DAC Episode 370 - Young Guns (1988)

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a buncha dead lions.

There’s something I need to clear up before I get to the end of this sentence: Young Guns, the movie, should be called Young People Who Use Guns. I thumbed this bad boy into my VCR, expecting a detailed treatise on the age of every gun shown in the movie (at the very least, a consideration of what constitutes youthfulness in a weapon). Instead, it’s a thoroughly entertaining ‘80s-era take on Billy The Kid? Not what I signed up for when I pulled it from the shelves of The Beta Barn.*

Look, the opening credits show every member of the main cast in closeup, certifying that they are in fact pretty young. Then they shoot their guns. A lot. What are they shooting at? Possibly the horizon. Are the guns themselves young? The movie never answers that fundamental question. A promise to us, the audience, made but never delivered.

We were so shocked by this basic failure of storytelling that we didn’t even address it in our discussion of the movie. We failed you, Young Guns failed you, the gods have turned their faces away in shame. Other than that, though, it was a fun film! Listen below or find us on your podcaster of choice.

*The Beta Barn was a video rental store in my hometown. Not, as it sounds these days, a storage facility for insufficiently masculine farmhands.

DAC 369 - Repo Man (1984)

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Two white men standing around a burning garbage can. It's all a big lattice of coincidence.

two guys destined for a ride to the stars, or maybe just mars.

(in which Adam and Aidan spend some time talking about the prequel to Waldo’s Hawaiian Holiday) (diversions include embarrassing high school anecdotes, soundtrack enthusiasms, and the terror of a man with a disintegrating mind driving endlessly and aimlessly through Los Angeles in a Chevy Malibu, death and transcendence slowly fermenting in his trunk)

DAC Episode 368 - Upgrade (2018)

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a dead lion and a live dog

Upgrading. It’s all anyone’s talking about these days. Some people say you should upgrade, others say you should downgrade. The other day I heard someone make a convincing case that we should all degrade. How about that? People are wild these days, with all the talk about different styles of grading and the most appropriate prefix for the word. Someone came up to me the other day and said, “Mr. Destroyallculture, I like anterograde the best. I can’t help it”. And you know what? I respect someone who enjoys moving forward through time.

I prefer to leave it to the movies to tell me if I should upgrade or not. And let me tell you, Leigh Whannell’s 2018 cyberthriller Upgrade makes a pretty convincing case for not grading at all. Sure, it seems like a pretty good bet at first when you have full control of your body and a voice in your head helping you solve the mystery of your wife’s murder - hell, maybe you’re the protagonist in one of those revenge thrillers that have been so popular over the last decade - but soon you’re made to witness your own body perform a series of horrifically violent acts in the name of satisfying your desires. Maybe, you reflect, you haven’t been upgraded at all. Maybe you’ve been downgraded and consigned to a kind of obsolescence. Darn. Should have stuck to fixing vintage cars and looking like Tom Hardy.

Listen to Adam and Aidan discuss Upgrade below, or find us on your podmachine of choice.

DAC Episode 367 - Night of the Comet (1984)

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the burden of civilization rests on these live dogs.

What would you do if you woke up to find that 99.9% of life on Earth had turned to red dust, and the only who people who survived were screw-ups, mad scientists and introverts? If you’re one of the Belmont sisters, the answer to that question is shoot guns, go shopping and save children from vampiric scientists. Along the way you’ll learn the value of civilization, or something. Or maybe not.

Night of the Comet is a strange creation, a hybrid of goofy Valley Girl comedy and Omega Man-style apocalyptic thriller. Its appeal and endurance rely on its the way it navigates between genres, ending up as a drama about a sibling relationship that just happens to feature murder-happy zombies and vampiric scientists. Throw in Chakotay from Star Trek Voyager as a love interest and you’ve got yourself a movie.

Listen below or find us on your podmachine of your choice.

DAC Episode 366: Flatliners (1990)

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schrodinger’s live dog/dead lion

In recent years, the output of ‘90s-era Joel Schumacher has come in for reappraisal. His commitment to a maximalist aesthetic and gonzo production design now looks like auterist camp in comparison to the washed-out frames of digital filmmaking.

Here at the offices of Destroy All Culture, it is our sincerest hope that Flatliners, Schumacher’s gothbrat opera of transgression and redemption, never gets slated for reexamination. Flatliners is an immensely silly movie that features some of the most unintended comedy sequences of all time, including several scenes of Kiefer Sutherland get beaten up by a child.

Here is a partial list of things that Flatliners wants to scare you with:

  • children

  • women

  • children singing nursery rhymes

  • children with hockey sticks (okay, that one’s legit)

  • women delivering pickup lines

  • weird trees

  • blue lights

  • oversized American flags

And more! Listen below for an in-depth discussion of the movie, or find it on your podthingy of choice.

