[MUSIC PLAYING] This episode is brought to you by Experian. Are you paying for subscriptions you don't use, but can't find the time or energy to cancel them? Experian could cancel unwanted subscriptions for you, saving you an average of $270 per year, and plenty of time. Download the Experian app. Results will vary. Not all subscriptions are eligible. Savings are not guaranteed. Paid membership with connected payment account required. [MUSIC PLAYING] Get three coffins ready, kid, because our latest podcast, Make My Day, is venturing off into the wild and sprawling frontier that is Clint Eastwood's career. More movies than Stephen King has books and more genres than all of the franchises we've covered over at the Halloweenys. Now, I know what you're thinking. Do they really need to start another show? Well, to tell you the truth and all this excitement, I kind of lost track myself. But being this is a podcast, the most powerful medium in the world for pop culture conversation, and Clint's output is infinite. You've got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk? Find out today and subscribe to Make My Day, a Clint Eastwood podcast now, wherever you get your audio. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Flashes, huh? What's your favorite scary movie? Not that one. [LAUGHING] [MUSIC PLAYING] And welcome back to Horror Queers. We're talking, she did not only marry your penis. We're talking the suck zone. And we're talking, you know when you used to tell me you chase tornadoes, deep down, I always thought it was a metaphor. And I'm Joe. And I'm Trace. And we're talking, I want to see it. I want to see it. See what? [LAUGHING] Everyone, we are discussing Jan de Bon's Twister, just in time for the release of not Jan de Bon's Twisters, this weekend. Yeah, indeed. [LAUGHING] Oh, Joe, Joe, Joe, admittedly, this is a little genre adjacent, because this is a disaster movie. And, well, would we call it a disaster movie? I would, yeah, it's a weather phenomenon. There are people who die. That is true, that is true. This is one of those movies, Joe, that I had watched a lot as a child. So I haven't seen this in over 20 years, because I'd probably seen it at least 20 times before that. Before that, yeah. And so I was a little nervous walking back into this. I didn't know how it was going to hold up for me. And while I have nitpicks regarding the screenplay, Oh, sure. A lot of this really held up for me on a rewatch. Yeah, no, this is a very fun film. I harbored no illusions that we were just going to come in here, have a fun conversation. Spoiler alert, folks, as we mentioned in the outro of last week, there really isn't too much of a queer reading for this movie. So this is more, it's fun programming, and Trace and I both enjoy the film. Well, but I think it's also fair, because I mean, as you kind of alluded to in your intro, the gay is, have really latched on to Jamie Gertz's Dr. Melissa Reeves in this movie. So I feel like we'll say it's a queer iconography here, instead of just actual queer content. Well, let's say queer icon. I don't know that she's queer iconography, unless you want to say wearing a pantsuit to a tornado hunt. Yeah, I'm going to say that. So we're getting to our head of ourselves. So before we go any further, let me introduce our guest who was waiting in the wings. Everyone, he has a co-host of Talk Movie to Me, a weekly podcast where he and his two co-hosts discuss a movie they've all seen, their Week in Entertainment, and an artist whose career they would like to put in focus. Please welcome Edison Skinner. Oh my god, chomping at the bit. Yeah, I'm Edison. I got to go, Julia. We got cows. We got cows. There it is. Okay, how much I was dying to just jump and then speak through that whole intro, because here's my favorite, is that Melissa is the star of this movie, guys. Honestly, and here's the thing. I remembered her being painted as more of a villain in the film, and I think that may just be my child brain. No, same, me too. But I feel like the movie actually does treat her pretty well. All things considered. Yeah, I think it's mostly just, she's the fort in the traditional rom-com structure of this berry heteronormative film. So I think by extension, or maybe even by virtue of that, you're like, "Oh, well, she's got to go." Or you're like, "Oh, I guess she's the king." Yeah. Edison, did you see this as a child? Is this something that holds a special place in your heart, movie-wise? It absolutely does. Okay, first of all, I'm so happy to be on this podcast with you both. Thank you, this is really exciting. And yeah, I mean, I'm 40 years old. So I was 12 years old when this film came out, and I was just about to turn 13 that September. So I think I was the magic age for this movie, and I loved it. It scared the shit out of me. Oh. I remember going to see this movie with my best duty at the time, Jacqueline. We did everything together. Everyone thought we were a couple. She's also a lesbian now. Not that I'm a lesbian. Perfect. A lesbian now. She, 'cause she wasn't before. (laughing) At age 12, sometimes you haven't self-identified. