

it makes my face dark it's time my enemies shed my true dread

yeah uh but yeah i mean again we covered most of these points on pulp diction but

um it's just a a really entertaining film and moreover it's giving samurai me a chance

after he's hit it big with his first two um evil dead films it's like what can we get this guy to

do if we just gave him a fairly big budget and relatively free reign to do what he likes

yeah and it's

this yeah and they're like you know this this is going well we'll give you some extra money

for a helicopter chase it's like okay fine yeah yeah don't mind if i do yeah it's just a fact it's

such a wonderful blend of kind of clearly like yeah you can see that pulp sensibility on it but

the fact it's also just so horrific yeah i mean like everything that happens to poor old dr payton

westlake so kind of you know getting into that

dark about place it's just sort of like yeah just a series of unpleasant happenings to him

culminating in being blown up in a fireball and thrown into a river and to be fair the makeup

effects of the kind of you know that real kind of phantom of the operary kind of thing where you

can like it's only just gonna just that one bit around his eye that's fine and that when he keeps

kind of catching that bit in the light yeah yeah that's just yeah and and i love i love the gimmick

of of like

the fake skin he can create but it only lasts a certain amount of time in the sunlight right so

that that's really you know it's you know obviously built-in weakness there but really

really fun to see that used on screen yeah and the the kind of symmetry of you you see at the

outset westlake's lab before it's uh destroyed um and then once he's dark ben and he's recreating

his experiment

for the synthetic skin he's in some kind of disused

mill or something and everything's a bit more perverse and diy um and then also once he's

created a synthetic hand there's this glorious scene where he's typing on a keyboard one with

the synthetic hand typing the other with his burnt hand right right yeah plus it has the

legendary moment of liam neeson shouting take the fucking elephant

and then here's the dancing freak

the you know i've i've just come to the realization i think this is like a splatterpunk movie

like very similar to like the splatterpunk literary movement of like the prior few years

you know it's it's there's a there's a political aspect to it on on the villain side right and so

there's that and there's like you know like i don't know if you know like the well you've got

i don't know i don't know if you know like the like the like the like the like the like the like

like real horror and like literally like walking up and on the sidewalk and looking up and seeing

somebody's face start to bubble and smoke you know like it's like whoa what the fuck

it's like there's a lot of horror and then just like the way he looks period right there's a lot

of horror and then you know you got some dude chopping people's fingers off with a cigarette

cutter and uh or cigar cutter and uh you got yourself a pretty gnarly horror side to this

movie too ted ramey being run over by a lorry right yeah uh sorry spoilers uh right so um we

move on to uh my number three pick and that is a simple plan and uh that is a strike two for that

one so dave number two for you

strike three a simple plan there we go so this was the first time viewing for me

and quite frankly i was blown away i was not expecting what i saw um and what i saw was

ostensibly the treasure of sierra madra um in um some kind of uh rural setting in america

montana or something yeah something like that i can't remember where it was

yeah so there's it's lowest on your list when i say lowest i say it's down number 12 so uh

yeah we're clearly odds here yeah i mean i've i i've had this conversation before you know like

i've never thought this was a good movie i find it boring and on rewatch this time yeah i i still

agree with myself i i don't find this to be a compelling movie at all interesting i love the

that's the funny part ah right so you've you've read the book okay yeah that's that's probably part

of the problem and i mean like there's so there's so much about this movie that i should love

you know like uh i love like you know i'm canadian so i love like cold noir you know like

what you know like you're in this place you gotta fucking bundle up against the wind and

shit but then there's also like dark crime stuff happening you got bill paxton right

like very canadian yeah but no i love bill paxton you know and uh and i just i've never been able

to get into this movie okay i mean i i agree bill paxton's great in this film um even better i think

was billy bob thornton yeah see i don't like him either i i don't like him as a person but i thought

i think in this film he he does a very good job that's fair okay

okay convinced there's a

one um okay uh let's pivot to dave um let's ignore des um dave what were you liking about this

i'm aware that i knew that was gonna happen shush dave

this is the most he has ever fought for my voice

i concur

um yeah this is my first viewing of this i was kind of like aware of it um i was kind of

interested to see what it was like but didn't you know what to expect going in and yeah i i really

like i really liked it again i can i can see how it can be viewed as being slow and boring and

but i kind of liked the slow burn of it but i could understand why somebody else wouldn't so

yeah i don't have any i kind of don't object to that as a take

um but yeah i don't know i like that

but yeah i like the kind of like much like i said about the gift that's that kind of like

growing to sense of just generalities even in sort of like scenes where it's

seemingly mundane what kind of yeah obviously that kind of whole thing which would be done in

a lot of films of you know just somebody coming up with their situation and then it just

slowly unraveling as other people could have you know go off the map and start doing their own thing

uh yeah the kind of twist which with um Gary Cole turning up towards the end which yeah

