Ep. 20 - Forgotten Gems! Vol. 1

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[0:00] J.J.: Okay, here's a question for you. If you could choose from any genre, any film, who would be your sidekick? I think I would be the sidekick. I'm somebody else's sidekick. That's how I've always seen myself. I'm your sidekick, really, is how I feel.

[0:19] Olaf: Well, I mean, you were my sidekick at one point.

[0:27] J.J.: This is true. But I didn't want to pigeonhole you. I wanted you to have the opportunity to be the leading man.

[0:33] Olaf: Yeah, you see me as more than I see myself sometimes. I appreciate that. And it's funny because when I so quickly said, I am the sidekick, I find myself when I'm watching movies and gravitating towards characters, unless the lead is somebody who fits my stature or my personality, which sometimes happens, then usually I'll immediately pivot to whoever the sidekick or secondary person is. So if you were to ask me who would be my sidekick, like you're talking about an actor or a character?

[1:05] J.J.: I would say a character.

[1:11] Olaf: What character from a movie would be your sidekick?

[1:17] J.J.: Oh, man. You've clearly thought about, I feel like you've thought about this on your end. So I almost want you to answer and then maybe that'll you want my answer. I'm going to cheat off of your paper. It would be great to have a sidekick like Short Round, because he'll call me out on stupid stuff that I'm doing. He'll keep me on the straight and narrow. But it was also fun to have around and play cards together.

[1:42] Olaf: Just so everybody knows, I feel like he sees me as Short Round. Like I'm the guy who calls stuff out and plays cards with him. He doesn't have to be a known sidekick. It could be someone who is on their own or a leading character that you just would be like, this is my sidekick.

[2:03] J.J.: Right. You can pick anybody. I wouldn't pick Robocop because he's not exactly a conversationalist.

[2:11] Olaf: No, but Nancy Allen did have, she was the partner. I mean, she still was.

[2:15] J.J.: She was the sidekick.

[2:15] Olaf: Yeah. I'll have to think about that because that is a fantastic question that I haven't given too much thought to, because it's funny when you say Short, I'd be like, well, would Indiana Jones, I wouldn't be, here I go. I'd go, oh, it'd be great to be his sidekick. That's how I'm answering the question, right? Not he would be mine. He would be a great sidekick though.

[2:37] J.J.: Yeah, he would. I'd love to have him around. He can teach me some history, help me out of jams. And I think at this point now I'm overthinking the question because I'm trying so hard to find somebody that would fit that for me. And not to say that there isn't, I'm just can't think of somebody right off the top of my head.

[3:00] Olaf: Well, this has gone incredibly well then.

[3:04] J.J.: Well, no, it just leads me to believe that like you said, or like I said, initially, I always see myself as the sidekick. So maybe the question would be who's sidekick would I want to be? That sort of thing.

[3:14] Olaf: I was trying to give you the opportunity to be the one in charge.

[3:17] J.J.: You were casting me in the lead role.

[3:19] Olaf: I appreciate that. You know who would be a great sidekick? Marty McFly.

[3:22] J.J.: Yeah, but for me, when you look at that, obviously it's Marty and Doc, but they're not really working together per se. Even when they are working together, it's almost like I feel like it's Marty's show and then Marty and Doc are kind of working independently of each other.

[3:38] Olaf: Sure. And you are clearly not thinking about the question I asked you. You're disseminating-

[3:46] J.J.: I would want to be Marty McFly.

[3:47] Olaf: The relationships of other people. This is what I'm saying. I would be Marty McFly.

[3:50] J.J.: You're J.J. I know.

[3:52] Olaf: So who would your movie sidekick be?

[3:58] J.J.: I'm telling you, Marty McFly would be a great sidekick.

[4:02] Olaf: Yeah. Now I'm just trying to, what would we do? We would just be on the-

[4:05] J.J.: I don't know. You'd have a DeLorean that goes back in time.

[4:06] Olaf: This is true.

[4:11] J.J.: Okay. Well, after that incredibly successful line of questioning, why don't you say we jump into today's topic?

[4:14] Olaf: Yeah, let's do that. Let me be your sidekick for this conversation that we're about to have.

[4:21] J.J.: Follow me as we go back to the movie theater.

[4:38] Olaf: Hey everybody, it's Olaf here with J.J. as always on this Back to the Movie Theater podcast. We are here again today for one of our newer topics that we're going to try out, which is forgotten gems. We're each going to talk about a couple movies that we feel aren't bad movies or great movies that just have either been forgotten over time or were just never really seen to begin with. It might be something that we get you into seeing later and then hopefully appreciating a good movie. This will be fun. I'm excited to talk about, we both have two and I'm willing to defer to you in terms of starting this out because I know the two movies that you're going to be mentioning and I'm ready to go.