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was, as I was a gay at that time, but we'll see. There we go. But yeah, and it was just amazing. Like, this was a really cool experience because we also had a drive-in back. Ooh. (laughing) Yeah, and this film played there. And I think probably because of the drive-in scene in this movie, it was like extra popular that summer. It was definitely showing on that screen for ages, and I convinced my mom to take me to it, and it was incredible. This is very popular throughout all of '96. I had no idea how much of a success this movie was, but-- Oh, God, really? This is huge. It's a giant blockbuster. I was seven when this came out. And so, before I say anything more, Joe, 'cause you kind of made a noise whenever Edison said that some of this scared him. And I'm curious. This never had that same kind of effect for you. I mean, I'm a couple years older than Edison, and therefore, several more years older than you, Trey. So, for me, this movie is just the height of summer blockbuster. Like, if you're looking for a textbook example of what summer blockbusters, especially in the '90s, used to look like, I feel like Twister is that thing. But I never saw it as scary. I always found it thrilling and exciting and just kind of action-packed. So, Edison, maybe it's the same thing for you, because we're-- So, basically, I didn't get to see this in theaters. It's a picture of their teens, so I would have maybe been allowed to see it. But I definitely saw it for the first time on VHS. And it's a movie, though, 'cause I remember, like, my parents talking about it, because again, yeah, this was a very popular film of the time. This made a boatload of money. I remember my dad talking about how the tornado was killing people, and my seven or eight-year-old self was like, "Oh, how does it kill people?" And he goes, "Um, it sucks the air out of them." Oh, God. No, no, no, no, no, but then my dad told me, 'cause what he would do is, as I said before, he'll watch a movie, and if I couldn't watch it, he would just tell me what happened in it. He didn't tell me the whole plot of this movie, 'cause spoiler alert, there's not much of a plot to this movie. Oh, wait, I know, I know. I know, but-- But Trace keeps saying that. He literally critiqued me earlier, 'cause he said, "How could you possibly "have a normal plot-length synopsis for this?" And I said, " Trace, it's a two-hour movie. "A bunch of shit happened." Anyway, but he told me about the scene where, "Oh, yeah, young Helen Hunt, her dad gets sucked up "out of the tornado out of the storm shelter." And I just, again, had this image in my head of what that must look like. So when I finally did see this film, which wouldn't have been too much long later, the opening of this movie, I found absolutely horrifying. Like, I think I had nightmares about that, but I don't know, what did you find, Scary Edison? No, that is exactly it. A hundred percent in this, I think this is one of the best opening sequences ever, actually. This, we got this old-fashioned country house. I had one of those wooden box TVs with the little turn knob channel thing. Oh, sure. And the wind is, the sounds are menacing as shit, the lightning, the storm. It's horrifying, and then running outside, and I'm in Nova Scotia, there's never been a tornado in Nova Scotia, but it doesn't matter for a 12-year-old. I also saw Jaws when I was a kid and was convinced that a shark was gonna come up on land and attack me, so it's just the imagination of it all. Absolutely. Well, I mean, I understand what both of you are saying, because the movie, I mean, yeah, we'll get to the plot in a bit, Trace has to go through his production history, but that opening scene is, you're right at us, and it's super smart by putting us into the mindset of this very young girl who clearly does not understand what she's combating, so to then see your father just get ripped up into the sky, it's such a good way of saying, oh, okay, yeah, this is why Joe is who she is as an adult, but I kind of love that it isn't, you know, oh, God, she's got so much trauma. Like, we unpack it in one scene, and then the rest of it is kind of, hey, everybody, let's see if we can get these things to fly up into a tornado. Yes, and I mean, you also have that very last moment in the opening sequence of her watching, you know, with terror, but also fascination and amazement as her father gets ripped off, so it was that speaks to the sort of awe that I think is powerful as a kid, too. I, awe is a really good way to pick up. I think that awe translate, or transfer over to everyone that watched the movie, because again, like, so much of this stuff was, oh, how many of us have actually seen a tornado or a tornado? I love to call it a twister instead of tornado, by the way, 'cause twister just rolls off a tongue better, but there's just something like, again, like, people went to go see this because it's like, oh, I want to see a tornado. And the opening of this film almost plays kind of like jaws, which no surprise it seems people were involved with this film, and that it hides the tornado, right? Like, we only see like the effects of it, and so we're like, oh my God, I want to see what this looks like. And boy, oh boy, will we see a tornado in this movie? - So many, so many. - Well, okay, so I'll jump in with the production because I did not know about the production history of this movie. This was, shall we say, a troubled production, given all of the effects we're working with. - Oh, no doubt. I can't wait to hear about this. - So I'm pulling from a lot of different sources, but the bulk of them, one is the audio commentary with Yandabant. One is a cover story for Entertainment Weekly called The War of the Winds that doesn't exist online anymore, so I have to use the way back machine for that. Right, but we've got Twister is the perfect storm of success in filming disasters for Nerdist. Helen Hunt answers every question we have about