Hello, I'm John Waters, and I'm supposed to announce there is no smoking in this theater, which I think is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard of in my life.

How can anyone sit through a length of a film, especially a European film, and not have a cigarette?

But don't you wish you had one right now?

Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm.

And I'm telling you, smoke anyway.

It gives ushers jobs, and if people didn't smoke, there would be no employment for the youth of today.

So once again, no smoking in this theater.

Thank you very much for listening to Trylove.

This is a literal roundtable podcast where we talk about movies we saw and or people we met at or through the Trilon Cinema in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

You can find us on Twitter rilovepodcast, blueskyralovepodcast.

You can find the trial on itself@trialon.org My name is Jason Daphnis, and you can find me on Twitter and bluesky Nintendufus.

Tell him the dream is over.

Tell him Cody Narveson said so.

And you can find me on blueskyodeynarvison.

Spy, saboteur, podcaster, all of the above.

I'm Harry Mack, and you can find me on bluesky Unishtake.

Not available to join us this time is frequent co host.

I'm gonna start demoting him to, like, frequent guest at this point.

He's been special guests here.

You know, I've had something of a sporadic summer as well.

But, I mean, you do you.

Anyway, Aaron Grossman not able to join us today.

You can find him on blueskyrbyplease, BSGuy Social or whatever the structure is for that.

But I mean, don't mistake me, listener.

There are still four people on this podcast.

But who is that other guy in seat number four?

Hey, this is Matt Clark and I've got the cracked ribs to prove it.

You can find me at Kinoventura on bluesky.

We do have this ritual of just beating the shit out of Matt Clark in that alleyway back there just outside of the recording studio before every recording, just to keep him fresh.

Keep in mind, right, we sort of.

Follow a blood, blood out process with our podcast here.

We call it Bebo Cannot Wait to host that episode.

Oh, my God.

So much to say about that one.

Well, Matt, thank you for joining again.

You will recognize Matt's voice from our recent episode on Friends of Eddie Coyle.

You'll recognize his voice further from other places, other episodes like Night Moves, the Lavender Hill Mob, Shogun, Assassin, you can find his work at Kino Ventura, a blog about movies, and making Apache Revolver, his zine about film, excuse me, crime films, and occasionally on perisphere.org, the Charlons blog.

So thank you again, Matt, for joining.

You can find links to all of that stuff in the show Notes, I should say, right off the bat.

Yes, Because I've seen a lot of chatter about it on social media, on Blue sky, on Pinterest, on Bebo.

I have indeed joined the proposed class action settlement.

Excuse me.

Against the Criterion Collection in Lucchese Soto et al.

V.

The Criterion Collection LLC, case number 124cv07345vec in the United States District Court for Southern District of New York.

The Criterion Collection is accused of wrongfully sharing personally identifiable information of subscribers, including myself.

Anybody who owned and streamed something since, I think July of 2022 is entitled to a share of a class action settlement worth $4.5 million.

So when I get my $1.37 check in the mail, I promise I'm putting it right back into the podcast, right back into the hosting fees and everything.

But I figured I should cover that right off the bat because everybody's demanding to know if there's a conflict of interest.

I don't know and I don't care.

I vow to do the same for what it's worth.

Yeah.

Thank you for bringing this to everyone's attention.

Cody.

There's strength in numbers, but Also now that $1.37 number, I'm probably going to get like $1.32 now that you've joined, so that's true.

And now you're going to get like $1.28 because I'm joining now.

Also, they told me I was getting $1.45.

We can't afford to lose any more money on this.

Matt, do not.

Matt, do not.

I can't afford to piss off Criterion.

I need those.

Well, maybe things will start sounding a little bit better.

Maybe we won't have dog noises in the background.

And maybe Aaron will be able to join if we can entice him with another few bucks a month.

But yeah, go to patreon.com trilovepodcast to find more ways to support us directly supporting independent film media.

Anyway, today's film is not going to be introduced by our co host, Aaron Grossman, as he's not here, but I've licensed his intro, which we call the Patented Errand Grossman summary directly from Ag Enterprises Ltd.

And he introduces it usually with one or two sounds.

I'm going to go with this one, which starts with yes, indeed, folks, because I kind of liked this movie.

It is The Rocketeer, a 1991 action adventure superhero movie directed by Joe Johnston, starring Billy Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Alan Arkin, Timothy Dalton, Paul Sorvino, Ronald Tiny, Ron Taylor and Terry O', Quinn, among others.

The summary goes as such.

In 1938, Los Angeles down and out.

Stunt pilot Cliff Secord and his mechanic Peavey discover a jetpack in their hangar and begin using it in their show, unaware that it's a secret FBI prototype built by aerospace engineer Howard Hughes himself.

While Cliff balances his career aspir and his relationship with his girlfriend Jenny, the Flyboys struggled to stay one step ahead of a growing party of pursuers, including the FBI, the mob lurching lackey, and the Hollywood leading man that he works for, who's secretly a Nazi double agent looking to get his hands on the device for a war brewing in Europe.

Didn't do way too much background on this movie.

I feel like it's kind of understood as one of those didn't do suit as well as everybody hoped in the box office was maybe an early harbinger of like, the what.

What the bottom of the barrel of like comic book superhero performance movies could do until we started worse and worse and worse.

I wanted to toss to Matt right off the bat because you wanted to talk about this movie with us.

It is, as you've admitted, outside of your normal wheelhouse of the real grimy, disgusting 70s crime films.

What about this one?

Sort of put it in your purview and what are your thoughts?

Yeah, well, thanks again for having me on.

Yeah.

So, yeah, the Rocketeer is probably well outside my sort of established beat at this point, if I have one, but it's one of those movies that I think it has a really interesting background and I'm pretty fascinated with a lot of the people involved.

It intersects in a sort of interesting place for me because it is, you know, based on a comic book that was part of the kind of the 80s wave of independent comic books.

It is part of that kind of strange period of comic book movies in the 90s where, you know much long, you know, long before we're at where at now with the mcu, they were making comic book movies, but they're all a little weird and this, this falls right into that.

And then the third part that I thought a lot about with this movie is the just sort of inexplicably long shadow that movie and radio serials Cast over popular culture, especially.

Wow, what a good point.

Yeah, yeah.

It's just one of those things, like, I felt sort of, like, oddly prepped for this when I was a kid, because movie serials were just kind of a known quantity to me.

And it sort of influenced what I would find interesting in both film and fiction and comic books and stuff like that.

And just aesthetics in general, which is one of the things this movie gets so.

So right is this aesthetic sense and its production sense.

And then.

Yeah.

And honestly, it was those aesthetics that introduced me to the Rocketeer.

I did not have access to the comic books when I was young.

If you know anything about them, there weren't that many.

I think it was like 150ish total pages that Dave Stevens produced.

Dave Stevens being the full originator and creator of the Rocketeer.

But if you'd gone to any comic book shop or poster shop at the time, you absolutely would have seen images of the Rocketeer kind of to this.

Day, that's primarily how I know the character.

Right.

It's like literally just pinups in comic book stores.

Yeah, absolutely.

So it's such an iconic image with the paneled flight jacket and the art deco helmet is such a big part of it.

And he has his trademark Mauser.

So I saw those images when I was a kid.

And then also, unbeknownst to me at the time, I also saw a ton of Dave Stevens pinup art, because that was everywhere.

He was one of the great popularizers of Bettie Page kind of being reintroduced to popular culture.

And that's very much in the comic book, not really in the movie at all, unfortunately.

Yeah, I would agree.

I've always been saying the Rocketeer could be way hornier, with the exception that.

Jennifer Connelly is like a living pinup girl cartoon in this movie.

So there's that, I guess.

Yeah, absolutely.

But just as a tail effect of it being a Disney film.

You know.

Yeah.

It's just not as sexy.

Yeah.

And then, you know, sadly, I don't think I saw this on the initial release in the theater.

One of the problems this movie had with box office, it was just sandwiched between absolute crushers of movies.

I think Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves opened the weekend before this Movie, and Terminator 2 Judgment Day came out, like, a week or two later, just, you.

Know, which is weirdly, like, despite being completely different, kind of like a death knell for this movie.

Right.

Because I feel like, in a strange way, there's a lot of audience overlap there.

Right.

Where it's Sort of like comics and sci fi are not sci fi necessarily, but like adventure and action.

I don't know.

Yeah, and I think that's one of the things that troubled this movie was like, kind of sticking that, like, landing of like, who their audience is.

Like, like I say, I think this movie was initially supposed to be developed for Touchstone Pictures, which was, you know, Disney's less Disney fied, you know, version of things.

And maybe it could have been a PG13 action adventure movie for that kind of 12, 13 year old set.

And even though Terminator 2 Judgment Day was rated R, it seemed directly marketed to me at the time.

Could not have been more excited about a movie.

I think that was like an entire generation's first R movie.

I know.

It was literally my first R movie.

It probably wasn't my first R movie to have watched because I would have seen some on vhs, but.

Absolutely.

Remember, I bought tickets for hot shots part deux and snuck into Terminator 2 Judgment Day.

I think that was like half the box office of Hot Shots Part two.

Absolutely.

But, yeah, and then.

So I would have caught up on this on vhs.

I don't think it kind of blew me away at the time because I think I was maybe looking for something edgier.

But much like the fandom for this movie, I sort of discovered it over time.

I remember revisiting it specifically when I was probably like 19 or 20 and just being like, oh, wow.

Like, there's just so much right about this movie aesthetically.

You know, they nail the Rocketeer, they nail the architecture.

There's zeppelins, there's autogyros.

There's just so much like Pulp Fiction genre goods in this movie that even if it's a little, you know, lighter as a.

As a text, I still really.

I've grown to love it as I have a lot of people.

Even the poster has this beautiful art deco thing going about.

It's such a cool poster.

It's weird.

Dave Stevens kind of hated it.

Which, to be fair, he said that the reason he didn't like it is because he thought it didn't communicate what the movie was about and contributed to the low sales.

But yes, the poster fucking rules.

It's so rad.

Like, I.

I want it immediately.

Right.

I've been thinking a lot about that, Matt.

This was my first time seeing this movie and I.

I've been thinking a lot about how this is kind of the perfect time to see it in a weird way, because it's like this is kind of was kind of 17 years ahead of its time, Very specifically in that iron man came out in 2008.

Right.

And, you know, probably when this movie came out, People didn't really know what it was.

They couldn't really, like, get a handle on it.

It's so arch, and it's so comic booky and big.

And then, you know, I just saw superman.

I just saw fantastic four.

First steps.

We're living in the world of superhero movies.

What a refreshing thing this thing is that it's just like.

It's not at all ashamed of being a comic book.

It seems to understand that comic books are about the panels.

They are about creating iconic images that are meant to live on the page.

There are so many shots in this movie that are clearly created to be right out of a living comic book, Right down to the framing and the staging.

This is a movie that actually understands that, like, comic books are a visual art form, and movies are a visual art form.

That doesn't mean that they're the same visual art form.

Right.

Like, you actually, like, you had.

Comic books are about creating these iconographic images that you.

That really stick with you.

This movie does an amazing job of that.

It's also, like, totally earnest, Totally unashamed of itself.

It reminded me a lot of the wachowskis, like speed racer in some ways, too.

That's anime.

And this is obviously, like, American comic books.

So there's some differences there.

But, yeah, I.

I'm really excited to talk about this one Just because it was like.

I think it kind of, like, beats the modern comic books ass.

