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This week, on If You Don’t Really Think About It, It Isn’t a Bad Ride:
The answer is CLASSIC SNIPES. Wait, what was your question again? It was just a matter of time before we got to 1993’s Demolition Man, with an animated Wesley Snipes, a post-80’s Sylvester Stallone, and a brand new Sandra Bullock, who obviously steals the movie in 2026.
Greg and Joe act like grown ups, and consider writing a love letter to Demolition Man.
Note: This transcript has been auto-generated, so… You know… It’s not our fault.
Greg: Joe, in the movie we watched this week, Sylvester Stallone finds out from Sandra Bullock that Taco Bell has won the franchise wars in the future, and every restaurant is Taco Bell. In Joe Sky Tucker’s personal franchise wars, what is the franchise winner in your
Joe: Life? I am going to preach to the choir on this one, but it’s Baskin Robbins. Every restaurant is Baskin Robbins. I’m sorry to my cardiologist for that answer.
Greg: So give us breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Joe: Breakfast, I think we start with a waffle cone. Oh, interesting, that makes sense. Lunch is, what was the, it wasn’t the banana split, but there was a banana. It was like you sliced the bananas up, so that would be lunch. And then dinner would be a brownie a la mode, obviously. Obviously, okay, okay. And then dessert, you got to finish it off with gold medal ribbon, the best ice cream they have.
Greg: I like that you’re finishing that day with dessert. You have to at that point.
Joe: Yes, exactly.
Greg: So there’s no strawberries, there’s no pound cake. That was next to the brownies in that one container.
Joe: Pound cake, that’s right. Pound cake. Oh, we did have actual strawberries sometimes, but then we also had the strawberries like topping, which was just- Right. Just pure sugar. Sugar, yeah. Yeah. Which was delicious. It was a great job.
Greg: So I worked at Baskin-Robbins when I was 14 and when I was 18. And when I was 14, my older sisters would laugh because I would yell things around the house like, has anyone seen my apron? Which always made them giggle. But I would yell up to my mom like, hey, I’m headed to work. And she would yell back, have you had lunch? And one time I said, I’ll just get some at work. Long pause. Don’t you work at Baskin-Robbins. Perfect. Perfect. Good answer. Yeah, merrily, just killing it. It’s a good question. It was a good question. But I was like, there’s bananas, there’s strawberries. And honestly, I think in my 14 year old brain, pound cake was the healthiest thing you could eat there. So I had a lot of that.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. It’s not a real cake. It’s just a pound of butter.
Greg: You know what? I’ll be honest, back in high school, college, I think Taco Bell would have won the franchise wars in my heart. So that kind of checked out. But I think if I look at my life since then, I bet Starbucks has won. And that’s embarrassing to say, but I think Starbucks is probably won. You can get like a 12 calorie espresso drink there if it’s an Americano and live your life like it’s full of dreams and opportunity.
Joe: Yeah, I agree. I think that’s probably where it is for me now, too. Although I dream of a Baskin-Robbins franchise, although I know there aren’t very many out there anymore. So, yeah, a little sad.
Greg: Hey, let me ask you a question. Was it Baskin or Robbins that died of a heart disease in his 40s?
Joe: I have no idea. Probably both.
Greg: Which one has the famous outspoken son that’s a vegan? Basically is my question. One of them passed away early and that was kind of like, oh boy, I think I need to look for a new franchise. I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to your riddles. That was a battle that Baskin Robbins lost in my franchise war, I think. When one of them passed away. All right, let’s get to the show.
Joe: Let’s do it.
Clip: At the end of a century, ravaged by violence, a society of perfect order will arise. Criminals will be frozen and reprogrammed in cryogenic prisons. The prisoners are ice cubes. Their criminal instincts are being reprogrammed as they sleep. Aggression and deviant behavior will be totally eliminated. He’s a criminal the likes of which you have never seen. In a bad time, he was the worst. But in the year 2032. This morning, Simon Phoenix escaped from his cryo facility. Amidst a world of peace and calm. How was the fiendish Simon Phoenix apprehended back in the 20th? In the end, it took just one man. John Spartan. You mean the demolition man?
Greg: It is October of 1993 and famous action movie producer Joel Silver puts together a movie called Demolition Man directed by Marco Brambilla. One of his only credits and we are talking about Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes going up head to head. Sandra Bullock in an early film, Nigel Hawthorne plays Dr. Raymond Cocteau. Bob Gunton, Benjamin Bratt is in this movie, and of course, comedian Denis Leary pops up in this movie. That’s probably all we need to say about the people who are in this movie. So let’s cut to the chase. Joe Sky Tucker, we haven’t seen this movie in forever, is my guess for both of us. What makes Demolition Man a great bad movie?
Joe: Oh my God, I don’t know that it’s a great movie. It’s certainly a bad movie. It’s so bad it’s good maybe in spots. And it was one of those, I watched this movie and it was hard to get through at points.
Greg: Yeah. Took me a few watches.
Joe: Yeah. It was 1993. So I would probably say the last time I would have watched this would have been 95 area time. So we’re talking 31 years. Wow. I had kind of forgotten a lot about this movie. I knew it was silly when it came out. Like it wasn’t a great movie when it came out, when I saw it. And it doesn’t hold up well. It kind of felt like an 80s action movie to me. Yeah, it does. I actually wrote two real back of the box. There’s one that’s just a brutal take down of this movie. Oh, good. And another one that’s a little bit like softer around the edges. Yeah, so we’ll see. Throw away the other one. But this movie is a nostalgia-filled ride when Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes made just ridiculous movies like this. Like this is just so silly. There’s so many things in it that are just like ridiculously stupid. And that just kind of also like works in this weird way. There’s pieces of it. Hidden in there is actually a really interesting idea.
Greg: One idea.
Joe: This is as deep as I could get with it. Like, okay. You have like this pseudo utopia of this society that, you know, in the future that is, you know, they’ve kind of legislated violence and bad behavior out. Yep. And then what happens when someone comes in as a bad guy and how do you stop them when no one knows how to do that anymore? So there’s like an interesting kernel in there of an idea. But then you just have Sylvester Stallone, who is just playing every character he’s ever played. You have Wesley Snipes, I’m not quite sure what the direction was, but it was like… Act crazy, but whatever that meant to him was just like laugh and scream every line. You have Sandra Bullock, who’s probably the best part of this movie. Just some really amazing, great, bad shots everywhere. The plot makes no sense. Just trying to explain the plot of the movie just feels insufferably long. So, while I did enjoy it on balance more than I didn’t, I also hope to never watch this movie again.
Greg: Really?
Joe: Yeah, unless it’s like we’re just have a group of people who are ready to rip it apart and we have the drinking games all sorted out. Sure. You need to watch it with a group of people to really appreciate how terrible it is and laugh at it while you’re watching it. Okay. So I flip it around. Greg, what did you think of this movie?
Greg: It took me like three sittings to watch this movie And I’ll be honest, I almost wanted to call an audible, like I’m not sure this is a great movie. And we do try to only watch movies that contain greatness, but also ridiculousness. The majority of the movie I watched in the third sitting, in that third sitting, it went by a lot faster than I thought it was going to, because it does become something kind of adorable. This movie is maybe one of the funniest movies Sylvester Stallone was ever in, like intentionally funny. This is a comedy and I think it largely works on those terms, even though it’s a ridiculous, futuristic action movie as well. And some of the action scenes are pretty good because Wesley Snipes has like two black belts and they’re really doing quite a bit of fighting. And even when it’s like obviously stunt people, they’re doing some cool stuff. Like there’s like a bungee jump out of a helicopter. That’s pretty awesome. I think the most interesting thing about this movie in 2026 is that Sandra Bullock was in it. And you can see just from a mile away that Sandra Bullock should be in every movie ever made for the rest of time. She’s silly in this movie, kind of in the way that Annie was silly in Speed. And I mean, this movie is what convinced Warner Brothers that she should be in Speed with Keanu Reeves. She’s just incredibly likable, which we know for a fact now is just kind of who she is. So those things are true, but one of the most startling things is She just has real chemistry with Sylvester Stallone. And she has kind of no right to have that kind of chemistry with Sylvester Stallone, really. This movie filmed for two days with Lori Petty in that role from Point Break, right? Wasn’t Lori Petty in Point Break?
Joe: Yeah, I can totally see her in this too.
Greg: 100%, yeah. It was written, I don’t know if it was written for her, but she was cast and they filmed for two days and she left because of creative differences, apparently. And then Sandra Bullock just got the call. And so she was not prepared. She had no idea what she was getting into. She was very intimidated. She goes to meet Sylvester Stallone and to ease the tension, he turned around and he had two golf tees in his nostrils. And she said, it was basically that the whole time, like he’s just a goof. And I think they just had a good time.
Joe: Awesome.
Greg: I don’t know, there was like a very like brotherly, sisterly kind of sibling kind of good time it seemed like happening in front of the camera. And whether that wasn’t happening or it was, I kind of don’t care. On screen, these two people have pretty good chemistry. And it’s a very fascinating moment in both of their careers to take a look at that and recognize that this is happening in front of you. And so it’s a pretty good satire. I don’t know if we’ve ever talked about this. I kind of can’t stand future movies. I think they’re pretty stupid, especially when there’s like future vehicles and stuff. But I’m not gonna lie, this is like three times better than Total Recall when it comes to future stuff. And Total Recall is a pretty good movie. Total Recall might have like stronger ideas behind it. Obviously Paul Verhoeven is gonna bring, I don’t know what the word is, maybe not more soul, but there’s a philosophical truth that all of his movies have and they’re kind of coming from that point of view. And so Total Recall is coming from maybe a deeper well of thought than Demolition Man. But Demolition Man is pretty well thought through. This isn’t a slight futuristic movie the way most of them are. There’s actually some thought to this. And it’s a little bit prescient, not only in its predictions of how technology is gonna work, but also it felt a little bit like two sides at the end of this movie kinda come together and they have a little bit of a, let’s go hang out and get drunk. And Sylvester Stallone says something like, somewhere in the middle, I think you guys will find something you can agree on. And I was just like, you know what? I’m not hating a lot of the themes of this movie. And Wesley Snipes is at an amazing crossroads in his career where he’s been in New Jack City as like a kingpin. He has been in Jungle Fever as like a leading, handsome rom-com lead. And then he’s in this movie where he’s basically the Joker. If the Joker was also in the Looney Tunes cartoon, I think those are the two things that I get from him on this movie. He’s like Wile E. Coyote and he’s the Joker from Batman.