Twister for Vulture, and the storm chasing special effects team behind Twister for the Ringer. So, okay, the story of Twister begins with a challenge that director Steven Spielberg and his producing partner, Kathleen Kennedy, who a lot of incels hate for Star Wars reasons, for whatever reason. - It's because she's a powerful woman who makes popular films. - Yeah, but they issued a challenge to the George Lucas-founded visual effects studio Industrial Light and Magic. And I know I'm spelling it out, but if you remember, like if you have those sort of episodes, ILM is a big, big, big studio. We covered them recently on The Mummy. We did Deep Rising, a bunch of other stuff, but they also did Jurassic Park dinosaurs. They did this stuff in Casper. They created the textured digital animal fur for Jumanji, which I do not know. But anyway, this challenge they put out there was, "Can you make virtual tornadoes?" - Okay. - And they said, "Yeah, we're gonna go to that challenge." Because while Spielberg and Kennedy wanted to make a movie about this, before a studio agreed to finance the film, ILM had to show a proof of concept. Bear in mind, there is no script for this movie yet. We are just dealing with a mere idea of virtual tornadoes, how are we gonna put it on screen? So, ILM brings in, or they have, nine-time Oscar winning creative director, Dennis Miran. And the films he's won Oscars for pretty much any George Lucas film, Steven Spielberg film, or James Cameron film, from like '82 to '95. - Big guns. - Big guns. But he headed a test-footed shoot on the stretch of road in Northern California that was flat enough to pass as the Midwest. While that was happening, his colleague, Habib Zagarpur, was enlisted to start attempting to create a tornado digitally with the footage that Miran was shooting. He was chosen because he was the one that was known for his ability to make on-screen magic happen with digital particles. And so, these two men were given 10 weeks to come up with the footage. And in that time, Zagarpur used a software called Dynamation to create millions of tiny particles that made up a spinning, fast-moving funnel cloud. You could script behaviors of every single particle, so he compared it for us, laymen as packing together little scoops of ice cream. But okay, here's the thing though. Where he came up with this idea of how to do it is because he was the guy that suggested to make a cartoonish, like a whirlwind tornado when Jim Carrey becomes the mask in the mask. - Oh, Carrey, cool. - So it's like a point to Liz. This is like a George Surah painting, except as like digital animation. - Kind of, and I mean, honestly, when you know it's, I mean, obviously images are all a bunch of particles like that and stuff. When you look at the effects here, I mean, look, I think you can kind of tell that it's a digital tornado over like real footage, but a tornado itself looks amazing. - Oh, hell yeah. And still, still holds up now. It's looking amazing. - Yeah, I was watching, I was mad because the 4K disk of this comes out, actually tomorrow, the day after we're recording this. I think the streaming version I watched was 4K as well, but either way, it looks great, it looks fantastic. - Yeah, so the short film they made, it was shot from the perspective of a pickup truck driver. And so like as the vehicle moves toward a tornado, a tractor flies down into the frame from left to right and bounces on the ground, the impact causes one of the truck's tires to snap off and in a final flourish smashed through the windshield and the screen fades to black. So this was their proof of concept of what could be created by ILM. - Jeez, it's like the original 4DX kind of immersive film experience, right? - It kind of sounds like the universal ride, or not ride, but like, what would we call that? Did you not ever do that universal studios? - Yeah, I don't recall a twist or one, actually. - It's not a ride, it was a show, so kind of. So you would walk into basically a warehouse, like what I would assume would be the equivalent of a filming studio. And you just stand there as you watch a tornado like destroyed the set in front of you. And there is a, I think there was, it doesn't exist anymore, they tore it down, I want to say at least 10 years ago, but it was definitely a, again, maybe what the 90s 40X would have been. - Right, yes. - So they show this footage to the film's special effects supervisor who was more well versed in practical effects. His name was John Frazier, but he was very impressed by what he saw and he was like, yeah, this looks great, we could do this. And then to be a bar goes, well, just so you know, aside from the truck, almost everything in that clip was computer generated, including the funnel cloud and the road piece of farm equipment. Frazier was gobsmacked and was like, holy shit, we need to make a movie out of this. - Man, do you remember when we still got excited by the caliber of FX because everything felt so exciting and new? - Yes, yes, a hundred percent. And in fact, when I re-watched this film about two weeks ago in anticipation of this podcast, which was a joy anyways. - Yeah. - I thought that, it literally brought that exact sensation back of like the nineties and it just feeling so exciting that seeing the new graphics and being like, whoa, they can do this. - At the risk of sounding like, get off my lawn, like there's something the kids today don't understand. - It's really, 'cause you know, we covered the mummy a while ago, we're covering another nineties film next week, spoiler