Our comic book movies ass really hard, Just in terms of, like, confidence and fun and an interest in being the best version of itself, Rather than being a sort of fake prestige movie, the way that certainly comic book movies have gotten to now.

Yeah, I don't know.

I really liked it.

Jason, what did you think of it, and have you seen it before?

I had never seen it before.

No.

This is my first time seeing it.

I had a lot of preconceived notions about what the rocketeer was before seeing it.

I guess I had a hard time placing it in my mind of, like, is this based on something?

Is this really a Disney movie?

How must this move?

When was this actually released?

I guess it just sort of floated in the ether of.

Yeah, that's one of those movies that I might never actually see.

So I'm glad the trilon has booked it as part of their nazis we hate these guys series.

I did not.

I guess, like, my takeaway is that there is not very little Timeless about this movie.

I think, like, it is still fun to go back to.

It's like it kind of has the feel of a cult classic based on its provenance of didn't do well at the box office and, you know, was not.

It's not remembered well among the, like, comic book superhero coming in from the 80s and the Batmans and the Supermans and stuff.

Sort of the.

The wave that it.

That it was trying to ride it, it didn't successfully.

And then we got an ADIR toward the late 90s in these movies.

And then X Men picked it back up.

And then, of course, we get the modern era of the mcu, et cetera.

Where it fits in that whole thing is what makes it interesting to me, rather than like just what's on the.

On the page, so to speak, because it doesn't feel like.

I just said it doesn't.

It doesn't feel.

It's not timeless.

It doesn't feel timeless, but it also doesn't feel like it's trying to be in any particular way timeless.

Like, it is very much like it's a period piece from the 30s made in the 90s with, you know, then modern technology.

I think ILM was part of putting together some of the special effects.

And like, it is very clearly, you know, they did a lot to make it look the way it does.

But there's a sort of like, very datedness about it that I really do appreciate and enjoy.

Like, I do feel like superhero films outside of this one were either made to capitalize on what was cool at the moment or sort of what audiences wanted or, you know, to be something that was endlessly rewatchable or, you know, that they could syndicate for years and years and years through streaming rights.

This feels very much like a thing that somebody wanted to make, that they had a vision for it, I guess.

And that vision necessarily precludes it from feeling like something that would work at any time in.

In cinema history.

You know, it like, not only through the.

How it's produced and what it looks like, but actually in the story of, like, being just pre war America.

There's an angle there that I want to see if I can prod at just pre war America.

There are a couple of indicators that are, like, almost subversive, I think, about how these movies remember that time and sort of remember American exceptionalism and individuality of, like, the hero at that time.

I have no idea how much of this was inserted by the filmmakers and how much of this was core to the comic books, but I Found that a really interesting like thing that I coming in completely unaware of what this is.

And you know, who, who was behind it, just starting to find those little cracks, starting to find those little ways in was a really like rewarding experience, I think.

Looking forward to discussing it further with the rest of the crew here.

Cody, what did that spark in your mind?

Jason?

I'm afraid it sparked nothing me in the episode.

Yes, we can.

Thank you so much for listening to Dry Love.

It's.

We play our outro music.

That'd be a fun bit.

No, that sparked a lot.

Everybody's been saying great things and I afraid I'm just going to be echoing a lot of similar sentiments.

I suppose I should start with this is my second time seeing it.

I watched it for the first time a handful of years ago.

It was that era when, you know, for those who forgot, the COVID 19 lockdown happened.

And some of us, myself included, picked up way too many streaming services in lieu of anything better to do.

And I was sitting there with Disney and I was thinking like, how do I justify having this?

Let's just go through the titles and see now that's what the Fucketeer.

Yeah, exactly.

So, yeah, so me retroactively justifying it.

So that's how I came across.

I just kind of stumbled upon across looking through titles until I found something I hadn't seen yet and was like the Rocketeer.

Sure.

There's a lot of names here I recognize.

Let's do it.

And I really enjoyed it then.

I enjoy it now.

I enjoy the relatively, you know, simple, straightforward struggle which again kind of jump jumping out of the gate.

You're grading on a curve as sort of.

We've been talking about, you know, every.

The comic book inclined movies now that we get.

It's just like everything is happening.

We're achieving, trying to achieve all the things.

There's explosions and this is just where we're trying to find a jetpack.

And there are these, these sort of muted traces of conversations of like does, you know, is does the man make the rocket or does the rocket make the man?

But it doesn't come out.

The movie doesn't come out and say that.

But you get like little bits and pieces of that as everybody's tried to, you know, get after this thing, as everybody's been talking about.

This world looks and feels real, Billy Campbell's Boy Meets World haircut notwithstanding, I suppose.

But everything.

Billy Zane's got to be so pissed that, that, that he did the Phantom instead of this movie.

The whole Time I saw this movie, I kept thinking like, man, this should just be Billy Zane.

So clearly I actually, I mean I, I like him, I like what's his name, Billy.

But it was impossible not to think about Billy Zane.

For me, it was impossible not to think about Jimmy Stewart.

For some reason there are moments where he really gives a huge Jimmy Stewart.

A bunch of the action.

He was sort of modeled after Jimmy Stewart, right?

Probably.

Or at least a bunch of characters played.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think he.

Of all the names and faces that were really familiar to me, I think Billy Campbell is the one that I had had and still have the least mileage with.

But he had, you know, for his.

Chiseled as he is, he embodies this like deep seated like goofiness that comes through and really helps sell him as an anchor of this that I really enjoyed.

But like a boy.

Yeah, yeah, like, yeah, exactly like a.

You know, he's, he's a pilot, but he's also, you know, a boy.

Just trying to like balance everything.

It's a pretty great Superman performance, right?

Like I, I think he would be good Superman.

True, true.

Joe Johnston.

He was shouted out during the summary.

I feel like he's probably, I mean he's one of my favorite like pound for pound high floor filmmakers.

Somebody who just like picks and pops into like different genres.

He's.

This isn't the first time that or this isn't the only film rather that he has in the Nazis We Hate these guys series at the Trilon.

He also directed Captain America, the First Avenger.

But he's Jurassic Park 3.

The second best Jurassic park movie.

Jumanji.

That's right, baby.

Jumanji.

Joe Johnston.

I had no idea.

Jumanji.

Joe Johnson.

So yeah, I just like a lot, a lot of good, you know, on screen talent like Matt and everybody else has been saying as well, like this is a fertile period where it felt like studios, studio and or studios were unafraid to throw everything into something like this and not be afraid to get a little odd, get a little dark, maybe get a little horny.

You know, WC Fields can have a scene of perviness as a treat.

I.

And invoking the chat here, I saw Hidalgo.

I didn't want to just mention like all of Joe Johnson's film.

I was just being a dick.

Yeah.

Every, everybody's mom's favorite movie.

Hidalgo.

Literally true.

I mean it's just Viggo Mortensen is just like mom catnip I think is the main thing.

But yeah, there are Also horses in that movie.

Yeah.

So I guess really I'm just like, this is a laundry list of pros, the pro column of this movie for me, even through rather some of the soggier parts, which maybe we'll get into, maybe we won't.

I really enjoyed coming back around to this.

I'm totally glad it exists, which is a remark that sometimes comes off as backhanded depending on the person saying it and the context.

But this is something truly.

Just having this as an artifact to go back to is really excellent, and I'm glad we have Matt here for it.

So I guess now that we've sort of roundtabled Matt, what has that sparked in you?

I'm asking Jason's question.

I'm filing a plagiarism claim.

Good luck.

So, yeah, just what all three of you said.

I guess I just wanted to address a little bit of kind of the behind the scenes and sort of why I think this movie is sort of exceptional for what it is.

And then let's.

We absolutely dig into the movie proper and like, you know, the text.

But, you know, you guys talked about the earnestness and the sort of the authenticity of it and, like, the genuineness of it.

And I really think that this movie's strange because the creators are like these, you know, three or four individuals who just really were doing the thing they really wanted to do, and somehow this got translated into a big studio film.

It's really strange.

It's very strange.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like this guy is like a weird pinup guy who loved adventure serials and pre war, like, dramas.

Yeah, yeah.

And so, you know, the origins of the Rocketeer is that, you know, Pacific Comics needed a backup story for another comic.

And they.

And Dave Stevens has never.

Well, he was very briefly a full time comics guy, but has essentially never been a full time comics guy.

But they offered him and they said, you can do whatever you want.

Like, whatever you want.

And he was like, I'm gonna do something.

It's gonna be a tribute to the serials, it's gonna be about aviation, it's gonna be about pinups, it's gonna be about cars, it's gonna be about planes.

That's what I want.

So he got to do exactly what he wanted.

You know, these other guys, Danny Bilson and Paul DeMaio, the screenwriters, and just found Dave, like, through a comic shop in San Diego and, like, got a dreamy with them and they said, you should let us write a movie.

And he.

And they were working for Charles Band at Empire at the time and he had seen some of their science fiction movies.

He's like, oh yeah, great, let's do that.

And so that's like, you know, the origins are.

Sorry.

Dave Stevens, meanwhile, is probably just like a workaday guy, right?

Like he's just some guy.

He works for like a commercial artist, firm studio.

And I mean he, he, by that time he may have already done some film stuff.

He storyboarded for Raiders and like, you know, some other things.

But like, oh, he storyboarded for Raiders of the Lost Ark.

That's a.

What an interesting fit.

Doesn't make a lot of sense, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So, but, but yeah, so he wasn't like I say he was in a full time comic guy.

He was notoriously slow and he hated the sort of, you know, repetitiveness of comic books.

But like he, he had this outsized infl on comics.

All the same, they find him, they work on it for a long time.

It's stuck in development hell for a while.

There was another director attached at one point.

Fast forward 10, 12 years later.

Joe Johnson has this surprisingly smash hit with Honey I Shrunk the Kids that he took over after Stuart Gordon got canned when it was still called the Teeny Weenies and Disney says you could do well, they wanted him to do another Honey I Shrunk the Kids movie.

And he was like, no, because you guys are going to make me do these movies till I'm dead.

Like, I'm not going to do that.

And they said, well, what do you want to do?

And he looked around, he's like, oh, you guys have the Rocketeer.

I love the Rocketeer.

Let's do that.

And so, and then they're off the races.

And you know, Joe Johnson's an interesting dude, right?

Because he's like one of the first dozen guys to get hired by ILM and he is a artist and a designer first.

I think Lucas sent him to film school like early 80s after he'd been working for ILM for a while.

Which is also such a perfect sort of like story of those whole.

Those guys, right, like Spielberg, Lucas, Johnston are all just like the nerds who grew up with shit like this, like movies like this.

And we're just like looking to make the things that they had always wanted to see.

Right, exactly.

And Lucas was like a huge advocate for that.

Right?

And he was just sort of like, oh, like I'm going to find the nerds who are like me and elevate them to these positions in the sort of new emerging commercial Hollywood and give them this Runway to do things like this.

Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

And I think that's.

So that's where you end up with, like, I say, like, tonally and, you know, maybe some of the text is not quite, like, hitting the mark.

I think we'd all prefer to see the PG13 version of the Rocketeer, but because you have these guys who are just.

I mean, they're all just passionate.

They're all just doing the thing they really wanted to do.

And that's why you end up with a movie that's.

It's.

It's such a nerds move.

So many.

The details.

Right?

Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like.

And that kind of makes sense for, like, why it has this.

It's a.

It's a weird movie where it was like, kind of a contemporary box office bomb that, like, went on to be the prototype for the movies that have now defined culture in.

