The Final Showdown and Conclusion

Forget whatever plans you have this weekend because you're staying at home and playing on spin quests. And there's never been a better time to sign up than right now. New users get $30 coin packs for just $10 . All the table games you love with hundreds of slot games and real cash prizes. That's at spinquest.com. S- in- qu-U-E-S-T.com. SpinQuest is a free-to-play social casino. Voidwear prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more det ails . Guys, I'm eating junk and watching rubbish. You better come out and stop me ! All right, this is Dick Miller. If you're listening to Junk Fu Cinema, who were these guys? You're back on the turf of Junk Food Cinema, and we're still hanging tough. With two F's. Brought to you by SoonerorSpater .com. com course size matters . It's the 80s. This is, of course, the weekly Cult and Exploitation Filmcast. So good. It just has to be fattening. I'm your host, Brian Salisbury. And I'm joined, as per usual, by my friend and co-host. He is a novelist. He is a screenwriter. A lieutenant of Mega Force, a man who really puts the heart in Jack back and the heart attacks, Mr. C. Robert Cargill. Hi. How's it going, man? It is going. Are you ready? Are you ready for the epic of double features, maybe that we've ever done on this show? I don't know if I would say either of those things, but yes, let's go. If you are also a fan of loud hyperbole, we have 12 years of this exact horse shit on your favorite podcatcher. You can also follow us on social media, and if you really like the show I mean you really like the show. If you like us as much as James Spader hates that damn establishment, you can go to Patreon.com/slash junk food cinema. Financially support the show. We greatly appreciate it. So we covered a film last week, Cargo . Did we? We did. We did in fact cover a film called The New Kids. It was an 80s bully revenge movie starring James Spader. This week's film, which is also an 80s bully revenge film starring even more James Spader, opened the same weekend as last week's film, The New Kids. And the pull of that double feature was just too strong to ignore. Guess what I'm asking you, gentle listener, is did you watch the new kids and think I want to keep 40% of this movie, but add the woefully absent RDJ and maybe three to four musical numbers? If so, do we have a movie to grant your we irdo fucking wish? Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to venture into tough turf . Living here isn't going to be easy. Everything is against him. I've been missing Lamb my property. And wanting her is the hardest part. Frankie, what's so unreasonable about knowing? We don't fit. But he knows when to stand. When to run, and when to come out fighting. Tough dirt. Now playing in selected cities at a theater near you . Now was this also a first time watch for you, Cargill, as the new kids was ? No . Um there was a question mark there I don't quite understand. I d yeah. What is this? This feels wrong. Uh I Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, hey, hey, cargo, what the hell, what is going on? Sounds like your mainframe got hacked by Ultra on there. You are bothering me. Hi everyone, this is Brian. Not the Brian you're currently hearing, but the Brian of the future that is now the past. Coming in here bending all time and space to report that we were indeed hacked by the robot overlord Ultron on this episode. Apparently, he did not like the many James Spader puns that we made throughout the course of the episode. I'm sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through. But what that metal-headed megalomaniac do esn't know is that we have Doctor Strange on our side. So using the timestone, I've actually been able to come back here to help recapture some of the things that were missed as Cargill and I ventured into the toughest of tough turfs, which is How can you possibly hope this happened? When I asked Cargill if this was the first time he had seen Tough Turf, and he gave me that answer with a question mark as you heard. The reason for that is because when he logged into Amazon and pulled up Tough Turf, it said It said, Do you want to watch again? And I was like, Yes . And then I rewat-ched it and I don't remember a frame of it. I don't know when I watched it. I don't know what state of inebriation I was in when I watched it. Um, I don't know how long like if because the thing is is that you know Amazon will Oh, I'm so close. I'm so close to pulling Cargill back from the cyber dimension to which he was banished by Ultron. We're making progress here, folks. You've wounded me. I give you four remarks for that . But the call to do this double feature is not just the fact that they are two Jamie Spader bully revenge movies that came out in the same weekend and are remarkably similar. There was another siren song that pulls us towards Tough Turf for this week. And that is the fact that it was produced by New World Pictures, which was founded by our patron saint Roger Corman and his brother Gene. Hit the Corman alarm. Roger and Gene founded New World Pictures in 1970 after Roger left AIP. Now, by 1983, Roger had actually sold New World Pictures, and this was one of the early films under the new regime of Robert Rehm, who was formerly of Universal and Avco Embassy, he becomes the CEO of New World. What's really crazy, and Ultron, if you're still listening, I think even you would get a kick out of this. You're unbearably naive. As you tumble down the rabbit hole of the tentacles of New World Pictures. At one point, they owned Lionsgate Studios, which at the time was just a post-production house, and Marvel Entertainment Group. That is bzonkers. Not only that , but at one point, they tried to buy Mattel and Kenner. So they were just going to be this huge conglomerate monster, this corporate monolith, the likes of which we haven't seen. Oh, wait a minute. Disney exists that's right Tough Turf was produced by Donald Borkers who had made several films for New World including Children of the Corn and Angel, which as we all know is a deep fried favorite of mine. Borgers was inspired to make the film after seeing an RB concert where one of the songs was She's So Tough. This led to the title Tough Turf. So a lot of times with Roger Corman, you can understand building movies around a poster or even a tagline. But building an entire movie after a song title that you heard in a club one night is next fucking level. But as we will talk about throughout the course of this episode, i it's safe to say a lot of cocaine was involved in the production of Tough Turf. Typical of humans. Tough Turf was produced by Donald Borkers, who had made several films for New World, including Children of the Corn and Angel, which, as we all know, is a deep fried favorite of mine. Borgers was inspired to make the film after seeing an R and B concert where one of the songs was She's So Tough. This led to the title Tough