alert. - Baby, it is the nineties, the nineties are where it is at. - It's revisiting all these films, I'm like, God, there is really something just special about the nineties. And where we were in that transition of like, you know, practical to digital, but we were still mixing practical and digital when we could, it wasn't just all cheap CGI. Not to say that's all we have today, but it's definitely a trend that's happening today. - Yeah, totally. - I think nowadays, CGI is treated as a way to save money, whereas back then it was, how can we expand the scope of our storytelling and maybe save a little bit of money, but mostly it was doing things that we couldn't otherwise do. - Yeah, it was an ability, it gave filmmakers an ability to execute on a vision that they maybe weren't able to do before. - Yeah, we weren't dealing with just green screen rooms, basically. - But so armed with that test footage, Spielberg and Kennedy set out to sell Hollywood on a twister and obviously it did not take much convincing, but again, they didn't have a script yet. - A proof of concept. - So knowing it would be an expensive endeavor, both Warner Brothers and Universal Pictures co-financed the film and split every dollar made on the movie 50/50 with Warner Brothers handling domestic distribution and Universal distributing the film overseas. - Interesting. - To write the screenplay. I did, I don't know how I didn't know this. Michael Crichton and his then wife Anne Marie Martin, who by the way is an actress who most of us may know is playing Wendy from the original prom night, aka the girl with the really long chasing that rivals Sir Michelle Geller's and I know you did less summer. - Mm, okay. - I know. So they're together, they're not married anymore, but they were working on this. They began writing a script. - I mean, Trace, Michael Crichton is dead. - Well, they divorced before he died. But they began writing the film in January of '94 and they were paid two and a half million to do so and their version was about a lab's activity with the University of Oklahoma in the early '80s on Toto, a 55-gallon drum, a researchers attempted to place in the path of a tornado to collect measurements. Obviously, the Dorothy we have in this film is based off of that. - Right, but they set in the '80s, oh, how interesting. - Well, so their script wasn't quite working and the script doctor they had to come in for uncredited rewrites was none other than Joss fucking Whedon. - What? - Oh yeah, and here's the thing. So he's basically took over the script from Crichton and his wife, but he had to leave the project not once, but twice, once because he contracted bronchitis and another to get married. And so every time he would leave, a different person replaced him each time. So we had, the script is credited to Crichton and Martin, but then Whedon does the uncredited rewrites and these two other guys took a step in on the bronchitis and the marriage absences. Now, when Whedon was married, this final person, which is speed two cruise control co-writer, Jeff Nathanson, he kept revising the script on set up until the last day of shooting. - Oh no. - I would be so curious what his revisions were because that script. - That's the thing. And so we even punched up more of the humor in the film and tried to make people more relatable. So I'm sure it was something on that. But in terms of who did what, we don't really know. Although I do know that Helen Hunt offered some changes because she, the dialogue and the script between her and Melissa, the J-Makerts character, was very bitchy. - Yes. And Helen Hunt said we should not do that. We should not make them like adversaries with each other. - Oh, I love that. I did not know that. And I actually really love a couple of their exchanges. - I agree. - Yes. - Oh, I mean, we'll talk about it. But the moment when Melissa just flat out says to her, like, you're still in love with him. - You're still in love with him. - Oh, it's a really good scene. - It is. It actually really is super powerful and real. - Yes. - Before we move on, we should acknowledge that Joss Whedon is obviously a sex pest and we don't like him anymore. I do think knowing that he contributed to this, you can see it in some of the humor. I wonder if I'll just make a glib comment and then we can move on. - Yeah. - Do you think they pulled out any like sexual harassment stuff that he had written into the script considering that's who he is? - I don't think that they were thinking about that at the time. So I'm gonna say he didn't write it. No. - It just gone with the joke. You, you, yes, and it, yes, and it trades. - Oh, I'm sorry, Edison. Do you wanna, yes, and that and fix it? (laughing) No. - It's fine. (laughing) - It's fine. Let's just move on. - Anyway, so for director, we are looking. So after making the 1994, I mean, we're gonna say enormous like success speed and spending a year and a half in pre-production on Godzilla, Dutch director Yantabant left the monster movie to helm Twister when the studio wouldn't greenlight his requested $150 million budget for Godzilla. And again, working on Godzilla for 18 months, I also checked the budget for Godzilla was like $120 million. So it's like (sighing) it wasn't that much more than what he was asking for. - I know, it wasn't really. So while Speed was his directorial debut, he'd spent years working as a cinematographer on action epics like, you know, "Die Hard" and "Hump from October." So Steven Spielberg thought he was a good fit because here's the other thing. And Joe, this is gonna