Final Thoughts and Junk Food Pairing

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I am your host, Brian Salisbury, and this week, Cargill is exploring the subways of New York looking for mutant cockroaches, or at the very least, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So in his place, we welcome back to the show the third leg of junk food cinema, a master of horror, a jester of honor, and the long John Slim of the Podcast Underworld, Mr. Scott Weinberg. So sorry to bug you. Oh, I thought I was supposed to mimic you. Hi, it's me, Scott. Go fil es. Go Phillies. You know what, Scott? You and I share a trauma bond in that you're a Phillies fan and I'm a Red Sox fan. Wow, yeah, and and they're the two um of the uh arguably two of the worst films uh films to God cut that. Right uh they're arguably two of the worst baseball teams in in America right now in earlier April twenty twenty six. I'm not cutting that at all because the fact is that being a fan of both of our teams is kind of a horror movie right now. Welcome to Junk Food Baseball, the podcast about how the Phillies and the Red Sox have already fired their managers. We also like sports, no way around it. We are talking movies and sports. Oh, can I can we take a sidebar already? Let's do it! Don't you hate when people say sports ball in a derisive way? Yeah. I respond back. Like, oh, you like your movie films and your boardie games? Oh, boardy games. I like that. How about your your uh salads and your action figurines yeah and and your like and your uh liptinized tea what take the plunge what's happening here I don't know we're hating on tea now? Uh no, no, I yeah. I mean like uh there's lots of things that don't interest me. I don't have to mock them. Don't you hate pants ? Uh I actually kind of do. But I mean like I don't play bingo. You know , and so uh uh you know it's like oh you have to go to your bingo cardi anyway. Cardi B actually got her name for being a big fan of bingo. She just took the words bingo card and rearranged it into the name Cardi B. Right. Her full name is I got nothing. Irreverent, odd and weird is a good way to describe today's film. So you segu e quite nicely into the discussion of the film. You asked me, you said, Scott, do you want to do mimic? And again, you got to mit MI before I said yes, because Guillermo del Toro is my favor ite filmmaker, my number one, my ride or die, my absolute favorite. Do I think every one of his films is a five star classic? No, but close. Uh him and Bang Junho are my favorite filmmakers. And not to repeat a joke already, but I think when I asked you, hey Scott, do you want to do an episode on Mimic? Your response was , Do you want to do an episode on Mimic? Yep. And I sounded just like me. So So believe it or not, after all that preamble, we have arrived underground. We have dug through the concrete of the minutia of the top of the episode, and we are subterraneously covering 1997's Mimic . Three years ago, a team of brilliant scientists found a way to stop a deadly disease . Now the cure they created has taken on a life of its own. Do you think you're little Frankenstein's got the better of you ? There's some weird stuff here. Lots of it . They all died in the lab. But you let them out . Evolution has a way of keeping things alive. Sometimes it will evolve to mimic its predator. They are breeding. Whatever it becomes, it destroys. Peter, these are lungs. Yesterday, it became human. If that thing has been around, I come nobody's ever seen it. I think we have . You see the size of that thing? We changed his DNA survive this a smart hit adrenaline rush first rate heart pounding, and Cisco and Liebert give it two thumbs up, way up. Mira Sorvina, Jeremy Northam , Josh Rowland, Charles Dutton , Giancarlo Giannini , F. Murray Abraham . Mimic . Which was Guillermo del Toro's first English language film, his first American film. His second feature overall, correct? Yes, after Kronos, correct. Yeah. And we'll get into it, but it's not a surprise that immediately after this, he went right back to Spain and nearly never made another American film again and did the devil's backbone. Devil's backbone, yeah. Which is for the longest time was when he only had like three, four, five films. That was my favorite of his. And I I I it's still in probably well, it definitely is top three. I adore Devil's Backbone and Chronos. And I I just love the man. I love his perspective on the world. I love the way he approaches monsters and misfits. And uh just the way he loves to scare people, but in a in a in a in an uncle telling a scary story around the fire kind of way. I love Guillermo. I just I I I love the way he approaches filmmaking. I've never thought of Guillermo as being evuncular. Like that term is not one I've ever applied to him before. Absolutely. It will it qualifies. Absolutely. For sure. And I'm gonna tell you something that might scare you a little bit, Scott. Hold on, let me brace myself. Yeah, go ahead, brace yourself for this one. Okay. I only just saw Mimic for the first time a couple weeks ago. Oh my goodness. I saw it in theaters. I would have been when did this come out? 97? Yes or I would have been uh twenty-five when this came out and um I I live I liked horror films at the time, believe it or not, and I still do. And uh I thought it was decent, definitely not great, and um over the years I,'ve now seen that I I revisited the director's cut, which I believe has kind of supplanted the theatrical cut as the default mimic. Oh, yeah. It's almost impossible to find the theatrical cut now. Wh whichich, as it turns out sounds like a very good thing. It's only like six minutes shorter, and you know, but it's still if you know it's got the basic essentials. Um, and uh yeah, I I again, I I even the director's cut, I don't think it's among his best stuff, but his his so -so or uh above average, but not great films, are better than most directors' best horror films. How about that? Cut my life into pieces. So this movie has made me realize. So this movie made me oh no no no. We're not doing that gag anymore. No no we're gonna do that through the whole episode. Okay, sorry . It's made me realize that we need a new classification system for the kinds of movies that we like here on junk food cinema. So respectfully, I'm going to submit that Mimic is a big swinging flick. A big swinging flick? It's a big swinging flick. It has a huge crazy idea at its center. It's got one of those, you know, does its reach exceed its grasp? Maybe so, but it is swinging for the fences and it's really going for some interesting things . And those are the kind of movies that are always going to be appreciated on this show. Whether or not every aspect of it works really doesn't matter. When a movie takes swings this big or has ideas this insane , I'm always going to tune in. And I think You know what else is a big swinging flick? 28 years later. The Boner Temple. The Boner Temple. Because that's got a big swinger in it and yeah I I uh um I I mean can I do I make my joke let's just let's just get it out of the way uh this movie doesn't have a treasure chest that bites you okay there . Guillermo del Toro, by the way, is maybe the most perfect junk food cinema director. And I feel like, if nothing else, there's this two thousand eleven interview he did with Movie Line that perfectly illustrates why he is a hero of this podcast. He described his filmmaking philosophy in regards to Mimic. He said, When you get a concept that is a B concept, you need to try and execute like it's an A movie. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. You have to approach it as if you're making, you know, high art, Schindler's List, something important. You you know, like that that it has to it can't be just oh it's a throw away monster movie and I'm gonna approach it that way. No, no. That's how you make a bad movie. Well I just feel like so often around junk food cinema , the filmmakers that we love the most are either people who , you know, early in their careers were dabbling in genre and low budget, or they have blissfully throughout their entire career been junk masters. But the ones we love the most are the ones that treat every single thing that they do like it's an A movie, regardless of the you know, B movie foundation or the B movie material, the B movie budget. It is absolutely the filmmakers who are like, no, I'm treating this like it's my citiz en cane, and I'm going to absolutely execute everything I need to do to make this in a movie. And if they do that, if they're able to approach movies with that philosophy, I don't give a fuck if the final product is successful or not. Because that effort and that philosophy is what connects me to movies and what connects me to a lot of the people who uh appreciate the same kind of movies as we do with the movies that they love. Yeah, I mean it would it's almost like getting uh you know five star cuisine from a hot dog vendor. Yeah, absolutely. Like I'm doing the junk food cinema comparison. Well, you'll never you'll I doubt you'll ever hear from