Turf. So a lot of times with Roger Corman, you can understand building movies around a poster or even a tagline. But building an entire movie after a song title that you heard in a club one night is next fucking level. But as we will talk about throughout the course of this episode, i it's Now Borcher's claims that shortly before filming began on Tough Turf, Robert Reim, who we mentioned was just made CEO of New World, wanted to cease production because of the financial failure of Streets of Fire. Another deep fried favorite of both myself and Cargo. It had been Robert Reim who had greenlit that movie at Universal, and of course it was a box office bomb. Everyone creates the thing they dread. But Borters appealed to the owners of New World and the filming proceeded. Borgers also claim that Remy wanted to change the title to Rules Don't Apply, which I think is such a milked toast watered down title. And it's actually interesting that the existence of this movie is tied in so directly with Streets of Fire because Tough Turf feels like what would happen if you smash the new kids into Streets of Fire. Yeah, 100% . Um with a smattering of John Hughes thrown in. Yeah. Like uh, you know, a little bit of pretty in pink. Like it's it's yeah, it's just it's all over the map. All of these things were discussed before that finicky robot got his hands on the recording, and I do apologize for the inconvenience. This is going very well. To continue to set the table, Cargill and I talked about the fact that there's a lot of things in this movie that are completely unexpected, whereas the new kids kind of followed the formula of an eighties bully revenge film. Tough turf is a lot of different films crammed into one film, which is catnip for the likes of Cargill and I. Like, are you gonna get Savage Streets or are you gonna get, you know, a teen rom com full of dance numbers? Um, are you gonna find a punk club where everyone is perfectly choreographed? You just have to stand by minute by minute to find out. It is uh uh it is bananas, it is absolutely bonkers. Um and it is a film worth worth diving into and exploring and talking about life amends said what doesn't kill you just makes me stronger. Okay, at this point, this battle is really taking a toll on me. It's like it's like Ultron is trying to annoy me until I go away, and that's just not an effective way to defeat an enemy. Am I right, Doctor Stra Anyway, what about this? Ultron, I will make you this bargain. What if we started saying really nice things about James Spader from this point forward? Would that convince you to relinquish control of this episode and release us from the technological perdition that you have cast us into wouldn't have been my first call. But down in the real world we're faced with ugly choices. Oh really? It would? That's literally all it took. Why didn't we just ask him that to begin with? Jesus Christ. Alright, strange, do your thing. Let's keep the episode going. Enjoy, Chucky huh! James Spader. Now in his first, I guess you could say this is his first lead role starring vehicle. I mean he was sort of the he was the antagonist in The New Kids, but this is the first time it's like starring James Spader. And man, does he make a meal out of his opportunity in this film? He's definitely coming from uh uh the school of the, you know, the the posing cool guy. This is a very I wanna be James Dean performance. Yeah. Um, and it's uh and and he's and the thing is is he's really cool in it. Um, you know, the the thing is is that a lot of the cast here is very good at posing and looking good on screen and uh and selling it. Um and Spader's really interesting here. Um I like him quite a bit. And it's funny too, I I associate James Spader in the 80s with a very particular type of role. The very sort of stuff shirt, preppy, uh, you know, yuppie type of character. And in this movie, what's interesting is he's playing a character that kind of used to be that, but was never comfortable with it. He comes from an affluent family that lost its family fortune and had to kind of start over. They lived in Connecticut. He went to the best private schools. His dad was well off, but then something happened with his business. They lost everything. They move out to Los Angeles and he's just out of public school. And he he can't seem, no matter which side of the the economic fence he finds himself on, he kind of can't stop getting into trouble because he's just that much of a rebel without a cause, as Cargill alluded to. And in this movie, he runs a foul of once again, once again, Cargill, it's a movie in the 80s, it's about teen culture. It's a bully revenge film. So we have to sell that the high school bullies are also their own crime syndicate, which is one of my favorite little earmarks of movies like this. And in this y four, eighty five, that was every high school was it was run by a gang. Every high school was run by a gang. I think like at the top of this heap is like the kids from class of 84 and, then the kids from Savage Streets, and then you gotta kind of go a little bit further down, and then you get the new kids, and you go a little bit further down, and you got the kids from Tough Turf who are still considerably dangerous. I mean, this is where does three fifteen Moment of Truth fit in there? That's a good question. I think they're probably below the kids from Tough Turf only because I don't remember any of the kids from three fifteen Moment of Truth rolling people on Hollywood Boulevard . Which is how this movie opened. I don't know they had a whole militant gang that actually wore military outfits. I feel like at one point, Cargo, we're just gonna have to sit down and do a tournament like we did with the Santa Claus movies years ago of like the toughest teen gangs from eighties movies and just see who survives, who conquers the toughest of tough turf. Or the most dystopian high school. Oh my god. That might be class of ninety-nine if we if're really we're really teachers. I mean none of them had robot teachers. All these other gangs we're talking about never had to go up against robot teachers, so I feel like by default it's probably the But it would be interesting to see, you know, who runs up against who in that bracket. That's very true. That's entirely true. But in this, yeah, in this movie, it's a gang uh that's led by a a guy uh whose name is Morgan. Uh no, Morgan is is Spader's character. What's the fuck what's the fucking bully's name in this movie? Nick. Nick is the leader of this gang who literally we opened the movie seeing him and his girlfriend Frankie luring in a lecherist type of guy on Hollywood Boulevard and then attempting to to rob him. And then we are introduced to James Spader, who might be a vigilante superhero. The movie sets up that he's being attacked and bullied and how unfair it is, and he really picked the fucking fight. Oh yeah. He's uh as as one uh house band from the 90s would say, he's a wicked fire starter. 