[5:24] J.J.: Then I'll go ahead and jump in. And the first one that I'm going to talk about came out in 1994. It has a Rotten Tomatoes of 32%. That's not good. And I don't know why.

[5:41] Olaf: It almost makes you wonder, is this a guilty pleasure?

[5:45] J.J.: When you lead off with that Rotten Tomatoes score of 32%, you're basically telling the audience this is a guilty pleasure.

[5:52] Olaf: Well, that's the crazy thing because I rewatch this all the time and it's a great movie. It's solid. It's fast. It's hilarious. You've got a huge ensemble cast. Everybody's firing on all cylinders. IMDB gives it a user rating of 6.3 out of 10. So that's better than Rotten Tomatoes. But I'm talking about a 1994 Greedy starring Michael J. Fox, Kirk Douglas.

[6:23] J.J.: This was directed by Jonathan Lynn, who did My Cousin Vinny, Clue, The Whole Nine Yards. And he's also in the movie. He plays the butler or the help. It's so good. The music was composed by Randy Edelman. He did Last of the Mohicans, My Cousin Vinny, The Mask. You've got Phil Hartman. You've got Nancy Travis, Olivia Diabo, Ed Begley Jr.

[6:52] Olaf: Ed Begley Jr., Jerry Burns. I think Colin Camp.

[6:55] J.J.: Jerry Burns, Bob Balaban, Colin Camp, Mary Ellen Trainor, Siobhan Fallon-Hogan. She's hilarious. It's such a solid comedic cast. And whenever there's a scene with everyone together, it's just rapid fire.

[7:11] Olaf: What's interesting is that when you and I finally decided to sit down and put this podcast together, it didn't center around this movie, but we were sitting in your living room, scrolling through your library. And we talked about this movie very briefly because I had, for the most part, forgotten about this movie. And I loved it.

[7:33] J.J.: Which is crazy.

[7:34] Olaf: Oh, I know. Because you're a big Michael J. Fox fan.

[7:35] J.J.: I'm a huge Michael J. Fox fan. And I remember seeing it in the theater and I remember enjoying the movie, thinking it was hilarious. But through the course of time, 30 plus years, you weren't able to see it anywhere. It wasn't being shown a lot.

[7:49] Olaf: No.

[7:50] J.J.: I mean, which is a lot to be said about a lot of those movies of the 90s for him. He had that sort of bracket of movies before he got back on Spin City or before he got on Spin City, where he was just sort of churning them out. And this was one of them. This was one of those movies where he really just made it for financial decisions.

[8:08] Olaf: Yeah. But I think it's great.

[8:12] J.J.: So Greedy centers around a whole family, the McTeagues. And the head of the family, Kirk Douglas, is an old, rich guy who, when we meet him, he's in a wheelchair. He's got a butler. And the whole family hates this guy.

[8:30] Olaf: Hate him.

[8:31] J.J.: They all hate him, but they completely suck up to him because he's super rich. And they're really all just waiting around, taking the abuse from him because he plays mind games and he's not the nicest guy. And they take all this. They name their kids after him. He's Uncle Joe. So Ed Begley Jr.'s family, he's got two sons and they're both named Joe.

[8:57] Olaf: And then Josephine.

[8:59] J.J.: And then his sister has two daughters and they're both like Joanna or Jolene.

[9:04] Olaf: Jolene, played by a young Kirsten Dunst. This is like one of her first movies. She plays one of the granddaughters. She's Jolene. So it's hilarious. But they're all just waiting around for him to die so that they can swoop in.

[9:18] Olaf: Well, hoping that they'll be in his will, that he'll leave.

[9:22] J.J.: Yes. Like Uncle Joe will leave all of this money to all of them. And yet he knows that none of them love him and they just want the money.

[9:31] Olaf: And Michael J. Fox plays a down-and-out, close-to-retiring professional bowler.

[9:37] J.J.: Right.

[9:38] Olaf: Who's just never made it into the big leagues. He is, what, the nephew?

[9:42] J.J.: So his dad is one of Joe's sons. Michael J. Fox's dad is nothing like the family.

[9:49] Olaf: He's like Greenpeace.

[9:51] J.J.: Yeah, totally opposite from the money. And so Michael J. Fox had nothing to do with the family too because he's like, these people are vultures. I don't want anything to do with it. His dad and Kirk Douglas had a big falling out.

[10:04] Olaf: And he left and took his son with him and they just were not a part of the family after that. But then he gets pulled in because the family is trying to get on Joe's good side. And so they bring, well, maybe we'll bring in, you know, little Danny, which is Michael J. Fox and to see if, you know, for his birthday or something.