In the 2010s and 20s.

It's.

But it, like, when you think about it from that perspective, it kind of makes sense.

It's like this is like your favorite director's favorite movie in some ways, or at least your favorite, like, nerds favorite movie at the time.

I mean, I think that comes through Matt in the craft for me.

Like, knowing the backstory is wonderful and knowing that sort of the spirit was there from all parties involved, at least, you know, probably the financiers.

Their spirit was in getting the money back.

But at least in the people who are actually making the thing, it comes through.

And like, like you said, every detail seems considered.

It looks great.

It moves at a good clip.

I've heard some complaints.

Not heard some complaints.

I've seen in critical appraisal.

Some complaints about, like, the pacing toward the beginning, how it's very, like, character driven toward the beginning, beginning.

And there's not a whole lot of plot going on.

It's slow to start with, like, the A plot.

I don't really see much of that because it just tends to move.

I could see this being.

I think.

I think the pacing of this movie is fantastic.

I think it's really solid.

Like, everything from, you know, those individual pieces to scenes to, like, the overall, you know, person pulling the strings of how the movie actually feels.

And like, it does create.

It's not, I think maybe in it, if there's something to be said for where, like it.

Where it landed, we'll say rather than like, how it's remembered today is, I think, because it just doesn't have.

Have enough, like, really out there to be like, you gotta go see this type movie.

And it's not, you know, maybe grounded enough to be like a new vision for story in comic book movies, right?

Like, it has that very comfortable, very.

It flows well.

Middle ground that I guess maybe people who go to see these movies or went to see these movies in the 90s anyway just weren't really looking for after being prepped by, you know, the highfalutin fanatic, highfalutin antics of like a Superman or a Batman or even like Darkman had come out by this time.

Time.

There's just like, it does have that very, I think, solid, comfortable quality middle ground of a movie that I think is explained by a whole lot of, yeah, it was a comic book guy, a movie guy.

And everybody who just wanted to see this vision come to, they were interested in making it and not in like striking out in like a crazy, grim way or a crazy super colorful, optimistic way.

We got to paint it a certain way for it to feel true to the, like, form, true to the thing that they were going to create and that maybe just didn't serve it in a commercial way.

I mean, I'm talking both ends of my ass because I wasn't alive at that time and I haven't seen too many movies from this era.

And I'm no scholar of it, but if I'm looking at it back from, you know, 30 years later, I guess that's where it sits for me is in this place of it's neither like really out there nor, you know, a hidden gem type, I guess, in my.

In my mind.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, the Rocketeer, I think, is also just like almost comic book ephemera, right?

At this point where it's like, you.

You would have to be kind of a big nerd to even know who this character was, right?

And then you get it' a Disney movie, it's rated pg.

People are like, is this a children's film?

Right?

I think that, like, there's this idea, like, you see the poster and it's like this art deco.

People are like, okay, it's Disney.

It's not animated.

It's Joe Johnston, who is the sort of unproven director.

I don't, I don't.

I don't know.

Right.

Like, I agree with you.

I really like what you're saying, Jason, about how, like, maybe I.

I'm trying to figure out, and I don't really want to frame this movie as just like, why did it fail, right?

Because I don't know.

But Like, I, I think you're like, I was thinking maybe it's too stylized.

But then I did think like, Batman, Tim Burton's Batman had come out the year before and that is.

Or maybe two years before.

And that's the most stylized movie of all time.

Right.

We were at a point where like, we had maybe not mastered, but we had certainly like planted a flag.

And we know how to make superhero movies, Superman movies, Right?

Yeah.

Right.

I'm saying superheroes, comic book interchangeably.

It's probably going to be a little confusing.

And we had at least a Batman movie.

We had even like pastiches and parodies, like I was saying, Darkman and.

Right.

Others.

That's like, we had sort of like culled a lot of what people felt could be scraped from the barrel of superhero and comic book cinema.

And I guess this one just came out and it's like, it's really solid.

If it had come out 10 years prior with exactly the same, you know, spirit and visual impact, maybe not technologically, but like, if it had the same aesthetic, I feel like maybe it would have done, done quite a bit better.

Maybe not 10 years, but you know.

Yeah.

Some years before it.

Well, and it's, it's like a less edgy Indiana Jones.

Right.

Also, it's like a, it's very adventure serial driven, maybe even more so than comic book.

And maybe that is, that is just an art form that people didn't really.

Because, like, you know, I, I, as much as I love Indiana Jones and as a concept and like, as much as I like, I understand that the people involved with it loved adventure serials.

I don't really think that's why people loved Indiana Jones.

Right.

I think people loved Indiana Jones because Steven Spielberg made it and it had Arison Ford and it's an unbelievably great adventure movie.

But then I like, I wonder if that's just the thing is that like, people didn't really like this.

This trades so heavily on serialized adventure stories, right.

Like this idea of like, there's the, the down home kid and his best gal and he sort of becomes this unwitting superhero.

And like there is this whole like, like underdog story that plays out.

And I wonder if people were just like, I don't get what this is.

Like, this is a pastiche of things that like, don't make sense to me.

Somehow.

I think, I want to say it was Roger Ebert who, even though he gave this movie a thumbs up, I'm pretty sure I think this guy, one of the better Gene And Siskel.

Yeah, yeah.

Reviews contemporaneously.

Both of them like that.

Am.

Am I remembering it right?

Where he essentially was, like, saying that the serial film had been sort of reinvented and, like, retranslated by Raiders and Indiana Jones, where this movie really was just kind of like, it's a straight.

You know.

That's a really good point.

Yeah, I think that's well said.

It turns out Ebert's a pretty good film critic.

And I would say, like, you know, I think you do.

So, first of all, I think Billy Campbell was like, he's kind of an immaculate choice.

I get it why Joe Johnson went to the mat for him.

Because if you look at the comics, he just look exactly like Cliff Secord in the comics, except bigger, because he's Billy Campbell and he's huge.

But I do think that the Cliff Secord of the comics is a flawed character.

Very intentionally.

Dave Stevens put a lot of himself in the character, and he's sort of like, selfish and stupid and he's a very reluctant hero.

Where this kind of gee whiz version of Cliff is a little saccharine.

Yeah, it's the PG version for sure.

And the same.

I mean, in the comic books, you have the character Betty, who is Bettie Page, rendered in the comic books, essentially, and she is an aspiring actor, but she's also doing cheesecake.

Erotic photography is a big kind of storyline in the comics, where this is obviously, the Jenny Blake character is a much more softened version of those, so.

So it's an exchange you have to make.

I think they're charismatic enough to pull it off, and I think.

And maybe this is kind of to your point, Jason.

The script is really pretty good, though.

It really moves.

If they introduce something, it pays off almost every time, whether that's a visual motif or in the early part with the gum on the wing or on the tale of the plane.

They manage three different factions very competently.

Right.

Like, they're.

They're the gangsters and the FBI and our heroes, and it's pretty easy to follow their arcs through this movie.

Right.

Or I guess four factions, because then there's Timothy Dalton too.

It's a.

It's a weird.

There's a lot of, like, great.

He's so.

Oh, he's so good in this movie, dude, I can't wait to talk about that.

But.

But yeah, it's like, there's so much business happening, and there is a great clarity to the storyline, in my opinion.

Right.

Like, I completely understood everything that was happening.

I Don't think it's unfair to talk about Joe Johnson as kind of a journeyman director because.

Especially because so many of his movies are movies where someone got canned and they brought him on to kind of like, you know, figure the movie out.

But I think he has.

I mean, he just has such a good understanding of like, this adventure genre, specifically.

Like, he can put together set piece, you know, visual language.

Like, he just has such a great understanding of, like, how to put those action scenes together, how to put those bits together.

And that's so much of the joy of this.

You know, going back and reading those old reviews, they're like, yeah, you know, this is kind of good.

But now sitting here, you know, so many years later, I'm like, no, we're seeing actual planes.

Doing actual planes, right?

This is incredible stuff.

It's really like some fucking lost history shit where it's just like, this is like the movie that was middling back in the 1990s.

90s.

Like, we didn't know what we had.

Like, it's crazy.

It makes me think of, like, we've talked about how this movie is.

I don't want to say traditional, but like, you're saying more of a straight take on pulp from the 30s and 40s, rather than, like a revention of it, as, you know, the Ebert was piece was talking about.

But then there are those moments for me.

Like, I guess the whole idea of Lothar is such like a zag.

Like a very comic booky turn in something that otherwise feels, you know, very high stakes and like, but.

But grounded in, oh, yeah, this is evil people.

This is mobsters, this is Nazis, these are actors, whatever.

Like, and then there's just this gigantic man who literally just folds people into.

Into death.

And dude, he folds people.

He's the folder.

It rules.

It's like one of the best comic book things.

Like, do you guys know about the Creeper and Rondo Hatton?

No, I don't.

No.

Okay.

Well, I mean, I can get into this or you can.

I was just gonna like him, I guess.

Lothar, that character, that visage as, like, there's nothing else like him in this movie.

It is definitely and singularly the most ridiculous part of this movie in a movie where, like, objectively there's nothing super realistic.

I really thought that he was Timothy.

Dalton wearing a mask for, like, fully half of this movie until they're like, in the same frame.

I thought that was the idea that would have been a hell of a reveal.

Also had like, a secret identity where he was just fucking full because he looks like Ryan Gos wearing the Drive mask in Drive.

Like it.

He like has a obvious prosthetic face on.

It's so funny and cool, in my opinion.

Give us some context on that then, Matt.

Yeah, so there was a journalist turned actor named Rondo hatton in the 30s and the 40s, and he suffered from acromegaly.

So his facial features are, are, I mean, almost identical to what Lothar's are in the film.

He made two movies as this character, the Creeper, where he's a lunatic who folds people in half and breaks their spines.

Let's go.

And then I love all the Lothar stuff in the movie.

The introduction with him with the opera and the tea sandwiches is insanely good.

But also when you have like, you know, yeah, it's a PG movie, but when you have him, you know, kind of doing his nefarious stuff in Shadow Cast on the Wall, that's like direct visual reference to House of Horrors and the Brute man that, that Rondo Hatton would have done back in the 40s.

He died like right after that, but short lived career, but you know, huge, huge influence.

And then the screenwriters for the film actually helped Dave Stevens write the second book of Rocketeer adventures.

And they included.

It's a much different character, but it's essentially like Dave Stevens is like, oh, you want to put the creeper in the Rocketeer?

Awesome, let's do this.

Okay.

That gives me a great, like much more of an appreciation for where the hell this guy came from.

I don't mean to like zero in on him as like a super important element of the movie.

He's a lackey, he's a henchman.

Right.

He's an intimidating figure.

He's the henchman.

Drop him in this.

Like if you dropped him in almost any fucking Marvel movie or even like a Tim Burton Batman movie, it would not feel as sore thumb stick out.

This is a strange movie.

Now when he's on screen, as it does in the Rocketeer for some reason.

Cody, when's the last time you thought about Lothar and how weird he is in this movie?

I haven't stopped thinking about Lothar since the first time I saw this movie.

It's in all the ways that we're talking about this movie.

You know, this is the PG version of this movie.

Certain things, things are getting softened in certain respects.

Not to say that like goalposts are moving, but we're like realigning, like as viewers, our expectations of what to get out of These certain, like, genre splashes and, like, culling from the source material as well.

Like, Jenny Blake isn't explicitly this, like, you know, pin up girl.