'C thatause's what he does . He just fucking starts fires all over the place. But I love that the opening of this movie, you know, compared to last week's film, we see that while Florida is a lawless wasteland, Hollywood Boulevard exists on the wet streets of perdition. Like they're rolling Lecter's this high school gang, and here comes James Spader riding in, vigilante superhero, bebopping and scatting all over the place, casually kicking bad guys. Basically, he's the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Oh, that's why you set that up. Yes, sir ! I can't physically throw up in my mouth. He is Spider-Man. He is just swooping in, making jokes, kicking these bullies around, and then he rides off. And for the rest of the film, it's not about doing what's right. It's about getting with the girl that you want. See, now I'm surprised that you brought up Nick, uh, played by Paul Monas and did not bring up what you probably know Paul Monas, love Paul Monas best for. And what is that? Uh he is the writer of double team. That is correct. He is the writer of Double team . And the Quest. And the Quest. Let's not forget the Quest . Which I believe is the fifth movie, if I'm not mistaken. The fifth Jean-Claude Van Damme movie structured exactly like Street Fighter. And then he goes and makes Street Fighter, and that movie is not structured like Street Fighter at all. No. He made five other movies that are more like Street Fighter that by the time he got to Street Fighter, they're like, maybe it's a war movie. It's like what what no? You already had the formula. You had all the clues, Mr. Policeman. You could have saved her. You could have saved this movie. And then Raoul Julia's like, Hold my beer, I'll go save this movie. Thank you, Raul Julia. Vaya cond os. For me , it was Tuesday. By the way, the girlfriend Frankie that we mentioned is played by Kim Richards. Uh it was it was originally offered to Madonna at the suggestion of of one the New World executives, but uh Madonna wanted to make Desperately Seeking Susan, so instead this uh executive Jonathan Axelrod at New World offered the role to Kim Richards because the producer thought, oh my God, this is the creepiest thing I've ever seen in research, by the way. So I just want you to know that this is a direct quote. He thought she was the sexiest 19 year old on the planet. Yep. Why? Why do you want why do you want to be on the record as saying that that's so to be fair to be fair to be fair this is nineteen eighty five and uh saying the sexiest nineteen year old on the planet after we came out of the decade when almost every rock star was banging 14 year olds. Um it didn't feel as ooky at that point, I'm guessing. I mean, we look back at it now and like, you know, that is what, you know, it's, you know, entirely legal, but at the same time, there's become this thing lately where anyone under the age of 20 is, you know, um pretty much off limits for those above, but that wasn't the case at the time at all. Owing to the fact that this is an eighties quote, here's the second half of it. If I had known about the cocaine problems, I probably wouldn't have cast her. Yes. So this movie had a drug problem. In fact, it had three drug problems. So you've got three cocaine-addicted actors in this movie who are apparently a complete hand ful to fucking deal with. Um, Richards at the time was well known. Uh, she was not some unknown. She had done a lot of stuff. I grew up with a huge crush on her. Um, she did a ton of things. She was in a bunch of the early uh 70s live action Disney movies, uh like Escape the Witch Mountain, No Deposit, No Return. I saw those all the time growing up. Um, she's an alum. She was in the car. Um and my favorite role of hers, Assault on Precinct Thirteen. She's the little girl who gets absolutely annihilated while asking for a vanilla twist ice cream cone in Assault on Precinct 13. The moment you understand what the stakes of that movie are and what kind of world it is set in and what kind of dystopian Los Angeles it's living in, oh my God. Oh my God, that moment is burned into my brain. Yeah. And for me, for my money, the movie I saw her in the most when I was in the you know an 80s kid with HBO, Meatball, she's the love interest in meatballs part two. Now, Cargill, why haven't we covered any of the meatb alls movies on junk ? I'm sorry, I can't even say that. Because when I brought up Meatballs last time, uh it was like okay, that movie didn't age well. And then Meatballs Part Two is kind of unwatchable outside of the nineteen eighties. Um and then after that it becomes a Corey Feldman franchise . No And I believe that is the answer to the question you are asking. Because what it comes down to is I've re-watched meatballs and meatballs has actually come back around again. Um uh you know the there was a lot of conversation especially 25 years ago about Bill Murray's, you know, uh his character's sexual harassment in that movie. Um, but watching it with much more modern eyes, there's consent in there. Um, that at the time it didn't look like, but all the subtext of the movie is that there is consent, and this is two people, this is their way of flirting. Um, so it hasn't aged as poorly as um we had thought. So it's worth a revisit for you because if you want to talk about it at some point, I would love to talk about meatballs. Um uh because it is an interesting film. Can we talk about it while we rank our favorite episodes of Perfect Strangers so that can we can watch Meatballs on meatbose . Is that possible ? You're still doing this show. I mean you could have left any time. You had all the clues. Yeah, I mean uh uh I've got I've got cheese waiting for me. Um It is cheese night at the Cargill house and I'm very excited. All right. Uh but no, so anyhow, so yeah, no, Kim Davis, huge crush on her growing up. Um, she got married, had a kid, you know, fell in and out of acting, and then would become probably ultimately to the modern generation's best known as one of the original uh housewiv es on the real housewives of Better ly Hills, and she was on that for like five or six seasons. Um and so uh yeah, it's but yeah, there's uh she um uh she had a huge drug problem on the on the side of the film. Uh Robert Robert Downey was on the side of the the film, uh, because he was not yet Robert Downey Jr. Um uh at least not going by that. And then uh um there was one other actress, uh Katya Sassoon, um, who also was apparently a problem on set for the exact same reason. And she sadly died um young of a heart attack um uh uh that is supposedly drug related . Yeah, it's weird to think that this movie has Robert Downey Jr. and James Spader and has a bigger drug problem than when they were both in less than zero . Which is a movie about a drug problem. It's just I thought you were gonna say and since they were both on Age of Ultron. Um is it it's weird to think that Ultron is the most sober