[10:23] J.J.: But what instigates them seeking him out in the first place, they, first of all, they all hate each other too. And they all have their own private eyes, keeping tabs on all of them so that they can bring up all this terrible stuff during like dinners with Uncle Joe and stuff, which is absolutely hilarious.

[10:44] Olaf: Yeah. The dialogue is sharp. It's witty. It's funny. And the cast does really a good job of playing off of each other. And it's such an interesting, eclectic cast too. Like Jerry Burns was in a TV show called Dear John with Judd Hirsch around this time. So that's, I feel like that's how he got this. Ed Begley Jr. is Ed Begley Jr. I mean, the dude had been on TV forever. And then Phil Hartman, you know, coming off of SNL. So these, these three, and then the counterparts that they have with him, Colin Camp and everybody else, everybody just seems to be working on another level.

[11:17] J.J.: And it's so funny to watch how desperate these people are. You know, I love Phil Hartman. I loved him in SNL. I loved him in all the movies that he's done. This might be my favorite performance by Phil Hartman in a movie.

[11:32] Olaf: Yeah. He's so ruthless.

[11:34] J.J.: So perfect. He's ruthless. He's pathetic. And he's kind of clueless. He comes up with all these plans, but then can't execute them.

[11:46] Olaf: Yeah. But I mean, the idea of the movie is that Michael J. Fox reluctantly goes to this birthday party for Uncle Joe, for Kirk Douglas, because he doesn't want to get pulled into the shenanigans and the nonsense and what ends up happening through the course of the movie. We don't want to give anything away, but we want to make it intriguing to go see, because it is a very funny movie.

[12:05] J.J.: Is that he does, he gets pulled in. What I forgot to mention was what starts this whole thing off is when the family's coming together for Uncle Joe, for getting ready for his birthday.

[12:17] Olaf: It's his birthday. Yeah, it's his birthday.

[12:18] J.J.: They meet his new nurse and she is gorgeous, drop dead gorgeous. So now they're all like, she's going to take all the money. He's going to give all the money to her.

[12:29] Olaf: Well, because there's a little like, it's more than a nurse, right? He even shows it in the sort of public displays of affection.

[12:37] J.J.: Yeah. So the whole movie is just centered around deceit and deception and games and head games. Everyone's out to get everybody and they're all just consumed by greed.

[12:49] Olaf: Right. All the way till the very end. But the other sort of theme is, are you willing to help somebody? Are you doing it out of a genuine kindness of your heart? Or is there a motive behind your actions and how that line can get really blurry when tempted with other things?

[13:08] J.J.: And Kirk Douglas is just masterful in all of this. He's playing mind games with everyone from the beginning all the way to the end of the movie. He's always just leaving you guessing. You just never know what's going on or what's real or what's true.

[13:24] Olaf: This movie is so wildly fun and funny and entertaining. It's a shame that it didn't do better, but the movie opened at number two in the box office. It did make money.

[13:38] J.J.: It flopped, but it didn't flop as hard as you would think. The problem was it came out against Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. That movie just annihilated everything.

[13:48] Olaf: This was also Kirk Douglas's last movie before he had his stroke. That sort of just totally... I mean, he kept working up until his death, but it was a vast difference in everything that he was doing after that.

[13:57] J.J.: Yeah, and you can't find this one anywhere, really. I don't think it's readily available to stream anywhere. I mean, unless...

[14:06] Olaf: You know, I didn't bother checking because I own it.

[14:09] J.J.: I know. I know. But every once in a while, streamers will pick up a whole bunch of quote unquote older movies, whether it's movies from the 80s or 90s, and just stream them for a stretch of time. And this one has not, for whatever reason, been picked up. But no, this is a solid forgotten gem, because I really think that's exactly what it is.

[14:28] Olaf: Yeah. Everyone does such a great job. Nobody overshadows anybody. And my favorite scenes in the whole movie are scenes with the family. Whenever the whole family is together, everybody is shining. Everybody is

[14:44] J.J.: Just playing their character to the best that it can be played and it's so sharp, so witty, so fun and fast. Super enjoyable. Yeah, no, this is a great pick. My first movie that I'm going to mention tonight is, it came out in the mid-80s, it came out in 1986. It is a, what you would call the buddy cop genre. This is pre-Lethal Weapon. So, I mean, when you think of buddy cop movies, I really, truly believe Lethal Weapon is the one that everyone thinks of initially.

[15:16] Olaf: 48 Hours would be the other one.

[15:22] J.J.: Yeah, I would say Lethal Weapon is the greatest buddy cop movie. Well, no, maybe Bad Boys is the greatest buddy cop movie ever made, but Lethal Weapon, I think, really puts that on the map.