tie in the next week. Spielberg was apparently also considering directing Twister but this is also around the time he was working on getting a remake of "The Haunting" made with Stephen King. - Oh. - Oh. - "Die Hard" at the time was set to direct minority reports and was already involved in pre-production on that film. - Wow, this is so interconnected. - It's wild. And so basically while he's working on pre-production for that Spielberg's like, "Hey, why don't I take over minority report while you're doing post-production on Twister?" And then he traded the haunting. So Steven Spielberg goes, "I was going to direct the haunting. I'm not. You're gonna direct minority reports. So why don't we just trade them?" And that's what happened while Debont was doing post-production on Twister. - I mean, Spielberg definitely made the right-- - He leveled up. - Well, he won that one for sure. - But don't you wanna, we'll talk about it later, but don't you wanna know what Steven Spielberg's the haunting looks like? Come on, absolutely. - I would love to. I would also love to know what Spielberg's Twister looks like. I mean, I love this movie, but I honestly didn't know that, Spielberg was, he's one of my favorite, maybe my favorite director of all time. And I didn't really for his movies that like transport you into this sense of awe, like we were talking about a wonder, like Travis Parker. - Mm-hmm, yeah. - Indiana Jones, E.T. Coastal Canada. My favorite movie of all time is Jaws. And that is, I guess most related to this film. - Yeah, right. And well, I think, I mean, this is Amblin' too. So like, I think you can see the Amblin' like, like fingerprints all over the community. - Yeah, truly. - Maybe that's why it was set in the '80s to originally in development. - Oh, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. - Well, 'cause I also think Debont was working on Minority Report, like even in the '80s. Like I think, 'cause I think it went back that far, 'cause it's based on a Philip K Dick story, I think. - Yeah, so it would have been published like decades before. - Yeah. So again, all this stuff going on, it's just wild about all these, like even talking about "Eyes Wide Shut" last week, Joe with Kubrick. And it's like, oh, all these unrealized ideas. 'Cause again, like Steven Spielberg was also involved with "Eyes Wide Shut." TH had his fingers in all the pots in the '90s. - Yeah, right. - But, okay, so Twister was a far bigger, more technically complex project than speed, which cost $30 million. Debont says that Twister costs $70 million. About two to three million of that went straight to Debont as his salary. Other analysts, however, speculate that the last minute reshoots in March and April of '96, by the way, like a month or two of it totally opens, yeah. So the reshoots were apparently to clarify a scene about Hunt's character as a child. So I don't, we think they re-shot part of the opening. - Maybe, or maybe even the same where she's a dinner chat at Megs. - Yeah, kind of. - There were also overtime requirements in post-production at ILM that raised the price of the film to about $90 million. So the reshoots and the ILM post-production raised it by a $20 million, basically, which is about three times a budget of speed. (laughing) - Wow, but here's the thing, if you don't have FX that works for this movie, this movie doesn't work. - Well, so a lot of the issue with the post-production effects because when they were filming, they had bright, sunny skies. And so they had to go over like the actual, and there's no green screen in the sky. So they had to spend so much of their time making the skies look stormy, which is where all that post-production came from. - Okay, I feel like you can't really tell. - There's like, there's the one kind of final tornado where it is kind of like blue skies and clear, and it kind of is impactful when you're watching it, 'cause it makes it somehow look more monolithic 'cause it's stacking. Maybe they were just like, oh, we can save money here. - Yeah. (laughing) So, okay, most of this coming from this entertainment weekly cover story from '96. So in this story, which was released before the film came out, they said that Devant was reportedly extremely difficult to work with, pushing actors and crew to the edge. Some claim that Devant, quote unquote, didn't know what he wanted till he saw it. The entire original camera crew, led by Oscar nominee, Don Burgess, who got an Oscar nomination for Forrest Gump, left five weeks into filming. And the incident that caused him to do this was that Devant, apparently in a fit of rage, knocked over a camera assistant who missed a cue. So when that happened, Burgess and his crew walked off set. They remained in place for one more week until Jack N. Green, the credited cinematographer, he and his crew agreed to replace them and that come in during filming. - Way interesting. So Devant basically assaulted someone on this production. - It says he knocked over a camera assistant. So maybe the answer is yes. And I will maybe have more information next week, but I'm sorry, I'm spoiling all of this. But are you doing another Yandabong movie next week? - It's a double bill, we're doing the haunting. Yeah, but here's the thing, on the haunting, his cinematographer also left set and had to be replaced. - I mean, let's be real. The man hasn't made a movie since 2003. So there's got to be a reason outside of those last couple of films being terrible. - I also think though, because again, he came from cinematography. So I just wonder if