another filmmaker who treats like I said monsters and misfits uh and mutants. I'll just gonna keep going with the alliter ation. Um, and uh who approaches these characters and these kind of movies and and monsters with this kind of reverence and love and respect, you know, like the old one of one of the main themes of his entire body of work is, you know, monsters ain't that all that bad, you know, uh They might be freaky looking or unhappy uh or uniquely um miserable, but they still have a heart and a soul. And you know, he treats monsters. Look at the way he tre ats like that that giant monster in Hellboy 2 or the monster in the shape of water. Uh uh or you know every I mean anything in the he he's just uh lyrical is a is a word. Monsters are people too. And can I frame this in terms of an analogy that I know you will appreciate? Yes. Do you remember that Daffy Duck cartoon where he took the Mel Tourme throat spray and he started singing like a lounge singer. Well, specifically Mel Tourme, of course. Yes. And he it was a room full of monsters, right? And he sings a song. And do you remember what that song was called? No. It was called Monsters Lead Church Interesting Lives . Monsters Lead Such Interesting Lives. Oh yeah, Monsters giving the monster a manicure What I'm saying is I feel like Guillermo del Toro is of the same belief of Daffy Duck in that monsters do lead interesting lives. Right. And at the very least, that's very cinematic. He manages to tell a lot of really great monster stories that are very sympathetic to the monsters, or at least letting us into the very interesting lives the monsters lead. Yeah. Yeah. He's uh uh uh he He has such uh path pathos and such uh what's the word I'm thinking of? Uh like not just respect but empathy from for the misshapen. Hey, there's another M. Um, you know , for the uh the outcast, uh for you know, the potentially scary, but that's from the outside. You know, the monster itself might not have b you know malicious intent, but from the outside they're scary, but you know, from the inside there's something, I don't even want to say humanity, but something of empathy uh for creatures. And uh that's not you know always the main theme of his movies, but it's frequently uh right in there. And it's just a a fascinating perspective of having empathy for the monster. Frankenstein didn't ask to be built. Uh uh Leatherface And now all I want to see is Gilmore Del Toro remake Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It would be incre dible. Also, Empathy for the Mishapen is a great title for a term paper, like a film school paper on Guillermo Del Toro's Ouvre. Or a Rage Against the Machine album . It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better time than now? What better place than under the sewers of New York? This movie has maybe one of the biggest swings of his entire career in terms of his central conceit. I think probably the biggest swing in Del Toro's career is what if I did Creature from the Black Lagoon as a romance? Like, what if if Lady actually fucked the creature from the Black Lagoon and I made that movie like sweet and tender and not at all as gross as that log line sounds. Right next to that, however, is the central conceit at the heart of Mimic. Again, 1997, his second movie ever, his first English language movie. The plot follows the creation of a genetically modified insect that is designed to battle an epidemic of uh roach infestation, and those genetically modified cockroaches rapidly evolve and begin hunting humans. Extremely rapidly . That is a wild fucking starting point. Yeah. Right off the block. These are cockroaches that are highly evolved and begin to imitate humans in order to hunt them. That's the fucking log line of this movie. I I I I've I know it's very brief, but I've never read the uh source material. I I I would uh dig it up and it's like a three page short story apparently. Yes. By Donald Walheim. It's a very short story. But also Paramount to know about this is that this movie was not made by Paramount. It was produced by Dimension and Miramax, which means Guillermo del Toro was working very early on in his career with the Weinsteins. And as it is his first American movie, and also because of working with the Weinsteins, almost his last American movie. Guillermo Dotor has said, and this is a direct quote from the man himself, two horrible things happened in the late 90s. My father was kidnapped and I worked with the Weinsteins. Yeah, and by all accounts he wa they they tried to completely railroad and steamroll and other vehicle over him. But he they tried to battle truck him. Battle truck. Basically. Um where you know the they wanted control. Bob Weinstein uh us allegedly or or reportedly wanted to, you know, uh look, if you're a pr I'm a producer of indie films and I don't want to be a director. So, you know, it's like Bob Weinstein clearly wanted to be a director because uh you don't you don't you know uh abuse filmmakers not physically but you don't abuse filmmakers who are desperate to like you know uh he on his second film and as you mentioned his first English language film behind the scenes to delete scenes to re uh reorganize the edit to you know just just completely try to take over and you know say what you will about del Toro but he is a unique artist and he wants it. You hired him, let him do it. And I mean, I I think that that goes for all directors, but especially for a guy like him, it's it's you you don't uh you don't hire And you gave Del Toro in this case the biggest B movie concept you could possibly unearth and he absolutely treated it like an A movie and, then you insert this arrogance and the hubris of a producer who is it has you know way worse faults than the things I'm describing right now, but somebody who thought he knew better than the artists, the filmmakers, because they thought they understood the business side And the other half of this quote, which I find so damning, is that he said, You know, in the late nineties, my father was kidnapped. So in essence, working with the Weinsteins was worse than when his father was kidnapped because at least he understood what it was the kidnappers wanted and how to make that terrible harrowing event stop. Yeah, and uh he he disowned the theatrical cut and then um what in the I don't know the exact year that the uh directors cut it on Blu-ray, but I remember it being very exciting for people like me and you uh to you know re not only get to revisit the film but to have it be as close you know it still wasn't what he wanted a hundred percent but it was much closer and uh you, know, I think that it always would have had a cult shelf life because it's Del Toro, it's monsters and and it's super slim y. Um but I I I like that that he got to at least uh Well and I feel like that's the advantage, weirdly, of coming to this movie so late is that I have only ever known the director's cut. So I didn't even tell you what the theatrical cut looked like. What I can tell you is that the Weinsteins, in fact, Bob Weinstein complained that the early version of the film wasn't scary enough, and he would frequently visit the set to make unreasonable demands about what should be shot, which deviated from the script. So literally coming in and telling them, no, you need to shoot this, you need to shoot that, completely trying to take over the movie. And that didn't solve the problem. So then they just threatened to fire Del Toro. Extremely important in this situation is that Del Toro had a couple of powerful allies, and the first powerful ally he had was the star of the film, Mira Sorvino. Yep. Um I I uh I the the anecdote that I heard was that they were about to fire him and Mira said absolutely not uh you cannot fire him. If you fire him, I walk that kind of thing. So in this film she's playing entomologist Dr. Susan Tyler and, she had actually just won a best supporting actress Oscar for the film Mighty Aphrodite , which was a Weinstein company, it was a Miramax release. So she had tremendous pull, but she also happened to be in a relationship at the time with Miramax's golden boy, Quentin Tarantino. So the two of them together told the Weinsteins, if you fire Del Toro, Mira's walking. And basically, like drew a hard line in the sand, you're not going to fire Del Toro. He's not the problem with this. His vision is going to be respected. And that's what kept him on the movie ultimately. And if you're interested, I would encourage you to read further into what happened to Mira Sorvino uh in her career. It's an awful, terrible story, and unfortunately not an isolated one. It's the reason why for a while you didn't see her in movies, and it absolutely had to do with Harvey Weinstein and his sleeziness and and his rebuffed advances toward her and the way that he would blacklist actresses who didn't succumb to his harassment . It's a really unfortunate story, but she's the star of this film and she's great. After these messages, we'll be right back. It's right . It's twisted. It's MTV's first movie. This summer, spend the night at Joe's apartment, sex , bugs, and rock and roll. I gotta get out of here. Joe's apartment. Rated PG 13. Starts fly. It'll never happen to me. I'll never need help. That's what every boater thinks. But then one day you do need help and you have no way of getting it because you thought having an emergency locator beacon was unnecessary. You're wrong. Emergency locator beacons are effective, affordable, and they save lives. Seriously . If not for you, do it for them. Learn more about emergency locator beacons at myfwc.com. 