Gary Cole Gary Cole's in this that's um yeah and and the end i love the ending

which i won't obviously i won't support if anyone's not seen it but uh beauty

but uh yeah the the way it ends it's just it's just sweet it's really good and yeah i i love the

very little they holding on through the ending part and i kind of i love it because they really love it

and me and i really love it but what i'd say about that sort of thing i think it's something i love to be a

is kind of

tragically satisfying

yeah

yeah very much so

I mean again this is a film

you can very much argue that

doesn't feel very much like a Sam Raimi

film

yeah

I think there's a conscious

desire to

kind of step back and

just on the basis that

it is a very well casted

film

to let the cast kind of

play out

the dialogue

which in and of itself

kind of shows what the

drama is and what the

tensions between characters are

I will say

the one bit that really made me

think ah yes Raimi

and the bit that made me laugh

out loud

slight spoiler although I won't say who it is

there comes a point

where someone's blown away with a shotgun

and that made me howl

yes

I'm just like

that was far too quick

and against the grain of everything going on

in this film

to not be a conscious choice

on Raimi's part

no I'm well aware

that my take on this movie

is not

enjoyed by many

let's just say

I'm happy with that

I've experienced this in the past before

yes I did not enjoy your take

on this film

no more flick chart forums

Shortez 2

I understand

the thing is like

there are films like this where

it is kind of like

slow burn and build up

and it's all about slowly wrapping up tension

and

I think there are films like this

which in a similar way to this

which I haven't enjoyed for similar reasons

so I think you either kind of buy into

the hook of the characters

and

and the story it's telling

or you don't

and if you don't

you're just not going to enjoy it

right

and like I said

there are other slow burn films

similar to this

which I don't especially enjoy

so

yeah

this could have gone either way for me

as it turns out

it went positive

good stuff

okay

Dez what is the runner up

pick on your list

I only decided this

like right before we recorded

so I'm just going to say

Spider-Man 2

all right

Spider-Man 2

strike two for that one

am I going to be in agreement

I've gone with the original

Spider-Man

and that is our cue to talk

about Spider-Man from

T-Fan

2002

why spiders

master Bruce

spiders frighten me Alfred

it's time my enemies

learned a taste of my dread

my brother

Pandy

not his actual name

his actual name is

Andrew Pandronicus Wilson

he likes to joke

that this is my favourite film

it isn't

that's Casablanca

but

but I

have

it's of course second though

it's up there

I think actually

M is second

if I look at my flick chart

but

the thing is

I have

a lot of nostalgia

for Spider-Man

because it was

pretty much

I think it was the first film

I bought for myself on DVD

and

I remember

it's just a film

I remember seeing

as a formative age

I was seven years old

I was 17

and Kirsten Dunst

in the rain

in that dress

right yeah yeah for sure

you know

for sure

I mean I'm sure people

slight know all of me

had similar feelings

but when you're 17

yes

so

it was

the internet used a lot

then

it was the dawning age

of the internet

Kirsten Dunst

Katie Holmes

but moreover

and as someone

who didn't grow up

reading Spider-Man comics

and

I mean there was

the 90s Spider-Man TV show

that I caught here and there

but otherwise

I wasn't a big Spider-Man guy

but

I did go and see it

and I absolutely adored it

like warts and all

for all the

the Power Rangers

effect of the villain

you know

at the end of the day

I enjoyed

the kind of

Silver Age retelling

of it

of Spider-Man

I always thought

David McGuire

was a good actor

I liked his chemistry

with Kirsten Dunst

Willem Dafoe

is fucking amazing

casting as

Norman Osborn

says I

100%

again

says I

who doesn't have

the comic's lore in mind

but even then

I think people

have borne me out

on that one

and

I just really enjoyed it

and

I

go back to it

every now and then

and then

it's just

and

when

the only thing that

I

I note

that kind of

says it is dated

and it really annoys

Donovan Morgan Grant

so I will say it again here

to annoy