he was trying to do two jobs at once because he's being director and not letting his cameraman and cinematographers do their job when he's trying to do that as well. - Or he can't communicate what he wants. As you said, he knows it when he sees it, but that means that he has to be the one to do it. He has difficulty relaying that vision to other people under him. - I just think it's wild that this is all known information in 1996. - Yeah. - When I feel like we didn't have as much of an awareness of the scandals. - Oh, absolutely. - Unless you were reading any time a weekly, I guess. - Wow, I don't know if that's the word, we're all legislating. - Yeah, absolutely. Helen Hunt was Devon's first choice to play Jo, though the studio was reluctant because of her lack of big movie roles. Truthfully, I don't know. I knew she was in "Mad About You," but I didn't realize that's what made her famous. So it's like-- - It's the only thing she had. - Well, yeah, she doesn't "Mad About You," so she's a sitcom actress again. We aren't really like, like, TV acting isn't as highly regarded in the '90s as it is today, but like, then she does this, then she gets the Oscar for as good as it gets, and then it's like, bam, like solidified star. - Yeah, this would have been an actual big leap for her at this time, for sure, because you're absolutely right, Jo. Like, in the '90s, they did not. Like, you did not, it was so rare to make the leap from TV to film. - Well, okay, but the other thing is this, though. So Helen Hunt also wasn't really interested because she didn't view the film as much of an acting challenge, and I'm just kind of like, that's interesting because you're working? I mean, again, no shade to "Mad About You" is a very successful sitcom, but it's like, I just feel like this is a different kind of challenge, but maybe because of an effects extravaganter that she was like, I don't really have an interest in that, you know? - I think that, right? Like, sure, you're the lead performer, but does the character really get to do much compared to, say, something like, as good as it gets, where she has this fully-fledged character and like, disemotional art and all this other stuff? - Mm. But anyway, so she changed her mind after having lunch with Devonte and Spielberg at ambulance offices. Now, for the rest of the team, Devonte wanted the storm-tracer crew to resemble the ones he met during pre-production. So, a team of University Oklahoma grad students, the NSSL, the National Civil Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, worked closely with the production, training the crew on weather safety, allowing the actors to visit their facilities and go along on a tornado chase and providing consultations on the script. So, you know, I mean, I'm sure Neil deGrasse Tyson was out there somewhere, complaining about the science of this movie, but they tried. - Right. I felt like this was pretty standard fare in terms of, okay, we're gonna pass things by, we still need to make it entertaining, but we wanna try to get a bit of a rubber stamp from the people who do this in real life. - Mm-hmm, yeah. As for filming, that took place from May through September of 1995. It was apparently supposed to start in April, but was postponed when the Oklahoma City bombing happened on April 19th of 1995. - On that note, though, Debonge is the one who pushed for shooting on location in Oklahoma. The studio was planning on filming in the UK and California, to which I say, what? - Hey. (laughs) - I could see California because that's where everything is set up for the film industry, but I mean, there's something about this film that works as well as it does because it does feel authentic to the region. - It is so American. I think you'd be able to spot it a mile away if it was the gentle rolling hills of countryside England. - Right. (laughs) - Here we are at the Moors with the tornado coming in. - And they use locals for actress who saw, I did find like, it was, I think it was a personal blog post from someone who like, you know, was a teenager at this time. And apparently too, and again, I hate even feeding into this because I'm just like, look, but like the talk of the town was how much of a bitch Helen Hunt was. And she, oh, she was like an actress actress and she was too good for everything around her. She complained when high school boys were looking at her through her window at her rental house and-- - Ah, yes. - Well, that's right, Felicia. - No, absolutely. And this guy was writing, you know, this is a small town. Like everyone knows where everyone is, what's going on. And so yeah, there wasn't really any privacy. So I imagine for Helen Hunt, that was, you know, an issue. But then of course, everyone has just wonderful things to say about Bill Paxton, who was like actually going out interacting with the locals. And look, I really hate it when the, like, a celebrity, usually a woman. - Always a woman. - I'm not even saying like, oh, she's difficult, but oh, she's a bitch because she didn't want to like hang out with the locals or talk to the locals. To me, I'm just kind of like, look, this is a job. And when I heard him about to talk about like, it was, it sounded like a very stressful job. So maybe she's just a bit more introverted than Bill Paxton. - That's what I thought too. (laughing) - Yeah, but women aren't allowed to be that. They have to be perfect. They have to be outgoing, but not so outgoing that they're slutty or, you know, too interested or so. - It's the Barbie speech. - Yeah, it, yes, it is the Barbie