either of them have been in a movie. I mean, yeah. Oh, you do I mean you've got several movies in the 80s starring Ultron and Iron Man. Um kind of amazing. Oh man, and when you see less than zero, that ultra on Tony Stark relationship gets weird. I also well the other thing I love about Kim Richards is she had one of those incredible TV careers where she would guest star on literally every popular TV show known to man. Yeah, she was very recognizable. Like for for Gen Xers, she was that crush you grew up with alongside, you know, it in fact, um uh she was, you know, the Jody Foster you got when you couldn't get Jodie Foster. Sure. Absolutely. But like if I run down to here are the shows she was on and this is just gonna be like all of the most legendary shows on television. FBI, emergency, streets of San Francisco, Little House on the Prairie, the Rockford Files, police woman, Different strokes, Alice Chips, The Love Boat, Magnum P.I. and The Dukes of Hazard. Are you fucking kidding me? Yep. That is a murderer's row of uh opening credit sequences that Cargill and I will watch till five in the morning. I mean , yeah. Uh it's it's crazy. Her eighty-two was just insane. You know, she was on the Love Boat Ships Alice and Magnum P.I. in the same year. Um, which for to to have be on all of those shows in one given television season is bananas. Uh that's that's practically appearing everywhere that everyone was watching. After these messages, we'll be right back. 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The sidekick in this movie, Little Baby RD J, is just supreme. And I know it's nineteen eighty five and Stoltz has been replaced again. It seems unfair. Uh, but I think, you know, I just think he's a manic ball of gutter punk energy, and I love him so much . Well I mean look at the fucking he first of all he's you know built at the time yes you know uh he's he's he's been hitting the gym uh he's playing with Jim Carroll . Oh my god. Of all people. Fucking playing. He's he's the drummer for Jim Carroll in a in a a fake version of his band. Um and uh yeah, and then he's got some really interesting um, you know, one-liners throughout this thing. Of course, he's Robert Downey Jr., so he he carries this pathos with him, you know, and he was , you know, uh we know in retrospect that he was on drugs and he had that whole deviant thing going on. You know, there's something deviant about this kid. Like he's like he feels like the he's authentic. He's the real deal because he's authentic. He was kind of the real fucking deal. But there's you're right. There's layers to him. Like he seems like this burnout sort of kooky best friend, but then he gets a goddamn cavalry hero moment, like it's Avengers Endgame at the end of this movie. Yep, he sure does. You you put up the bat signal, you ain't getting Batman, you're getting Iron Man, motherfucker, and Iron Man's bringing two Doberman Pinchers because why the fuck not? House party protocol Tony Stark let slip the other dogs of war, and it's absolutely incredible to watch. But it's also interesting to consider that the role of Spader's best friend was offered to Crispin Glover. Crispin Glover. Crisp and Glover, which is my favorite chair at IKEA, by the way. He was making another movie for New World of the time, so Robert Downey Jr. was cast and uh yeah, like you said, had had a notable drug problem at the time, as did Richards, as did Kautias Assoon. And what I also incidentally, I'm making jokes about Back to the Future, but at the beginning of this movie, when we 're first introduced to the high school, we go into that office. Uh, who shows up in that principal's office to try and beg out a biology class? But Donald Fullalove, the actor who plays Goldie Wilson, the mayor, in Back to the Future . So it's like we're just taunting Eric Stoltz at this point. Like, yeah, man. Hey, Stoltz, look, man, you make all the stoltz jokes you want, but Stoltz had a movie open on the same day as Tough Turf. It just also happened to have James Spader in it. Very confusingly, it might have been this movie. It might have been a different movie. It's hard to say. Uh, but also in this film is one of my absolute favorite character actors, Matt Clark, playing James Spader's dad. And just to just to name the films that we've covered on JFC that he's been in, things like White Lightning, the D river, Buckaro Banzai, Now Tough Turf, and uh very soon Back to the Future 3, because he plays the bartender in Back to the Future 3. And I think that movie is really unfairly hated. Um but he is a really likable dad in this. And you know, we we love Tom Atkins. Tom Atkins is absolutely one of the great uh military dads of the 1980s. The the problem with the new kids is that we don't get enough Tom Atk ins. So in this movie, while I definitely give the edge to Tom Atkins, Matt Clark is given more to do, and he's such a likable dad in this because again, he has been rich, he's lost his business, and now he's driving a cab to keep his family afloat, but he's maintained that like that encouragement, that positively, like he's not lost a step in the in the dad role. And you know, he's got these great lines displayed who's like okay you screwed up so what? That's what life's all about. Like how else you're gonna find out who you are and what you believe in. Like he's just he's a really present and thoughtful father despite all the shit he's dealing with. And that makes, you know, later on in the movie where he gets shot so effective because you really like the guy. And that is the power of Matt Clark to take this small role and really make something out of it. Yeah. Yeah, and he's not there's not a lot of them, but it uh it does uh drive home the theme strongly. So let's talk about that theme for a second, because I think that's one of the more interesting things, as weird as this movie is, and as schizophrenic as it tends to be tonally, there is a consciousness to this movie, and there is a theme and a message to it that I really did not expect to play into it as much, but this whole idea of identity and class politics and you know whether what you have I d i defines who you are and you know what kind of life we are owed and all of these really interesting things. And I I think it all kind of culminates in that scene where James Spader, who again has come from an affluent family, is now on the other side of the tracks, but he sneaks Frankie and they crash that country club. And it's James Spader, Robert Downey Jr. just pretending to be high society in the best possible way. Yeah. Well, so so let's set this up because this is kind of amazing in just the the the tonal whiplash that happens is um you know uh early very early in the movie after you know spaders pulled his superhero shenanigans the, gang recognizes him at at his first day of school and decides they're gonna they're gonna punish this guy for what he did. Yes, kind of fucking has it coming, but there's such