Joe: Yeah, I can totally see that.
Greg: But he’s like a real actor, you know? So these are all choices that he’s, I don’t think the director’s making those choices. He’s making those choices. So I think there is something here to consider and I almost called you, like we were texting like, do we really wanna do this movie? And by the end, I was like, yeah. Even the places where we hate this, I think it’s interesting for grownups to reconsider movies from back then and see how far we’ve come.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: But also it’s an interesting, I don’t know, time capsule really of a film to look at in my mind.
Joe: Yeah, I think where this movie is at its best is the satire, because it really is. And I wish it had leaned into that a little bit more, because I think that was the interesting part of this film. Right. Kind of holding up, you know, it is trying to make some comments about the action movies, that it is also is one. So there’s the references to Rambo and to Sylvester Stallone and- President Schwarzenegger. Yeah, President Schwarzenegger, which is again surprisingly prescient with him becoming the governor of California and that kind of quasi utopian world. It was like what I wanted more of was that world. And like you kind of have the dirt and grime beneath the surface where Denis Leary is, You kind of get little pieces of it. It’s a little bit, again, Total Recall is a totally, like, does this a little bit better. But then you have just the ridiculous, I feel like Wesley Snipes is too over the top in every scene. And that was just like, it got a little old. It was like, play crazy the way that a little kid would play crazy. And it just didn’t land for me. The action does feel really dated now. Like, I remember when I watched it the first time and I was like, this is great, this is, you know… And now I kind of look at it and go, well, where action movies are, even at this time, we’ve had Die Hard, which is an amazing action movie. You know, I think we’ve even had Die Hard 2 by that point. And so this movie just doesn’t land the way it did when I first watched it. The setup is that they have been frozen you know cryogenically frozen and then Wesley Snipes has been thawed we don’t really know why but you know that’s a kind of an interesting piece of like you know there’s no murder anymore so they got to bring someone that can come in and do that but then nobody knows how to stop him and so who do you bring you get you know you bring back someone who’s stopped him the first time we won’t get into the details of all of how that happens until the back of the box. So I thought that was an interesting setup and an interesting premise. And the satire does to me work. Like there’s some interesting conversations. I wanted more of it. I wanted more of that world instead of being kind of interrupted by some of the ridiculousness of Wesley Snipes’ choices with his character and some of the really just terrible action sequences that we saw. Especially the one in the museum where they’re just like shooting and nothing is hitting. Like it’s great bad shots everywhere. Right.
Greg: Working fire hydrant though. Just right there on the ground.
Joe: Just right there. Yeah. Just to get some water. So it was a fun trip down memory lane for me and like, and I’m glad to leave it there. It was kind of the way that I felt. But it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be. And then there are moments where it’s like, oh, this is gonna be rough. But then it’s like, once they get into the future, they really rush through that first act to get us there. Like the first five minutes of the movie is the first act of this, of them getting to the future as quickly as they possibly can. I wish they maybe spent a little bit more time kind of trope that, you know, if you dive away from an explosion and everyone is safe, anybody that’s in like 10 blocks of that is basically gonna be killed, but they’re safe.
Greg: Yeah, as long as you ran away from it in slow motion, I went, ah, you’re good, you’re good. Yes, while carrying Wesley Snipes in his joker pants, in his stripy joker pants. All right, I have two different, ah, that we need to listen to. Okay, this is when he’s carrying Wesley Snipes right here. So a little bit there. And here’s the second one at the end when he’s diving away from blowing up the building, that’s also freezing at the same time. It’s freezing and blowing up, but don’t ask any questions. In both of those, he is running in slow motion, which is very important. You kind of said, I wish we had gone further into the future stuff. Judge Dredd is two years after this and a much less successful film in my memory. I think this movie is successful because, well, because it’s not trying to be dark. It’s kind of a beautiful place. There’s lots of woods. The futuristic look of it is actually kind of pretty good. I don’t really know how they pulled it off. It’s a $70 million movie in 1993. It’s a really expensive movie, but Joel Silver, you know, was just known for that. But when you think of like movies like this that you would want to revisit from the nineties, what comes to mind?
Joe: I actually went back to the eighties of Blade Runner was kind of the one that I went to. So the best one? Yeah, the best futuristic movie. I’ve seen Judge Dredd one time. It’s been a really long time since I’ve seen it. Armand Assante is the bad guy in that, if I vaguely remember.
Greg: Good memory.
Joe: But what was interesting to me was that future. You kind of come there and they’ve in a sense created a utopia. That’s kind of what you think when you get there. There’s no swearing. They’ve gotten rid of everything bad. And so you kind of have Sylvester Stallone as this fish out of water. I think they call him a Neanderthal multiple times.
Greg: And a million different things. Yeah. Yeah.
Joe: You know, as he kind of bumps into all of the different problems that they have, but the appearance of perfection and the fact that it isn’t a perfect society was like, to me, the more interesting thing to look at there. Sure. And they don’t go in. I mean, it’s an action movie, So they’re not going to go into that detail as much as I would have liked them to. But yeah, I was more interested in, you know, basically they’ve created this cult and yeah, you know, everything on the surface looks good, but they’re, you know, people are hungry and there’s the people under the live in the sewers are stealing food. And so, right. The conceit is that he’s got to bring Wesley Snipes to kill the leader of this rebellion because no one else can do it. That to me is the most interesting part of it. And they kind of don’t give that as much time as I would have liked to have seen because then they kind of get into the, the, the action set pieces. There’s a little bit of the romance between Sandra Bullock and Sylvester Stallone. And we kind of lose the part that was the most interesting, which was the satire and like, what are they trying to say about our society?
Greg: It kind of seems like you’re pitching, like we got to bring demolition man back and give it another time at the plate.
Joe: Yeah. I think, I mean, there’s an interesting idea in there and it just, for me, fell off on execution. And I think we’ve been spoiled by the action movies that we have done on this show and just where action movies are. Like after this, I started watching John Wick chapter three and like the first 45 minutes of that is like some of the best actions like you’ll ever see in a movie. I was like, okay, I needed, this is where we are now.
Greg: It’s been a while since you’ve mentioned John wick on this show I know I’ve been all in on the gray man it’s been chilly it’s been a cold experience now we’ve warmed up now a little bit you warmed it up with John wick
Joe: Reference yeah that’s right you know we got to bring it back I mean I as much as I love the gray man John wick yeah what they’re doing with that franchise I mean some of the action sequences and just in that first 45 minutes of the third one is you know most movies aspire to have one scene that good. I’ll even take the 355 over this. At least from an action
Greg: Scene perspective. Yeah I found myself enjoying the action scenes more than I expected. There are some pretty bad ones in here. The end of this movie is pretty rough when they’re in like Dr. Cocteau’s lab where people are cryogenically frozen. Oh because Wesley Snipes is thawing out like 80 bad guys to help him do something that kind of makes no sense. What’s going on there is there’s some thin plot happening there. But there are some pretty good fight scenes between Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes. Sylvester Stallone actually was having trouble fighting with Wesley Snipes because Wesley Snipes actually is like double black belt. And so Sylvester Stallone put like an iron plate over his abdomen so that Wesley Snipes could really kick him as hard as he wanted to and it wouldn’t cause trouble. And that was something Sylvester Stallone wanted. He was like, I don’t want it to look like you’re sort of not hitting me. And let’s be honest, there are so many kicks and punches in this movie that are so clearly not actually making contact. It is unbelievable. Just unbelievable. That’s pretty hilarious. But also the director of this movie had to ask Wesley Snipes to go slower because the cameras weren’t able to catch how fast he was kicking and stuff and they actually compromised by filming at a different speed so it wouldn’t be so blurry, which is just awesome. And this is the moment where Wesley Snipes kind of turns the corner into action movies like Drop Zone.
Joe: Boiling Point or Passenger 57.
Greg: Oh yeah, passenger 57, Murder at 1600. He had just made Rising Sun with Sean Connery. And I think people were really impressed with how he had kind of went toe to toe with Sean Connery in this movie, going toe to toe, maybe even sometimes stealing scenes from Sylvester Stallone in some people’s eyes. Just massively talented. I think this movie basically, he floundered a bit after this and then kind of found where he fits perfectly with Blade.
Joe: In 1993, like these are two of the biggest movie stars on the planet. Yeah. And I think white man can’t jump had already come out. It was a 92 90.
Greg: Yeah. I think it had, I think you’re right. Yeah.
Joe: So we have Wesley Snipes and then Sylvester Stallone as kind of at the Zenith of his stardom as an action hero.
Greg: Cliffhanger was huge earlier that year. Yeah. Let’s talk about the director for a minute, Marco Brambilla, Joel Silver, who was basically making all the movies that you and I wanted to watch. Yes. He was just had it dialed in for stupid kids. Um, list off in 1993, who you think Joel silver called to direct this movie. John McTiernan. Sure. He was making the last action hero.
Joe: Shane black. Not a director yet. Not a director yet. Okay. Yep.
Greg: Actor, writer, Renny Harlin. Yeah. He had already made like 30 Joel Silver films.
Joe: Who did Lethal Weapon?
Greg: Richard Donner, Dickie Dons.
Joe: Richard Donner. Yeah. That would be my, that’s my short list right there. Off the top of my head. How did I do?