speech, thank you, Trace. That's a very succinct way of putting it. It's just, especially in the '90s, right? Like, we didn't allow women to have any kind of flaws. They had to be perfect. - So yeah, I apparently heard Nick name through some people of the time was Ms. Helen. - Yeah. - Oh my gosh, I love that, like Dame Helen. - Yep. (laughing) - So as I said, the shoot was troubled. Shooting on location meant that the light, sky and wind were always changing and causing continuity problems. Devant tried to keep the F special effects as practical as possible. So that meant using giant wind machines, including a Boeing 707 airplane engine, which I'm just like, don't suck me in, please. Like, (laughing) So half the people on the movie were quite literally being bowled over. - Oh yeah. (laughing) - This would frequently hit the cast with hail and fake glass. His desire for a documentary style feel meant putting his stars as close to the action as he possibly could get away with, even if blowing real dust at them caused real eye infections. Kerry Elwis said in the aforementioned E.W. interview that by the end of filming, everyone was beat up. They all got their share of cuts and bruises. However, their orgiels didn't match Paxton and Hunt's injuries because they became temporarily blind after staring into lights bright enough to darken a clear blue sky. They both later needed hepatitis shots after laying in a ditch of stagnant water for a scene. Oh yeah. Hunt repeatedly hit her head on a low bridge for another scene and had a possible concussion after a car door hit her during a faux windstorm. So again, I ask you, is she a bitch or is maybe she just overworked and stressed out? (laughing) - She's fucking cussed. She needed to lay down in a dark room. - Let me put it to you this way. Would you not do all of that quite happily to be in Twister? - Yes, abs are fucking looly. - Just like, I mean, just for like, it just, I mean, it doesn't sound fun, but it does sound fun, right? (laughing) - Yes. - It sounds fun for probably a couple of days, but if you had to do this for months and you were putting up with a temperamental director and sustaining injuries, I think the fun probably starts to wear off. - Yeah. So it wasn't just the cast who got beat up. The constant rush of industrial fans made it hard to hear and accidents were common. I could go through a laundry list, but I'm not going to, but just, you know, a music imagination. But I will say the one big one. Two days before principal filming ended, the new replacement cinematographer, Jack N. Green, he was injured when a hydraulic house set, the one where they rescued Meg and her dog after the theater. It was designed to collapse on cue, but it was mistakenly activated with him inside of it. A rigged ceiling hit him in the head and injured his back, requiring him to be hospitalized. So for the remaining shots, there's apparently six days of filming, Debont took over as his own director of photography, to which I'm not going to try to just put rumors, but I kind of want to be like, do you think he set off the hydraulics of trying to get his own movie? (laughing) - This is not defamation. Please do not sue us. (laughing) - I'm just saying. It sounds like he really wanted to shoot his own movies. (laughing) You know what, just drop a house on him. I can shoot it better. I believe you just accused Jan Debont of assault. - You know, we already know he did assault someone, so it's fine. (laughing) - Oh no, really? Oh no. - It's a pattern of behavior. - Oh yes, you're right. - 'Cause he knocked over that cameraman. It's fine. I'm sure Debont is fine. Okay, it's always a thing where I've never been on a film set, like outside of a couple of sets that I've done, and I'm not using it to excuse bad behavior or abusive behavior, but this just sounds very stressful. And I think we have more guides and regulations in place today than we did in 1996. - Yeah. - I don't think we're gonna be hearing these stories from the set of Twisters. - No, no. (laughing) - Probably not, but it's giving David O'Russell. - Oh, and-- - Ooh. - So I'm not going into how Twisters came to be, but I will say that apparently Helen Hunt had pitched a, like, a pop-inclusive Twister sequel a very long time ago, that was rejecting him. - Okay. - Yeah. But worse yet, at least for the film, the production began during the sunniest, most blue sky tornado season in Oklahoma history. So this is again, going back to this post-production effects. - Right. - Unprecedented heat waves kept coming repeatedly. Even the corn was a problem as an entire field grew tassels overnight and did not match with the shots from the day before. - Oh, gosh. - Of course. - The things that we would never consider issues, but, like, the many people have to shoot outdoors, right? It's just like, "Oh, I don't have control over the setting." - But it's a thing where, you know what I mean? Like, I think Edison used to have this earlier. This feels very authentic to, like, middle America, that Bible belt, that tornado alley. Like, this feels utterly American, and I don't think we would have had that same effect if we had shot this in LA in the UK. - 100%. - Or even indoors, right? Ooh, let's plant a bunch of corn, let's build a fake barn. I just don't think it'd be the same. - No, you can feel it. Like, you can feel the setting in this film. - Well, that's the thing, 'cause the house they drive through later, that's a real fucking house. The house they drive through, wild. - I love that secret. - So, yeah, we have those reshoots