dicks about it that it it flips you, you know, you you just fucking hate these guys. And these are the type of bullies that get under your skin and make you kind of clench your fish and like, I can't wait to see them get fucking hit . Um, and it's very much that. And they end up taking using their uh Nick's car and running over uh uh Spader's five hundred dollar bike and just fucking ruining it. Um and later on that car pulls up next to Spader and Spader's like, oh fuck, and it chases him down. And then when he's finally cornered and he's about to get his ass whooped by Nick, the door opens and it's Robert Downey Jr. just fucking with him. Yep. And then you're like, oh, oh, they're about to fuck up this car . No, no. They're gonna go and kidnap a pair of uh pair of uh Nick's uh friends, one of them is girlfriend, and get them in the car and then take them on uh uh Ferris Bueller's day off. I was just gonna say a Ferris Bulerian joyride. It is a Ferris Bulerian joyride. Like literally it's like we're sneaking into the rich restaurant. We're, you know, we're gonna do a whole musical number. Like it is bananas. And it's just like, what is this ? Um, you know, 10 minutes ago we were waiting for the the 315 moment of truth fight to happen in the school and now it's like what's going on and it and the thing is is it's kind of adorable and charming it's like a whole different movie it's like you switch channels but uh uh to to something else entirely but, the same actors were in it. Um, continuing the storyline. It's just, it's just fucking out there. And that goes on for like 20, 25 minutes, where it is, it is very much a um uh uh uh one of that era of the more upbeat teen movies. You know, it's you it's impossible not to compare it to something like Ferris Bueller or Pretty in Pink or 16 candles, because it has that look and feel at that point. It's almost like the cinematography changes a bit too. They clean the grime off the uh the lenses, and all of a sudden it's it's very epic. If you started this movie in the middle of that scene . What happens after this sequence would like throw you for a loop. Like, what the fuck am I watching? The only reason why it makes sense is because it totally goes back to the movie they were making before, at least for a little while. And so yeah, so now we're at this country club and we are we are sneaking into the country club. And this is the first time that um the kids from school see that this uptight guy is kind of fucking punk rock. Um, there's definitely something going on here, and he's he exudes confidence, but confidence that comes from a lack of fear, uh, as opposed to um cover you know uh compensating for something and this is where his character really starts to devolve uh to evolve and develop and i'm gonna take it back just a little bit more to further confuse you as to how this scene exists at this point in the movie, just to raise the stakes and thereby lessen the sense the sensicalness of this scene. Don't forget that before before we have the the scene of Robert Downey Jr. pretending to run down James Spader in the bully's car, the the senior talking about where they destroy his bike is shot like a man with no name sequence. Like it's a lot of quick cuts to like tight shots of the grill of the car and James Spader's eyes. And it's it's almost like you know, again, speaking to James Dean, it's a chicken scene where James Spader is standing there with his bike and the bully is charging at him in the car and James Spader refuses to budge, so the bike ends up getting hit. But then after that , they go to this club. And when I say club, it's really just a giant gutter punk warehouse, and the club is enigmatically called the warehouse. And while they're there, he runs a foul of the bullies again, and James Spader manages to trick the bullies into thinking that the car he's standing next to is his car. So they steal it, like, we're gonna take your car, man. Ha ha. And they kind of punch him in the stomach. And then as he's leaving, Robert Downey's like, Oh man, I'm sorry they stole your car. And he goes, I don't own a car. And immediately he gets the bullies arrested in a stolen car. It's such a great moment. It's one of those things where it's like that's the perfect revenge, but also the gasoline on the fire that's gonna get you beat down in the locker room. And then the bully's friends leave like a dead rat in his locker and then you have Robert Downey Jr. getting the car out of the police impound and pretend and that's when you get the scene of him pretending to run James Spader down. A lot of really intense shit has happen ed before we go to this country club and suddenly we're in a slobs versus snobs eighties movie. Yeah. Like this entire sequence could have been in one of the police academy sequels. Uh one hundred percent. 100%. This is this is some uh some Guten berg shit. Goot all the way. We are goot. That's what's happening here. Go back to the Avengers team. We are goot And it's just it's just James Spader like, oh, while the band's on a break, I'm gonna play the piano and play this song for you. And then the in the meantime, all of Frankie's friends are off talking to the housewives about like you you swallow, right? Like, of course size matters.s. It' the eighties It's just like speaking of housewives at Beverly Hills, like there's some raunchy shit happening over there. Yes, sir. And it's funny because they all just they all just kind of take high society down a peg by proving that there's really no difference between anybody. And that's that's kind of what the whole movie's predicated on. And it's a really interesting sort of socio economical experiment, this entire movie, and this character of Morgan Hiller. And it's not something that I ever expected to appear in what is otherwise a very , you know , uh wanna I I won't even say conventional 80s teen bully movie. It's a it's several different conventions of several different movies all thrown into one . Yeah, yeah. One of the things I do find I'm not certain if it's problematic or intentional about this, the discussion of class and this is Kim Richards um her character uh Frankie really is just a reflection of whoever she's dating. And you really do get the sense that the reason she starts falling for Morgan is she kind of likes the more dressed-down conservative version of herself that she gets to be around him as opposed to having to be um uh having to be uh uh on all the time and having to be so tough and having to be punk rock because she's dating some street scum. Uh, and I'm not I I haven't fully digested how I feel about that portrayal. Um You think it's weird that a movie shot in 1984 would fantasize and idealize the idea of being a a conservative housewife. Like I don't know where that would come from in a movie shot in 1984. I know, right ? It's like literally setting up a dichotomy where your only two paths in life as a woman are to be a uh a regonomic