Greg: I mean, those are all the, I’m sure those are all on a list. He went to a famous commercial director.
Joe: Oh, would this be Michael Bay?
Greg: No, it was David Fincher.
Joe: Oh, I want him to direct this.
Greg: I know. How good would that have been? David Fincher said I can’t do it but instead of just passing he said you should call my friend Marco he’s incredible and he would be really good with this. Joel Silver was like well if David Fincher is telling me to call this guy I’m gonna call this guy and so that’s how Marco Brambilla got this job. David Fincher was friends with him and they were making commercials together or kind of their peers and you know the right high-budget high concept, artistic, commercial game. Marco Brambilla made like two full-length movies after this. He really wasn’t a movie director for very long. He made a movie with Alicia Silverstone after this that was apparently kind of a comedy. Is that the one with Benicio del Toro? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Benicio del Toro and Christopher Walken. It’s called Excess Baggage.
Joe: I’ve never heard of this. You might need to put that movie on the, I’ve heard of it. The only reason I remember it is Alicia Silverstone made sure to cast Benicio del Toro in it because of his performance in the, in the usual suspects. Wow. Okay.
Greg: I feel like I should also let you know that Harry Connick Jr. Is in it as
Joe: Greg. Greg Swinehart, are you in this movie?
Greg: I think it’s based on my life. Let’s see what else? It’s called Excess Badgidge. It’s about love handles. That’s about love handles. He then made a movie called, no, he really just made a show after that called Dinotopia. It was like a mini series, like a high budget mini series that was sort of well regarded, but he had just done a bunch of commercials and a few, you know, famous music videos. Like he did like a CNC music factory video. He did, uh, he eventually did a Kanye West video in like 2010, But he was really, he left Hollywood. Ironically, this movie starts with the Hollywood sign on fire. This guy ended up making really famous video art installations. Like this guy is an artist, like award-winning, well regarded. He just said, I want nothing to do with with Hollywood. He actually has a kind of an amazing quote in 1993 where he said, mainstream Hollywood had ceased to be a filmmaker’s medium instead had become a a producer’s medium, which is kind of true. Joel Silver put this movie together and was rapidly devolving into a marketing department’s medium. Just shots fired, that’s incredible. But I’ve designed for companies. I did social media for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia for the FX network. I’ve been close to what it’s like to do kind of advertising-y, marketing-y stuff for these big companies. It’s kind of horrible. And it’s so designed by committee. And you know, that was what he was kind of like thriving in up until this point. It must’ve just driven him nuts. I’m sure Fincher, these guys must have really thick skin. They’re just like, no, I’m not doing it there. I’m sure they were kind of divas like that. But to have Hollywood be the straw that broke the camel’s back for him, it kind of shocks me. He must have not liked making commercials either because I can’t imagine that this movie was any different than working for like Pepsi or whoever he made. It’s just rooms full of people who are keeping their jobs, actually doing a job and they’re giving you all kinds of opinions, it’s just the worst. So I’m happy for him, you know, that he did a couple things and then he got out and did art. That’s pretty awesome. And so I think some of the kind of stronger ideas in this movie, that’s what he was bringing to the table. He also had a flair for knowing how to do digital kind of stuff within his frame, which is why Fincher also suggested him. And so, you know, the visual effects in this movie aren’t so bad. There’s kind of some times where I think, are they really doing this? Like, do they really set a whole kind of couple acres on fire, you know, and this helicopter is flying towards it? Maybe that was miniature work. I have no idea. It looked pretty
Joe: Good. Yeah, I mean the look of this movie is… It’s strong and I always give kind of a grain of salt especially for older films when you’re getting some of the like the CGI stuff that just CGI wasn’t great in 1993 but this movie looks really good yeah the final scene where Wesley Snipes freezes to death and like you know that’s a pretty fun you know it looks cool it was a fun villains death and then even the explosion. I mean, it is the biggest explosion you could possibly have. I can’t undersell this at the beginning.
Greg: At the beginning. Yeah. That whole building. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. Cause it just like explodes and then just keeps on exploding and it’s, it’s awesome. Like that is how you get to me. You know, you, you’re, you’re a silent helicopter for me. It’s like blow something up, just really blow it up. And I’m in, especially at, you know, what 17 whenever I watch this the first time, you know, like just blow something up real nice. And I’m, I’m in. Okay.
Greg: So we’ll call that a Sky Tucker when just a whole building blows up or a house or something. Okay. Yeah.
Joe: We almost have a Swinehart with the helicopter at the beginning of this as well. You know, we do have them talking, you know, without headsets on.
Greg: In the most massive helicopter in history.
Joe: Exactly. And they just jumps out of it. It’s, it’s glorious. It’s such a hero’s entrance for him. He comes out of the darkness into the light of the conversation. He’s wearing a beret. Nobody wears berets like Sylvester Stallone, so.
Greg: Do you remember how striking it was, the size of Sylvester Stallone’s hat in Cliffhanger? He really seems to be going through like a hat era. There are so many hats in this movie.
Joe: What is going on here? Yeah, I don’t know. Cause the beret really was his uniform cause he puts it on at the end when he needs the extra oomph. So yeah, it’s definitely Sylvester Stallone’s, uh, hat era as you say. Yeah. Back in the, in the early nineties.
Greg: He’s got like a cop baseball hat on for a lot of the movie as well. It’s not as big as the one he had in a cliffhanger, which is disappointing once you’ve got one that big. Yeah. I don’t want them to get any smaller. I think they should just continue to get bigger throughout the nineties and the two thousands. Yeah. In this movie, when you’re in your cryogenic jail cell where you’re frozen, I guess he’s frozen for like 40 years as is Wesley Snipes. And he goes to jail because he told Wesley Snipes he didn’t care if people were alive or dead. That’s why he goes to jail. Yes.
Joe: Sort of because he captures Wesley Snipes in the beginning. Yep. Because there is a bus full of hostages. And he doesn’t save the hostages. He saves Wesley Snipes to arrest him and then goes to jail.
Greg: Right. And they did like a heat scan of the building. And what we don’t know yet is that everybody that was on the bus that they’re looking for has already passed away. But then after the building blows up, they say bodies everywhere, which is the funniest way to describe bodies.
Joe: And then he’s arrested and like instantly frozen.
Greg: Yeah, it’s so thin.
Joe: It’s so thin. Yeah. The first act of this movie, if it’s five minutes, were, is, that’s it. Like we are, get to the point quickly. There is no wasted effort in this. It’s like a short film of them both being arrested at the same time. It is a wild leap that they have just to get to the future. 40 years was too short of a time. I wanted like 140 years or something like that. I needed, I wanted a little bit more time because you do have, you have one character that was alive, the helicopter pilot that he recognized, but apparently that’s the only person that survived from the beginning of the movie to then.
Greg: Yeah, that’s weird.
Joe: And so the time jump needs to be so much longer to me because there’s like only one person survived in the police force. Yep. And it’s the one, it’s the one helicopter pilot, and they have two scenes together and then that’s it.
Greg: Bill Cobbs, who’s like a classic, that guy in 90s. Yeah. Yeah. Always good to see him. Yeah. It’s pretty much paper thin. The guy who wrote this movie thought of it while he was listening to the song demolition man by the police which isn’t the greatest song and honestly the remix that they did or I think sting might have re-recorded it actually it is so horrible the version of that song it’s already not a great police song the cover version that sting does of demolition man for this movie is basically all you need to hear to understand how paper-thin a lot of this movie is yeah but maybe we just didn’t care back then who cares you
Joe: Know yeah I mean I’m not even mad that they accelerated through the first act of this movie. Really, the point of it is to get to the future version. And again, once they do, Sandra Bullock steals this movie as soon as she’s on screen. This is a year before Speed, I think, but it’s so evident that she’s going to be a star. She just pops off the screen. I think that she sells the innocence of the time of everyone is just kind of everyone is happy and everything is good then be well is kind of like the the saying that everyone does right enhance your calm yeah and if she is playing it at all for laughs or as a wink it doesn’t work like she’s you have to be fully committed to that yeah character sure and she she is
Greg: She’s great in this she moves on to speed the next year and then she’s in that rom-com while you were sleeping and then she’s the star of the Nets and then she’s kind of a team player in A Time to Kill and then she makes speed too so that she can also make hope floats. Practical magic is in there somewhere. I mean she’s on a run. Yeah I mean every couple years we’re reminded why Sandra Bullock is a star. It’s pretty incredible. She has Practical Magic 2 coming up. Untitled romantic thriller with Keanu Reeves. The sequel to Speed that we should have had. Oh yeah they’re finishing up the trilogy with Threed. So the whole, you know, that’s like a utopia. But the guy who ran the utopia has trained Wesley Snipes in his cryogenic sleep to be a perfect killer so that he can be thought out and murder the leader of the underground people, Denis Leary. That’s pretty good plot mechanics
Joe: There.
Greg: I’m on board with it. Denis Leary, who was kind of all over MTV at the time, he would just like chain smoke on stage and just rattle off things. Joel Silver called him and said we basically just want you to do your act in a couple scenes in this movie and he was like alright. And so he does that and it’s a little bit too much. I feel like he becomes a better actor as he goes in life but you know what kind of looking back and remembering what his comedy was like it’s like yeah it’s pretty good. You know he’s saying things like, I want to have high cholesterol, you know, I want to have the freedom to choose to live my life the way I choose it. There’s some pretty powerful stuff in there that kind of resonates these days.
Joe: It’s interesting. Denis Leary is no cure for cancer. I had that on cassette tape. I was, I’m a big fan of Denis Leary. I think he’s really funny and I love to stand up from that time. And yeah, he would do these rants if people don’t remember on MTV where he would just like just like a minute of him staring straight into the camera, black and white while he’s smoking, ranting about something. And it was, you know, I loved it. I loved every second of it.