Donovan Morgan Grant

is that

Macy Gray is in it

for some reason

I knew you were going to say

Macy Gray

why is everyone against

Macy Gray

I'm not against

Macy Gray Donovan

no he's like

why are you people

so against

Macy Gray

I'm not against

Macy Gray

he you people'd us

well

that's a slightly

different conversation

but

in any

in any event

I

I fucking love Spider-Man

and

I mean

it's number two

on my list

and

I

I want to hear

other praise

who has it higher

in their list

Des has it higher

okay

yeah

I mean

a lot of it's going to be

repetitive

because I love

I love

I love Willem Dafoe

as the Green Goblin

you know

like I think

when I first watched it

I didn't like his costume

you wouldn't be alone there

yeah

but

I really like it

on

you know

on this watch

for some reason

I don't know

maybe I just

accepted it more

but

this movie is

so fun

and

it's

it's a rare

comic book movie

that actually

improves

upon

the character

in some way

in that

Spider-Man

shoots webs

from his wrist

yes

like not from

a web shooter

but from his wrist

that

because

that solves

a problem

with the comic book

Spider-Man

because if

teenage

Peter Parker

is capable

of making

an engineering

feat such as

the web shooter

why is he not rich

yeah

I don't know

yeah

right

it's hard for

it's hard to buy

money troubles

in that case

but guess what

now that

you know

now that it's a

biological thing

that gets rid

of that problem

that's like the one

problem I've always had

with Spider-Man

in the comic books

yeah

it's literally

an episode title

of the

Batman the Animated

series

for the

Riddler

if you're so smart

why aren't you rich

right

well

look

although the question

about it being organic

is just

well why isn't it

coming out of his ass

very true

I think

you need to watch

some Venture Brothers

I think that guy's

just called

the arachnid

but that's

that's where his

weapon comes from

yeah

he's not very popular

no

a little creepy

a little

okay

Dave

what

I mean

as a

as a child

Spider-Man

was probably second

only to Batman

in terms of my

formative

kind of

exposure to

superheroes in general

I remember

as a kid

they

they showed the

kind of

Nicholas Hammond

TV show

on

what

in the kind of

early 80s

like on a Saturday

afternoon

which is why

I'm grateful for seeing

that

yeah

I have vague

memories of that

yeah

what Spider-Man

and his amazing

friends

there's a

you know

80s cartoon

growing up

yeah

love that

I mean that kind of

introduced me to the

X-Men as well

so yeah

I'm a big

Spider-Man fan

so obviously

I was very excited

when this was

announced

and it didn't

disappoint

and it kind of

still doesn't

but

obviously

well

sort of echo

the fact that

William Dafoe

is fantastic

obviously

J.K. Simmons

looks like he's been

ripped straight off

the page

and thrown in front

of a camera

unbelievable

so good

yeah

and

Toby McGuire's

really good at this

and also

oh I forgot the name

but the actor

who plays

R. May

Rosemary Harris

yeah

I mean like

she's a fan

again

straight

almost straight

from the comic

yeah

page

I mean a lot of this

just feels like

he's somehow

got a film camera

into a comic book

yeah for sure

it very much

feels like

early Spider-Man

comics

yeah

which is

which is a beautiful

thing

what other comic book

movies do that

you know

I think

you could probably

argue the

Superman the motion

picture or whatever

Superman the movie

is that what it's called

yeah

I mean I've heard it

kind of compared to it

so it's like

yeah

it's kind of like

for

what the generation

of comic book film fans

who kind of saw

Spider-Man as a kid

it was just transformative

for them

watching

like kids

or people out

of our hood

they do watch

Superman as a kid

yeah

you know

just sort of

like that kind of

he's just a good guy

being good

against bad

stuff

and

yeah

and I think

it's a

it's the best

version of the

one of the purest

takes on it

I think

yeah

it's a very

very good

version of

Spider-Man

what can I say

that hasn't

already been said

by people

better educated

than me

well that's very

kind of you

to say Dave

and

well you did

go to private

school

yeah I did

yes

which makes me

better than you

absolutely

that's the way

it works

to as ever

for us