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That's E V E R A N D.com slash listen. talked about you know the way that uh del Toro will uh make monsters who are worthy of empathy. Yet in this one, not really. Not really. They're giant cockroaches who look like um men in trench coats essentially and the there's not much there to you know giant cockroach there's no way to really uh you know not humanize but uh anthropomorphize or or uh make worthy of affection or empathy. And I just want to you asked a question, Scott, about when we got the director's cut. It was released in 2011 specifically for the Blu-ray, and it is also the one that's available via digital streaming services right now. It's never been widely available on DVD because it was developed in 2010 when he revealed that he had been working on a director's cut. He said it's not exactly the movie I wanted to do, but it's helped me heal a lot of wounds and I'm happy with the cut. It's 112 minutes , so it's six minutes longer than the theatrical release. And it is uh e even at this point in his career, uh you know, in his second feature, you could see how important the visual scope is to del Toro because uh for a movie that mo uh you know uh once you get past say act one or um part of act two it all takes place underground and it's so old school , creepy, beautifully shot, uh by dad Lawson. And it is uh you know it showed that you know Del Toro whatever genre he was working in so far horror stuff, but he was a real artist and it it's it's uh a wonderfully shot movie. I also love that there's so much about this movie that ties in directly to Del Toro's career and his interests and everything. It's it's kind of this weird Nexus point for so many things for him. For example, when he was struggling with the Weinsteins and going through this hellish experience of making the movie under their thumb, the only thing that pulled him through this tough shoot was that he was reading a stack of Hellboy comics. Like that was his escape, right? And of course in 2004, he would direct an adaptation of Hellboy. And there's also the fact that this film , as I mentioned, Scott, it's a very short story by Donald Walheim, and it was originally planned, Mimic, as a thirty minutes short that would be part of a sci-fi horror anthology. Oh right, right, yeah. I completely forgot about that. You're right. It was meant to there was gonna be uh three stories in in one, you know, like a sci-fi creep show kind of thing. And uh that fell apart, so they expanded it. Yeah. So this became one movie and the other features that came out of that were Imposter in two thousand one and something called Alien Love Triangle in two thousand eight. Which never got made, right? Oh, it never got made. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it didn't. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it never that that one never got made. An imposter or not very good. Well, but you also think about the fact that he ends up going on to produce Cabinet of Horrors. Curiosities, yeah. I'm sorry, Cabinet of Curiosities. So Curiosity of Horrors. I'm just kidding. You had me oh you had me there. Cabinet of Curiosities, which uh uh is his Netflix series, and uh yeah you're right, I have nothing to add on that. You know what I you know what struck me the first the the new re visiting this movie? A giant cockroach? A car. No. Uh a car . The idea that okay, in order to get giant cockroaches, you you have to, you know, explain it to the audience in some way. And I don't know if this is from the short story or if it was him and co-writer Matthew Robbins who came up with this, but the entire conceit of uh a disease has hit New York City and it's killing children. And you know, the entomologist is, you know, the woman she's the woman who comes up with this, you know, uh cure, but the cure has horrible side effects uh on the local cockroach population. And it's like it could have just been um they were irradiated by nuclear waste. You know, but no, it has to be like a humane reason. It has to be, you know, we had the best of intentions. It wasn't just ignorance or malice. It was, you know medical i emergency and we were trying to find a a cure for a disease and that's what created the monster even even you know uh the origin of the monsters has to be based in It's its own sort of Dr. Frankenstein type story. Oh, absolutely. Where we play God and we fix the problem, but then we created a new problem. And I also love that this connects another to another thing that In that he introduces Strickler's disease, and at the beginning of this movie, we're watching these kids take their last breath because it's hard to be a child in a Guillermo del Toro movie. After this he would make Devil's Backbone, he would go on to make Pan's Labyrinth. Movies that that really emphasize the idea that this beautiful and magical as the world may be , it can also be a terrifying and dangerous place for children. Right. And, you know, it it just it raises the stakes i immeasurably because it's I mean, it I learned it from John Carpenter in Assault on Pre-Tinks Precinct 13. If you're gonna take the gloves off and kill a cute kid, uh, you know, then it it raises the tension, the suspense, the stakes, it makes the entire movie like whoa, they'll go that far for a a scary moment, um or an important, you know, thematic moment. Whoa, what a twist. What a vanilla twist . I don't get it. Fine. Um yeah, yeah, the the it it and it also shows that like in a in a in a scary world, ki even kids are not safe. Right. There is no unspoken rule like some Philbakers have where we're not gonna hurt the kids or the puppy or whatever. Uh and and you know he always uh seems to approach her not always but he mostly frequently seems to approach her uh with a with an artist's uh soul which is not just, oh we, kill the six people and you know that ra that that now we have a body cap. It's these the deaths in this movie matter uh to the plot and to the character of the film. And it has a couple of moments where kids are straight up massacred. It's awful. Yeah. And it's one of the things that has been, you know, in the last few years a big no no for me in movies. And Del Toro handles it so well that I was I mean, there's literally a scene in this movie where two like 12-year-old kids are murdered by a cockroach monster pretty savagely, and that's after this thing shows up with the corpse of a dog. So we've got dog death followed by double kid homicide, and I didn't immediately turn the movie off. So that is me speaking volumes to how well Del Toro handles these things. Suffocation! No breathing! So you had never seen this before. Uh what what what did you think of it overall? Did you like it, love it? What do you think? Oh, I dug the hell out of it. Like I said, just the big swing of it. The just the idea that, you know, because the beginning of the movie Strickler's disease, we're introduced to Dr. Susan Tyler, played by Mira Sorvino, and her boyfriend is the deputy director of the CDC, Peter Mann, played by Jeremy Northam. And I have to say, if this movie has a weak point, because the cast of the film is incredible. For it only being his second film and his first, you know, English language film, the cast of this movie is very impressive. But if it has a weak spot, I definitely think it's Northam. Zero charis ma, he's barely any facial expression, and you can't hear a fucking word he says. And he's got very nineties eyeglasses. Yes. Yes he does. Uh you know who's much more interesting is his his uh partner in uh biological crime, played by a very young and energetic Josh Brolin, who I think is a great highlight of the film. You got uh Charles S. Dutton. Uh who else? Uh F. Murray Abraham has a couple of scenes to add, you know, some trailer moments. Um, who am I missing here? Norman Reedus. Oh, yeah. Very a quick uh blinking. You'll miss it. Young Norman Reed us sh comes by to uh read us a story. Hey oh he comes by to say, Hey, I'm Norman Reed's and I'm auditioning for Blade Two whenever that comes out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh but Sorvino is the star and I mean that like literally and you know, just as far as her value to the film, because she's i em eminently likable and she's smart without be ing obnoxious. Because a lot of times the scientist, the head scientist in a movie is just so brilliant and ahead of everyone else. You're like yawn , but she's like figuring it out along with everyone else. And you know, you you you're're fascinated by the discoveries of the