[15:29] Olaf: I agree. I agree. I mean, like I said, 48 Hours is buddies, but obviously Eddie wasn't a cop. But I think when people think of buddy cop movies, Lethal Weapon is like the gold standard.

[15:41] J.J.: The movie that I want to talk about came out the year before. Basically, almost the same dynamic, except the other one isn't, you know, homicidal or suicidal, right? He doesn't have a death wish. It's just these two guys who are best friends, who've been Chicago City cops for like a dozen years. It's a fantastic comedy that I used to watch all the time when I was a kid. I think my cousin Andy and I used to watch this a lot. I'm talking about the movie Running Scared with Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines.

[16:15] Olaf: I love this movie. It's been a while since I've watched it, but it's so enjoyable. Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines are both fantastic together. They're so fun.

[16:26] J.J.: What's interesting to me is just the casting of this movie in general. Prior to this, it's not like either one of these guys were doing movies like this. Billy Crystal, clearly we knew was funny. He'd been on SNL and he was on TV doing some stuff. But prior to this, it wasn't like when you thought of an action buddy cop movie, Billy Crystal's at the top of your list. This was his first quote unquote lead in a film. He had done some stuff, but it wasn't ever his movie. Chemistry between the two of them plays so well. Right from the jump, they're automatically thrown into a situation at the beginning of the movie where they've got to find a rat, not even a CI. They just need to find information because there's this drug dealer in town and they're trying to bring this dude down. They already established who the bad guy is in the first five minutes of the movie.

[17:33] Olaf: Now, was this movie before or after White Nights?

[17:38] J.J.: It was right after White Nights.

[17:42] Olaf: Okay. I thought it was. White Nights, that's another forgotten gem, but White Nights was Gregory Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikov, the ballet dancer. It's a totally different genre. Spoiler alert, that might be on another episode of Forgotten Gems. Because, yeah, that movie is, I think, more forgotten than Running Scared. But that movie, he did right before this one, Gregory Hines. Gregory Hines is a tap dancer, comedian. He had done some films, Cotton Club, Deal of the Century with Sigourney Weaver, and he was in History of the World Part One, if I'm not mistaken.

[18:13] J.J.: Yes. He's mainly known as a dancer.

[18:21] Olaf: Right. Yeah. A tap dancer, all-around dancer. But this, too, is his first opportunity to be in this action-comedy movie, but they don't ever forget who they are. Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines take all of their strengths as actors and put them into these two characters. The premise of the film is that they've been, like I said, Chicago city cops who are trying to take down this drug dealer, played by Jimmy Smits, pre-L.A. Law, Jimmy Smits. Joe Pantoliano, right after Goonies, is in this movie. He plays Snake, who's the guy who's going to help them bring him down, and then he double-crosses them. But the idea is they end up going to Florida and taking a week off a vacation, and they decide they're going to retire.

Billy Crystal has left some money, which is so funny because he's left $20,000 or something. They're like, we're retiring, and it's like, this must be the 80s because $20,000, is he giving you anything? The number may have been a little bit higher, but they go to Florida, and they fall in love with it, and they want to buy a bar.

[19:26] J.J.: Well, they fall in love with Michael McDonald's version of Florida and Sweet Freedom, which great, great song, by the way. Great song, horrible video, cheese factor video, but that song is so catchy, and it's an earworm that'll play over and over in your head if you let it. But then they come back to Chicago, and they're rusty. It's a really fun vehicle for both of them, especially for Billy Crystal, to show off his comedic talent in an action movie. Because even after this, I don't think he's really done or did anything in that style after this movie.

[20:02] Olaf: Which is a shame.

[20:03] J.J.: Yeah, where he's running and gunning. Because then Billy did Princess Bride after that, and then he falls into the romantic comedy world of When Harry Met Sally. It's like we didn't see him for a long time.

[20:14] Olaf: Right. No, Running Scared is one of those where, at the time, you were able to stream it. I don't know if you still can now, but it's definitely, I feel, one of those movies that did well. It was very popular when it came out.

[20:25] J.J.: The song Sweet Freedom was definitely number one.

[20:28] Olaf: It was a huge hit, absolutely. And it flows really well. It's got a nice tempo to it. They're really good. Their banter back and forth as partners is really good. Dan Hedaya plays the police captain. But yeah, no, I love Running Scared. I don't think a lot of people, especially now, have seen it or remember it. But if you get a chance, look for it.

[20:56] J.J.: Yeah, it's so fun. It's great. It's a great buddy cop, grungy, dirty comedy action film. I couldn't recommend it more. I love it. If anything, you'll love the music.

[21:08] Olaf: Absolutely.