and then

also

you know

even Chad Kroger

can't ruin this film

and actually

I can't

I don't like

exactly

you know what

the song's not that bad

exactly

yeah

the thing is

to my mind

I mean

I may be

remembering wrong

but it feels like

it was one of the last

films

kind of big

movie tie-in songs

you know

back in the 80s

and the 90s

the movie tie-in songs

were a big thing

like you'd have

the music video

which I've kind of

shot from the film

and stuff like that

you know

baby

I can play you

to a kiss

from a rose

yeah

like your

Brian Adams

and stuff

you know

whereas

just like

these days

it's just not

a thing anymore

or if it is

I can't say

I've noticed it

but I think

that was kind of

like

Hero was kind of

one of the last

versions of that

you know

like the big film

tie-in

we've composed

this song

for this film

I think you'll find

Pitbull did an

admirable job

for Men in Black 3

right

well I mean

music videos

aren't a very good

marketing

prospect

anymore

not nowadays

so

I mean

because

they just go up on

they go up on YouTube

you know

and it's just like

it's one of a billion

things

so I think

it's more

music videos

now are more

concentrated on

you know

marketing the band

rather than

working in

some sort of

movie tie-in

because the movie tie-in

doesn't even matter

anymore

you know

so you don't see

music videos

with movie scenes

in them

anymore

it is

it is interesting

it's a musical

sub-genre

I miss

the movie tie-in

song

yeah

hey I

I love a good

soundtrack

I bought soundtracks

for movies

I didn't even like

yeah

I always

used to be

tie-in video games

for films as well

yeah

I mean

really shitty

video games

they're almost

always awful

yeah

Pandy actually

worked on one

for one of the

Pirates of the Caribbean

films

oh wow

yeah

but

that video game

studio no longer

exists

you mean

the video game

based on a movie

based on a

a ride

at a

amusement park

that is correct

yes

okay

that is the

order of adventure

on it

which is why

Pandy does not

work in that

field

anyway

so

we've come to

everyone's

top picks

and interestingly

do we have

three separate

movies to talk about

oh yes

we have three

separate movies

so this is going

to make the final

tabulation

very interesting

indeed

crazy

because we are

three very different

people

we are

as Dave has

pointed out

I went to

private school

so Dave

you commoner

tell me what's

at the top

of your list

yes sir

if you don't mind

don't you

let me speak

sir

my number

one is

Army of Darkness

right

Army of Darkness

Evil Dead 3

yeah

kind of

sort of

go for it

yeah

I'm fully

aware

that I'm

as I said

at the top

of this

podcast

I saw the

Evil Dead films

in the wrong

order

right

and it's

something that

me and

Gillian

constantly

clash about

because she

has seen

the Evil Dead

films in

the right

order

and will

steadfastly

say that

the Evil

Dead is

the best

one

and screw

you

so we

very much

come towards

it from

different ends

but like

in a way

I mean

it's kind

of not

I mean

it is a

horror film

it's not

a horror film

it's like

it's more

like a

fantasy film

yeah

I mean

for me

it's just

a wonderful

mix of

genres

it's a

fantasy

it's a

comedy

it's a

horror film

it's got

a bonkers

this absolute

arsehole

of a man

yeah

dumped in

medieval times

having had

enough of

everyone's

shit

kind of

justifiably

so

considering

the days

already had

you know

as is

the lines

he delivers

in that movie

listen up

you primitive

screw heads

yeah

one of the

best ways

to start a

conversation

yeah

so

you're about

in charge

of two

things around

here

Jack and

shit

and Jack

is left

out

all right

Roddy Piper

yeah

but yeah

like like

actually this

is like

because this

all takes

place

immediately

after we

were there

too

yeah

so he's

already had

the shittiest

couple of

days

and now

this has

happened to

me

yeah

and now

he's got to

go off on a

Lord of the Rings

quest that he

doesn't want to

do

and like

yeah he's

done with

everything

all absolutely

done

and of course

he half arses

his way through

trying to give

the magic

spell

yeah right

because he

wasn't paying

attention

because he

doesn't want

to do it

and to be

honest with you

you know

if I was him