film, partially because she is. Right. And Del Toro actually said that Jeremy Northam and Mira Sorvino hated each other on set, which might account for their super natural lack of chemistry. Really interess ante. How could I don't Mira Servino seems like a doll. Why would Jay I don't know why you would dislike her? Well, here's the other thing that really toasted my buns about this is that Del Toro wanted Andre Brouwer as Dr. Man. In so doing, the ending would be a Caucasian woman, a black man, and Hispanic child as sort of a symbol for the future of mankind coming together. It's a hopeful ending, right? But the goddamn Weinsteins beat out the idea because they thought America wasn't ready for the idea of a racially blended family. So they went with Jeremy Northam instead, who is literally devoid of anything resembling charisma. Yeah, I mean the way to make America ready for anything is to just present it. Period. You know what I mean? Like Also, why are you the arbiters of that? Our Andre Brower was not only a brilliant actor, but a very powerful actor and a very handsome guy. Why would you not buy the two of them together? That's absurd. And somebody who we now no longer have on this planet, Andre Bauer. So, you know, we were we were deprived another Andre Brouwer vehicle by the Weinsteins, and that's unforgivable. Yeah, I it really does seem like th there's this thing that seems to happen in in st movie studio or movie company boardrooms, which is like I call it justifying your paycheck. And you you're you know, you're an associate or an executive producer on this movie, and you know, you have your board meetings uh about like the watch the dailies and how's it coming along, and I I honestly think that a lot of times people raise their hands to be heard, not because they think their idea is so good, but because they're getting paid well. And if they don't try to contribute something, eventually you're just gonna be like, we don't even need him or her. Get rid of them . So they'll they'll raise their hand with like a bunch of notes that are mostly garbage because they just need to justify their paycheck. And that's how Bob Weinstein uh well both of them, but you know, when when it comes to movies like you know, the horror department, he ran Dimension. And it just seems like a lot of times he would just I I want to show up on set and swing my you know what around and uh uh just to show that I'm the boss. Not because my ideas are great, but just because I'm the boss and you expect the boss to come in and raise hell and offer you a dozen notes. I don't, you know I think I think a lot of producers now have learned that's not the way you you know like obviously you're the producer you get to have notes uh offered advice or instructions, but m I think a lot of times nowadays, like a guy like Jason Blum uh uh you know reportedly does not micromanage and I think that works a lot better not always obviously, but when when yes, I just never understood the logic of you loved Kronos, you introduced you, you you meet the filmmaker, and you hire the that filmmaker. Leave him the hell alone. Exactly. Fucking figure it out by stop trying to figure it out. Right. Like you know, oh Brian, uh you you you're getting a new kitchen floor installed. You might want to like stick your head in the kitchen just to see how it's coming along. Hey, you want a glass of water? You need anything? All right, great. And then you go and sit and watch a baseball game. You don't micromanage the contractor because you don't know how to install a kitchen floor. You you hired a good contractor. Leave him alone . Leave her alone. Yeah, I install a sink and it's just spitting out blood all the time. Like I cannot figure it out. I don't know what I did wrong. Because you're you live in Amityville. For God's sake, get out That's what my realtor said too. So the beginning of this film, Mira Sorvino, who I agree with you, Scott, her discovery in this movie is so good, and because Del Toro , one of his biggest influences, of course, is Alien and Aliens, she's got that sort of mother complex. That thing throughout the movie, she's trying to get pregnant. She wants to be a mom. She ends up being a savior to a child in the tren ches down there. So in essence being a mother to him, and in so doing establishes a lot of empathy. So when she sees children suffering at the beginning of this movie from Strickler's disease and makes this decision to genetically mod ify a cockroach super predator to wipe out all of the contaminated uh cockroaches in New York that are carrying this horrible disease, your heart goes out to her. You know she's making a mistake, but at the same time, you really do appreciate what she's getting at. And another happy accident, Scott, of watching this now, discovering this movie post-COVID, I was like, yeah, kill all those motherfucking cockroaches. Whatever you need to do to eradicate this disease, uh, do it . I'm totally on your side. Yeah, it definitely has a bit more intensity and power post COVID, definitely. Um Yeah, that's all I have to say about that. So she becomes the hero, she eradicates the disease, and then we jump ahead three years. And one member of the cast we haven't mentioned yet, Scott, is the great Giancarlo Giannini. Yeah, yeah. He uh lives across the street from our entomologist hero hero and uh he has a a little boy who is I believe autistic and uh he provides a lot of the clues that we need to discover the what is, you know, on paper , a truly bizarre set of circumstances. Uh do you want to get into the whole like shoe imperson ation spo ons clicking and all that? Yeah, I mean Giancarlo is a shoe shine who does business in this subway tunnel on the platform, and his son, as Scott mentioned, is on the spectrum, and he's got this weird knack for sound and imitating sounds, so when he hears this clickety clack, clickety-clack across the street, he just thinks it's he calls it funny shoes. Funny shoes. That should have been the title of the movie. Funny shoes is probably the title of the short story, right? No, no, I think it's just mimic. But yeah, he he comes to think that there is someone basically he thinks Fred Estare is living in this church across the street. But in the meantime Right, but like the the whole idea is that when humans walk, they sound like thump, thump, thump, thump, thump that's you know and this this you know the mimic monster sounds like clickety clackety clickety and so only uh you know it's it's kind of clever that you know a kid who is focusing in on people's footsteps and the sounds they make, uh, you know, he figures it out before m before anybody else. And but how do you articulate that, you know, to to other to adults and everything? It's an interesting uh hook. Very early in the film we see this Chinese Catholic priest get absolutely murked by someone in a trench coat. Like he's running from it and then he jumps into this this painter's scaffolding and then he falls and there's a great use of of color here because when he falls he hits his head on a paint can and the white paint from the paint can splashes all over this mirror but there's no blood. Yeah, no, even before that, when he jumps onto the scaffold and we have this overhead shot by Lawson and it's uh we we he holds the shot so that the white can of paint falls into the distance because we're looking at it from uh bird's eye vie w and it it explodes and just the this shot of the the white paint before he even lands on the can is it's a beautiful shot to show how high up and how dangerous the whole situation Lawson's fighting an uphill battle here because he does an incredible job with all the night shots, but because this is a movie from the late 90s, everything during the day looks like it's shot at 5 30 p.m. in the fall. Just that weird golden hue. Like everything's golden hour. Like everything in the nineties had this. And I know instantly looking at it where all the actors are staring into the sunset that this is a late nineties film. Oh, well, from the credits to the rain to the you know gothic fine storytelling, this movie is very much, I believe, inspired by Seven. Oh, a hundred percent. Uh and so it's like uh no, it's gotta be a little gloomier. And you know, uh the a lot of the dark stuff, especially that takes place underground, kind of has this glow, like a dark purple glow hue that is just uh it is uniquely Del Toro and Lawsen and it's it's a lot of fun. I am a huge fan of any horror film that takes place underground. Could be a subway, could be a cave, could be, you know, uh uh the super deep borehole. Even there's a Russian uh horror film called Super Deep Hill. I think that was the original title for the core, right? Super Deep Borehole? Or just boar. No, I liked it. Man. That movie really did Gene Shallis job for him, didn't it? The core. More like the boar. Yeah, the boring. No, I I actually like the core. Uh as silly as it is. Oh, I do too. I just think it's funny anytime a movie's title is setting itself up for a good shallading. You know what, Brian? I think you want to take a second