Greg: So Simon Phoenix, Wesley Snipes character in this movie says Simon says quite a bit, and I don’t know if he came up with that or if that was in the script, but I remember when Die Hard 3 came out, which was based on a script titled Simon Says and, um, Jeremy Irons is playing Simon Says with like bombs and schools and whatever in that movie I remember being very uncomfortable that it was a little bit too close to Demolition man and why is Die Hard cheapening itself with an idea from Demolition Man?
Joe: Fair
Greg: Which movie do you think does Simon Says better Demolition Man or Die Hard 3?
Joe: I can’t even Die Hard 3 is one of my favorite movies from that time. I know that’s that’s divisive, but I still really love Die Hard with a Vengeance. I remember seeing it in the theaters and I know the ending doesn’t quite live up to all of what builds to it, but I loved every second of it. And at that point I was the biggest Bruce Willis fan on the planet. So it didn’t matter what he was doing. I was gonna watch it and I was gonna like it whether it was good or not. Remember we all watched the Jackal together and that movie is just terrible. It is awful. It is an awful, awful, awful movie. Richard Gere, Jack Black shows up for a second, Sidney Poitier is in it. Yeah. And Bruce Willis is the bad guy and the world’s greatest assassin who’s making mistakes that nobody would miss make. But anyway, and I loved every second of that movie. So, and rooted for him the entire time to win and get his man.
Greg: Wow. We just went on a whole journey from Simon Says. That’s right. Let’s talk about the humor in this movie a little bit. It’s pretty good between Sandra Bullock and Sylvester Stallone. Sandra Bullock in this scene, she kills a guy who’s right behind Sylvester Stallone and she’s never done that before. Death really doesn’t quite happen in this world anymore. Nobody’s killed and so it’s all very startling to her. Let’s listen to this.
Clip: I’m impressed. That man has died by my hands. Him or else I’ll flee. Well, yeah, there is that. Anyway, where the hell did you learn to kick like that? Oh, um, Jackie Chan movies?
Greg: At this point in the movie, that’s kind of later in the movie, at that point I was just like, well, we could just do this the whole movie. This is great. Like this scene.
Clip: It’s fine you do not accuse the savior of our city of being connected with a multi murder death killer like Simon Phoenix. It’s rude. That’ll be subtle. I’m good at subtle.
Greg: I’m good at subtle.
Joe: It’s pretty good. I have two things. OK. So Wesley Snipes has been frozen for 40 years.
Greg: We’ve all been there.
Joe: And he gets out and he decides that he wants to wear overalls. Did you ever go through an overall phase?
Greg: I did get one pair of overalls one time at a secondhand store. And I think I never once wore them. So, no. How about you?
Joe: Yeah. Only when I was like five or six. And I remember not liking them because going to the bathroom and them was just the world’s biggest pain. Yeah. But there was, for those, our dear listeners, if you don’t remember the early nineties, overalls were kind of popular. Like some of the, I remember kids in high school. Yep. There were some cool kids were wearing overalls and they wouldn’t like just snap one of them, so one of them would be unsnapped. So it was kind of a thing and it made its way to Bellingham, Washington in the 90s, I remember. And then while Simon Phoenix or Wesley Snipes is cryogenically frozen, they are programming him to become like he can hack into computer systems and he knows all this other stuff. Sylvester Stallone’s character learned how to knit. And so there’s like the most ridiculous scene of him alone in his apartment knitting. And then he knits in a night, a sweater for Sandra Bullock to apologize for the night before, cause I kind of have a fight. And I just thought that the thought of Sylvester Stallone knitting, it was worth the price of admission to me, quite frankly. Totally. As a like plot device, they could have brought it back. I wish there was like a way like he could have killed someone with like knitting needles or something like that. It was just, there was they were begging for one more needle drop of the knitting that they, they put in the hair.
Greg: There was that one where he got in a fight and um, she says,
Clip: Look at you. You’re in shambles. Don’t worry, I can fix it later. All I need is a needle.
Greg: That’s right. And then he stops for a second. He’s like, yeah, yeah. That was pretty funny.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: We talked about this in the cliffhanger episode as well, where at this point, we’re kind of done with a certain kind of action movie. We’re kind of like in a postmodern action movie phase where people are a little bit more cognizant of how ridiculous the 80s were. And I really kind of found that refreshing in cliffhanger. You know, when like he’s throwing money on the fire and he says it costs a fortune to heat this place, and he goes cheesy, I know. Like he’s referenced, he’s recognizing that his jokes are dumb. So he’s this super tough guy, And, you know, he, in his cryogenic sleep, was rehabilitated to be amazing at sewing because it would help him, you know, regulate his feelings or something. But just the fact that Sylvester Stallone, an action hero, you know, beefcake guy from the 80s, is now sewing, the contrast there is amazing. And the fact that he’s going along with it. Shows that he is not actually, as a person, who he portrayed on screen. He’s actually kind of an artistic guy. He was constantly painting and he was much more philosophical and artistic than the characters that he would play in The Expendables or Escape Plan or all of these stupid movies. It’s interesting. I like that he’s willing to mess with his persona a little bit in these movies. And it’s pretty funny. It’s pretty funny.
Joe: Yeah, he’s one of those that you kind of, he’s kind of like, you would think of him as the dumb action hero. Yeah. And I think some of it is like, he’s got the really deep voice and the, you know, and the, like, you kind of think of Rocky, but Sylvester Stallone is brilliant. And he knows how to write movies. He knows what resonates. I mean, even just taking Rocky as the, the bet on himself, he didn’t take any money for it. He just took money on the back end. He wrote that movie and I’ve heard him talk about like writing and the process of writing that he goes through and he’s like, you know, you write it all down, 95% of it is going to be terrible. And that’s okay. It’s supposed to be. And then you go through and you take the 10% or the 5% that’s good and then you work on that and then you refine it, you know. So I think that he kind of does get lumped in there as kind of the dumb action hero, he has been in the public spotlight for like 50 years now. And has kind of maintained and kind of kept his persona and his action movie chops throughout and that has evolved and it’s wild to see someone that has kind of weathered all of what Hollywood can throw at you and still churn out. I mean, I feel like they could make expendables for the next 20 years if they wanted to. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know what their plan for Expendables, 25.
Greg: No, uh, they made Expendables for it. It just absolutely bombed. And so, okay. But, uh, it was a creative peak at three. I think we can all agree on that. We’ll get to Expendables three. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Obviously. You know, there’s a really interesting book that I read last year called the last action heroes written by Nick de Semlyen. And it’s the story of Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Steven Seagal, Jackie Chan, and Chuck Norris. It kind of tells all of their stories and how they interacted with each other and had pretty big feuds with each other. Pretty interesting and the stuff on Sylvester Stallone in that book was really interesting because who he really is is very different than who he became famous for being. Interesting that he has that movie about him called I Play Rocky coming out later this year. Have you seen the trailers for that?
Joe: I have seen, yeah. I’m very curious about that.
Greg: Pretty interesting writer. He’s written on a lot of the stuff that he’s been
Joe: Into. Yes. The last thing I want to say is Sylvester Stallone in this time period changes how movies are made. How so? It’s more how stars are attached to movies, so he started this kind of the trend of going to a studio and saying, you know, let’s get under contract for two movies. I’ll do two movies. What those are, they haven’t even picked yet. So he would come to, you know, Warner Brothers and say, let’s sign a three picture deal. No one was really was doing that at that time. And so what those movies were, it wasn’t like he had the three movies ready to go. It was, he was signed up and he was locked into a contract to do those movies. And that was a new thing that was happened that he kind of brought back. It was kind of like what the studio system was doing in the, like the forties and the fifties of like, yeah, you’re locked into a contract and you’re going to do this. But he was taking from the actor’s side, not the studio side of saying, you know, and then when there was also some negotiation of like, Oh, you want this movie? Okay, I’ll do that movie. But I get to do two movies like this, or I get to do the movie that I want to make. And so he was really negotiating with the studios in a, in a way that actors weren’t doing until he came along and, and kind of, and changed that and brought that to the nineties kind of action scene, if you will, or movies. Interesting. Huh? I think he’s ahead. He’s ahead of the curve in a lot of ways, I think, and he understands movies a lot better than people understand, Even though he makes really, you know, in a lot of cases, big, dumb action movies that, you know, pretty forgettable when you watch them. But he knew something. He had his finger on the pulse.
Greg: A hundred percent. Yeah. And sometimes there’s just a running joke about seashells instead of toilet paper. And it’s never explained and it’s beautiful. It’s an amazing running joke.
Joe: One of my favorite things about the Demolition Man is they never explain the seashells.
Greg: Yeah, totally. And they finish on that joke.
Joe: Yeah, they really wanted to like hit you over the head with that by the end. So if we don’t have that as a drinking game, that’s a missed opportunity is what I’m saying.
Greg: I think the writer, the writer was putting this movie together. He called a friend of his who I think had a phone in his bathroom. The guy was in the bathroom and he’s like, I need some future stuff. And the guy had like a seashell decoration in his bathroom. So he was like, I don’t know, maybe say that there’s no toilet paper, there’s seashells now. And they loved how vague it was and they just kept it. I feel like it’s like a perfect soft joke.
Joe: Yeah, yeah.
Greg: There’s also a running joke throughout the movie where Sandra Bullock gets old phrases wrong.
Joe: Mm-hmm. Pretty good? Pretty good. Again, would have been better if the time between had been longer.
Greg: Gotcha. So, Sylvester Stallone is frustrated. He’s like the straight man. He’s frustrated about how Sandra Bullock is saying these things incorrectly throughout the movie And then here’s the last one that happens in the movie here
Clip: You can take this job and you can shovel it Take this job
Joe: Close enough
Greg: They’re pretty great. They’re adorable. Yeah, here’s what’s weird. There is like a whole vein that would totally be exploited more now now, which is that Sylvester Stallone’s, he assumes his wife has passed away, but he also alludes to the fact that he has a daughter alive out there somewhere and he doesn’t want to find her. There’s theories online that Sandra Bullock is actually his daughter.