stay-at-home wife or a gutter punks waf. Like it's like what is happening here? And and that leads to the big late, you know, late second act uh twist, which is Nick has talked to to uh Frankie's dad and gotten permission to marry her and she hasn't even been asked. Dude, dude, Frankie's dad. What the fuck are you doing, man? What what is g what is going on in that house? Because yeah, like that dude shows up wearing leather jackets, clearly has no job, clearly has been up to some shit also looks like he's 40 and you're like sure you could marry my daughter let's not even ask her I mean this is still the era of hey if my daughter's married she's not under my roof and I don't have to pay for her anymore. Yeah, but it's like what was the dowry? Three three uh poison albums on cassette? Like I don't I mean I don't understand. We didn't really do diarries anymore in the eighties, so I understand that, but this is also the eighties where you can just ask a girl's dad if you can marry her and she doesn't get ass. So this is an eighties that exists in the fifties. The impression that I get is that dad is under the impression that Frankie has already been asked , but she wasn't, which is really to the point of who Nick is. So it really does nail home that uh yeah, yeah, Spad er is going and Macing on someone else's girl, but she really is with someone she shouldn't be with uh because he doesn't respect her uh the way that Morgan does. Let me throw something into this theory because I agree with you that there is something inherently problem atic about that. I think where it might be at least slightly mitigated. Because I started to have a problem on this viewing. I've seen this movie before. I really love it. But on this viewing, I started to notice how much James Spader, in his attempt to, you know, even as a poor kid, he wants to show Frankie, you know, a better life and show her that she's worthy of more. You know, maybe not so much economically more, but just in terms of the kind of people she associates with and how she should be treated , but he goes about that in a way that's almost as stalkery as her boyfriend is. Like just on the other side of it, right? Oh yeah, no. By the by the end of the film, he's not much better than Nick. No., not at all But and that's not the mitigating factor. The mitigating factor is the line that she has where Spader says to her, You know, Nick doesn't own you, and she says, Neither do you. And I think that's such an important line in this movie for her to have at least that appearance of agency to be like, No dude, I see that you're manipulating me as well because you also want to be with me. I'm not stupid. Like and and Fritz Kirsch specifically, as we already talked about, conceived this whole project around Frankie. Right. Like the concept of Frankie was the origin of this movie. So I feel like both of these guys were built as what he imagined Frankie's fantasy men might be. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's almost almost like an angel and devil on her shoulder speaking to the two facets of who she is as a person and the two sides of her. And it's like which which identity do I want to kind of release myself into? But at the same time, if they're if they're both challenging her idea of herself using methods that are every bit as problematic as the other one. The message can get lost. So I think it's really important to have that line in there where she's like, no, you like you don't own me either. Like I'm gonna make my own fucking decision here. Yeah. So at least there's that. I'm not saying it all works and I'm not saying it Oh no. I would never go stuff so far as to call Tough Turf a feminist movie. But it was it was a it was a movie written in three and a half weeks by a woman um uh who didn't even put her name on it. Yeah, so there is that. Uh it's not not a great uh not a not a great green flag, as the uh kids would say these days. I feel like if you remade this today, you would have to make Frankie the protagonist. Oh yeah. And it would be it would be that classic kind of uh you know um uh uh a three -way romance where you just got the love triangle that is just toxic and who is she gonna choose? Um, except that since this is told entirely from the point of view of one uh one corner of that triangle, you're pretty sure who's gonna end up with her because it's an 80s movie. Yeah, this is like the slightly better version of Twilight, where it's like it's a love triangle where everybody in the triangle is kind of fucked up and it doesn't really make sense that she would choose either of them. Um and is at points every bit as supernatural as Twilight, uh, even though it's not a movie set in a supernatural world, so sure why the fuck not is it nick who ordered the code red nick ordered the code red right ordered the code red absolutely after these messages we'll be right back . You're thinking steak . Your car informs you to avoid the next exit . And that you'll have fresh powder and aspen tomorrow and for stake your car recommends the filet at boulevard the highly intelligent redesigned accura rl with technology package luxury in its most advanced state. Accurate. Advance. 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 . 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Go to Everan.com slash listen to claim yours. That's E V-E-R-A-N-D.com slash listen . Again, if we're directly comparing this to the new kids, the other area I feel like I have to talk about is the superior feeling music of Tough Turf. This to me is one of the great undersung soundtracks of the 1980s. Like the score is done by a guy named Jonathan Elias , who is also a synth player. He wrote four original songs for this movie, including Love Hates , the uh the song that opens the movie. Are the secrets of the night , the stories hidden from our side And what I love about that song is not only is it kind of a cool 80s montage song, right? But he uses it as this musical motif through the rest of the movie. Like like different versions, different stanzas of it are played in different ways and in different tempos to illustrate the emotion of that particular scene. It's kind of like it's kind of like the long goodbye in Altman's The Long Goodbye. Like it's going to keep coming up in different places to uh to emphasize how we're feeling at that moment. Uh he also composed andor played music on the soundtracks for Children of the Corn, Vamp, Shakedown, two movies that we've covered on this show that we love. Also, Parents and Leprechaun 2. And then on top of that, Cargill, the band, there are two bands featured in the film. There are dos banditos. Two bands featured in the film. Not just playing on the soundtrack, but featured in the film. And the first is the Jim Carroll band . These are people who died. Died. Yeah. Uh because as it turns out, there are also going to be people in this movie who die, die. So it totally makes sense. Oh, the minute