and look over Dan Lawson's body of work. It's impressive. It is not just impressive, but it's junk food cinema heaven . Like good high-quality horror films and thrillers and sci-fi. And he he's just uh a fantastic cinematographer. He has given us the original Silent Hill film, The Substitute, directed by one of the producers on this film, Orle Borndahl. It was part of that what was that collection, Scott? That DVD horror movie collection from like Nightmare Street or something from the mid 2000s, something after dark? It's like a whole series of like foreign and independent horror films you could buy. Yeah. Uh uh the eight films to die for Scream Fest. Uh was it it wasn't a Scream Fest or No, it was there was Ghost House Underground, which maybe the label that it came out, I don't know. But that was a really solid movie that I liked. That I actually saw at Fantastic Fest. I I'm wondering because at this point in his career, Bornadal was known mainly as a director, so I'm wondering if he was a a director who developed a lot of the movie and then got replaced. It's very possible. He also shot Solomon Kane, which is a favorite around junk Fodo Cinema by M. J. Bassett. Oh, you know who you know who loves uh uh Solomon Kane? Uh C. Robert Cargill? CRC . That wise nerd. Uh he likes uh he loves Solomon Kane as much as I do. C Solomon Kane Gill? Absolutely. He ends up shooting some other movies for Del Toro, actually. He shot Crimson Peak and The Shape of Water, and then he would shoot all of the John Wick sequels. Yep. And speaking of Cargill again, he shot the Gorge. Yep. And he shot Frankenstein last year for Del Toro. Yeah, it might have actually in in a one podcast, mine or yours, it might have been Cargill who uh underlined how great Lawson is. Uh and he is. Or my friend Ben Rock, who runs a cinematography podcast. Might have been him too, but they're both right. Let's go back to baby brolling for just a second. This is Josh Brolin, who by the way, when you watch this movie, you're already like, why isn't this guy the lead of the film? Like he's handsome, he's got charisma, he's a little bit of a comic relief, like he's the cop that's working closely with the male leader this film, whose name I keep fucking forgetting because is that Jeremy Northham? Jeremy Northham, thank you. He's working with him because after this priest is killed, they go into the building that's supposed to be a church and find out it's a front for human trafficking. And it's possible that every single person who's been stashed under this building is infected, so they're working with the CDC. But what I didn't realize about Josh Brolin at this point in his career is that he was floundering and he was ready to quit. I didn't realize that when he was cast in No Country for Old Men, he was working as a stockbroker. Like he had walked away fully from film acting. And I also wasn't aware, and this is what really blew my mind. That his dad was James Brolin from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure? First of all, it's big Tom Pee-Wee. Secondly, No, no, at the end he plays the Pee-Wee as as a super cool ag ing Mr. Herman and and him and Morgan Fairchild. Holy shame he's in both Oh wait. Oh wait, no, it's Chris Christofferson in the second one. God damn it. That's all right that you misremembered big top Pee-wee. It's okay. As long as you you know it's not it it's an okay movie, but it's not the beautiful sublime b masterpiece that is Pee-Wee's big adventure. Yeah, but an eight-year-old Brian's about to show up in a time tunnel and punch me in the nuts for misremembering that. Mace Montana. Bam. Oh, but no, he's always uh James Brolin in my era, uh which is you know, about ten years before yours, he was known as as one of those uh swaggering, like a Tom Selleck type, James Frollin was, and on TV. Uh he had a movie career, but he also was huge on TV. And he had a you know a gorgeous beard, and he was super handsome. So that the obviously the joke in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure is that you're having James Brolin play the movie version of Pee-Wee. That's funny. And so every time I see Josh Brolin, I think of his dad . That's all I have to say about that. I feel like Jack Pallance to describe the importance of James Broland to junk food cinema would say it best. I think he would say he was the star of the car . Yeah, okay. He was the star of the car, actually. Uh yeah, James Broolin did a lot of B stuff too. But yeah, uh I like the Brolins. And uh obviously Josh would go on to play one of the most uh powerful villains ever in movies uh when he played um spider man i I was joking I was gonna say Green Goblin. No. He plays Thanos , of course. Yeah. So one thing it turns out that Josh Brolin would have loved to have snapped out of existence is the nineteen eighty six film Thrashin, because this is what I didn't know. That movie was the one that made him want to take a break from film acting, and that happens to be a junk food favorite of mine. Which one? Thrashin. 1986. Oh, Thrashin. Oh my God. Josh Roland's in that? He's the star of it, man. And I re-watched it recently for this episode and I still fucking love it. Oh my God. You guys and your teenage delinquent movies. You just did Tough Turf. Didn't you do uh what was the pairing with that one? The other film? The New Kids. The New Kids. Yeah, yeah. That's wild. I've done that on uh overhated comma, which is my podcast. But I just did a super obscure movie. Uh, of all people, the great screenwriter Akela Cooper chose 1989 misfire that nobody remembers called Speed Zone. And then when I mentioned it on Blue Sky, people like oh uh the cinema snob just covered that as well. And it's not a podcast that I listen to, but I don't mind plugging him. And uh I I just thought, what are the odds that we would both cover the m obscure, super obscure speed zone in the same month? That happens though, dude. Junk food cinema and we hate movies ended up doing an episode on law-abiding citizen in the exact same week. And I'll never forget that a few months after we recorded our 200th episode on Action Jackson. did How this get made? Dropped their two hundredth episode. They also did Action Jackson for their two hundredth episode. Yeah, it it it it is bizarre uh how sometimes we uh you know these uh our nerdy podcasts uh step on each other's toes inadvertently. Uh but yeah, speed zone, not a good film. You better not step on your toes when you're on a skateboard because Thrashin, by the way, coming out in 86, it's 80s as fuck and feels like rad on a skateboard, which is awesome that it came out the same year as rad. If I'm not mistaken, is Josh Brolin not also in Solar Babies? I don't believe he is. No, I don't think so. No. Okay, yeah. I'm thinking of something else. Okay. You can cut that or keep it. I want people to know that I'm only human. I am not a giant cockroach and I do make mistakes. You do a great imitation of a human, Scott, and we appreciate that about you. Well well well clickity click click click click click, Brian . That was me saying thank you very much. Oh I got you. I speak cockroach . After these messages, we'll be right back . Cory Webster is taking off for LA. He lives to thrash. Well what do you thrash? What do you got? Big bad tag . It's just the game, right, Valley boy? You like games, right, Valley boy? And uphill romance coy please don't go to a downhill race ration it's not a kids game anymore Wearing a life jacket or personal flotation device is one of the most important decisions you can make while boating. Today there are several types of life jackets available, so you can find one that's comfortable and convenient to wear no matter what you're doing. And thanks to incredible advances in inflatable technology and innovative materials development, safety and comfort can both be a priority. Stay safe , stay comfortable, wear it, Florida. For more information on this and other safe boating topics, visit myfwc.com What's up, baby? It's Bretsky, and I'm here to tell you that spin quest.com is giving out free sweet coins. All you gotta do is purchase a $10 coin pack and guess what? They're gonna give you the coins from a $30 coin pack that lets you play all your favorite games like Blackjack, Wanted Dead or Wild, and we're talking real cash prizes, baby. SpinQuest.com . SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Voidwear prohibited. Visit SpinQuest.com for more details If you love podcasts, you already know how to fit great stories into your busy day. So why not do the same thing with books? Everand is an affordable audiobook and ebook subscription that goes wherever you go. Your commute, your workout, your grocery run. No rearranging your schedule, no carving out reading time. Just hit play. For a limited time, new members get two free books when they start a free trial. Go to Everand dot com slash listen to claim yo But he actually did an interview with Terry Gross in 2007 where he said that his strictly Catholic grandmother was sort of a Piper Laurie figure in his life. Oh wow. He told Terry Gross that his