Joe: Hmm. Okay. Yeah. Makes the last scene a little rough, but that’s all.
Greg: Yeah. They kiss in the last scene. Yeah. They also have like a bizarre virtual sex scene in this movie that is just ridiculous. Mostly for comedic effect, I think. Yeah, Sandra Bullock said it was just like the weirdest day of shooting where they were like, yeah We were just sitting there and just making weird noises all day. It was a very weird experience But she was like complaining that it wasn’t a real sex scene. I think is what that was her take on it Right, but yeah, like he has a daughter out there. We never get to that
Joe: Is that maybe just the sequel they just completely leave it alone. Yeah again a problem that solved if it’s a hundred years into the future or because I would be desperate to find my family if I had woken up, found out my wife had passed away but my daughter was alive or my son. The whole point of the movie would have been trying to get to my son. You’re
Greg: Like McConaughey in Interstellar. You’ve always been like McConaughey. You’re constantly growing corn, let’s be honest. Yes, exactly. I think so.
Joe: It’s kind of a throwaway of like, yeah you just found out your wife is dead and you don’t want to find your daughter, all right, now let’s go get the bad guy.” And he’s like, all right, off we go. So, you know, to me it was like either don’t put it in there or seriously have it some sort of intersection where, you know, his daughter could have been the assistant to the bad guy and he’s got to save her too and they find out, you know, there’s a million ways you
Greg: Could have tied it in. There must have been a subplot that they cut out. Yeah. Or they should have just left that out. It doesn’t speak to his I mean, I guess it sort of speaks to his like what’s happening in his interior life, you know Mm-hmm. It would be very weird to be in his shoes, but that’s the only place this movie by by the way one thing I love about this movie is there are just Amazing exposition scenes where they’re like, hey, do you remember how and then they say like everything that’s happened in the last 10 years years. Well Joe I mean I really worry despite the fact that people have had a long time to watch this movie there’s a chance there are people who are watching this who have not seen Demolition Man yet and I know people worry about how long this usually gets week to week so I’m just gonna try and catch the chase here. I think it’s time for us to help people out with what this movie is about as if they were actually walking through like an old-school video store in the early 90s. So that’s like even before Blockbuster Video was a thing I think. It wasn’t definitely wasn’t a national franchise yet. What year did Blockbuster become a national franchise? I’m sure it’s
Joe: Earlier than we realized but I don’t really remember them being everywhere until the late 90s. Yeah. Kind of when I remember them. It was the independent store. I’m trying to remember where we would go. There were a couple places. I feel like there was one in by Sehome High School that we would go to. There were a couple video stores. Are you talking about Encore Video? Yes. In Sehome Square? Sehome Village. Sehome Village. Yeah. Yes. I think that was like the best one, like the biggest one, but there are a few others, but I I remember, cause we lived close to there as well. Anything in Bellingham was actually very close. So it’s like, anything like everything in Seattle is like 25 minutes away. Everything in Bellingham is 10 minutes away, you know? But yeah, I remember Encore Video in the, in Sehome Village by Haggen. That’s, that’s where we are right now in my mind.
Greg: We’re at Encore. We’re not at Crazy Mike’s?
Joe: Oh yeah. Crazy Mike’s. Yeah. Crazy Mike’s was good too.
Greg: Next to Ennen’s. Crazy Mike’s. Yeah. It seemed a little less corporate to me. Yeah. I just want to point out that I’m not the one that made this a long set up.
Joe: Yeah. No. Yeah. That’s my fault.
Greg: People who are complaining about how long these are getting is totally not my fault this time.
Joe: Yeah. We went to school with, uh, with the Ennen’s by the way, of Ennen’s Supermarket by Crazy Mike’s. We did? Yeah, I did. I forgot about that. Yeah. Screw that guy. Anyway. Jimmy Ennen? Yeah. What’s he doing now? Nothing good, ruining Blockbuster videos everywhere.
Greg: Ennen’s ruined Blockbusters.
Joe: I have no idea if that’s true.
Greg: I think we need to unpack this a little bit. And again, I don’t want to, but I feel like the listener is going to want us to figure out why this grocery store ruined Blockbuster video.
Joe: I mean, you could always rent videos at the stores too. They didn’t have as good a selection as the video stores did. So they were putting them out of business. That’s what it was. You know, Crazy Mike’s and Encore Video were put out of video because of
Greg: Ennen’s and Haggen and put out of business. Yeah. Ennen’s is now a Whole Foods. Yeah, that tracks.
Joe: Yeah. Seems about right. All right. So anyway, it’s 1993. You’ve just gone to Ennen’s and you have gotten some ice cream.
Greg: What kind of ice cream are you buying at Ennen’s in 1993?
Joe: I’m probably getting coffee, coffee ice cream, a Haagen-Dazs coffee.
Greg: Haagen-Dazs coffee, okay.
Joe: That was my go-to way back then.
Greg: I think coffee almond chunk was an option for Ben and Jerry’s back then. I think they actually had like a McAlmond fudge.
Joe: Yeah, okay.
Greg: Before coffee buzz, buzz, buzz.
Joe: Did you ever go to Swenson’s way back when in California? Swenson, yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah, I remember.
Greg: So, Joe, I’m worried that people will not know what this movie is about, and I’m trying to figure out if there is any way that they could know through some sort of like regular segment that we would have on this show, and nothing comes to mind.
Joe: Yeah, nothing comes to mind. That’s all right. Maybe we should create something right now. Let’s throw some stuff at the wall. Sure. Sure. It could be a synopsis, the synopsis for the movie. Sure.
Greg: Good name for this show. Probably the synopsis.
Joe: There we go. Did you ever watch the movie? Penn and Teller did. It was about the joke, the sophisticates, or the the aristocrats? The aristocrats. Yep. And that John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd used to like have parties where they would try to tell that joke through the entire party so they would never get to the punchline, so they would just like keep telling like more and like it would just like this. That is what’s happening with the back of the box right now is we’re just like, how long can we make the description until we get there? So it is great.
Greg: I was with you until you said back of the box. I don’t quite follow. What are you talking about?
Joe: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. The synopsis. This is a working title. A working title could also be, you know, another name for this podcast. Okay, great. Anyway, yes. If we only had a synopsis or some sort of segment in the show that described the movies for our dear listeners.
Greg: Oh, that, like, you could read that you wrote every week?
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Alright, let’s do it.
Clip: It’s time for the Back of the Box! The Back of the Box!
Joe: In his last act of vengeance, Simon Phoenix, Wesley Snipes, frames John Spartan, Sylvester Stallone, for a crime he did not commit. The criminal mastermind, and the one who can stop him, are both cryogenically frozen in a prison as punishment for their crimes, now 40 years in the future. Future and society is a near utopia except Simon Phoenix has been thawed and released and no one knows who or how to stop him. A reluctant police force must now turn to the one man who knows how to stop Simon Phoenix, John Spartan. Bullets and one-liners fly as the action explodes off the screen in this futuristic sci-fi classic. Wow. That plot is ridiculous. I don’t know if I rent it, honestly. Yeah, I was trying to get there, I don’t know. Here’s what gets me to rent it.
Greg: Joe Sky Tucker decides to write down how he honestly feels about this movie and gives us the real honest, true Joe Sky Tucker back of the box.
Joe: Sweet, I have two. One is pretty mean and one is less mean. It’s probably more how I feel. What are you feeling?
Greg: I think you should read the meanest one. I think we need the unfiltered, unvarnished.
Joe: All right, here we go. Wow, this movie is bad. Like really, really bad. I remember thinking it was stupid when I first saw it, but nothing could have prepared me for how poorly it held up. Spoilers for an important question later in this episode. Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone are acting in a movie that should have been made in 1983, when this kind of low-budget action was more prevalent. The rest of the cast are acting in a Star Trek episode from the 1960s. The result is a chaotic mess. Buried in the schlock is an interesting idea of juxtaposing our past and our future selves through an examination of the nature of humans. Will our baser and primitive nature win out versus our intellectual and scientific potential? Instead of answering that question, we get a nice explosion at the beginning of the movie and the flicker of the star Sandra Bullock was to become. That’s my real back of the box. It’s a little dark.
Greg: You know, I want to hear the other one.
Joe: Okay. This one’s a little nicer. Okay. Okay. This movie is ridiculous. It is ridiculously bad. Sometimes so bad it’s good. Most of the time it’s just bad. A bad mix of 80s action tropes, bad writing and worse acting. There’s a weird nostalgia I feel when I watched it, but it was not enough to carry me through the movie. I’m glad we’re doing an episode on it and even more glad I will likely never watch Demolition Man ever again.
Greg: That’s awesome. I forgot to bring up one segment that I wanted to bring up for this episode and that is how well it does with predictions in the future. Oh, surprisingly well. Yeah, I mean it has contactless interactions of like cash has been eliminated so you tap to pay, physical touch is forbidden in this movie, things that are bad for you are illegal like salt. Video calls and telehealth. There’s like wall screen, remote conference things happening and appointments. Basically FaceTime in this movie. Yep, nailed it. Zoom calls. Yeah. There is like smart home voice control. We have that. Nice little joke where Sylvester Stallone like falls down and then he says turn on the lights. That was pretty funny. There’s self-driving vehicles? Mm-hmm. There’s also voice commanded autopilot kind of stuff. Schwarzenegger and politics? Automated speech fines? I guess that could be like AI chat moderation online or something. I don’t know. Every time they swear there’s like a brrr and a ticket is printed up which is pretty
Joe: Funny. Yeah that’s played for laughs. There’s also a lot of like the surveillance like the cameras everywhere so they’re able to see everything that’s happened. Sure, sure. That’s where the graphics don’t catch up with the, you know, with the times, but we have that now. I mean facial recognition software, they’re able to see into the, you know, where Simon Phoenix is killing everyone. We’re able to see, you know, they’re able to follow the action of where he is. So, yeah, it’s pretty good. Yeah, better
Greg: Than most, honestly. Better batting average than Back to the Future 2? All right, Joe, should we get to the box office and critical response to this movie?