I probably

would have

forgotten the

words as well

right

it's it's

so weird

like it has

as much in

common with

like willow

as yeah

as it does

with evil

dead

you know

absolutely

so weird

yeah it's

truly one of

the weirdest

sequels of

all time

and and

with I

say that with

all love

truly an

amazing movie

yeah I mean

like I can

absolutely see

why some evil

dead fans

don't like it

because if you

if you watch

the evil

dead and then

watch the evil

dead 2

and then you

get to army

of darkness

what the fuck

is this

right right

it's it's a

crazy spectrum

that those

those three

films for

sure and

Bruce Campbell's

only studio

film as the

main lead

yeah wow

hang on

crazy

was evil

dead 2

not a studio

film

no it was

not

okay

it was

procured

after

yeah and

uh and

so weird

the the

Bridget Fonda

cameo

right

yeah

you can call

it a cameo

does she have

a line

I don't even

think she has

a line

does she

no I think

she's all just

sort of screams

as the um

thing comes

through the

window

right right

Jesus

Christ

so weird

but yeah

fantastic

what did she

ever go on

today

which ending

do you prefer

now I

the version

I watched

only had

the unhappy

apocalyptic

ending

right so

I had to

look up on

YouTube

the alternates

ending

okay

I think for

closure I

prefer the

happier ending

but at the

same time

it's the

the version

that I watched

is totally in

keeping with

just making

Ash's life

a misery

which I

think is very

much also in

keeping with

Raimi's

relationship

with Bruce

Campbell

yeah I

love that

ending as

well

it's like the

idea that we

might have

had like a

post-apocalyptic

evil dead

like maybe

would have

switched genres

again

yeah

but then like

Mad Max

with Deadites

he's just

like

and like

bearing in mind

that it's

sort of like

yeah

I suppose

in terms of

like the

amount of

time Ash

has spent

like he's

been like

this has all

been happening

through the

course of

like a week

maybe two

right right

he's just

having the

shittiest

time

he's handling

it relatively

well though

yeah

look I

I prefer

the happy

ending

which is

shocking to

hear coming

out of my

mouth

but

simply

because

it doesn't

have the

tease

for the

awesome movie

that we

never got

I kind of

you know

what I

mean

had had

he been

able to

make

evil dead

four

you know

fight the

future dead

or whatever

whatever

uh

yeah

but I

then I

probably

definitely

would be

saying oh

yeah

the

well I

mean there

wouldn't be

a happy

ending I

guess

yeah

there

it would

just be

the ending

you know

uh

but uh

yeah

it's upsetting

to me

that we

never got

that movie

because I

want I

just you

know I

just wanted

more Bruce

Campbell

as Ash

and we

got it

several

several years

later but

yeah

I think

I think the

happier ending

is kind of

the canon

ending because

that's how

we get to

Ash versus

the evil

dead

yeah

but

yeah

the version

the first

time I saw

it was the

um

it was the

post-apocalyptic

ending

and yeah

I was just

kind of like

beautiful

that's like

yeah

that's that

well I mean

that's like

the horror movie

version of

what you know

seeing the

statue of

liberty

yeah the

planet the

apes

yeah

as long as

it's not the

Tim Burton

version

yeah

ape Lincoln

yeah

oh help me

Dr. Zayas

and the fact

the fact that

basically the last

third of this

got wholesale

this

needed for

also quite

powerful

I mean basically

right down to

there being a

book involved

the only difference

is that Oz's

book

Oz's book

is a book

of kind of

magic tricks

and illusions

and like

Ash's book

is science

101

right

but yeah

like the

the tiny

little ashes

yeah

you know

it's just

it's never

ending fun

this movie

evil Ash

I mean

I just

as someone

who did a

history degree

I just like

the idea

it's set in

medieval Spain

or medieval

wherever

because it's

just like

oh no

not another

log cabin

it's like

oh no

not another

log

it's like

where does he

meet a

dreadite

down a

well

in a

castle

wonderful

right

yeah

and of course

in the words

of Hall and Oates

I can go

for that

wait a second

Ian did you

recognise who

was playing

King Arthur

you've seen

him in a film

that we've

covered on

Earth 2

oh

um

King Arthur

did he say

yeah