DAC Episode 365: Tremors (1990)

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A still from the movie Tremors. Eight people standing and sitting on a rock in the desert.

eight live dogs.

“I’ll tell you. Nobody handles garbage better than we do.”

Fun fact: if you listened to one episode of Destroy All Culture per day, then you started listening to this podcast exactly one year ago today! One entire year of our voices, piped into your ears on a daily basis. Frankly, we’re a little concerned for your mental health.

Anyway, today we’re talking about the sheer perfection of a movie set in the town of Perfection, Nevada. It’s Tremors, aka the Michael Gross Career Plan. Adam and Aidan talk about the effects, the script, and the ongoing appeal of the creature feature B-movie. Listen below or find us on your podcast machine!

DAC Episode 364: The Lost Boys (1987)

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the epitome of a dead lion

It’s the start of what we call Spooky Season in the Destroy All Culture house. To start, Adam and Aidan watched 1987’s The Lost Boys, a movie that launched the careers of Kiefer Sutherland and Jason Patric, as well as instilling the notion of the Coreys as a kind of ‘80s pop gestalt entity. Topics discussed include: Lost Boys as a foundational ‘80s text; the time Aidan went to a Tina Turner concert and saw the oiled-up saxophone guy; the pleasures of seeing Dianne Weist and Edward Herrmann in a movie largely aimed at teens; and whether the whole bit with the Coreys worked.

Adam’s take: Edward Herrmann’s vampire character actually survived this movie and ended up moving to Star’s Hollow.

Aidan’s take: the Surf Nazis did not die in this movie. Instead, they were sent to a post-apocalyptic future where they ruled the wasteland (until they died).

Note: during the podcast, Aidan wonders aloud about the identity of the punk girl who’s briefly seen kissing a rat in the opening montage. According to the 80’s Movie Rewind, the woman is named Carrie Stevens, a regular on the San Cruz punk scene. The rat was named “Rat-rat”.

DAC Episode 363: Erin Brockovich (2000)

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Welcome to Part Two of our MoviesThat Happen to Star Aaron Eckhart miniseries (MTHtSAE II). Can you picture Aaron Eckhart as a gruff-but-loveable biker? Casting director Margery Simkin and director Stephen Soderbergh sure could! Throw a bandana and some muttonchops on that chiseled face and ta-da: movie magic?

Fortunately for America, Eckhart’s character is not the focus of Erin Brockovich. Instead, we follow Julia Roberts as Brockovich, a working-class single mother who stands up to the stuffy corporate lawyers (yay!) and the obese woman at her workplace (yeah?) and the snippy Black woman at her workplace (uh…) as she bravely fights for a settlement on behalf of victims of corporate pollution (yay again!). Of course, many of the plaintiffs received only a pittance, which is not mentioned in the movie (okay). On the other hand, we get to watch Brockovich being handed a cheque for two million dollars at the end (ffs).

Honestly, this was an exhausting watch, an antiquated bit of proto-girlboss biopic-ery void of tension or dramatic movement after the opening twenty minutes. Soderbergh seems to know this, occasionally building out moments that challenge the protagonist, only to drop it in favour of the next sassy retort or deeply unpleasant insult delivered by a righteous Roberts who loves punching down just as much as up. Brockovich is the only real character in a world of ciphers and foils, and the few characters who assert any agency eventually leave. On the plus side, Roberts and Finney deliver great performances. And there’s that one guy who looks like the most 2000s Mighty Mighty Bosstones fan of all time. We see you.

DAC Episode 362 - The Core (2003)

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Look, this is what happens when you let the earth’s magnetic field get out of hand

[Morning at the Destroy All Culture house. Aidan is mumbling in his sleep, his forehead beaded with sweat, his eyeballs swivelling back and forth beneath closed lids. Adam enters.]

ADAM: Aidan, are you okay? What are you saying?

AIDAN: cuh… cuh… orrrre…

ADAM: What’s that? Caw-hor?

AIDAN: cuhhhh…. orrrre…

ADAM: Cuh-or?

AIDAN: Core… core…

ADAM: Core?

[Aidan’s eyelid flip up, his eyes glowing with the fire of Earth’s depths]

AIDAN: Core… core. Core! Core! Core!

ADAM: Core! Core! Core!

ADAM AND AIDAN: CORE! CORE! CORE!

AIDAN: You know, we should talk about 2004’s The Core, starring Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Stanley Tucci, Delroy Lindo, Richard Jenkins and even DJ Qualls.

ADAM: I’ll go put on some coffee.