Joe: Absolutely, I cannot wait.
Greg: All right, let’s do it. This movie came out in October of 1993. Oh, it cost about $70 million to make and domestically it made $58 million. Worldwide box office for this movie is $159 million.
Joe: I’m surprised there isn’t actually a sequel based that it did make some money money and I feel like there was a fair amount of buzz around it when it came out.
Greg: Yeah, that’s weird. Especially coming from Joel Silver. Mm-hmm. So, Joe, what do you think the critical response is on Rotten Tomatoes for the movie Demolition Man? Man, does this feel like a 70. Oh man, it really does. Because there’s like great stuff, but then also ridiculous stuff.
Joe: I’m gonna go 58.
Greg: Yeah, it does feel like a 58. It’s actually a 67.
Joe: Wow, so it was a 70.
Greg: Yeah, you kind of can’t trust Rotten Tomatoes for movies like this though, because a lot of these reviews are like from 2020, you know, when everyone was at home just watching old movies. So, and there’s only 45 reviews, so we kind of can’t trust it for this. Having said that, there’s over 250,000 audience ratings on this. So what do you think the popcorn meter on Rotten Tomatoes is, the audience score?
Joe: I’m going to go 75. 67. Wow. That’s so rare that they’re dead on for both of them. Yeah, both the same. Seems high, but I’ll allow it.
Greg: I feel like this movie is more, it’s one of the peak great bad movies from 1993 and it covers a lot of bases as far as like future movies and action movies and Sandra Bullock. And I don’t know, there’s just a lot of, this is kind of a high watermark in a couple of ways. Not for you, but for the, no, for the rest of us. All right, let’s see what some of these, um, these reviews on Rotten Tomatoes say. So Eddie Harrison from FilmAuthority.com says, maybe Demolition Man doesn’t offer the pure action hit of The Terminator, but it’s one of the few big budget numbskull action flicks that actually offer some kind of wry, intelligent critique of societal change. Four out of five stars.
Joe: Wow. Although Numskull Action Flick could be a name for this podcast.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s not bad. All right. Justin Brown from Medium Popcorn, which is definitely a real thing, says, This movie is completely bonkers. It makes no sense. One out of five stars.
Joe: Yeah, it’s a real thing. I’ve decided that’s a real thing. Medium Popcorn is real.
Greg: Jonathan Rosenbaum from The Chicago Reader says, nearly all the science fiction premises are accorded the status of Andrew Dice Clay one-liners. Wow, I haven’t thought about that guy in a really long time.
Joe: Yeah, me either.
Greg: Which means that they, along with the characters, keep changing from one scene to the next. He was not a fan of this movie.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: But that has to be the most 1993 thing that could possibly be said about this movie.
Joe: I know.
Greg: All right, Collider Magazine says, still, dialogue-wise, the screenplay of Demolition Man is quite a thing to behold. The movie is full of extremely quotable one-liners and absurd exchanges that are made all the funnier by its performances. Collider liked this movie. I like that review. I accept that review. Okay, yeah. Real Film Reviews says a sporadically amusing yet pervasively underwhelming bit of early 90s cheese two out of four stars. I feel like there’s a name in there somewhere. I’m trying to pull it out. Pervasively underwhelming bit of early 90s cheese. Is that a name of the show? I think that’s the one. Efilmcritic.com says chalk full of obnoxious dialogue, terrible acting, and oh so clever product placement two out of five stars. Did I write that? There is a ton of product placement in this movie like almost like that movie Wayne’s world when they were talking about how horrible product placement is and then it was a scene full of product placement. This is almost like the realization of that scene. The moviereport.com says featuring intense action, exceptional special effects, and a healthy sense of humor, it is the film Last Action Hero wanted and failed to be. Three and a half out of
Joe: Four stars. Wow, they love this. I mean I did not like Last Action Hero at all
Greg: Either so. Which one would you prefer to watch? I think this one. This one probably says a bit more yeah yeah that’s that’s McTiernan, that’s Shane Black writing and McTiernan directing. I know I can’t believe I’m saying that but I agree it was just so bad. That’s what I would have said too. Hal Hinson from the Washington Post says basically demolition man is a futuristic cop picture with slightly more imagination and wit than the typical example of the slash-and-burn genre. So a little bit better, I agree with that. Austin Chronicle says, if you don’t really think about it, it isn’t a bad ride. Three and a half out of five stars.
Joe: Yeah, right.
Greg: Empire Magazine says this futuristic comedy depends on your opinion of Stallone and his unapologetic, popcorn-pleasing action no brainers. To be fair, this one is one of his better ones. Four out of five stars.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: It’s a low bar, it’s a low bar.
Joe: Yeah, it is a low power.
Greg: All right, Time Magazine said, ultimately the script’s often sharp social satire is drowned out by the noise and confusion. It is also undercut by casting virtually all of the psychopathically murderous criminals as minority group members. I noticed that. Yeah. I should have said this at the beginning. We did not have a Seattle Times review of this movie. So I’m going to default to the paper of record, New York Times. Vincent Canby said, demolition man is a significant artifact of our time, or at least of this week. Three out of five stars.
Joe: Yeah, I think that’s a good one to end on. That’s perfect.
Greg: All right, Joe, should we get to drinking games?
Joe: Absolutely. If you’re playing along at home, it can be water, milk if it’s ready. If you’re getting ready for bed, avoid that milk.
Greg: You gotta avoid that milk.
Joe: I’m not even going to give you other options. Just avoid that milk. A drinking game only for milk.
Greg: That’s a shirt we should sell. Avoid that milk, him in a robe.
Joe: All right, so we start with our stock drinking games. Do we have a silent helicopter or a helicopter out of nowhere? Oh, absolutely. It starts off strong with a helicopter and conversation in a helicopter and him jumping out of the helicopter like face first with just a beret. I don’t even think he was strapped in. He just like jumped out of the helicopter. It was amazing. Yeah. We do have a push in and enhance as they’re following people on the video monitors. We have two people sharing a slow motion look in the middle of chaos. We have Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone looking at each other. No explosion with silent suffering and ringing in the ears, even though we have some of the biggest explosions possible. Like it’s a really missed up opportunity. Yep. Opening credit scene where the title locks into place with the sound, there are whooshing noises as the title comes across the screen.
Greg: Let’s hear it. That’s Sylvester Stallone’s name. That’s Wesley Snipes. There’s the title.
Joe: Pretty good. With a cinematic boom. Like, so good.
Greg: Yeah, only the best movies do that.
Joe: Yeah, we do not have a flashing back to dialogue. I did not mark bad CGI. I thought the CGI in this movie, for its time, was great. Great, bad shots are annoying how much they’re in this. Yes, we have inexplicably wet streets, and no give us the room Interpol or a cell phone smash. So that is our stock drinking games. I toss it to you, Greg Swinehart, for our first bespoke drinking game.
Greg: Every time there is a swear-in fraction, which there’s like a brr, and then a ticket prints out, Every time that happens, take a drink.
Joe: Awesome, I have that one as well. I have three separate ones for when glass is broken. Every time someone drives through a window, every time someone is thrown through a window, and every time someone punches through a window, those are three separate drinking games.
Greg: That’s pretty glorious. That’s pretty good. That makes me like this movie more.
Joe: Yeah, I mean, that alone, They don’t make movies like that anymore. So I think Sylvester Stallone only punches the window once, but it might happen twice, but it’s great. Pretty great. Did you say shoot the window? Oh no, I missed that one. So shoot the window should be on there too, because-
Greg: That definitely happens. Yes. All right. My next one is anytime they reference the seashells, take a drink.
Joe: Yeah, I have that one as well. Anytime they say, be well.
Greg: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that’s good. Anytime you can tell, and I mean like everyone in the room can tell that someone actually hasn’t been punched or kicked, take a drink. Does that make sense?
Joe: Yeah. This one might need to just be not alcoholic at all, but anytime they say murder, death, kill. Oh wow, that’s rough. Yeah, they say that a lot.
Greg: Take a drink of water.
Joe: Yeah. Or maybe every three times they say it, then take a drink.
Greg: That’s a lot of math. That’s a lot of counting.
Joe: That’s true. By the end, you’re drunk and you can’t do math.
Greg: Anytime the steering wheel changes in the car, because it like self-driving car, it gets smaller. And then when the person asks to drive the car, the steering wheel gets bigger and it’s kind of rad.
Joe: Yeah. It is awesome. It’s a good idea. Anytime they say Taco Bell.
Greg: Oh, that’s good. Nice. I love that they all dress up to go to Taco Bell, by the way. It’s pretty good. Anytime Snipes makes a cartoonish noise. That’s so good. He’s like, he’s like going, like throughout the entire movie.
Joe: I think I have any time Wesley Snipes is laughing while shooting a gun. Take a drink. That was my version of that.
Greg: Anytime Sandra Bullock says a phrase incorrectly.
Joe: So good. Anytime there’s something is steaming on the screen.
Greg: That’s incredible. I would love to hear Renny Harlin’s commentary of this movie, even though he had nothing to do with it, because he would make fun of that. My last one is every time Sylvester Stallone is running in slow motion towards the camera And goes, wow.
Joe: Awesome. I have anytime jingles are sung. So like the only music are jingles from ads. Anytime people are diving and shooting, take a drink. Anytime Sylvester Stallone is called a Neanderthal, take a drink. And anytime Sylvester Stallone wears a beret, take a drink. That’s my last one.
Greg: Okay. And that’s just at the end, right?
Joe: Is that just at the end? Yeah, and the beginning.
Greg: Oh, and the beginning, okay. Perfect bookends.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: All right, Joe, we both know that there are things that when you put them together, they tend to make a great bad movie. And that means it’s time for Joe’s Trope Lightning Round AKA signs, you might be watching a great bad movie. And Joe, I want to throw a curve ball at you right now.