grandmother would require him to mortify himself in self-punishment, and in one case placed metal bottle caps into his shoes so that the soles of his feet were bloody as he walked around. So it's not hard to understand why the Chinese priest in this movie turns out to be running, you know, white slavery and is corrupt. And then there's Mira Sorvino at the end of this movie saving her child by giving herself stigmata with a crucifix, by the way. Gives herself stigmata with a crucifix. Like there is Catholic trauma imagery all over this movie. Interesting. I yeah, I hadn't thought about that. Uh because I'm not a Christian or a Catholic. So a lot of times uh that thematic stuff uh uh uh uh goes right past me. Not always, I'm not stupid but. Uh um yeah, yeah, I and it's funny because it's you know kind of a sci-fi horror, a bio horror, and not necessarily an occult or religious horror, but yeah, those themes are there. So after we have, you know, a few people who get murdered, including savagely these two twelve year old kids. And that uh and and the priest who gets pennywised. And the priest definitely gets pennywised. The movie is shot in such a way that you really do think it's this dude in a trench coat who's knocking people off, but then Mira Sorvino starts to discover evidence that maybe the Judas breed, which was the super cockroach that she bred to fight the Strickler's disease cockroaches, they might still exist. They were designed, you know, much like in Jurassic Park, they were designed to not be able to breed. They were supposed to live their short life and die off, and that's how they were gonna control the population, but we're starting to find evidence, uh, this secretion that this Judas breed may have survived. And by the way, speaking of secretion, which is a sentence I say way too often on this podcast, because of her role in this as an entomologist who investigated a deadly insect invasion, there is a compound that's actually secreted as a defense mechanism by the sunburst diving beetle. And when that was discovered in the late nineties, it was named Mirisorvone by Thomas Eisner, an entomologist who discovered it. So literally named after Mirasorvino's character in Mimic. That's wild. And it just goes to show you that no matter what scientists do , animals love to screw . Life uh uh uh finds a way to get freaky yep, yep. And I I mean I don't even know how cockroaches procreate, but it they do. And it within three years they have somehow evolved into a cockroach that uh is not only six feet tall and looks like a man in a trench coat, but is also intelligent enough to know that's what it is. So she goes and she consults with her mentor, Dr. Gates, played by the amazing F. Murray Abraham. A man made entirely out of um balsa wood, I think. Sparking another round of America's favorite game, F. Murray Kill. F. Murray Kill. Which F. Murray Abraham character would you fuck? Would you marry or would you kill? I love F. Murray. Uh him and the also the equally great Ben Kingsley have always paired up in my brain since the eighties as just guys who if you need an authority figure to explain how these mutated cockroaches have survived, or uh where to find the uh parchment to find this the secret tomb, or you know, any kind of educated authority figure, F Murray and Ben Kingsley are the guys. I love them both. Um and they're both still cooking. And then of course we get our team together. We have Mirisorvino, we've got Northham, we've got this MTA cop played by the amazing, absolutely phenomenal Charles S. Dutton, who when I was a kid was the scary ass Captain Cutter from that episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? Just an amazing actor. A brilliant character actor. He was also the lead in rock, sitcom. Uh just a just a great actor. Yeah. Another thing I love about Charles S. Dutton, he's one of those guys like Danny Trejo, who started off life rough. He was convicted of manslaughter, did a seven year sentence. After that he got charged with possession of a deadly weapon, and then while he was in prison for that he assaulted a corrections officer, got an additional seven year sentence. Like his life was on the wrong track, right? And then while he was serving that sentence, he read this play that amused him so much that he started a theater group in the prison and that became his world. Very much like Danny Trejo starting off as a felon and then becoming an actor, which adds so much legitimacy to his tough guy image. And I just think that's fascinating. Oh yeah. I mean when when when he raises his voice, you listen, Charles Dutton. I mean he's a great actor in a lot of ways, but when he gets animated or angry or excited, you're like, uh oh, this is not a guy I want to hear yelling. What's wrong? What's going on ? And then baby Brolin and they're all going down into the subway tunnel to investigate because by this point the little autistic boy from across the street has disappeared and may have wandered down here, so Giancarlo Giannini is down here as well.. Right And we've already, like I said, you said we've already had two uh likable young boys , you know, destroyed by these giant cockroach monsters. So that raises the stakes of I doubt this little autistic boy is gonna be devoured because he's a main character and everything. But he it could happen. Yeah, we don't know. We have no idea at this point. And then right before we go down there, we're introduced to this Norman Redis' character who works at a water treatment plant, woke up this morning over in New Jersey, and fishes a giant cockroach embryo out of a water treatment tank. And this is by the way his Hollywood debut, Norman Reedus's. Oh, interesting. So they go down in the sewers, and what they find out is that this thing that the local the local homeless have been calling Long John Slim because of this very shadowy figure is not a person at all. It's a giant fucking cockroach that has evolved the ability to imitate like it can mold parts of its skull together to look like a face, and then it drapes its wings in such a way to look like a trench coat just so that it can wander around as a human. And that makes this a big swinging flick. It's not just there are giant cockroaches killing people. It's that those giant cockroaches are also pretending to be humans. Mimicking humans. Dom's mimicking humans. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, uh there are, you know, the the nest and whatnot. There are killer cockroach movies, the uh legendary sequence from creep show. Cockroaches we are normally repulsed by. It's a natural instinct. Humans we're not afraid of them, but boy, we don't like them. They indicate that something is dirty or or rotting, uh, you know, and it's it's they're no net they're not like as gross as maggots, but they're they're up there. And the idea of just, you know, not just swarms of cockroaches, but you know, these a handful of uh uh there's only one actually, isn't there? Only one what? Mimic? No, they're all able to do this. I there's only one I think there's only one male. So that's like oh that's what it was. That's what it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's yeah, one lucky giant cockroach getting all the cockroach tail. He's the cock of the walk. Yeah. Uh and so like the second half of the movie, to its credit, is mostly our now our ensemble stuck underground in an unused subway tunnel, and there's a car, so there's like a a siege aspect to it in a subway car, and it's uh the that's where the movie really shines. There's a lot of setup and all of it is interesting, but for me the movie really is is starts when they get stuck underground. I could not agree more. And I have to say, pursuant to this being an early Del Toro film, there is some amount of CG that you have to kind of forgive. Yeah. Because that was just something in his career. It has nothing to do with, you know, a lack of effort. It just you know his imagination is so vast and what he wanted to bring to life is so ambitious that it's just not really possible with the CG they had at the time that the Weinsteins would have been you know willing to spend money on. Right. It's also the even if you wanted to throw unlimited funds at digital effects in 1997, it was still gonna, it was never gonna be flawless because it was still to use CGI this prominently in a film was still relatively new. And the a lot of the effects were still like very impressive in a lot of cases, but to modernize, you can see that it's rudiment ary. You know, it's like watching King Kong 33. Does it, you know, like my do you does it bother you if you can see a thumbprint in in King Kong or Ray Harryhausen creation? No. But you know like a lot of times when when a certain type of special effects are in their early stages, you you know you have to just you forgive that, period. Well and then there's the wise decision made that we're gonna use CG down in these tunnels So the darkness sort of obfuscates a little bit of the edges, which I think is a really great idea. But as much as I love the story of this film, I