I'm looking

at the

Wikipedia page

I still don't

know who that

is

it's

it's Marcus Gilbert

who was

Captain Eric

von Stahle

oh was he

Biggles

now in fairness

he was wearing

a metal mask

in that film

yep

uh

yes

oh

as many

pulp diction

films we can

bring in as

possible

Biggles

um

and many

more

um

okay

because we've

already covered

well

because we

already actually

covered Dark

Man

and

yeah

we've referred

to the

shadow

so

yeah

lovely stuff

all going

beautifully

we should

really pick

that back

up

okie dokie

um

everyone

army of

darkness

uh

I've spoken

quite enough

so

if anybody

else has

an opinion

by all

that's

that's my

line Dave

um

okie dokie

Des

uh

I know the

answer but

for the

benefit of

the people

listening

what is

the top

of your

list

top of

my list

is

Evil

Dead

2

sometimes

subtitled

Dead

by Dawn

for me

this is

the

greatest

horror

comedy

of all

time

um

I think

it's

perhaps

the

best

performance

by a

single

actor

in a

horror

movie

that I've

ever

seen

okay

that's

probably

fair

I can't

argue with

it

and by

that I'm

and by

that I mean

like Bruce

Campbell is

like in

this movie

he's

modern-day

Buster

Keaton

it's

it's an

absolutely

brilliant

comedic

performance

so he's

delivering this

comedic

performance

inside this

very you

know

mean-spirited

and nasty

horror film

which

in some

aspects

really is

a remake

of the

of this

film it

is a

sequel

to

it's

just

yeah

it's

just

a wild

it's

just

a wild

movie

and

like

I just

loved

what

Raimi

did

with

it

just

as

far

as

creativity

and

doing

his

own

again

his

own

idea

brought

to

life

you know

solely

by him

no

studio

interference

that would

come

directly

after that

in movies

but

this was

sort of

like the

last

pure

thing

he did

and

uh

yeah

I

I love

it

unendingly

it's

one of

my

you know

very

favorite

films

it's

probably

crack

in the

top

ten

wow

okay

when

do you

say

original

days

to

me

yeah

it kind

of smacked

of

peewee's

playhouse

but

evil

dead

but

that would

have been

before

yeah

predates

peewee's

playhouse

so

evil

dead

2

was

87

uh

peewee's

playhouse

was like

89

wasn't

it

no

I've

specifically

looked this

up on

wikipedia

big

adventure

85

playhouse

86

peewee's

big

adventure

came out

in

1985

would

wikipedia

lie

no

of course

not

I'm just

shocked

I mean

yeah

wikipedia

can

lie

but

I don't

buy that

but yeah

that's

crazy

yeah

I would

not have

I would

not have

placed

that movie

in that

year

my

bigger

point

is that

it is

a kind

of one

man

Bruce

Campbell

show

for

the

majority

of the

film

which

the

original

kind

of

wasn't

yeah

and

to that

extent

I find

it a

bit

uh

gratuitous

and

I mean

it's

absolutely

fine

if

you know

and I

understand

but

again

if you

first of

all

if you

haven't

seen

the first

film

it

really

doesn't

matter

and

um

if you

have

seen

the first

film

then you

can see

that it

builds

upon

the first

film

and takes

it in a

totally

different

direction

it goes

a lot

bigger

on as

you say

the Buster

Keaton

style

comedy

aspect

look

this isn't

even a

lie

but sometimes

when I

watch a

movie

that I

find to

be like

a piece

of shit

I will

put on

the scene

of Bruce

Campbell

throwing himself

around the

kitchen

I'm not

it's not

even a

joke

like literal

it's like

literal

medicine

for me

well

I will

listen to

dread media

and a

whole new

light

I mean

I don't

want to

not give

it its

I mean

it was still

in my top

ten

but

again

I think

because I've

kind of

seen half

of the

film

before

in the

first

film

and

not

necessarily

digging

the new

direction

groovy

word

it didn't

quite come

across the

way

but it

clearly does

to you

but what

was interesting

in terms of

the kind

of new

dynamics

is you've

got the

people who

owned the

house coming

back

plus the

trucker

helping repair

the bridge

and the

girlfriend

right

and

so you've

you've got

a new element

introduced

has anyone

here has

anyone here

seen evil

dead the

musical

I haven't

seen I've

listened to the

score though

okay

really

well that's

more than

I've done

you probably

find it unusual

somewhere it's

great there's