[21:15] J.J.: That means I'm up with my second choice for our Forgotten Gems. And man, I tell you what, this movie has taken a lot of abuse and it still carries a stigma with it of just being an absolute flop. The critics hated this movie. I don't know why. It came out in 1989. It has a Metascore of 45 and a Rotten Tomatoes of 56%. So the Rotten Tomatoes is promising. It's got a great cast. It's directed by Joe Dante, who did Gremlins, Gremlins 2, Small Soldiers, and a slew of other movies. The music was composed by Jerry Goldsmith. Come on, that's composer royalty. But I'm talking about 1989's The Burbs, starring Tom Hanks.

[22:18] Olaf: You've got Bruce Dern. You've got Carrie Fisher, Corey Feldman. You've got Rick Dukaman. He plays art in this movie. And I'm pretty sure it's arguable that he was also art in the previous year in Die Hard.

[22:27] J.J.: He was. I don't know if it was ever confirmed that he was the same character.

[22:40] Olaf: Oh, he's the same character? Oh.

[22:42] J.J.: Yeah. No, that's the thing. Because there's a part where art is dressed up as a utilities person because he's going to try and cut some power, which is what he does in Die Hard the year before. Unless he... Because Die Hard takes place in LA, this movie takes place in Chicago. I forget where they said this took place. It's not Chicago, though. It's like Illinois, though. It's like the Midwest.

[23:08] Olaf: But yeah, people have always wondered if he was the same person. It's a great cast. Apparently, Carrie Fisher was in this because Tom Hanks was just a huge Star Wars fan.

[23:19] J.J.: Well, this is an interesting thing because they were in another movie four years before together called Man With One Red Shoe. And I love Man With One Red Shoe. Don't be surprised if that one shows up in a later episode. It's also funny. A funny note is apparently Carrie Fisher, when she made this movie, was wearing a wig. But apparently her regular hair was so similar to what the wig was. She would take the wig off in between scenes and everyone was like, I don't really see a difference. So just know that if you're watching the movie, she's wearing a wig that looks just like her normal hair.

[23:54] Olaf: I'm going to break your heart. I'm going to tell you, I do not like this movie.

[23:57] J.J.: What? I rewatched it.

[24:00] Olaf: What? I do. I don't. I don't. I rewatched it. And I can understand why people don't like it. And I can understand why this movie is a cult classic. This movie is hilarious.

[24:12] J.J.: This movie might be one of Tom Hanks' best comedy.

[24:16] Olaf: That's a bold statement. I would disagree with that completely. This came out right after Big.

[24:21] J.J.: It did. And what's interesting is that's why people went to go see it the first weekend. And that's why it had such a big weekend. And it made its money. It doubled its money. But it then had a severe drop off subsequent weeks later. A lot of people feel like they didn't know that they were coming in to see a dark comedy.

[24:37] Olaf: Right. Exactly. No, I completely agree with that.

[24:40] J.J.: But it is a fantastic dark comedy. And this movie was filmed during the big writer's strike in 1988. And I think that has a lot to do with why. But because of that, a lot of the scenes were improvised.

[24:54] Olaf: No, I understand. I just feel like if they had an opportunity to rewrite while they were shooting, who knows? For me, again, like I said, like this movie is in that time period for Hanks where he's minus Splash and Big. He was doing he was churning out a lot of work. And some would say this is one of taking Splash and Big and putting them aside. This is probably one of his better films of all of those movies that he did.

[25:23] J.J.: I loved his performance in this.

[25:28] Olaf: Yeah, I mean, it's good. It's fun to see him in this way because I think he's manic and he builds on itself. I just for me, it wasn't humor didn't hit for me. I love Bruce Dern in this movie.

[25:40] J.J.: I do love Bruce Dern in this movie. I think every time one Bruce Dern shows up in this is playing their character as perfect as possible. I mean, it is the classic cul-de-sac. I know you've got the strange neighbors. What's interesting to me about watching this movie is because Tom Hanks is the trajectory of his career skyrocketed just a few years later. You look at this movie and it's just sort of this what I would consider average movie for him to play this like sort of which is funny because he is an everyday guy. But he mostly plays this like everyday guy who's married with a kid and he didn't even want his character to have a son to be a dad in this movie. But like he plays this everyday character. And I'm thinking if his career didn't skyrocket to that next level, he probably would have been playing just characters like this for the rest of his career.

[26:32] J.J.: Well, I know that was something he was worried about when he took the job because this was the first time he'd play a dad in a movie. The film received the worst reviews of any film released in 1989, according to many who worked on the film, but it was a box office success. It made money.

[26:51] Olaf: Right. It doubled its budget. I think it's such a tongue in cheek, dark comedy. It's so enjoyable. Every scene is fun. There's different angles to look at what's going on. And I just love it now. And I do like Joe Dante. I feel now I feel like I'm talking about a guilty pleasure.