that comes up, I just giggled because I was like, Oh, yep, here we go. And Jim Carroll himself kind of looks like a vampire. And I love the conversation that he has with Spader about like what are you And Jim Carroll's just like what the fuck is a yacht club? He's like has no idea what the hell James Spader is talking about. Uh and he they also do a song uh at that warehouse club called It's Too Late . That uh yeah, I I really fucking dug that song as well. Before we get to the other band, I just want to mention the theme song of this movie. I'm gonna tear into the light, I'm all the spots for the light, I'm not conver ted I'm gonna tear into the light, I'm all That was also written by uh by Elias and it's just called Tough Turf, and it plays while Spader's riding his bike around campus. I would have sworn before I looked it up, I would have sworn that that song was performed by Eddie and the fucking cruisers. Because it sounds like John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown band a thousand percent. Except that it's Southside Johnny. It's Southside John ny. Southside John Cafferty and the and the lion Band. Uh Southside Johnny Lion. Sounds like the name of a founding member actually of the cruisers. So that song is really great. And then the other band in this movie is literally called Jack Mack and the Heart Attack, which sounds like the band that Junk Food Cinema would put together. Like if Junk Food Cinema was its own chat GPT and could just spit things into reality, this is the band. When they first come out and start playing the movie, the movie whiplashes you again because you're just like what the what in the oh my god what the fuck what in the piano man is this shit um like it is it is it is just it they are they are they are a whole ass thing and it is amazing. It is it it's it's like seeing um Morris Day and the Time for the first time. Oh we oh we owe ourselves uh a moment to talk about Jack Mack and the heart attack and the fact that they are playing at the third music venue in this eighties bullies revenge movie . I just thought I would say that out loud. Uh yeah, by the time we get to their club and we're doing another musical number, like we didn't even mention that when Jim Carroll is playing uh It's Too Late. And he's playing in the warehouse club. There's a whole ass musical like choreographed, like it's Greece, like large scale, fully involved, everybody, all the extras getting down and doing this choreographed dance. Like it's somewhere between Greece and the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Because it's just a bunch of punks doing this choreograph dance to the Jim Carroll band, which is enough to make your brain liquefy and melt out of your ears. That's that's for one. And by the way, this is not the first time Jack Mack and the Heart Attack have appeared on Jung Pood Cinema. No, it is not. Baron Police Academy. They're in Beverly Hills Cop 2. They also appear on the soundtrack for Spring Break, which was Sean Cunningham's movie he made right before the new kids. Yep. They are not unknown. Uh hell they played at the 1996 Olympics. Cargill. And they weren't even the biggest bomb there . Fuck it sideb ur . Not only did they play at the 1996 Olympiad, they were playing on the morning of July 27th, 1996, after they after they played their original tune I Walked Alone, that's when the fucking pipe bomb went off . Like it literally, there were 40,000 people attending the concert, one of whom was killed, and 111 were injured. So they were so close to what happened that Clint Eastwood reached out to them and asked them for their concert footage to use in the movie Richard Jewel . This is all true. It's fucking insane, but it's all true. Yeah. And and and they manage to also be just the weirdest part of this weird ass fucking movie. I don't even understand like what type of band they are or what their music like officially is. Oh, they were white R B yeah it's kind of like the backup band for the blues brothers yeah but it's also as Cargill said kind of more a stay in the time like it's it isn't uh they they were all listed in the credits and, that tells me that they were all probably really great session musicians that also that were put together as kind of uh uh their version of a super group, the way Toto was. Sure. Where Toto was a supergroup of all these, you know, musici ans that worked in other bands. And when they weren't touring on the other bands, they toured his Toto. Yeah. The the the I mean, if you haven't haven't seen that uh yacht rock documentary that's on HBO right now, I love it. Not so much because it's just a celebration of your favorite yacht rock songs, because it it lays out this incestuous web of session musicians who are responsible for all of those songs in some form or fashion. Yeah, yeah, that to be the difference between yacht rock and yacht rock is it if it was a certain group of w so some member in that group, then it's technically yacht rock. Exactly. Absolutely. So we get to this finale, Cargill. Uh Nick has found out that Morgan's dad is this cab driver and you know he sends Frankie, Hey, go ask him for some change, and then basically makes her an unwilling participant in another role, but they're gonna roll uh Morgan's dad, and they end up he ends up fighting back to try and save Frankie, who at this point he has met as Morgan's girlfriend. They've had a dinner together. Like, so he's trying to save her, not understanding what her connection is to the rest of these guys, and he ends up getting shot. And And then she gets abducted by Nick, and it's it's up to Morgan to go to the warehouse and save her, and that's where we get this final showdown. And my favorite part of this final showdown, it's not it's it's not James Spader swinging through this fucking warehouse like he's Johnny Weiss Mueller. It's not, you know, the the bully going full misogynist douchebag all of a sudden like if I can't have you and fucking kill you, blah blah blah blah blah. No. It's that right before he goes to uh Robert Downey Jr.'s brother and is like, give him this note, it's really important. And you don't know what's going to happen with that. And then when it looks like, you know, when James Spader shows up and takes down a couple of the cronies , but then Nick's got the drop on him if he's got the gun. You think all is lost. Here comes Robert Downey Jr. initiating the house party protocol with two Doberman pinchers. Like he shows up to this movie like he's Halle Berry and John Wick too. He just shows up with these dogs and sends them off on the attack and gets shot in the process. But he is the fucking cavalry of this movie, and it turns the entire tide of this fight and suddenly James the one beating the shit out of Nick in this hand to hand fight. And then you know we think all is over and then we gotta get that last kind of jump so Nick gets back up and you think he's gonna get the drop on Morgan and he goes flying over the banister of this warehouse. It's a great, it's just like this is the thing we want, right? This is our our amusement park finale from the new kids. This is our third act of any bully movie. This is the comeuppance. This is why we watch Death Wish movies. This is what we love about films like this. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, it's very, it's I feel like an editor could go into this. This movie's two hours, by the way. This is this this is not your average 1985 movie that's like 82 minutes in and out and you're done. Because there are four musical numbers in it. That might be part of the reason why it's so long. Yeah, but if you trim out those musical numbers and you uh do a few slight edits, I think there's like an 85-90-minute uh version of this that's just as mean as parts of the film are. Yes. I think you could actually make a mean version of this film that probably would have played in 1985 because this movie really did, you know, confound people even then. Uh because they weren't quite sure. It it just never it never quite knows what it wants to be. And it keeps giving you that narrative whiplash of like, what movie am I watching here, which makes it delightful. He watches that kind of a movie. Me and Jess had a blast watching this. Um and uh just had so much fun with it and uh just kind of gooping around with it and questioning the logic and just going with it because everybody's bringing it, everybody's trying. The choreography is actually good. You know, the musical performances are interesting. You know, you've got great music like the Jim Carroll band, you know, all the actors are doing their absolute damnedest. So this is this is a film trying. This isn't a throwaway, but what it's trying to do is fuddling I think it's fun to play the one to one comparison game just because these movies are so similar, just because they were released in the same weekend and both star James Spader to to varying degrees. Um, I think if there is an area where New Kids has the edge, I think it's the third act. I don't think anything is as fun as that amusement park just absolute mayhem. However, the inclusion of the Robert Downey Jr. riding in uh like the cavalry really amps up this third act. And it espe it feels especially satisfying given that given that we've been sort of wading through all of these incomprehensible tonally musical numbers to get to this point. And when it finally gets here we're just like, all right, we are a thousand percent here for it. But that being said, Cargo, I agree with you a thousand percent. I think you can make a tougher turf cut out of out of this movie. Yeah. And also the to compare the two, um, tough turf made 50 times the money the new kids made. Yeah, there is also that. And and so maybe there is something to their experiment of like, let's just throw everything teens love into the movie, whether it makes sense tonally or not, and we'll get more of them to come see it. Yeah, and it was something that that was that played on HBO quite a bit back in the day. Um, so it it had had its its insertion. But because of its rating, it wasn't something that played in the afternoon like several of the other of those teen films of that era did. Very, very true. But it to me, this is just it's so weird and so lovable at the same time. James Spader is really going for, like I said, making a meal out of this leading role, being weird, but also being confident, being encouraging and being loving, but also being very withdrawn. Like he is resisting his roots as a rich kid so hard. Like there's this whole subplot with his older brother who finished law school and still wears the sweater around the neck. Like the the most mov ie shorthand ever, like oh, this one's still the yuppie. And there's a lot of resentment between them. Uh and you could just you can feel that Spader is pushing back so hard against that, but at the same time, now that he's poor, now that he's you know a working class kid at a public high school, he's still starting trouble because it's really not about what he has. He hasn't figured out who he wants to be yet. And I think that's what attracts him to a character like Frankie is they're both kind of having that problem. They neither one of them really are fully committed to who they are. Like James Spader is very aloof, uh, and I think that's what's throughout his career made him such an interesting performer. Is like we always want to know like what the fuck's going on in that guy's head because he's not giving us everything. He's not letting us know everything that's going on and that's really kind of seductive. And then he meets a character who also doesn't have it figured out, also doesn't know who she wants to be, and the two of them together I think work because of that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's wild. It's weird. It's it's a hell of a ride, but it's I fucking dig the hell out of this movie. Yeah, it was super fun . It was really it was really enjoyable. I was imagining that at any moment Jess was gonna tap out and she just sat up and she was like, Nope, I'm in, let's go. And it's weird that there are certain aspects of this soundtrack that make it as big a punk movie as SLC punk. Which is just it's just bizarre to me how there's parts of this movie where you're like, is this a punk film? I don't really understand. It's like there's yuppies, there's punks, there's R and B bands, there that's I don't know what the fuck is happening, but I'm here for. I'm here for all the flavors that this bats can robots. Come to confess your sins. I don't know how much time you got. More than you. And that brings us to the junk food pairing. And for this one, Cargill, I went with a super quarter pound charburger from Sandy's Charburger in LA. The turf may be tough, but the beef patties are tender at Sandy's Charburger on Lancasham Boulevard in Los Angeles. Uh now closed, unfortunately. But this is where Frankie and her friends are having lunch in the movie and that that burger sign is lovingly photographed like we stretch across it like it's a ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-babe on the beach in a in a different type of 80s movie and I feel Los Angeles has a long celebrated history of burger stand culture, and it's yielded the likes of Fat Burger, In N Out, Irvs, all kinds of places that you know Angelino still love, and some of which have branched across the whole country. But Sandy's Char burger in LA, you may recognize, if you don't recognize from Tough Turf, you may recognize this fast food haven from the film Better Off Dead, because it's also the setting where John Cusack works and he has that sort of dream sequence with the stop motion burgers and fries. Or you might recognize it when it doubled for Mobie Burger in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. So not only is this a location that is very central to the history of burger culture.