l how much I love the central conceit and how much that makes this a big swinging flick. The real star of this movie is the fucking goopy glorious practical effects. As much as there is digital in this movie, there are so many practical shots that are inspiring in their effectiveness and delightful in their disgust Creature creation by the amazing Rob Bouteen. Rob motherfucking Bouteen. Yeah. Yeah, all you need to know is he created the thing in 1982's the thing. That's all you need to know. But it's not just that, but like you said, it's the goop, the the the thing, you know, the the sli me, the the the the way to make an audience go, ew , you know, like it's so effective. If you have a real aversion to insects and insect goop, this might not be the movie for you. I just think it's amazing. Like you got Rob Bouteen doing creature design, and then you've got all these different types of techniques, Scott. You got full-size puppets. You got digital animation. You got people like core and digital domain working on this. So again, the the CG is not for lack of effort. But what I really love is that Robot Bine designed these creatures and then the task of bringing them to life practically is given to Rick Lazzarini and his creature shop. And if you don't know that name, they were hired because of the realism they brought to another film that you and I have actually covered for this show, Scott Outbreak. Yeah. Another movie about a deadly virus carried by animals. They also did the elephants for Operation Dumbo Drop, and my favorite piece of trivia, my favorite note on their resume, they designed the frogs for the Budweiser commercials. Oh wow. I hate those commercials. But I do like I do like frogs. But I mean you got like rod puppets for the finale of the film that are composited among fireballs and digital mimic body parts. So you've got all these things working in conjunction and working in symphony and a lot of times in harmony, the few sort of hokey CG shots notwithstanding, which again are obfuscated by the dark and totally forgivable when you think about how big the swing was on this movie and how wide the imagination was. And I just think it's incredible. Yeah, there's some great shots uh where they're running from the a giant cockroach flying behind them. And, you know, like all of that stuff works so well. It just sucks that this is another thing. You know, the digital effects, the practical effects, as incredible as they are. This is another area where the Weinsteins tinkered and interfered. In one instance, apparently, an executive forgot that they were cockroaches, that they were insects, and he didn't want antenna. Like he started raging on this call like, like they look bugs. And Del Toro was like, We've been developing the creatures for a year and a half. You've seen the designs, you've seen the maquettes, you know everything. They are bugs. Like what the fuck are you talking about? And the executive was like, Well, can you make them more like aliens? And it's just like, what the fuck are we even talking about? Like you're the ones who greenlit a giant cockroach monster movie and you don't want them to look like bugs. Get the fuck out of here. Yep. Again, I I I truly believe that 80% of those kind of notes are just like saying, hey, look, boss, I'm doing it, I'm doing something. I'm contributing. Uh this movie cost 30 million and worldwide made twenty five million. This is a bomb. Yeah. And a lot of it has to do with the interference and the backlash to it and not promoting it well. And they didn't they didn't know what they had. They didn't know the gold mine they were sitting on, and they never got to work with Del Toro again because of how awful they were to him. Oh, you know what's something we didn't cover yet ? The amazing score by Marco Beltrami. That composer could make the silliest of well potentially silliest of ideas work just by use of his like grand sweeping horns and and strings. Isn't it just an amazing composer, especially for horror films? So a couple of weeks ago when we talked about the new kids, we talked about how Lalo Schifrin was doing his best impression of Harry Manfred ini, basically giving James Spader Jason Voorhees like xylophone tinkles and big brass fanfare whenever he would pop out from behind a tree. And I feel like on Mimic, it's Marco B eltrami doing his best impression of Danny Elfman. Like it's a great score, but and it's big and sweeping, but it's also got the weird disembodied choral voices. Mm-hmm. Like it just feels very Danny Elfman and it's really incredible. It's a great score. Um and uh yeah, yeah, I I love it. It's also edited by Patrick Lussier, who would graduate to director very soon after this and do a lot of films for Dimension, like that Dracula trilogy with Gerard Butler and uh Yeah. You mean the movie where Dracula stops and watches the entirety of a monster magnet music video at one point? I I would I'll take your word for that. I do not remember those those films very well. Was it Dracula 2000, right? It is Dracula 2000. Good lord. Yeah, Dimented put out a lot of forgettable junk too. Is it you know this, one turned out to be an unexpected, you know, f ull item, but they did a they banged out a lot of junk. Josh Brolin was thrashing, but Dimension was trashing . True. No judgment here. We like trash. After these messages, we'll be right back. But Pines , Bud Er , Bud Pines , Bud s, Bud , Bud Pines , Air, World class fishing crystal blue waters endless sunshine there's so much about Florida's water ways to enjoy. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission encourages you to take part in the national spring aboard campaign and take a boating safety course today. You can take the course in a classroom or online. Just make sure you take a course. The knowledge gained by taking a course will make you and your family and friends safer and allow you to have more fun out on the water. To learn more, visit Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission at myfwc.com. Forget everything you had planned for this weekend because you are sitting on your couch and winning from the comfort of your own home. I'm here with SpinQuest where you can play hundreds of slot games, all of the table games you love, and you could even win real cash prizes. New users, $30 coin packs are on sale for $10 at spinquest .com. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit SpinQu If you love podcasts, you already know how to fit great stories into your busy day. So why not do the same thing with books? Everand is an affordable audiobook and ebook subscription that goes wherever you go. Your commute, your workout, your grocery run. No rearranging your schedule, no carving out reading time. Just hit play. For a limited time, new members get two free books when they start a free trial. Go to Everan.com slash listen to claim yours. That's E V-E-R-A-N-D.com slash listen . I do want to say this. Going back to a lot of the advantages, this advan tages of coming to this movie cold in 2026. One thing I did not expect is how massive were the similarities between Mimic and Deep Blue Sea. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I could see that. You know, uh the well intentioned scientist trying to cure a disease and Yeah, by genetically altering an animal, a female scientist who genetically modifies an animal in an attempt to cure a disease and as a side effect the animal gets smarter and more dangerous? Like which movie am I talking about? Mimic or Deep Blue C? Definitely Deep Blue Mimic. Deep Blue Mimic. And then you got a group of people who get trapped in this underground facility, underwater facility, the monster's maneuvering very quickly, like way faster than it should, through all these shafts and vents and all these things, and they're besieged by these evolved animals. By the way, Charles S. Dutton's character is bald like LL Cool J in Deep Blue Sea and loud like Samuel L. Jackson is in that movie. Boy, does Charles S. Dutton yell a lot in this movie? Boy. Oh, he yells so well. Yeah. They ought to call him Sam uel Yell Jackson, am I right? Sam Yell. Sam Yell. And at the end, at the end of the movie, the female scientist presents herself as a sacrifice to save the others. There's even a whole thing about the monsters are able to smell blood. And I'm like, first of all, that's not even a thing cockroaches do. That's sharks. But is it even smelling? It's probably more like tasting. Yeah, they don't smell it. You're right. They taste it. But in this movie, they're having to cover themselves in cockroach viscera when they have a wound because the cockroaches can smell blood. Question mark. It's like, yeah, that's actually a shark thing. And even though this movie came out a year before Deep Blue Sea, or maybe two years before, I can't remember if D Blue Sea, ninety eight, ninety-nine? Uh I think ninety-nine, but don't quote me on that podcast listeners. That would strengthen my argument that someone who wrote Deep Blue C saw this movie and really liked it because they're just wholesale cribbing from Mimic