There's again, sort of like a softer take on that when the reveal, the formal reveal of, you know, Neville Sinclair's true identity.

They.

He lists off a lot of words before saying the word Nazi.

And he's not even the one that says it.

I think it's Cliff that, you know, calls him a Nazi to, like, you.

Know, one of the other characters, if they were ever going to say the word Nazi in this movie.

Because she introduces him as, like, he's a.

He's a.

And he's like a spy.

I'm a fascist.

He calls himself a fascist, not a Nazi.

Yeah, which is interesting touch.

Great touch, right?

And like, in sort of like the.

The.

The inverse of that, we are like, like, what's the word?

Like, instead of kind of like reigning in expectations, there is this and, like, other scattered instances.

Lothar, I think, is probably the best example of, like, gesturing at something a little more fantastical to make this world.

Not to say that this world is unbelievable.

I think it is, like, relatively grounded for what it is, but gesturing at what is, you know, essentially like a Bond villain.

Or, you know, if you prefer to read it as like, you know, this is, you know, this is what, you know, he's.

He's disfig.

And he looks in this, like, very specific way that nobody else looks.

This is what, you know, fascism does to a person.

Of course, any children watching this are maybe aren't necessarily thinking that, but, like, gesturing at the fantastical.

Because, like, like people in the 30s jet packs were mystical, crazy, wild technology.

They're all blown away by the, you know, it's a.

It's a fudgeing jetpack.

Like, I could make one of those.

You're not impressed by jet packs?

It's 20, 25.

They're pretty.

They're pretty impressive, I think.

I mean, like, honestly, the.

The way Lothar is depicted and the way the jetpack is depicted, they're both like the same aesthetic principle that you're getting at, Cody, which is like this.

This disinterest, or rather this.

This expanded interest in a lack of realism in favor of comic books.

Right?

Like, it is such a distinct choice that it's like, we are not going to make the henchman a henchman.

We are going to make him, like, a mystical, like, goal character straight out of, like, older movies.

Right?

Or, like, the jetpack, like, we're not going to like, play with the idea of, like, making the jetpack realistic.

No, it shoots flames 10ft behind it.

That would absolutely burn off the legs of anybody who was wearing it.

And it hurts to turn off.

Like, we have to prod it with a stick.

And, like, we're not.

We're not going to deal with the idea that, like, this guy is flying through the air at, you know, like, upwards of a thousand miles per hour.

And, like, is not, like, sustaining G force or, like, fall damage when he.

When he collides with the ground or whatever.

It's like, that's not what this movie is about.

Like, this movie is so clearly about the iconography of a comic book brought to life.

Like, it.

I do.

Right to the point where, like, I was talking about before, my favorite thing about Joe Johnston's directing in this movie is that you can see the panels like it.

You can see the storyboarding in this movie, like.

Like right there on the page.

And it's like.

Because when you think about a comic book, it's.

It's like a comic book is a storyboard, right?

And, like, every image, every panel is meant to be iconic in itself, right?

Like, they're essentially a series of paintings that are all framed that way, which, when you think about it, is a very different approach than filmmaking, where filmmaking, because you can connect all of the panels.

Like, there are a lot of transitionary elements.

This has such an emphasis on creating the singular images, right?

Like, I think a lot about, like, when the Rocketeer is crawling up the side of the.

The blimp and, like, we take the time to stop and, like, put his silhouette over the swastika.

It's like a really long scene.

Like, that does not need to be there for any reason other than, like, it looks like concept art, right?

But, like, that's the idea is that, like, that keeps happening where, like, we will stop to take in this iconic image, right, of this character doing this thing.

And I think that, like, that makes the.

Jason, what you were saying about the craft and the design makes so much more sense to me, right?

Where it' of like, okay, like, how are we going to create images that really stick with you?

And the answer is, like, well, we're not going to, like, downplay the, like, iconic status of these things.

The Rocketeer has to look like that.

The helmet has to look like that.

His silhouette has to look like that.

The jetpack has to be as ridiculous it is as it is in the comic book.

That's just the way that, like, we are going to sell this like, aspirational idea about like what you're looking at.

I was just thinking like, you know, we, we did talk about how, you know, some elements of the original source material were watered down.

But one thing about this movie is not a movie filled with, you know, rich subtext, but the, the, the text is clear and I'm glad that it is included in the Nazis We Hate these Guys series because the one thing the movie does is hate Nazis.

It even turns greasy Italians against them.

That is such a funny scene, dude.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

But I love when they do the initial test run of the jetpack.

They steal a statue of Charles Lindbergh, famous sympathizer, and strap the jetpack to him and, you know, spit him around a field and take a chunk out of his head.

That's, you know, your, your intro to the, you know, the politics of this film.

Then, yeah, you have the great scene where the, you know, you know, Paul Sorvino, he may not make an honest buck, but he's not going to work for no two bit Nazi.

I mean, American, God damn it.

Yeah, it's one of my favorite parts of the movie and if there's some, some subtext, I think it might be in there, but keep going.

Oh, and then I was just gonna say, you know, you have the whole kind of finale of the zeppelin fight where you just get like, you know, Nazis just getting blasted like left and right and getting hilariously, you know, clobbered out of windows in a zeppelin.

Yes.

That's like this killer.

Yeah, like Indiana Jones.

Total lack of sympathy for, for these, like these guys where it's just sort of like, like, oh, Jennifer Connelly blasts a Nazi out of the zeppelin and he falls to his death screaming after having been shot in like another movie, maybe a more modern movie.

Right.

Like, like there would be some introspection on the part of Jennifer Connelly, you know, a 20 year old actress who's never killed somebody.

But in this movie it's like, well, she didn't kill somebody, she killed a Nazi.

Right?

So like, let's fucking move on.

Like we're not going to sympathize with the idea that these like assholes are getting it.

It's exactly the, the right again, like for, for our time now.

Right?

Like this is exactly how you want to see Nazis dealt with on screen.

You want to see.

It may have been a low Bar.

In 91, but right now, weirdly, it's better.

No another way in which unfortunately, this movie is ahead of its time.

Perhaps I was having Fun thinking of like, as there's like four or five Nazis that get kicked out of that zeppelin and like just imagining.

Because they took off from Griffith Park Observatory, they are like above residential Los Angeles just imagining Nazis plopping down.

Also another.

Another perfect example of this movie's like approach to sort of like entertainment.

Just being like, I, I thought a lot about also how like, every scene of this movie is so entertaining in and of itself.

It's.

It's like almost every scene should be.

Could be watched on its own, right?

To.

To the point where, like, sometimes it, it detracts from the ultimate narrative where, like, even while I was watching, I was thinking, like, why is there so much Timothy Dalton in this movie?

Like, he and Jennifer Connelly have so much.

Many scenes together, like in the restaurant and stuff.

And it's just like, this is such a strange, like, focal point, but.

But also like, I love it, right?

It's like, and, and similarly, it's sort of like, well, if we've got Nazis in a zeppelin, like, this is not the kind of movie where every single Nazi is not going to fall out of the zeppelin.

Like, when the, when the Nazis die, they have to go out of that thing because that's what you want to see, right?

It's like nobody just gets shot, right?

Falls over.

Like they, they all have to go up in flames while screaming and falling out of the zeppelin.

It's perfect.

Even, Even Timothy Dalton's like, death scene as he's being engulfed in flames from the now malfunctioning jetpack is like, that's way more of his face than I thought we would see in a burning death scene.

Thoughts on that, Ben?

I just have to have to mention, you know, there's a lot of, you know, cleverness in, in the script, but in that specific moment before he takes off in the jetpack, he says, I shall miss Hollywood.

And then he crashes into the Hollywood.

Yes.

And it misses Hollywood.

He just hit the land part.

It's so.

I mean, is it too cute?

Maybe, but I love it.

Oh, it was so very satisfying.

And I just love the idea that, like, in the, the historical canon of the Rocketeer universe, that's why it's just Hollywood now instead of Hollywood land, is because a Nazi fell out of the sky and destroyed the land part of it.

It rules too.

Good.

Yep.

There is, as I was saying, if there is.

What I see as like, subtext to this movie is it is closest to that vein that I can get is like this idea of.

We touched on it a Little bit earlier with the Italians who are like, I'm 100% American, but like an essential American ness to who these people are like, or like a question of that or how.

What it would mean to be like a good, stalwart, patriotic American in this time.

The thing, the scene that I keep thinking of when I think about the Nazi angle or about like the essential American angle is when they go to the movies and there's a news segment that's like 10 touting the Fuhrer's new Germanic, you know, symbol of progress kind of thing, describing this, you know, the Hindenburg allegory corollary that's going across the United States and, you know, it's a tour of world peace and all this kind of stuff.

And Cliff is like, obviously not buying it, but the rest of the world seems to be kind of bought into the idea that, yeah, 1938, this Hitler guy, he's.

He's not amassing troops on the Czech border.

He's like, he's not.

It's kind of.

It could come off as wink, wink, nudge, nudge to the audience, but to me, I'm watching this and I'm thinking.

Thinking like it's.

It almost feels like a little bit of a subversive scene setter for watching the rest of the movie and seeing like, yeah, there are Nazis planted in Hollywood.

There are, you know, there's this sort of proximity of American culture to this rise of fascism.

And eventually we would enter the war.

Eventually we would, like, it would become, you know, the.

The great.

The second Great War.

Eventually, like, history would be written as, you know, America was on the side of the Allies kind of thing.

But that there was a great deal of.

Of like, acceptance and not sympathy, but like tolerance of those ideals prior to us entering the war.

And that this movie is set in 1938 doesn't feel accidental in that.

And the fact that the main character does end up exploding a Nazi.

Multiple Nazis outside of a.

The.

The crashing Hindenburg effectively does not feel unintentional.

And the fact that we have Italian mobsters even railing against the one Nazi that's been identified because they're his boss and they say that they won't work for him because they are essentially American.

Like, that idea just sort of sticks out to me.

And what is otherwise, I won't say completely lighthearted, but a somewhat less serious movie, does that make any sense?

I think that, like, the.

The Rocketeer character is so quintessentially American.

And like, I think especially what Matt was saying about A cliff in the comic books is.

Is even maybe makes more sense, right?

But like there it's.

It's an anti.

Sort of like civility or tolerance movie for Nazis, right?

Like it is very distinctly.

And like, like the model of the Rocketeer as a character isn't just that he's this sort of G Wiz guy.

It's also that like he's kind of salty, right?

Like he, he is a salt of the earth.

Sort of like working class, like wise guy in some ways.

Rough around the edges.

But like, you know, I, I think it's really important that like his foil in this movie is Neville Seville, right.

Who he thinks is this sort of manby pamby actor.

Whereas he represents this like red blood American, right?

And like who can't help but heckle the screen to the point where people tell them to shut up when there are Nazis on screen.

Right?

Like that, that is the character that we're lionizing here, right?

Is this idea that like, like no, like you should be stalwart and like lionize your sort of American values as they are represented by this character.

Right?

It's definitely like a sort of like great American values type of like re reclaiming.

Right.

And as represented by this.

Char is an underdog, but who ultimately wins the day over greater odds.

He is salty.

He punches Ed louder in the face twice.

That's right.

In this movie.

There's that, there's that incredible shot of his fist going into the camera before he hits him.

Great stuff.

Yeah.

That he's so anti FBI too.

Yeah.

Sticking to the G Man.

Yeah.

It's interesting.

Just, you know, this is not supposed to be a realistic movie.

It does have some connections to the real world.