Joe: Awesome, bring it on.
Greg: How would you feel about me actually turning on a timer so this is a lightning round and when it dings, We’re done. Okay.
Joe: What do you think?
Greg: I’m in. We’re going to give you a minute starting now.
Joe: Okay. We have a room full of guns. We have throwing things over while on a chase on foot, kind of a fish out of water trope. We have out of the shadows into the light shot and Sylvester Stallone’s first shot on camera. The name of the movie is said by a character. We have lots of people unconvincingly knocked out. We have someone who gets punched in the face and then smiles. They don’t spit blood, but Wesley Snipes does smile when he’s getting punched in the face. Oh, this is very stressful. The person about to be, about to kill the good guy is shot as we have played the clip from that of Sandra Bullock saving Sylvester Stallone’s life. Revenge is the driver of the protagonist. He’s sort of out of retirement. We have a semi-charismatic antagonist or bad guy. Action movie trope, no women except for the love interest and checking it to see if a gun is loaded.
Greg: Wow. Nailed it.
Joe: That is stressful.
Greg: All right, Joe. I’ve been an elephant in the room and I am so tired of us dancing around these delicate subjects. I think it’s time for us to get to important questions.
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: Joe, did it hold up then?
Joe: Yeah, I think it did.
Greg: Okay. Does the movie Demolition Man hold up now?
Joe: Not as much as it did then and not at all to me now, but I think it does
Greg: My answer is yes and no to that one. Yeah, how hard do they sell the good guy in this movie? Not like you’d think yeah, they talk about how he’s like an old-school cop Yeah, we need an old-school cop to get an old-school
Joe: Criminal yeah bad guy. Yeah, but they don’t really sell him like You know, he’s kind of played for laughs as like out of his depth and out of time. Yeah How hard did they sell the bad guy? We definitely have a scene where they talk about all the terrible things he’s done and like why is he out and how did he escape when he’s killing people so there’s definitely they do a better job
Greg: Of selling bad guy. I’m always looking for like the dossier that someone’s reading like a file or something. There is that scene when they find out how he has been trained while he was in cryogenic sleep. Yeah. Let’s listen to that.
Clip: Accessing Simon Phoenix, deep file rehab 65R. Urban combat, kill, torture methodology, computer override authority, survival tactics, terrorism tactics, weapons training, martial arts, murder death kill, explosives technician, violent behavior. This isn’t a proper rehabilitation program. This would create a monster.
Greg: All right, so that’s pretty good selling of the bad guy right there. All right, Joe, next important question. Why is there romance in this movie? There’s not a lot of
Joe: Romance in this movie which I appreciate but there’s more than I would like but it’s kind of to show how weird it is in the future for romance yeah they have some throwaway lines about you know you can’t you have to go in and get it a license for a baby and those sorts of things yeah yeah there’s no touching there’s no there’s no anything no exchanging of fluids as they say so
Greg: Does that make the romance a bit more story driven like it actually does something rather than just stupid romance for you?
Joe: Yeah, I think it actually works in the movie.
Greg: And that’s why you hated it. The one movie where they did romance right is Demolition Man. Yes. Yeah. Next important question, Joe, are we bad people for love? Well, you don’t love this movie. Am I a bad person for loving this movie?
Joe: I don’t think so. There’s something about this movie that’s hard to hate. I don’t know, it’s so ridiculous. You get a pass, you’re a good person. Just for tonight, Greg. Just for tonight. Don’t let it go to your head.
Greg: Okay, okay, I appreciate that. If I’m a bad person, at least I’m a happy bad person who’s like living in sewers below San Angeles, eating questionable rat meat, burgers, singing commercial jingles. Okay, great. Next important question, does it deserve a sequel?
Joe: Deserve may be a little of a stretch, but I mean, I’m surprised it doesn’t have one. And there are worse movies that have sequels than this. So I think, yeah, I’d say yeah.
Greg: Oh, OK. I’m gonna say yes as well, but there’s a caveat here. It only has Sandra Bullock in it. There is no Sylvester Stallone, there’s no Wesley Snipes. And it also happens to be taking place on the exact same cruise ship that Speed 2 Cruise Control is taking place on.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: So she’s playing two roles. She’s Annie from Speed and she’s the character from this movie as well. That was like a famously bad sequel. So I think we can fix it by adding a second sequel on top of it.
Joe: A sequel within a sequel, which is no one’s ever tried that before.
Greg: So I like Nolan ask. I think he takes after his Odyssey break. I think he takes that one on. All right. Next important question. Does it deserve a prequel?
Joe: I would watch a series about how they’ve created the society, the, you know, because they have a pretty well oiled machine of a society that they create, even though there are things lurking under the surface. So how did they do that? How did they get the will of the people to create this quasi utopian society? So I’m curious. I have questions.
Greg: That’s season two. Season one is above ground. Season two is below.
Joe: Oh, I like that.
Greg: At the end of season one, they discover a hatch. That’s basically lost. I honestly do think this would make a really good TV show. I really wonder has this, somebody’s tried, I’m sure somebody’s tried on the latest sci-fi network. All right, Joe, Next important question. Should it have been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars in 1994? You know what? We started asking this question later in our podcast. We did not ask this question when we did the cliffhanger episode like two and a half years ago. So I have two questions for you, Joe. Should cliffhanger have been nominated and then follow up questions should demolition man have been nominated? So here are the nominees for the Oscars that year. Schindler’s List. Okay, that wins. The Fugitive. A rare-like action movie making it into best picture, by the way. In the Name of the Father, The Piano,
Joe: And The Remains of the Day. I get rid of The Remains of the Day and Cliffhanger is for sure in there.
Greg: I love this.
Joe: I’ve seen The Remains of the Day. It is a long, boring movie. Yeah, no. Famous for to me of Harvey Keitel crying naked or no, maybe that’s bad Lieutenant, but he might cry in this one naked too. I don’t remember.
Greg: Probably the same character. It’s probably the same guy. Yeah.
Joe: I feel like I used to be able to do an impersonation of Harvey Keitel crying. I would need so many more drinks than I’ve had to even attempt that. But yes, cliffhangers for sure in. Get rid of the remains of the day. Love it. I just can’t put demolition man in there.
Greg: No, that would be a mistake.
Joe: Yeah. What about you?
Greg: I’m the same. Cliffhangers in.
Joe: OK.
Greg: So having the cliffhanger and the fugitive means that this is a pretty solid year of the Oscars for me.
Joe: Yeah. Agreed.
Greg: Also Schindler’s List in the name of the father and the piano.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: But really cliffhanger.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those are three great movies. I’ve seen all of them. They’re amazing. But if I’m picking a movie to watch again, It’s cliffhanger every single time.
Greg: All right, Joe, how can this movie be fixed, AKA who should be in the remake?
Joe: I think we make it a TV series.
Greg: Yes. Agreed.
Joe: And I like your above ground, below ground idea. So I don’t know who stars in it, but yeah, I want two seasons or maybe three seasons above ground, below ground, and then how they work together, whatever that resolution is. Maybe bring in the people that worked on The Wire. I want some people who really understand how to make a TV series. Yeah. Yeah. What they do in The Wire so well is they, the seasons never feel rushed. You get to the conclusion of the season. They tell the story. I feel like some TV shows and movies, they get to like the third act and then all of a sudden they’re just trying to pack everything in together and everything is like going too fast is what it feels like to me. Or The Wire just, They tell the story and the right pacing and it’s some of the best character work I’ve ever seen on screen. So give me David Simon to do this.
Greg: Okay. I will allow it, but only if season three of Demolition Man takes place in 2005 Baltimore on the docks and has nothing to do with Demolition Man.
Joe: Perfect. Yes. It’s about human trafficking.
Greg: Totally. Okay. Well I’ve got some ideas of who should star. Okay, sweet. You know, my first thought was, this feels like, maybe like a Glenn Powell, but there’s just a whole Running Man conversation that we need to have. And I was thinking of Running Man and From the 80s with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Total Recall while I was watching this and I was like, you know what, I think Demolition Man, I enjoyed a bit more. It’s just a more fun movie than both of those movies. I haven’t watched Total Recall in a long time. So you know, maybe I’m being too harsh on the self driving vehicles that were also golf carts, but this movie felt a little bit more substantial to me. So I’m gonna say Alan Ritchson plays John Spartan. Okay. You know who I’m talking about? No, no. He’s the guy who plays Reacher. Oh yeah, yeah, yes. I think Alan Ritchson, I think he’s got it in him. Yeah. Simon Phoenix is played by Keke Palmer. Oh, I like that a lot. The Sandra Bullock character is played by Florence Pugh. Oh, because she’s hysterical. Yeah. And then obviously Dr. Cocteau is played by Christoph Waltz. There’s nobody else. Come on. Nobody else. Yeah. I want to see this cast. This is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Joe: And then Florence Pugh can really lean into the comedy because she is
Greg: Hilarious. Yeah. All right. Next important question. Joe, what album is this movie?
Joe: I had to go to an old standby where I looked at the year that this came out. Okay. And I picked an album that is an album I don’t know. Well, I don’t know at all, maybe, but to me, this is by a very famous, it’s a famous band, not a well-regarded album. So that’s kind of where I was going of like this movie that this didn’t land for me. Sure. Strong people just didn’t come across. Across. This is Guns N’ Roses, The Spaghetti Incident. Wow. That came out in 93?
Greg: Famously expensive, took forever, and was horrible. Yeah. Okay.
Joe: What album is this for you? After that review?
Greg: You know what’s crazy is I was actually thinking about that album, If Not Today, yesterday. I swear there’s gonna be a time when we both picked the same album. And it’s going to be glorious. All right, so I was going for very popular at the time, sort of holds up, has stupid futuristic feel to it. And felt like more at the time than it does now. It’s not something we look back upon as like a classic. So I’m going to say this is the 2009 album that the Black Eyed Peas put out, called The End, the E-N-D, Energy Never Dies. Did you know it was Energy Never Dies? I didn’t know that.