for Deep Blue C. You know, yeah, it's a great double feature. It would make Mimic and Deep Blue C make a great double feature. But for some reason, the movie that I always pair with Mimic, also from 97, The Relic. Okay. Scott , this is the I'm so glad you mentioned this. This is exactly why I think I had not seen Mimic for so many years. Because even as I was preparing the episode in my notes, I wrote the word relic 15 times and had to go back and delete it and write mimic. Because just like you in my head, they were interchangeable. Like not in terms of content, but I would hear one and think the other. And I think for years thought I had actually seen Mimic because I thought it was the relic. I I just love the idea that there was a g Del Toro film floating around that you hadn't seen and it it you know, then you go and pop it in and it it must have been like, you know, finding an unexpected pizza in your kitchen like whoa yeah you know like I didn't know I had that whole pizza I'm gonna eat it and and you know like I wish to god there was a del Toro film I haven't seen because I'd watch it tonight. You know what it was like that. It was like finding pizza in an old coat that you haven't worn since last winter. I love this movie. I absolutely fucking love this movie. Warts and all. Yeah, it's not perfect, but again, when you take a B-movie concept and you approach it like it's an A film, you earn the respect of Junk Food Cinema. And it's not hard to understand why Del Toro became one of the most celebrated genre filmmakers in the history of cinema. Yep. And you know, like the it's important to Del Toro that you have that humane setup of how the disease came to be. And then also the the uh you know boots on the ground setup of how it's spread among these, you know, uh immigrant people who were treated poorly under gr you know in in the basement of this horrible church. And it it it's not just oh uh all um there were uh uh uh toxic waste fell off the back of a train and infected all of these cockroaches and now they can grow big like that's a fine setup for a B movie but the uh spiel uh Spielberg del Toro approaches B concepts w with a with an A-grade filmmaking. And I think it definitely helps that he was partnered on the screenplay with Matthew Robbins, who also wrote on Sugarland Express, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Corvette Summer, which is a deep fried paper to mine, Dragon Slayer, batteries not included, just you know yeah, Matthew Robbins was a for a I believe he was a Spielberg collaborator. Yeah, obviously he wrote Truggerland Express. But uh then he got together with a gentleman named Hal Barwood and they were partners for a while, worked on a lot of films together. But and then I th I think Matthew Robbins got his directorial debut on uh Dragon Slayer . And he's still to this day working with Del Toro. And the gentleman must be up there in age, but he's a fantastic screenwriter. He also directed Corvette Summer and The Legend of Billy Jean, another deep fried favorite of junk food cinema. Fair is fair. Oh, okay, yeah. So yeah, I'm sorry. I was uh there Dragon Slayer was not his debut. Okay. Uh as a du I think Corvette Summer was. Yeah. Um yeah, and i uh he's just uh he was already, you know, like one of those names that Gen X film nerds would be remember m fondly, uh and uh let alone for his third act with Del Toro, because I believe he co-wrote his Pinocchio. Uh I could be wrong. I'm I'm just speaking I'm I don't have my computer in front of me, so I can't cheat. But uh was it was it Crimson Peak? Was it you s oh yeah, you said Crimson Peak, right? Yes, Crimson Peak. Also, just a real quick note about Giancarlo Giannini before we get out of here. One of the things that my researchers uncovered is that in addition to acting, his passion is inventing, and among many other things that he invented was the moving music playing sound playing jacket that Robin Williams wears in toys, which is one of the most random pieces of trivia I've ever seen. Good lord. Uh yeah, I mean even as just a a unassuming shoeshine m gentleman he puts forth such not authority but such class that like you know he it it affects everyone around him Gian ini just has this this classiness that you cannot uh escape. And and he adds it, you know, anybody around him in a film is infected by his cool world kind of world weary classiness. I love the guy . I'm sure you had a ball discovering this. Uh you know, like you know, like uh an anthropologist going, oh, there's a del Toro I've not seen. I'm going to uh you know settle in. And it's it's fun. It's just a fun movie. It is it is it among his best films? No, not even the director's cut, but it it shows so much of Del Toro's promise and talent that it's impossible not to enjoy. At least for me and you. There's some anthropology, there's some cinema archaeology, and in this case there's some entomology. And before we get to the junk food pairing, Scott, we would be absolutely derelict in our duties to not mention, you know, when we're seeing this cockroach monster in its human form that everyone's calling Long John , I bet you can guess the actor that stood in and played the long john human form of the cockroach in this Guillermo del Toro movie. Uh oh, what does that gentleman's name? I can't remember. Uh but he also did the the b odywork of Abe Sapien in Hellboy. Yep, that is Doug Jones. Thank you, Doug Jones. It's such a simple, straightforward name. It's easy to forget. Sorry. Who I was gonna say Kevin Peter Hall, but he had passed away by that point. Yes. Kevin Peter Hall being the late gentleman who played the Predator and Harry and Harry and the Henderson. Absolutely correct. But early on you see Del Toro starting to work with people that he would collabor ate with, you know, throughout his career. And I have to throw special love to Doug Jones because something I did not know . He went to my alma mater, Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana, where not only was he a student , but he was the mascot for Ball State. He was Charlie the fucking cardinal and many sporting events and public appearances. Chirp, chirp. Wow, that's wild. You know who else is from, Muncie? Tim Robbins from Hudsucker Proxy. He's a month ago. Cool. Cool. Uh yeah, yeah. That was Mimic, ladies and gentlemen. This has been a podcast brought to you by mov ies and our love for the the for cinema. I couldn't have said it better myself. You could have, actually, really easily. Well, I'm not going to. But yeah, I had a good time revisiting it and Nope. This was just something that I discovered recently and really wanted to talk about it. And you know, speaking of how this movie laid the foundation for a lot of different things, this was Oh, interesting. Okay. He also did that for pulp fiction, but was uncredited. Again, just so many weird Nexus points this movie repres ents. Yeah, I mean uh Del Toro has launched a lot of careers and like you mentioned, he's also very loyal to his co-writer. He's very he's worked with Matthew Robbins and Dan Lawson many times and and actors that he keeps bringing back. You know, he seems like a guy who's if he works really well with somebody, uh he brings them back over and over, like Ron Perlman and to shout out a hero of junk food cinema speaking of the screenwriters, although I don't think he's credited in the credits, there were actually trailers and TV spots that dropped his name because John Sales worked on this. That's one of my all-time favorite screenwriters. And and and he's a good director, great director too. But uh I I love the fact that uh I what what is it I I always get this wrong, but I believe it was he was working on uh alligator and the how ling at the same time and and he was handing off pages to production assistants who would show up at the motel and he would like write alligator at night and howling in the day or something to that effect. But I just love John Sales. And there's a documentary in there that will name itself just from that description. I can't wait to dive into Howling by Night, the John Sales story. Uh I work in sales or black sales or uh soupy sales. The salesman. Oh, the salesman. There you go. This is my last resort. And that does bring us to the junk food pairing. And for this one, I went with your favorite chocolate bar. Wait, what? You say that's super general and doesn't it all relate to the movie? Well first of all, shut up. And secondly, it turns out your favorite candy bar, regardless of brand, probably pairs perfectly with a movie about mutated cockroaches. Because as it turns out, bugs are ever present during the food production process, so much so that the FDA has set guidelines that stipulate food manufacturers are legally allowed to produce food with traces of insects like cockroach parts, which are considered quote natural contaminants and is considered safe for public consumption. In my youth or my not my youth, but my younger adult years, I worked in a local chocolate factory and uh good luck avoiding insects. I I mean this factory was you could have eaten.