[27:10] J.J.: No, I feel guilty.

[27:15] Olaf: You shouldn't. You should not because there is a good movie, everybody.

[27:22] J.J.: No, even I would change me. Even Joe Dante has said that over the course of time here that people will come up and reference The Burbs. And so it's like for Joe Dante and his filmography, it's like Gremlins and then The Burbs as far as movies that people grab, movies of his that people gravitate to. And Joe Dante, I mean, has a huge filmography.

[27:40] Olaf: I love Innerspace with Martin Short.

[27:46] J.J.: Innerspace is great. I'm not sure if that's a guilty pleasure or it's on both of my lists. I got to figure out how I'm going to talk about it. I love that movie.

[27:52] Olaf: Yeah, it's great. So I'm not saying that.

[27:59] J.J.: No, you shouldn't have to defend this movie. I'm just telling you here I am defending it because I've got someone attacking it. I'm just telling you that I watched it and I'm going, I'm watching it going. This should have been forgotten.

[28:10] Olaf: I'm a huge Tom Hanks fan of his movies of the 80s, and I could list almost all of them from Splash to this movie. I would there are other movies that I would rather watch than The Burbs that aren't Big and Splash, you know, Big and Splash being the two big ones. There are other movies of that decade that I would gravitate to. But that's just me, because there are a lot of people that love The Burbs. And I'm just not one of those people.

[28:31] J.J.: I just I love how clever and subtle it is.

[28:38] Olaf: Well, there are just moments in the film for me where they go, they finally get into the neighbor's house and they're talking and the scene just sort of just plays on. And there's one moment where Bruce Dern, which I think is hilarious building. He's playing with the wallpaper and the wallpaper was improvised that I tell you, Bruce Dern is the bright light in this movie for me. And he wasn't even the original choice. I Gary Busey was supposed to play that role, I think.

[29:03] J.J.: Oh, could you imagine?

[29:08] Olaf: But Bruce Dern is great. Oh, I love him in this movie. I think those moments you're talking about, I thought they were great because they were long and awkward. They were supposed to be awkward. And they shot it in a way that it not only looked awkward, but you as the audience member felt uncomfortable and awkward. And then you've got Henry Gibson.

[29:29] Olaf: The main baddie, but he comes off as so small and soft-spoken and sweet. Some people might remember him from Blues Brothers as the head of the Illinois Nazis. And he's in Innerspace.

[29:44] J.J. Gonzalez: Yeah, exactly. I think this movie's great. It's got a spooky, creepy vibe to it with the Clopax next door. Just the shenanigans of, oh my gosh, there's a shot where one of the Clopax comes out of their house during the daytime and no one's seen them to this point, and everyone in the neighborhood just happens to be outside. Everyone stops and looks, and there's just this music playing. Everyone's looking, and there's a lot of close-up shots of people's eyes looking at him. At one point, they even did a close-up shot of the dog.

[30:24] Olaf: Oh, they did. This is so good. Yeah, it's so funny. I just loved stuff like that. I mean, this movie is so well put together considering the fact that it was shot during a writer's strike, so they could only have the script that they had. But they did a lot of improv during the shoot. It's great. It's fun. It's funny. I feel sorry for anyone who would hate this.

[30:49] J.J. Gonzalez: I know! I don't hate it. I just don't like it. It's not a movie that I'm going back to the well for, is what I'm saying.

[30:57] Olaf: On a side note, I don't think people have forgotten this movie. I think there are a lot of people who know this movie is a cult classic now. It has developed into a cult classic, but I think, and I've said this before, this movie carries a stigma around with it because it was so critically panned when it came out that people assume that it flopped. People think it's terrible even if they've never seen it because of that stigma. And that's a real shame because I think unless you're J.J., when you find this movie and you watch it, you're like, "Oh my gosh, this is really fun. This is great."

[31:34] J.J. Gonzalez: I don't think that. I mean, I think there are a lot of people that would think that, but I think there are some people that would also think, "This isn't, I mean, this is okay, but okay." You know, there's something I've thought about as we've been making this podcast. It becomes more true every time we sit down and we chat. We love movies, you and I. We love movies, and we love talking to each other about movies.

[32:05] Olaf: Yes, and I would never question your love of film, and I don't think you would question mine. But what I have noticed is you and I have a completely different, I don't want to say upbringing, but we live on two sides of the track. You're in that posh cinema neighborhood where like—

[32:22] J.J. Gonzalez: You're calling me, basically, you're calling me an elitist, like a movie elitist.

[32:36] Olaf: Yes, well then I'm back here going, "I love The Burbs."

[32:49] J.J. Gonzalez: We're going to talk about more highbrow.