Joe: No, I did not.
Greg: This is the album, everybody knows this album because I got a feeling on it. But it also has like all this like super futuristic kind of computer sounding stuff that has the song Boom Boom Pow, which I have a very soft spot in my heart for that song. This is the album where Fergie said she’s 3008 and you’re 2000 late. And I always just assumed she was talking about you.
Joe: Obviously. She knows what she did.
Greg: And so it’s an album that just like sold a gazillion copies, even though it was 2009, and it’s a band and an album that we look back on and we’re like, eh, alright. And that feels very Demolition Manny to me. I almost picked just that Sting song because it is so perfect, but it’s so unsuccessful. And I think this movie is more successful than that song. So, all right, Joe, it’s time for us to rate this movie. It has all come down to this. We have our scale, great bad movie, good bad movie, okay bad movie, bad, bad movie, and awful bad movie. I don’t think we’ve ever celebrated the lower ends of this scale, but I have a feeling we might tonight.
Joe: We might tonight.
Greg: Joe, how do you rate this movie?
Joe: It’s a bad, bad movie. Wow. It’s right on the edge of okay. Like it’s close. Even as we have talked about it, I have grown to be more fond of it, but I’m gonna stick with my original rating. Kind of lean into my original, real back of the box. This is a bad, bad movie. It’s just, you know, there’s some fun parts. I just can’t get into it. So how do you rate this movie? Did you give the 355 bad, bad movie as well? No, I gave that an okay, bad movie.
Greg: Okay, okay. It’s amazing that we watched a movie the week after the 355 that we liked less, to be honest, that’s amazing. I obviously do kind of have a soft spot. Well, I have a soft spot for both of these movies, I think, but I’m more likely to watch the 355 these days than I would be Demolition Man. Having said that, I’m gonna cross the line up at okay bad movie because I did find the performances kind of charming, some of the action scenes pretty good. Real cars chasing around, not golf carts like in Total Recall and lots of stuff blew up and a guy jumped out of a helicopter. And that was kind of like that cliffhanger stunt from plane to plane that Simon Crane, is that his name, did. Yes. So I’m gonna say, okay, bad movie. That’s what I had in my notes as well. There’s no change there for me. So, where do we go next week? I’m gonna be really fascinated to see what we do. I feel like we try to stay away from movies that we dislike.
Joe: I know, we’re gonna have to go somewhere we love because we’ve had two weeks in a row where it’s been a little bit of a challenge to get through the movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, we did it.
Greg: Yeah, we did it, Joe.
Joe: It’s the conversation that needed to happen about, um, what movie was this? Demolition Day? Demolition Man right on the tip of my tongue. If you love this movie or hated it, let us know on our Instagram at great bad movie show or find us at great bad movies.com of great bad movie show at gmail.com. Send us an email. We love hearing from you and I want to give another shout out to the third member of the team, Sam Cunningham, new father, needs more work, needs all the work. So, you know, if you want to get in touch with Sam Cunningham and who doesn’t, we’ll just put his address and phone number in the links below and you can just call him anytime. He’s probably up because he’s got a baby at home. I’m going to try to make these descriptions of you, Sam, as long as possible, like the lead in to the real back of the box. Sam also just famously, uh, uh, climbed Mount Everest, I think. And also as the first person to hang glide with a baby, uh, at the same time. So he’s doing cool stuff right now. Probably seeing the Odyssey twice now would be my guess, but not in IMAX because he doesn’t have access to it. So, uh, we’re starting a Kickstarter fly Sam to Seattle for the Odyssey. Just watch it on a, on a big screen. So if you have an extra thousand dollars, send it our way. But yeah, that’s my Sam Cunningham extravaganza classic bits.
Greg: Oh, I am so sorry. Uh, do you mind if I take this? Sam is actually calling me right now.
Joe: Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Hold on just a second. Hey man, what’s up? Yeah,
Greg: We’re recording right now. Oh, that’s a good point. Okay. Yeah, I’ll say it. Think about it. Um, he wanted me to mention that as always, we should say spoilers for Demolition Man.
Joe: Yeah. Yeah. Spoilers. Big spoilers in this one.
Greg: Yeah. That feels important to say for this one.
Joe: I don’t think we said spoilers of the 355 last time and I’m worried that we spoiled that movie for people and then they watched it and it just ruined the movie for them. So, but they didn’t know.
Greg: It’s some interesting texts from David Hallgren this last week about the three five five. He tried to watch it and just could not. He tried three times.
Joe: That’s remarkable for me that he could not get through it. Even with a podcast to walk, to hold his hands through the entire thing.
Greg: It is the movie that broke David Hallgren even. Incredible.
Joe: That’s awesome.
Greg: I’ve tried three times three five five unwatchable half a star on the gray man scale and then you and he got in a very long conversation about what the gray man scale is go figure yeah which is how all movies should be evaluated in my mind obviously all right well listen i want to jump on this uh bandwagon about sam because honestly we really just can’t say enough about about him, we appreciate everything that he does. And you know, when you think about Sam Cunningham and all that he has done, there’s really only one thing to say, and it is, oh my gosh, Joe, I just noticed the time. Listen, this has been great.
Joe: So great.
Greg: It’s been really good, it’s been really good. But it’s time for us to up our game societally, I think, a bit, and I think it’s time for us to try out four seashells. So I think I’m gonna go try that out. Okay. And, uh, and I’ll let you know how it goes. I got to go. Yeah.
Joe: That tracks. I got to go meet with my attorney. I’m, I have to declare bankruptcy because I got all these fines for swearing when I stubbed my toe the other day.
Greg: That makes sense. Do you involuntarily swear when you stub your toe?
Joe: Yes. When I’m by myself, I swear constantly. I try not to swear except for when I like in public, except when I think it’s funny. Like that’s my main thing. But when I’m by myself, especially when I’m driving, The things I call other drivers are so offensive. That’s all I can say.
Greg: And that pales in comparison to what you say about their moms immediately after.
Joe: Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Greg: I don’t involuntarily swear. Wow. That is weird. There’s actually, no, there is one time and it’s not just like one. I do this thing where I like, I’m a machine gun of swear words. And it is when I’ve overslept and the second I wake up and I realized that I’m already late to a thing I was supposed to be at that morning. I’m just like, honk, honk, honk, honk, honk, honk, honk, honk, honk, honk. Just like, obviously we honk swear words in this. I honk like no other, and it’s like a machine gun. I say it like 50 times.
Joe: Yeah. That’s the only time. That’s worth it. But yeah, I swear. Yeah, when I’m by myself, I swear constantly. But I don’t, I do it now, I used to swear a lot more. I use it for effect. Like to me, it’s like to punctuate things or to be like, if there’s a way to be funny about it. Sure. And that’s, for me, I’m always going for a laugh in a group of people.
Greg: And you crack yourself up when you’re alone.
Joe: Yeah, I do. I’m hilarious. Yeah, I am.
Greg: Oh, well, yeah. Listen, as much as I want to hear you say a long string of swear words like you used to when we lived together and you would wake me up in the morning actually to make me laugh, you know what? I am so tired of talking about this movie with all these pointless product placements that kind of happened throughout. I just thought that was like ridiculous and gross and stupid. So I think I’m going to head out and get some Taco Bell.
Joe: Yeah. That tracks, that tracks. I’m, I’m way behind. I’ve got to go knit a sweater. I’ll be, I’ll be back.
Greg: That makes sense. You probably noticed I’ve been holding this knife up this whole time. I’m pretty sure it’s gasoline in these tanks behind me. I’m going to go stab them in slow motion and see if I can create a nice little gas pedal in here.
Joe: Oh, awesome. That tracks, that tracks. I’ve got to, I’ve got to go. Anyway, I’ve got to go jump out of a helicopter. So I’ll be right back.
Greg: It’s more of a bungee cord, but whatever.
Joe: Oh yeah, yeah. That’s all right. I’ve got a bungee out of a helicopter, so, you know.
Greg: I need to go take a good look at this one guy that works with me, one of my coworkers, and say, hey, aren’t you Rob Schneider? Yeah. So I better go.
Joe: Okay, good. Oh, wait, wait, sorry. I forgot my beret. Now I’m going to go jump out of a helicopter. Okay, perfect, perfect. Yeah, yeah.
Greg: You know what? I just heard that the Hollywood sign is burning, so I’m gonna go put it out.
Joe: I gotta go. Oh good, that’s good. That’s nice of you. I’m gonna go survive a massive explosion by jumping away from the blast while also carrying the body of a bad guy with me to safety. Okay.
Greg: I’m gonna go bleach my hair so I can look exactly like Wesley Snipes in this movie. I’m probably also gonna put on some stripy pants like the Joker. And I’m gonna give Dennis Rodman a call and say nice work copying Wesley Snipes in this movie for the rest of the 90s.
Joe: Yeah, awesome, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m also gonna go, I gotta get my overalls from the store.
Greg: That makes sense. I can’t find my Lethal Weapon 3 poster, and I feel like Sandra Bullock might’ve stole it from me, so I’m gonna go get that back.
Joe: Yeah, yeah, that tracks, that tracks. You can take this episode and shovel it
Greg: As far as I’m concerned. I’m gonna go hop in a time machine. I’m gonna go to the year that this movie happens.
Joe: What was it? Is it like 2032? Is that what it was? Something like that, yeah.
Greg: I’m gonna find you and I’m gonna say, Joe Sky Tucker, enhance your calm. So I better go.
Joe: Okay, awesome. And when that happens to me in seven years, I’m gonna go, fuck you, Greg Swinehart, you fuck. And about the, fuck with that, fuck. And then take, fuck. And then put it and gently and I hope you and then never and stay out.
Greg: All right, well that works for me. So Joe, I will see you soon.
Joe: See you soon.