But it is interesting that like the Italian mafia did oppose, you know, Mussolini on some level and the Axis powers because the fascists were, you know, persecuting them so badly in Sicily.

So that was a real thing that happened.

And then also the Jewish mob that was active in LA of course was like, you know, stalwartly against Hitler as well.

So there are, you know, there's some real, real threads there in there in actual American history.

It's just nice to see that those are threaded in.

In a movie where otherwise I guess it doesn't need to borrow that much from real life or it could be a little bit more doe eyed and you know, rosy rose tinted glasses about things like that.

Always had the fighting spirit in us to be against the Nazis, but it's like 1938 and we're putting him on in our commercials on TV a little bit.

It's just one pretty call out scene before everybody's against.

Before like they discover that truly Neville Sinclair and Harry, you called him Neville Seville, which was a very funny.

Well, you know, I don't like to call, I don't like to put you on blast.

That one was pretty funny because I imagine his name is Neville Seville and.

I thought that's Neville, dude.

A more fake British name.

It's also important to note, right, that like, I don't know if, if PvP body is Jewish in the comic books, but like Alan Arkin is a very prominent Jewish, Jewish actor, right?

Like, making that character Jewish is an important aspect of this, right?

That like this is, this is not subtextual.

Like you have skin in the game.

PV is like so much the heart of this, right?

He literally builds the.

Or like doesn't build the rocket, but learns how to control the rocket and is the sort of brains behind the Rocketeer operation.

He and Cliff have this like really like heartwarming sort of like Back to the Future style friendship that I really love where it's like at one point they talk about, I think they're living together, which it.

Which is so sweet to me because he says like at one point after the, the FBI shoots up their house, he's like, we don't have a house, we have a gazebo.

Great line.

But also I was just like, wait, do Cliff and Peabody just straight up like live together?

And you know, I, I think like that's an important aspect of it too, right?

It's this idea of like, like cross cultural friendships being something that makes America and something that is worth defending just.

To address Peavey in the comics.

So we don't get that much into his backstory as far as his faith upbringing, but he's modeled almost identically on this guy, Doug Wildey, who is an artist and an animator that Dave Stevens worked with at Hanna Barbera.

Doug Wilde, who's the guy who created Jonny Quest.

But anyway, I think Dave and Doug had a real like, you know, mentor, acolyte kind of relationship.

And so I think it translates into the comics and I think you do see it end up.

That's so lovely.

I loved.

I mean, that was like one of my favorite parts of the movie.

I mean, I think Alan Alden crushes it in this movie.

He's so good.

And, and yeah, I just like, it's again, one of those things that you just love to see, right?

Where it's just sort of like this, this classic Comic book thing where it's just like, these guys are great friends and the story is about them being great friends.

It rules.

He even comes to accept his dumbass gum thing.

I suppose in.

One of my closing thoughts is we talked a little bit about what this movie was like when it released and sort of in comparison to what's come in the 20, 30 some years since.

But how would you feel.

I'll toss to Cody this time.

How would you feel about this movie, do you think, if it came out out, like, 2024, 2025, would it feel, you know, assume that, you know, the visual quality, production style, like, things are updated, but it's still got its essential, you know, the way it moves and the way it looks?

Would it feel dated?

Would it feel, like, refreshing?

Because it's so not.

What else exists?

If it were presented to you as a Disney thing and it moved and looked like this, do you think you would feel differently about it than you currently do?

I think.

I fear I would be an even easier mark for this.

Now, again, the aforementioned sort of of, like, grading on a curve.

I mean, I'm the type of person where, like, I.

I could sit consistently, I think, go to bat for.

For Soderbergh.

But, like, Black Bag is currently one of my favorite films from this year.

And that is the, like, that flavor of movie.

The sort of, like, even if the stakes are still grandiose in nature, we're not, like, we're.

We're taking a pretty intimate look at the situation.

You know, a handful of sets, a handful of characters.

This is, as we've been talking about, kind of like a pretty amazing ensemble with.

And I forget who was talking about it, but like.

Or gesturing at the sort of, like, issues that certain critics had.

Maybe then, maybe now, maybe a mixture of both with, like, the first act is a lot of, like, table setting for, like, who these characters are just like.

And, like, twist my arm.

I'm totally down to have an extra scene or two to, like, showcase, you know, John Polito or Paul Cervino is in this movie.

Imagine hating it.

Imagine Margo Martindale.

Everybody's.

Everybody's in this.

So, I mean, for.

For those reasons, like, if for no other reason, seeing those names together in a movie in, you know, 2025 would be amazing in its own right.

But, yeah, I think it would be impossible for me to not, like, again, great on a.

On a different curve.

I think there's a certain relief to be felt in the fact that, again, we're gesturing at broader stakes.

We're we're gesturing at thematic through lines that are extremely applicable today's day to day world.

But just everybody's after this little, like, gadgety wizmo, and that is, like, what's taking us from.

From beginning to end.

So, yeah, no, I would.

I would gobble this shit up.

Harry, you much of a gobbler?

Oh, yeah, I'm gobbling this shit up for sure, dude.

Big time gobbler.

Jason, great question.

I think it's kind of like my main takeaway from this movie, right?

I think Jamelle Bowie said something about that on Letterbox too, where he was just like, I feel like if this movie came out now, we would, like, understand how clearly it beats the ass of, like, contemporary comic book movies, right?

Just to be eating ass is good.

Please don't knock eating ass.

I said.

I said beating ass.

I heard.

I heard eating asses also.

Yeah, I.

I don't know.

I think that, like, like, on a directorial level, on a confidence level, writing level, just, like, it's so singular in terms of what it's trying to accomplish, in terms of, like, how it is pulling off the pastiche.

Another movie it reminded me of is, like, Hudsucker Proxy, which is another movie that I think was, like, really underrated at its time and has now been sort of like, re accepted.

I don't know, I just think that, like, they're.

Maybe their movies like this are kind of doomed to only ever be cult classics because, like, they're so stylized that there's only, like, a niche for them.

But I.

I think that this movie is, like, really, really high quality.

And I think if it came out today, I would be, like, kind of floored by it.

Right.

Like, I can't imagine going to this movie in 2025 and not walking out and thinking, like, wow, like, they really, like, did something there.

They pulled something off that.

That is really impressive and iconic.

So, Matt, you are, in fact, watching it in 2025, but pretend it was, like, the world's first time seeing this movie.

What would be your reaction, do you think?

Would you think it's playing a little too straight, retreading a little too much ground?

Or in that, is it something new?

Well, yeah, I think, yeah, it's hard for me to rewire my brain for this because obviously it was an exercise in nostalgia back then and nostalgia that I was not around for, and then now it really is a nostalgic revisit for me.

I think that this would.

Yeah.

I have to say, when I often think of like being a little kid in the 90s and, like, wishing there were more comic movies.

And then you can hear the monkey's paw curling, like, you know, background.

And here we are today.

But I think this would feel incredibly fresh.

I, of course, am worried that you could never get this movie made anymore.

Not.

Right.

With the level of practical effects, not with this insane ensemble.

There's actually not enough movie for everybody here, like, in the cast, to do what we would like to see them do.

But.

Oh, my God, it's crazy.

This cast is so stacked.

It's unreal.

That was, like.

I looked at it before, and I was just, like.

It was really like the Vince McMahon meme of just freaking out with every single name.

I saw.

John Polito, you know, all of them.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Terry o', Quinn, Ed.

Louder.

William Sanderson doesn't even have anything to do.

And then Arkin looks amazing.

Yeah.

There's, like, a moment.

You can only see him for, like, a split second, but Clint Howard is in this movie.

He's.

He's in the.

Yes.

He's in the lounge room restaurant thing.

Yeah, he was in the.

The bar.

The rundown bar that they hang out.

No, no, no, the.

The.

The seaside.

You know, the.

Oh, where they're having dinner.

Yeah, the club.

Oh, okay.

Club.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's like.

And William.

William Sanders by a table.

He's just in there for, like, a split second.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

So William Sanderson, EB Slash, Blade Runner guy, whose name I can't remember, is.

In, like, two scenes.

It's just like, every single guy.

A guy in this movie.

Yeah.

Weird Blade Runner connection, besides William Sanderson is that the Ennis house is used for Neville Sinclair's apartment, and it's also Deckard's apartment in Blade Runner.

Anyway, it's been a lot of movies, whatever.

A crazy thing that has never existed anywhere else.

Yeah.

Is that like with the.

With the Greled block?

Yeah, it's like.

It looks like an ancient temple of some kind.

Mayan rock revival, according to.

But I love that.

Yeah.

No, I think this would be a.

I mean, it feels like a tonic to me, like, compared to a lot of modern, you know, takes on, like, kind of comic stories.

And I think it would feel like that to a lot of people.

I just weirdly feel.

I don't know, that it would come out, and I really appreciate it for what it is, but that I would feel somewhat intimidated by, like, liking it, I guess, just because it does feel like it would.

It would feel like Return to form type stuff rather than.

This is an interesting way that the movie is repackaging, reinterpreting, commentating on in the way that, you know, can it reinvent what, say, Raiders already did in 81?

Like, I think the 91 release proved that.

Maybe it couldn't at that time, but maybe long as it's been long enough since we had like a solid family action blockbuster, a solid swashbuckler movie.

Frequent friend of the podcast Seth Zarati bemoans frequently the, the lack of the swashbuckler in today's cinema.

Like, just that concept.

Like, regardless of genre or budget or stars like that, there aren't those movies that elicit that essential pocketed adventure feeling.

And the fact that this movie has that is like, oh, wow, cool.

If it, if it came out today, I'd be much more impressed by it.

But we kind of have had a boon of those in the 80s and 90s.

So, I mean, Right.

I think that's almost what's subversive about it in a way, especially for right now.

Right.

It's like, I think a lot about, like, I actually kind of liked Fantastic Four First Steps.

But, like, it, like so much of that movie is like, we are trying so hard not to be a comic book movie.

Like, we want to be like a family drama about what it means to be a dad.

I, I don't, I don't think.

I think that I want comic book movies to be comic book movies again.

And I, I really like that about the rocket.

Everybody tried that.

Like, I don't know.

I, I think that between Spider Man.

I think that we're at the end of 20 years of comic book movies pretending that they're prestige.

I, I think that's the thing about this, that I'm, you know, like, Infinity War and Endgame have to be the most important movies ever made.

And it's like, all right, can we, like, do a comic book about a jetpack guy, please?

Like, you're not Igmar Bergman over here.

Or that was part of, like, my big wider notes were that just superhero movies cannibalized all the genres, at least box office wise.

Like, commercially, what people were willing to invest in cannibalized so much of what I've wanted to see in movies in, like, general release movies since, you know, the MCU became a big thing.

Thrillers, even horrors to a little bit of an extent.

Dramatic films, action movies, swashbox, have just kind of like become superhero movies evolved to incorporate all of that.

And then they stopped doing like, if ever any of them did it well since like 2005, 2008, they've kind of stopped doing them well, the incentive has not been there to do those individual genre takes well.

So that when, like fucking Multiverse of Madness, the Sam Raimi Doctor Strange movie comes out, it feels like a real left turn swing.

An interesting thing.

Still like a three, three and a half star movie out of five, probably.

But they got a director to make it.

They got, yeah, like, they got a guy who does a thing to do a thing rather than just like plop.

Another fella who knows how to like direct action and then hire somebody to punch up the script.

I don't know.

I guess I don't mean to disregard.

Excuse me, discard.