[32:54] Olaf: Your video store was carrying The Burbs.

[32:59] J.J. Gonzalez: We didn't have videos.

[33:02] Olaf: We didn't want the movies to—

[33:04] J.J. Gonzalez: Yeah, well, man, you say all of that, and now I almost—I'm not confirming that that's where my head's at, but I am going to almost—

[33:13] Olaf: You are going to hit us with some highbrow cinema.

[33:19] J.J. Gonzalez: Your point with my next—well, I think, yeah, you proved our point. If you go back and listen to one of our guilty pleasure episodes, he's like, I'm talking about like Airborne with Hackers, a young Seth Green high school rollerblading. It's so bad, but good movie. And then he's like, I watched, and you know, it's a guilty pleasure of mine, Oscar.

[33:51] Olaf: Hey, it's not good. I mean, it wasn't a great movie, but it's hilarious.

[33:56] J.J. Gonzalez: Man, I just love the dynamic. Well, if we agreed on everything, man, it would be boring.

[34:07] Olaf: It's true. I really over the years not really noticed until now where our standings are in film. If we were the odd couple, I'd be the messy sports guy, and you'd be the—

[34:20] J.J. Gonzalez: Yeah, I'm Felix and you're Oscar.

[34:25] Olaf: To bring this back around and class this show up a little bit, my second forgotten gem came out in 1994. It was directed by Robert Redford, and it takes place in the late 50s, and it's a true story surrounding the quiz show 21. It was, you know, very similar to Jeopardy. You know, it was two people.

[34:59] J.J. Gonzalez: Was this based on a true story?

[35:02] Olaf: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely based on a true story. I sort of gave the title away, but I am talking about the movie Quiz Show starring John Turturro, Ralph Fiennes, Rob Morrow, who had just left the TV show Northern Exposure to try to break into more film work, Mira Sorvino, David Pamer, Christopher McDonald—old Shooter McGavin—before Shooter McGavin. Christopher McDonald had done a ton of stuff before Shooter, but everybody knows him as Shooter McGavin. But the movie itself, like I said, it is a true story, and it's based on the fixing of quiz shows. John Turturro plays Herb Stemple, who's this, you know, G.I. from Queens who'd been on the quiz show for weeks and weeks and weeks and had been making money. The producers of the show, now David Pamer and Hank Azaria, are finally feeling like it's not working anymore. The viewership is plateaued, the ratings—it's kind of like, what's his name? Ken Jennings, right? From Jeopardy?

[36:06] J.J. Gonzalez: Oh yeah.

[36:08] Olaf: And so he had like that historic run. And we're talking like 10 weeks for Herb Stemple here. And basically, the contestants are in sound booths, so they can't—they've got the headphones on, the answers are locked in a vault. The host, played by Christopher McDonald, is opening up the envelope on the air to let people know nobody has seen the questions and the answers up until right now. And then, you know, the contestants are able to play for points. The first one to 21 wins. Well, Ralph Fiennes, fresh off of Schindler's List—so this was like his first sort of big movie, I think right after that—plays Charles Van Doren, who's a teaching professor. His dad's a professor, his uncle's like a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, so he's got this name, the Van Doren name attached to him.

But he wants to get into the quiz shows, and the producers immediately think, "Okay, he's going to be the new guy." The producers didn't go to Herb Stemple, and they say, "We want you to take a dive. We want you to miss the last question." Imagine you going, "Hey, we want you to take a dive. It's a movie's question. The question's going to be, 'What movie won Best Picture in 1955?'" Now mind you, this movie takes place in '57, so it's like if you were to ask me what movie won Best Picture two years ago, and I was supposed to give you the wrong answer, it's like, how would I not know that, right? So he misses the question, and then Rob Morrow plays the person on the subcommittee who's trying to figure out who blows up this investigation, is trying to figure out if this is actually happening, and he becomes friends with Ralph Fiennes' character, Charles Van Doren.

The movie itself, like I said, was nominated for Best Picture, but it also came out the same year as Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump, Lion King, you know, even Four Weddings and a Funeral. People talk about more than Quiz Show. These are movies that all came out at the same time. I mean, I have not seen this movie, and it is fantastic. Every—the cast, Martin Scorsese is in it. He plays like one of the heads of the studio, and he's great. I've known of this movie. It's not like I've never heard of it. I've definitely known of it, and I've known that it had a huge solid cast. I didn't know it was directed by Robert Redford until I was looking stuff up.

[38:29] J.J. Gonzalez: But yeah, I tried to watch this ahead of time, and it's not available anywhere. You can only purchase it.