there's a song

called what

the fuck

was that

yeah

right

yeah

it's it's

great

it's great

um

Dave have

you chimed in

on evil

dead too

uh not

yet no

um so

yeah I do

really like it

I mean I

think I

struggle to

think of

another actor

who's like

who would

be able to

carry this

film the way

that Bruce

Campbell carries

it for a

large track

to me

while still

kind of keeping

it interesting

and fresh

and

basically just

beating the

living crap

out of it

yeah

definitely

like he

actually like

he doesn't

hold back

and throws

himself into

everything

like yeah

like it

certainly

a great

swathe of

this film

is a war

between a

man and

his hand

yeah

like

Bruce

Campbell's

left hand

is his

nemesis

in this

yeah

like I'm

sure Bruce

Campbell wakes

up sore

a lot of

days for

stuff that

he did

making this

movie

yeah

you know

okay

like all

of a sudden

his shoulder

hurts him

a lot

you know

like

just

he gave

everything

to this

movie

and I

just

I

for me

I just

I think

I feel

like it's

just so

pure

you know

like

Sam Raimi's

vision

and only

his vision

and

and Bruce

Campbell's

performance

going

you know

very few

have gone

farther

you know

than Bruce

Campbell in

this movie

and I just

I love it

for that

and in terms

of Ash

the character

like this is

the film

where Ash

the character

we know

as Ash

arrives

yes

the birth

of Ash

for sure

yeah

there was

the Ash

from the Evil

Dead

who

great

performance

a great

character

but sort

of like

Ash

wouldn't

become

Ash

until

Evil

Dead 2

I suppose

in the

Evil

Dead

he's

Ashley

as his

sister

would call

him

whereas

in Evil

Dead 2

he is

Ash

yeah

that's

where he

becomes

the icon

of horror

yes

in essence

the John

McClane

of zombies

groovy

so

we

move on

to the

final pick

which is

mine

and the

top of

my list

the one

Raimi film

we haven't

discussed

as of yet

is

Spider-Man 2

yeah

which

builds upon

everything

that was

good

on Spider-Man

the first

and

makes things

a lot

better

whilst

being

simultaneously

hugely

depressing

because

you're

watching the

world

absolutely

shit

on Peter

Parker

yeah

in every

way

possible

and it

leads to

and again

I said this

on the

Spider-Man

flick chart

forum

because we

had Donovan

on

and he

tells this

story about

how when

he was

watching it

in the

cinema

it was the

scene where

it was just

announced that

MJ was getting

engaged to

Jameson's

son

and you

have to

zoom in on

Peter's face

and then you've

got Jameson

going

Parker

take the

pictures

and like

some guy

in the

auditorium

was like

dude

shut the

fuck up

and

he's

like

I love

that story

but

yeah

it's just

it's a

return to

a film

that was

previously

very successful

built upon

it

it feels

the same

it moves

things along

you've got

another

excellent

villain

in Alfred

Molina's

Doc Ock

so good

and

yeah

who

wants to

chime in

it's number

two on

Des's list

yeah I

mean

for me

this is the

best superhero

movie

like hands

down

it's right

up there

definitely

it just

it captures

everything

that you

could

you know

anything

that you

could possibly

say about

Spider-Man

is

captured

in this

film

the heroism

the

you know

the down

on his

luck

ness

right

he's

the poor

put upon

Peter

you know

like that's

just sort

of like

it's all

there

and yet

it's also

got

I think

some of

the best

comic book

action

that's ever

been on

screen

and

I

I had

a little

problem

with

Spider-Man

in

especially

like some

of the

CGI

where you're

seeing like

him crawl

oh

it looks

bad

but like

there's

there's even

a moment

in this one

where Peter

like crawls

up a wall

for like

literally no

reason other

than to like

test his

powers

but really

in my head

I'm like

Sam Raimi

knows that

CGI was

bad

and he's

doing that

he's doing

this to

show that

he's figured

it out

right

I still

I stand

by that

because I

think he's

a guy

who's probably

petty with

himself

does not

like when

things don't

come out

well I'm

sure

but what

I mean

for me

like

what a

perfect

superhero

movie

Alfred

Molina

my god

like

the perfect

actor

to play

this

legitimately

cornball

comic

character

yeah

like

I do

vaguely

remember

it's gonna

be Dr.