All superhero filmmaking of the last 15 years as complete, like, trite.

It just doesn't feel like when it's missing the vision of like, what a thing individually should be like the Rocketeer.

Maybe we're just kind of making a movie rather than tapping into any genre or aesthetic appeal.

Anyway, the Rocketeer.

What a film.

What a film.

Any final thoughts before we get to the junk drawer and our final segments?

Matt, was there any background lore, production stuff, any cool notes that you had that we did not get to empty the tank on?

No, I think you guys let me.

Let me blather on about context.

Glad, I guess a bit of Laura.

I don't know if Matt, if you came across that I was.

I been wondering if this movie, because I know it was sort of like a tepid audience response, you know, middling box office.

I wonder if this movie would have performed better had it been released under its original title, War Colon.

What is it good for?

See, every time that I'm like, anybody, any more thoughts?

Cody's like, I have a turd rattling around in the back of my brain.

And you know.

And you know what?

Canonically that turd exists outside of the confines of the drawer.

So you're welcome.

I haven't yet opened it, so I'm going to do what I do best and I'm going to open up the junk drawer.

As the formal conversation is finished and we have to rattle around for all the little things that didn't fit in the main conversation.

Any one offs, any things that would not have sparked bigger conversation but still deserve a little bit of a mention.

Harry's already got his hand up, meaning he's.

He's hot for that draw.

What's in there?

Timothy Dalton is in there.

Dude, we got to talk about this.

We got to talk about how, like, whoever was like, all right, Tim, what I want you to do, you were James Bond.

It's just.

Be Errol Flynn in this movie.

Be like, a sexy Errol Flynn who in the third act, grows a Nazi accent, even though it doesn't really make sense because, like, is his character supposed to be German?

Like, I don't even, like, why would he have the accent?

You can be a Nazi spy without having the exit.

But he's so pitch perfect in this movie.

He should have been in every movie.

It's called acting.

I just love Timothy Dalton.

I think, like, he just is such a scene stealer in this movie.

You're right.

Like, when he says it's not pretend, it's acting.

The fact that, like, there's something so juvenile and so delightful about, like, oh, like, now I like this girl who was an extra on my film.

Her boyfriend has the jetpack that I'm looking for.

My plan is to kind of seduce her.

Her.

And just during this seduction, like, learn about her boyfriend during this.

And I'm gonna learn what her favorite movies are, right?

I'm gonna find out what books she likes.

I'm gonna find out her favorite food.

All to get to that jetpack, just.

And.

And, like, just to be like.

And then, like, during our romantic date, I'm gonna be like, so, what's your boyfriend, like?

Dish.

You know, dish about this dude you're seeing?

And she's like, oh, he's kind of annoying.

And, like, I just.

Those scenes are, like, so.

So such a great example of, like, it's kind of inexplicable because it's sort of like.

You catch yourself watching it and you're like, jennifer Connelly is having this date with Timothy Dalton, and he's being really like, like, charming and trying to get something out of her.

It's like, what is this doing in this, like, comic book action movie?

But then it's like, it's the best, you know?

I don't know.

I just, like.

I really think that, like, he elevates this movie.

Like, to see him do the Laughing Bandit, Errol Flynn movie movie.

To see him just, like, eating up the screen, completely understanding the assignment.

I just, like, I.

I think it really.

It's a really good indication that this movie knows exactly what it's about, and it's just having the time of its life doing it.

And I really, really like that.

Have you guys seen any.

Any, like, any references or covers of the book?

Errol Flynn the Untold Story.

Story?

No, it was a biography that came out in, like, 1980, that accused Errol Flynn of being a Nazi spy.

And that was sort of the.

Oh, shit.

For this.

Yeah.

It's been thoroughly debunked.

He may have been, you know, not, you know, exactly opposed, but.

Yeah, but for junk drawer thoughts, I, you know, one thing we didn't talk about, we have to talk about is the smuggled Nazi film of the jetpack experiment.

And then the animated sequel sequence.

It's so funny, so good.

It rules.

It's also like, it, like, why this is like a propaganda movie about a top secret project that is a full cartoon.

It's like, wait a minute.

Like, like, what are you.

Why would they make this?

Like, why would they have.

But, but yes, it's.

It's full.

It's a full cartoon.

And it shows Nazis using the jetpack to take over the world, essentially.

Right.

And it rules.

It's so cool.

Like, you see the, like, flying formations of the Nazi.

Nazi, like, jetpack guys, like, coming over the White House and burning it down.

It's really, really rad.

Yeah.

So if you guys have never seen the Disney.

I guess it's a documentary, technically, it's just called Victory Through Air Power.

That's the visual reference for that animated sequence.

And I think Johnson got everybody down to, like, you know, one of the screening rooms to watch reels of that.

And that's.

And then he has Disney animators at his disposal.

So just.

I was gonna say it looks perfect.

It doesn't make any sense.

Like, no, rocket men take over the world.

Like, that doesn't make any sense.

But it's such a great moment, though.

I.

Wait, so you're telling me that in a Disney movie, they modeled a Nazi propaganda film after Disney movies?

It was a Nazi propaganda film modeled after a US propaganda film that contained a lot of fascist imagery because it was.

The war was on Jason.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, I wasn't there.

I wouldn't know.

I also wanted to very, very briefly sing Timothy Dalton's.

Or sing praise.

Throw praise in his direction.

There we go.

The sort of like, he's handsome, but he's slimy, he's composed, but he's, like, obsessed.

He's this.

I realized just the.

I mean, he was Hugh Grant and Paddington 2 before Hugh Grant was Hugh Grant and Paddington 2, which.

And I don't even necessarily like, love Hugh Grant and Paddington too.

I love Paddington.

Paddington's a solid bear.

But I really liked what Timothy Dalton was.

Was doing tap.

Turning on a dime to, like, you know, he's cares a lot about the performance.

And he also cares about, you know, the closed sets.

And then I don't know that everything everybody's already said about him, he looks and sounds and feels great in this movie.

And then the only other really quick thing, all it took was me seeing, like, five seconds of airplane, like, sequencing before I was like, damn, should I rewatch the Great Waldo Pepper, which I saw at the Trilon Cinema in Minneapolis, Minnesota?

So maybe that's coming down the pipeline.

But if anybody liked the planes in this movie and thought the planes are really good, maybe the Great Waldo Pepper, it might interest you.

There's a good chance it won't because it gets into heavy.

Some heavier stuff.

It's more than just airplanes flying around.

But I keep thinking about how that first.

Is it the first act or the first half of the movie ends with the woman slipping from his hand off of the plane.

Like, how just stark and harrowing and sudden that is in Great Waldo Pepper.

That's a fucked up.

What a great special effect, too.

Just like.

It's just like this movie, right?

It's like anytime you can introduce an action sequence where somebod keeps falling off of a plane, like, what a great idea, right?

Like this the first time he's in the jetpack.

And, like, he just keeps falling off that biplane.

And then, like, having to fly back onto it, I'm just like, wow, like, that's just great.

Why didn't Tom Cruise have that.

You know, Exactly.

Why didn't he have a rocket man rocket?

The.

The last juncture of thought I have is that I.

This is another movie in.

In one of my favorite tropes in movies, which are, like, weirdly sycophantic depictions of historical figures who were, in reality, deeply complicated people, I say that without any irony.

I actually really, like, think that this is a hilarious trope.

But, like, just like the fact that in this movie, Howard Hughes is just like this, like, almost like.

Like mystically benevolent, like, super person, which is like, maybe look up Howard Hughes.

Not actually that great a dude, but it, like, it reminds me of, like, Agamemnon and Time Bandits, right when he's played by Sean Connery.

And it's like.

Like, wait, like, Agamemnon is that character, like the.

The villain from the.

Like.

Like, just kind of a.

Like notorious or like, I don't know, what are some other great examples?

Like Teddy Roosevelt in Night at the Museum, right, where it.

It's just like they're.

They're just like these, like.

Oh, like, remember Great American figures of history.

And it's just sort of like.

I.

I'm not sure about that, but, like, it really works for the picture of this movie, I guess.

Right.

That's how they felt about him in 1938 or.

Right, exactly.

In a very particular kind of way.

It's.

It's like a.

He is like the American mythological figure.

He's American Elon Musk.

Jesus.

Yeah.

That was a detail change from the comic book.

Not surprisingly, though, there was a misunderstanding in the comic where they thought that the inventor might be Howard Hughes, but in fact it was Doc Sampson, which would be an even more esoteric reference to shove into this movie.

And I'm really glad that they moved away.

Dave Stevens references a lot of pulp characters in his stuff, and they kind of shifted that to Hollywood characters, which I think is the right move, for sure.

Yeah, the right move.

And also just sort of like hilariously too little.

Right.

As they found out.

It's just sort of like, oh, yeah, you're gonna make this more accessible.

It's still the fucking Rocketeer.

It's like your most bankable star is Timothy Dalton in this movie at that point.

It's like this movie was never probably gonna make a million, like a trillion bucks.

Guys like.

But, you know, also, Jennifer Connelly is very good and.

Awooga.

That's all I got to say about that.

Okay.

The last, like, the only juncture I thought I had that hasn't already been covered.

One, William Sanderson, big shout outs as Skeets, one of the mechanics who tends to hang around the diner.

Really good to see him pop up in places.

Two, is that like, sort of to what Harry and Matt were saying, the fact that Howard Hughes is in this movie, that he is a character, Terry Okin plays him, that, like.

And that so often it intersects the, like, world of Hollywood with this world of aerospace engineering.

Like, it was a real thing, I guess, back in the day, jet propulsion technology had developed.

Developed in the.

Roughly in parallel with like, film and film techniques and film distribution.

And like, Howard Hughes, I guess, bought RKO at a certain point and started producing movies and kind of ran them into the ground, further into the ground, I guess.

But he was like, involved in Hollywood as well as a business magnate.

So just like, fun parallels that they keep drawing in intersections that they keep.

Technology and entertainment were just sort of like one in the same.

Right?

Like, I.

I always think, well, that's how like.

Right, like, like, I love that in this, like, everybody knows who the Rocketeer is.

After a day because they all read about him in the paper and it kind of makes sense.

Right?

But because it's sort of like, remember when that was a thing like in the, in the 40s when it was just like, oh, like let's read about the new invention or something.

That's right.

It's like, wow, now exactly like chat GPT5 is out or whatever.

And it's just like, man, I mean.

It just the fact that these two things were existing in the American cultural consciousness at the same time and that like you're saying it was a pattern time and it was a profession and it was an area of development.

And of course, you know, that still is kind of a thing you can generally say about any time period.

But that specifically like, oh yeah, jet engine technology had been created and you know, widely distributed and will say starting to be perfected in the early 30s.

And then, you know, film started to become a huge industry as the decades were on.

And like the fact that the characters are built from tropes that were inspired by films that were inspired by American, we'll say Western technological advancement and you know, sort of like the opening of Borders and the growing, you know, technology.

Yeah, right.

And there's like the whole Howard Hughes thing is this sort of technocratic view of, you know, the growing advancement of technology across the world.

It just like it has this little, it doesn't flip that page, but it's like it's dog earing a page for like, yeah, think about this idea next time you're watching this or.

I think that's a really good point.

Right, because like then it kind of becomes possible to read this movie the way it's possible to read a lot of like World War II movies as sort of like about the future.

Right?

Like, where is this technology taking us?

And it's like, you know, World War II is like dialectically so often thought of like this great war between like what is the future of the humanity going to look like, right?