[38:36] Olaf: Yeah, it's worth the purchase though. And you know, all joking aside, I don't know for a movie that is as old as it is, I just didn't think almost $20 was—until recently, that's like a brand new movie that just—

[38:53] J.J. Gonzalez: I need you to take it from your friend who is apparently on the other side of the tracks and recommending this movie, even as a $5 rental, you won't be disappointed.

[39:03] Olaf: I do want to watch the movie, and if I have to break down and rent it, I will. I think if it was available for purchase at a little bit lower, maybe like $10, I would suck it up.

[39:17] J.J. Gonzalez: Well, and you're right. It's like it's not readily available, and it's unfortunate that it isn't because it really is a movie that I feel has been forgotten. I mean, again, it's set in the '50s. It is a true story, but when you talk about relevance and things like that, I think maybe that's why it isn't being shown as much as, let's say, Shawshank or Pulp Fiction or Forrest Gump, which are all three movies that came out the same year that were all nominated as well. This movie seems to have been pushed to the back row. But again, the dialogue is sharp, and the characters are all very rich. You get to see Ralph Fiennes sort of start to question his own ethics and morality in terms of, is he getting the answers?

Is he feeling good about getting the answers? Because he is essentially cheating. But is the money and the price of the fame and all of that—because we're talking about the '50s, and so there are times in the movie where they're dropping, "Well, this is like how much money have you made?" You know, "How much money have you made?" He's like, "Well, you know, it's almost like $90,000," which in the '50s, that's a lot of money.

[40:22] J.J. Gonzalez: It's kind of like The Burbs of the '50s.

[40:29] Olaf: I don't think it's anything like The Burbs of the '50s at all, actually. I feel like it is one of those movies that having just rewatched it is not only a fantastic initial watch, but a really cool, if you've forgotten about it and want to circle back to it, it's a really refreshing rewatch as well.

[40:47] J.J. Gonzalez: I've been intrigued about watching this movie for a while. It just occasionally will pop up on my radar, and then I'm like, "Oh, I should watch that movie," and I just—because it's not readily available, I always end up not seeing it.

[41:01] Olaf: Well, I think it's also very underrated too because like John Turturro's performance just by itself is a very underrated performance because a lot of people will associate John Turturro with like Big Lebowski and his very machismo type of character. He's always very sure of himself, very—whether he's right or wrong, whether he's bumbling around like in a big-budget movie like Transformers. But in this movie, he's like the doof, you know? I mean, he's a bit of like an aloof—I don't want to say he's a loser, but he plays that card very well and very underrated in this movie. It's again, it's an unfortunate forgotten performance of his as well because I thought he was fantastic in it. I love everybody in the cast. Ralph Fiennes, I mean, he's fantastic in pretty much everything he does.

[41:48] J.J. Gonzalez: Yeah, I think everybody in this movie is, like we've said, bringing it, and I really want people to rediscover this movie because again, it's a nice slice of Americana.

[41:58] Olaf: Well, in the '50s, if you let me cross over the tracks and not run me out of town as riff-raff, when I get a chance, I want to see this. Yeah, so I hope others do too just based off of your own highfalutin opinion.

[42:16] J.J. Gonzalez: You won't be disappointed.

[42:18] Olaf: Challenge accepted. Here's the thing: if you rent it for $5 and you don't like it, I will pay you. I will Venmo you your five bucks back.

[42:26] J.J. Gonzalez: Okay, that is my 100% guarantee.

[42:28] Olaf: That's a deal. I'm going to get a text now. I'm just going to be hoping I get a text with his Venmo account.

[42:34] J.J. Gonzalez: You can Venmo me that $5 as soon as you can.

[42:35] Olaf: Yeah, guys, that is our Forgotten Gems. These are four films that we feel like have just gone unnoticed or under the radar or just over time have just faded from everyone's collective viewership.

[42:55] J.J. Gonzalez: Yeah, exactly, and it's exciting to talk about them again, and I hope that, you know, we help other people find these great hidden gems.

[43:07] Olaf: Yes, thank you so much for tuning in. Remember, if you want to hear more episodes, be sure to subscribe. We love everyone who's chosen to follow us and to humor us and our shenanigans and talking about movies. We love doing this.

[43:23] J.J. Gonzalez: Yeah, and if you found us word of mouth and you want to follow us, you can always check us out on Instagram, Back to the Movie Theater.

[43:28] Olaf: Alright guys, so until then, stay tuned, stay clicked on, and we'll catch you later. To be continued.

[43:42] J.J. Gonzalez: Back to the Movie Theater is hosted by J.J. Gonzalez and Olaf Adsit, produced by me, Johnny Clay. J.J. Gonzalez and Olaf Adsit theme song and incidental music by The Dimes. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Back to the Movie Theater, and find us on YouTube at Back to the Movie Theater with J.J. and Olaf.