Octopus

you know

like

really

and then

oh

Alfred

Molina

okay

and then

you actually

see it

it's like

holy shit

this guy

is like

a masterpiece

as Dr. Octopus

the scene

where he's

in surgery

to try and

get the

arms removed

yeah

pure Amy

that scene

yeah

for sure

the train

scene

oh my god

yeah

the train

scene

come on

one of

one of the

best scenes

in all of

superhero movies

definitely

like

brings

to mind

what

Superman

Returns

the plane

scene

god

how did

they get

that so

right

and yet

the only

good thing

about

Superman

Returns

it's literally

like

the most

beautiful

eight minutes

of cinema

and then

it's nestled

in that

movie

and then

the rest

of Superman

Returns

happens

yeah

oh my

god

yeah

but yeah

I mean

it's just

it's

iconic

for me

as far

as comic

book

movies

go

Dave?

I love

Spider-Man 2

I do

genuinely

enjoy

watching it

I think

the reason

I ranked

Spider-Man

above it

by one

place

is because

I was

thinking about

this yesterday

as I was

going over

the list

and I was

flip-flopping

over which

way

which way

around

I was

going to

put them

and I

think

my

take on

it was

that Spider-Man

2 has

lots of

great

moments

like

it's got

some really

good set

pieces

like

the hospital

scene

the train

fight

the bit

where he's

trying to

deliver the

pizza

right

yeah

it's

probably

Nick

Blackman's

pizzas

he didn't

say Nick

it's from

New York

the

off

instant

gun

but

yeah

it's just

I think

the thing

that kind

of

like puts

it's like

I mean

it's a

photo finish

don't get me

wrong

but the

thing that

gives

Spider-Man

slightly the

edge for

me is the

fact that

I kind

of prefer

it as an

overall

story

there's bits

in Spider-Man

2 which

again

I love

Spider-Man

2

can't say

this enough

but I

find the

kind of

like

the bits

with Harry

being kind

of all bitter

and mean

are a bit

I'm not

a big fan

I know it's

better being

like Harry

in the

transition

to becoming

a villain

but like

it's

that's not

well it's

kind of

the whole

bit where

Harry at

the start

better be

a bit

more of a

swaggering

kind of

rich guy

douche

than he

used to

be

and like

again

James Franco

isn't great

but it's

also very

much a

Spider-Man

comic book

thing to

have people

in Peter

Parker's

life who

hate

Spider-Man

but love

Peter

yeah

right

I think

that's

partially

important

there too

but

yeah

I mean

you just

like the

story better

I really

thought you

were going

to say

what puts

it ahead

was Macho

Man

Randy Savage

and

well

that's

not

something

I could

argue

I'm with

you on

that

Bonesaw

is ready

but

it really

is only a

hair's breadth

between them

yeah

like

yeah

they're great

they're both

legitimately

great comic

book movies

for sure

yeah

it's only

because the

format of

this show

demands that

I place

one on

the other

and like

on another

day it

could have

gone another

way

yeah

you know

it's just

how I

thought about

it at the

time

so yeah

I mean

like obviously

the action's

fantastic

I mean

I think

I tend

to find

Mary Jane

less

enjoyable

in

two

like

when she's

kind of

like

yeah

in like

the first

one

I kind

of

just

kind of

prefer

their

dynamic

and the

fact that

when she's

kind of

like the

whole thing

she's all

conflicted

because she's

engaged to

John

but she

really likes

Spider-Man

and doesn't

know who

he is

she's also

a little

whiny in

this one

I don't

think they

did that

character

right in

the script

for this

movie

I would

agree with

that for

sure

yeah so

it's kind

of like

little things

like that

because

again

just kind

of like

edge

Spider-Man

just by

Spider-Man

2 for

me

but for

the longest

time I

was very

much in

the opinion

Spider-Man

2 was

superior

but I

think

sort of

like

having

watched

them both

again

recently

I kind

of came

away from

it

kind of

thinking

sort of

like

Spider-Man

2 has

amazing

set pieces

but the

kind of

connective

thread

through

the

connective

narrative

thread

wasn't

quite as

strong as

the first

one

but that's

literally the

only difference

for me

yeah

and also

if you

miss him

Spider-Man

2 does

have a

Willem Dafoe

cameo

yes

avenge

me

I don't