Like, and you're right, like this, this movie really squarely, like, like brings in that tension and its answer is like, you know, these, the people that, that you love and that, that you appreciate now, right?

Like your American friendships and your American underdog.

Like those people are going to be the people that ultimately triumph even as technology continues to proliferate and redefine the world.

And also a jet plane engine strapped to a guy's back explodes and makes Hollywood Hollywood.

So yeah, I mean it's, it is what it is.

Well, that's been the junk Drawer.

I think we can close her up pretty comfortably.

We have a couple of final segments, so starting with Matt, you're welcome to join.

This I'll toss to you first.

It's called to all the Loves We've Tried before, where we talk about movies we've seen that were, or, excuse me, discussed that were released in the same year.

This one released of 1991.

I have.

I've finally tried to prepare and have a little bit of a clue for each one.

I'm going to get ribbed for how bad the clues are.

But, you know, maybe if these guys were better at remembering what episodes they've covered, we wouldn't have such a hard time.

But, Matt, 1991, banner year for at least a few trilogy movies.

Any guesses off the bat to movies we've covered that released in the year 1991?

Like the Rocketeer.

Oh, going in cold with no clue.

I'm so terrible at this game.

I'll give you a.

I honestly, I will say I don't think there's anything that fits in your normal wheelhouse.

So, no, no judgment, but this one recently got a 4K restoration, and it's from a storied Hong Kong Action Director.

1991.

4K.

I should know this.

I will say I'm not sure that the 4K restoration is an official 4K restoration.

Oh, is this part of the.

Yeah, the touring group.

1991.

Which one would that be?

Because Hard Boiled was 92, wasn't it?

Or something like that.

It was not.

I'm not sure.

Yeah.

Is this Twin Dragons, Jason?

Unfortunately, no.

I would like to see the 4K restoration to see if I can see Jackie Chan's penis in that one scene eventually.

Someday.

Cody, Harry, any guesses as to that one?

Because that I think is.

That should be top of mind.

Those are the only clues I had for this one.

I mean, I like the John Woo angle, but I don't think that we've covered a John Woo movie from 91, have we?

Jason, you said this one should be top of mind.

Are we.

Is this like the first one that we recorded that from 91?

Or, like, how does this close?

How does we reference this one for not to play inside baseball?

We reference this one frequently because it was very, very quickly after this.

The COVID 19.

Oh, yeah.

Face off, right?

It's not Face Off.

It's not face.

That's like 97, thereabouts.

Cody, do you have a better guess than that?

Not better than that.

The.

The one that I'm more the Single one that I'm more confident on is I linked up with a different clue.

Oh, wait a second.

4k restoration.

When I say 4k restoration, maybe I should have been fair.

I literally just saw somebody on Twitter sort of post it as a gofile.com link.

I believe it's an unofficial restoration, but it looks great.

I see.

Yeah, I.

I don't think I have a guess for.

For this one is going to be very 1991.

John Woo's the Killer.

It recently got a little tiny 4k restoration.

I really thought that was 80s.

I don't know why, but I would have guessed the Killer.

But I was almost certain that was an 80s movie.

Yeah, I thought it was a year or two before that as well.

But yeah, we listed it as interesting.

Letterbox says 1989.

That's wild.

Interesting.

No, but you can.

You can have that one.

Jason, Good job.

Maybe my favorite John Woo movie.

I really like, love that movie.

Yeah, I think so.

Broken Arrow.

Also Hard Target.

Oh, there are so many.

Oh, Hard Target too.

I'll give you one guess.

1.

One clue and five seconds for each of these.

Everybody just shout it out.

When you think about it, the first movie we covered from 1991, souse.

The word Souse.

Barton Fink, word souse.

He calls him a souse multiple.

I think it's the only film in which I've ever heard the word souse appear.

April 2021, in episode 116, we covered maybe the most dudes rock movie ever.

That's also pretty sad.

Point Break.

Point break.

Yeah.

Episode 116.

That was the one that I was pretty sure of.

I'll be no help from here on out.

That's fair.

This one was part of a double bill.

It's about a very domestic suburban concern.

We watched two movies in a row at the trial on and this was one of them.

Oh, fuck, am I going to get her.

Don't tell mom the babysitter's dead.

Don't tell mom the babysitter's dead.

1991 Paired with Adventures in Babysitting.

Okay, now I'm gonna be no help.

You guys have fun.

I don't know about that.

This is another period piece, but it's a coming of age story.

We'll say 50s and 60s period piece made in 91.

Bronx tale.

It's a good.

That's a good guess.

We've never covered that though.

What language is this film in, Jason?

Taiwanese.

Rebels of the Neon God.

You guys are skirting.

I really like this.

It's like you've summer's day.

It's a brighter summer's day.

Episode 217 In March of 2023, November of 2023, into episode 250, we cover this film.

That this one I'm proud of.

The lead of this movie is terrified of how smart the co lead is and wishes that they would stop making so much so sense.

Come on, come on.

Oh, this, this was the.

The Talking Heads documentary, right?

Okay, wait, wait.

Who are you describing as the lead of that movie?

If.

If I said, okay, she, the lead of this movie is afraid of her.

Co lead, Gina Wayth is afraid of David Byrne.

Is that what you're.

Who made.

Stop making sense.

Who made the film not making sense?

Yeah.

What.

What is his name?

Oh, Silence of the Lambs.

Silence of the Lambs.

Come on, guys.

That's what he's been clear.

Jason appreciated how cute he was with that.

Matt's cat would have gotten it if Matt's cat could speak.

We should.

We should move on probably from this segment.

Well, that's just as well because we have no more films from 1991.

We've heard them all.

A solid year.

Adding this one to the list.

1991's the Rocketeer.

Thank you for going down that draw journey with me.

We have one actual final segment that Harry helps us reign in.

Yes, indeed.

You're welcome to if you wish, if you remember how it goes.

Otherwise, stay the hell off the microphone.

We don't need you.

We do need you pretty badly.

Up to you.

Bring it.

It's the segment we like to call Cody's.

Cody's.

Excellent.

Wow.

Thank you.

Never heard a more beautiful one.

Same, actually.

Funny thing about that introduction.

It was attached to the airship by a rope and that was actually its downfall.

So thank you for that.

This week we will be partaking in a little something called who wants to be a Rocketeer?

Which makes it sound like it's going to be a game show.

And that's not necessarily the case.

It's really going to play out more like a personality quiz from a magazine.

So here's what's up.

I actually found.

Have you guys heard about this?

I actually found a.

Not to go Leno on you.

You hear about this?

I found a.

A rocket jetpack thing just in the alleyway by my apartment.

Personally, I don't think I'm worthy of it.

Just going to put that out there.

Hence why we're here today.

But I reckon one of you three fellas might be worthy.

It's me bestowed with this.

Well, Jason, that's what we're going to find out.

We're going to find out who that someone is.

I'm going to ask you all a series of multiple choice questions and award you points based on your responses.

The person with the most points by the end will be given the rocket and thus will become the rocketeer, or at least a rocketeer.

I don't know.

Branding and copyright gets a little tricky, so we'll just, we'll just jump in.

I think it'll make enough sense as we go.

First question.

Picture this.

You've just left the, the airfield that you fly around at and you're now on your way to.

To the diner that you always go to at the end of every shift, end of every night, because you're as hungry as can be and you need to satisfy your particular craving.

What's your order?

Are you, Are you ordering a bacon hamburger?

Are you ordering cheese curds or are you ordering a wedge salad?

Those are your picks.

I don't know.

The diner's got a weird menu, but you're picking one of those three things.

We'll start.

We'll start.

I'll throw it to Harry first.

I don't know my randomizer.

Just gotta.

There's a correct answer to this.

There's, you know, it'll make, it'll.

So you're just, you're picking one of.

Those it's waiting columns that decides if you're a sociopath or if you're worthy of the jetpack.

Yeah.

And I just watched Debs for the first time, so it's top of mind.

How are you?

I'm actually, you know, depending on how you answer, you'll be perfectly suited to become a spy.

So this is a secret aptitude test.

So.

Yeah.

Bacon, hamburger, cheese curds, wedge salad.

What are you going with?

I'm going to go with the bacon hamburger, Cody.

Thank you.

Bacon.

Yeah, of course.

Bacon hamburger, says Harry over to Jason.

Jason, what one are you going to with?

There are three responses for all these.

Don't feel like y' all have to cover the spread.

It could be a fun thing if you do, but don't feel like you have to.

What have I just done?

I'm just down out of the sky, taking a breather.

What's.

You just like you finished your, your shift at the, you know, the local airfield.

I'm starting with cheese curds.

Going with cheese curds, says Jason.

And then, Matt, what's.

What's your order?

Covering the spread or going a different direction?

Yeah, I'LL put.

Probably have to ask for no bacon, but I'll take a wedge salad.

Why not?

Sounds refreshing.

Okay, wedge salad.

All right, Lex, Just kind of going in the order of the options as I offered him bacon hamburger.

That's going to award Harry.

He gets two points for that.

It's a successful meal and filling you up.

Although you probably ate too many waffle fries in an attempt to, you know, kind of tie a bow on that meal.

So you've getting the potatoes.

My life.

Yeah.

Hey, we, we've all been there, brother.

No shame.

But two points for you.

Cheese curds.

Jason picks up a point.

Cheese curds end up not being enough food and he ended up drinking too much local piss water beer to make up the difference.

And now he has a 9:30pm headache, which is always bad news.

So a point for Jason.

Wedge salad gets Matt to three points.

They, you know, you, you threw just enough stuff in that salad to make it filling.

And the lettuce actually did a reasonable job replenishing all the water you lost when you were up the air all day being a pilot.

It's very dehydrating work.

So kudos to you for being smart with, with that particular component of your day.

They say you don't make friends with salad, but here you go.

They, they tr.

They truly, they say that all the time.

That's a shirt in the trilo shop as well.

Just commemorating that sentiment.

I'm not going to relay scores as we go.

I'll try to keep all that a mystery till the end, but that's kind of the idea with this.

You'll continue to accumulate points as we go ourselves.

Second prompt.

Imagine if you will, your partner is often one to bring up famous romantically driven films, much like Jennifer Connelly's character was doing.

She kind of, you know, had a scene or two gesturing at that.

She stared dreamy eyed at Timothy Dalton all throughout the movie for, or at least, you know, a good portion of it.

That's.

So that's kind of where this question comes from for you.

What's your favorite on screen romance?

I'm just going to give actor names for these as opposed to character names just to kind of chug through these.

We've got Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peek and Roman Holiday.

We've got Maggie Chung and Tony Leung in In the Mood for Love.

We've got Robin Wright and Carrie Elwes in the Princess Bride.

Those are your three.

I think those are the only three romance films ever made.

So those are the three that, that we have to Pick from all.

I'll go in reverse order this time compared to the last question.

I'll throw it to Matt first.

Matt, which one of the those are you going with?

So we can't pick Liam Neeson and Pam Anderson in the Naked Gun in this.

You know what?

That's.

Yeah.

Didn't you know?

Recency bias notwithstanding, I do.

I do love her in that movie.

She's so funny.

He's funny, too.

A close fourth, but.

But, no, unfortunately.

Well, yeah, since I've got first pick, how could I not pick Maggie and Tony?

Come on now.

Yep.

Hey, tough but fair.

All right, got you down for that.

Over to.

We'll pivot back to Jason.

Jason, which one of those Roman, you go in with?

What's your.

What's your favorite nostalgia alone?

The Princess Bride.

Princess Bride got you down for that?

And Harry, you have the opportunity to cover the spread or you can go a different direction.

What are you picking?

Yeah, in the interest of covering the spread, I think I'll go with Roman Holiday Cody.

Thank you.

That's very suspiciously playing to the crowd there.

I will say, Harry, the crowd, our listeners, the host of our fine game here.

Hey, to be clear, I enjoy all of these romances very much.

Not.

He avoided seeing the word equally.

He's gonna wait five points.

Listen, there's an imperial point system for all these.

Yeah, Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, they garner two points.

It's a beautiful film.

It's a beautiful romance.

Despite the fact, you know, that this was one of, unfortunately the many big age gap on screen romances for Audrey Hepburn.

And if you stop and think about it for too long, it still feels a little weird.

But two points for the Roman Holiday romance.

Maggie Chung and Tony Leung in the Mood for Love.

That's.

That's going to be a point that Matt picks up again.

A beautiful romance.

One of the greatest films.

But unfortunately, the events of the film prompted an extreme downturn in Tony Leung's character.

And for more, please tune in to the Amazing sequel.

Not sequel.

2046.

Wong Kar Wise Unsung masterpiece.

It should be sung.

Boy, Shit it.

Shout out to the thing I did a couple months months ago, an insane thing which was watch in the Mood for love.

And 246 back to back.

I was not okay before or since.

And then Robin Wright carry always three points.

They had one of the five best kisses ever or something.

I mean, come on.

But all great romances in their own right.

And we're wondering what romance is to be had with one of these fellas.

Here with their beloved rocket jetpack that's just sitting next to me, just off frame.

You can't see it.

Are you implying going to fuck it?

I'm implying that question three is going to offer up a little.

A little scenario for y'.

All.

Your young niece asks to watch a movie with you, and you're stuck with Disney plus as her parents only streaming services.

I don't know why it's the only one they have, but my question is, what movie do you watch with your young niece?

And these are three films that, based on Letterboxd's integration with JustWatch.com or whatever it is, these are three films on Disney Plus Plus.

We have the Incredibles, we have David Lynch's the Straight Story, and we have Fight Club.

So which one of those are y' all picking?

Harry, I'll throw to you.

Actually, no, Jason hasn't gone first yet.

Jason, we'll go to you first.

Jason, what film are you picking?

The first film you mentioned was the Incredibles.

2004 is the Incredibles.

Wow.

Again, nostalgia alone.

I'm gonna go, the Incredibles.

All right.

Jason is going with the Incredibles.

Got you down for that?

I'll go.

Let's see.

There's no good.

I'll go to Harry next.

Because I teased you with going first.

Aria.

Harry, what movie you picking?

I feel like I'm taking the void conf test.

I'm going to go with the Straight Story.

Cody, The Straight Story, says Harry.

And then over to Matt.

What movie you picking?

I was really hoping for one of the young Kurt Russell live action films, like the Executive Wore Tennis Shoes or something.

Cover.

Cover the spread.

I'll go fight.

Fight Club.

Hell, yeah.

Your young niece.

Wow.

You know, my niece is like, 13.

She can.

She's ready.

Oh, she can take that.

To learn about projects, go to American.

History X.

Yeah, exactly.

Two movies I watched at sleepovers in high school.

Strangely weird.

One that makes a lot of sense.

One that doesn't quite make as much sense.

Yeah.

Do your picks make sense for this question?

We'll find out in a few seconds.

The Incredibles.

Jason picks up a point.

Your niece's favorite character ends up being the Underminer.

And she gets so upset that we only get that one scene of him.

Huge bummer for her.

But you played the video game, right?

The Rise of the Underminer.

Jason, I don't know what any of those words mean.

David Lynch's the Straight Story.

Harry picks up two points.

Points.

Your niece was perhaps a little young for this.

A little young to really get kind of the, the full, the full effect of it.

But approximately 13 years from now, she'll be hit with a brain blast that she watched this with you, and it will eventually become one of her favorite movies.

So you have that to look forward to.

Fight Club.

Matt picks up three points.

Keeping with the theme from the past few decades of people kind of taking the, you know, the wrong lessons from this movie.

Perhaps your niece soaks up the fighting scenes like a sponge and they weirdly end up teaching her to stand up up for herself and her friends and nobody with her for the rest of.

Her life and she becomes Hillary Swank, the Million dollar Baby.

Well, maybe not all components of that.

That map, you know, save for the stuff that happens maybe towards like the, the end of her life.

You don't have those things to look forward to.

Hopefully that goes outside the scope of my kind of my codex here.

But Mac picks up three points.

We got two more of these.

So keep continuing to rack up points.

There's a lot on the line here as we talk.

Gum.

If you have the option to grab a piece.

Fellas, what are you chewing?

You got Big Red, you got Double Bubble, you got Juicy Fruit.

Let's go to do.

Let's go.

Harry first.

Harry, what gum are you chewing?

I've always been a Big Red man, personally.

Big Red says harry got you down for that.

We'll go to Matt next.

Matt, gum.

What is it good for?

I mean, what do you pick?

No pens, no clove, no blackjack.

With three options, he needs his peps.

And Gum, man.

Why don't.

How about Juicy Fruit?

What the heck?

Juicy Fruit says Matt.

And then Jason Spread, covering or.

No, I gotta go Jersey Fruit.

That's the one that actually tastes like something.

Fair enough.

Sorry.

We'll start with the.

We'll start with the pick that nobody went with.

And that's Double Bubble, which good on you.

That would have gotten you a single point.

I want to say congratulations, you've decided to chew on a rock.

Nobody chose to do that, which is great.

Big Red, that's two points for Harry.

It's fine enough.

But as a fan of Fireball whiskey, you kind of wanted something more from Big Red gum, you know, something more.

You wanted Fireball in a box, in a.

In a little thing.

This is slanderous.

Listen, I.

No comment.

Big Red, solid gum, but within the scope of this, this exercise, not as good as Juicy Fruit.

Three points a piece for those fellas.

It, you know, Juicy Fruit, it comes from the Wrigley brand and Wrigley Field is where the Chicago Cubs play.

And I hate to say it, but they're having a great season this year.

So therefore, Juicy Fruits.

Juicy Fruits.

The move you got to support big Wrigley, the taste will move you.

Yeah.

How can you not be romantic about chewing gum, guys?

Wow.

I don't.

I completely forgot that that was the tagline for Juicy Fruit.

We are moving on, thankfully, blissfully, to our final question.

And it has to do with the henchman character Lothar, who is played by tiny Ron Taylor.

How tall was tiny Ron Taylor?

Fella's closest guess gets three points, next closest, two points, and the furthest away gets a point.

This is very instrumental, maybe the most important.

I don't want to say that one of the more important pieces of deciding who is going to be the next or a next Rocketeer.

So I'll go to.

I'll just go the same order as the first question.

Go to, to Harry first.

Harry, how tall allegedly was a tiny Ron Taylor?

Rest in peace.

I'm going six, seven, Cody.

Six, seven, says Harry.

Over to you, Jason, how tall?

Seven even.

Seven even says Jason.

And then finally, Matt, how tall was tiny Ron Taylor?

Seven foot one.

Seven foot one, says Matt.

Matt, thank you for your guesses.

Just to get ahead of it, I want to say thank you.

This has been who wants to be a Rocketeer?

I'm just doing some quick tabulating on my side here, and I believe we have our answer as to who's going to be the next rocket.

And then just going in order of alphabetical by first name order, Harry sequentially picked up 2 points, 2 points, 2 points, 2points.

And then 1 point.

With that last question, I should say tiny Ron Taylor, 7ft 0 inches tall.

So one of you's got it dead on.

Harry was unfortunately furthest away, but nine points for Harry.

Solid score.

Let's see if it holds up here again, we'll find out in a couple of seconds.

Over to Jason, who did again get three points for that last question because he got it right on the nose.

Previous questions one through four, he got 1313 points, which if my math is correct, I didn't make major in basic arithmetic in in university, but I believe that totals 11 points.

So solid.

And then Matt picked up two points on that last question with his seven foot one guest.

Very close.

Matt's point totals were 31332, which by my account puts him up to 12 points.

And Matt Clark, your.

Your new rocketeer.

Ladies and germs, I'll figure out the shipping for this, it's going to cost thousands of dollars to drive.

Put this in a truck, you know, get neighborhood basically.

But if nothing else, the pop off platform is.

Is yours.

So as.

As the new Rocketeer, feel free to.

To speak your truth.

You know, I, I can't wait.

I'm gonna need a helmet.

But then look out.

Nazis.

Yeah.

Hey, did anybody else think that it's a ridiculous and really bad idea to make your rudder your head?

No.

It was.

Seems like that just sounds like an ergonomic basic aviation.

Jason, come on.

I mean, what if you got to like turn to the right?

What if you got to check your watch?

It's canonical, but it is ridiculous.

Well, you know, I think Dave Stevens would be the first to admit that he's an artist before he's a writer.

So I think, you know, he was just like, this helmet looks dope.

I need to justify it.

I, I respect that.

As somebody who has neither, I respect that immensely.

Matt, thank you so much for being on again.

Please come outside you really house more often or, you know, find something that's playing at the trial and within.

Within it.

And we'll, we'll make space for you.

Where can people find you if you want them to find you?

I am at Kinoventura on, you know, Bluesky, Instagram and Letterboxd.

And then also my blog is kinoventura.blogspot.com.

thanks for having me on.

It is, of course you'll find notes.

Excuse me.

Links to all those things in the show.

Notes.

And you'll find other things, including.

Including two pieces at Perisphere written about this movie by contributors to the Trialons blog.

You should check those out.

And you know all the mentions of Matt's other episodes.

If you were interested in his thoughts on this one, please do.

We'll watch those numbers skyrocket, Matt, and we'll send you the stats on the other end.

It'll be a big, complicated spreadsheet.

You won't be able to read famous.

You jest, but our guest episodes always do.

Please do come back again soon.

Soon.

But until then, listener, you should check us out every episode we've ever done.

Probably there's something that you've seen before there.

If you want to go a little bit deeper on a movie, check it out.

And if you're interested in discussing movies, please reach out to us at gmail.

Hey, Cody, Harry, we have an unread email from somebody who's interested in being on the podcast.

I just wanted to remind it's visual excuse me, a mental note of that because we get emails from people all the time who want to be on the show and we invite them to communicate with us.

Find out, you know, what's playing at the trial that you want to discuss.

Get in touch.

We're a pretty open podcast here.

That's trilovepodcastmail.com trylove podcast on Blue sky and hopefully we'll eventually sunset Twitter.

But for right now we're trial of podcast on twitter.com as well.

My name is Jason Daphnis.

Thank you again listener for being here.

Thank you again Matt for being here and you can find me on Twitter and bluesky Nintendufus yeah, thanks a bunch.

Of Matt for joining today and the the long promised, you know, coming to fruition kind of the we were talking prophesizing before jumping on Mike and it was definitely the case.

This film is very much so in conversation with the friends of Eddie Coyle previous episode that Matt gusted on.

So definitely check that episode out.

There's going to be a lot of similar threads compared to what we talked about here with Disney's the Rocketeer.

But until then, thank you for those listening.

To those of you listening, I've been Cody Narvison.

You can find me on bluesky and letterboxdodynarveson.

I've been Harry Mackin.

You can find me on Litterbox.

Itaki Harry.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Sam.

Ram.