in March and April of '96. There were also a couple legal issues. So, apparently, this is not uncommon. Like, whenever a movie is coming out for a big studio, it's planned to be a hit. Like, a bunch of people will come out of the woodworks and be like, "Oh, you ripped off my idea." So, we have Stephen B. Kessler, who wrote a screenplay about Oklahoma tornado chasers that was called Catch the Wind. He had copyrighted it in '89, '90 and '91. It had been widely distributed in Hollywood and made the finals of a screenwriting contest sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. So, he alleged that this was the uncredited and unbought basis for Twister. He wanted to block the movie's release until the dispute was settled. We had another screenwriter, Daniel Perkins, suing over copyright infringement. His script was called Tornado Chasers and dealt with the military harnessing tornadoes as weapons and settled for an undist-- - God. - That sounds like a sci-fi movie. - That is not this film. - That'll be now. - His was settled and I think the other one was as well, but it was kind of like, hush, hush, it was quieted down. The attorney of the first guy wouldn't say whether a financial settlement had been made, but as in such cases, part of the agreement was basically that the settlement would be confidential. It's like NDAs signed everywhere. - Yeah. - So, that means Catch the Wind got some money and then money chaser, i.e. tornado chaser, probably got none. - Uh, maybe? - Yeah, I mean, I think on the day it's a thing where, 'cause I feel like people think, oh, if they're paying them off, they're guilty. But I think it's probably more a case of-- - It's more like, just go away. - Yeah. - Here we'll throw you a bit of loose change we found in the couch cushions and we're gonna go and release this giant movie and make a shit ton of money. - But like, Catch the Wind is a terrible title for this film. Catch the Wind is like two kids who are best friends who discovered their love of flying kites on a beach and some real town. - I mean, Twister, the marketing for this movie is great. The name is great, the poster is great, the trailer for this movie is awesome. Like, it very much feels like a teaser, 'cause it's just kind of giving you a lot of shots of tornado after effects. And it's, I feel like that was a big driving force of the box office for this. People just wanted to see what this was. - Totally. - Yeah. - The story barely matters. - I mean, it's not in the trailer. (laughing) - And the word of mouth after, because the truth is it just was so cool. And some of the effects of like the tree, you know, flying at you, the boat, like things coming, almost as if they're coming out of the screen. That was very cool. That's the type of thing you can imagine people leaving the cinema and going home and saying, you have to see this, check out this thing. You'll see the tornado, like. - Uh huh. And that's why I'll go back to your statement earlier, Joe, where it's like, I wish we had movies like that. So I mean, they still probably exist. Like, I think I'm on the top of my head, but where it's just like, you're going to the cinema to see something that you've just had never seen before. And this was that for 1996 audiences. - Yeah, I feel like the closest one is maybe Matt Backspherey Road, where I really just left. - I was just going to say that. - And kind of said, oh man, that like the kind of movie where you say, you cannot wait to watch this at home. It doesn't matter how good your screen is, you need to go and see this on a giant fucking screen and just be immersed in it. - 100%. - So, Twister comes out on May 10th, in 1996. It was originally a schedule from May 17th, but WB pushed it up a week to avoid competing with Mission Impossible, which is coming out on the 24th. - Good year. - Good year. - Now, Twister opens in the number one spot with $41.1 million, making it the sixth largest opening weekend of all time at the time. It was, however, the largest May opening of all time, because as we learned in the Mummy Joe, we're still not like May isn't summer movie season yet. - No, right. - But this, along with 1998's Deep Impact and The Mummy, helped cement May instead of June as the official start to summer movie season. - Mm-hmm. - Now, it stayed on the number one spot at second weekend, beating newcomer Flipper with Elijah Wood, and it grossed $37 million, a mere 10% drop. - That's amazing. - That's almost unheard of. - I think, again, the word of mouth. - Mm-hmm. - This was the second highest, second weekend of all time, only after Jurassic Park. It went on to gross, $241.8 million domestically, and $252.8 million internationally. For a worldwide gross of $494.6 million, making it the second highest grossing film of 1996 after Independence Day, and would remain Warner Brothers' highest grossing film ever until Harry Potter and The Sorcerer of Stone came out five years later. - Wow. - Wow. - That's really impressive. - That's something that I didn't know all these things about. (laughs) - I remember the domestic gross being absolutely huge, 'cause I was an avid box office follower, so even at the end of the year, it's like, okay, which one's gonna come in tops, which one's gonna come in, you know, fifth, and so on. What's interesting about those numbers is that if this movie had have been released today, I think obviously the domestic gross would be a little bit higher, but also that foreign gross would probably be three days a time. - Wait, absolutely. 'Cause I looked up Independence Day to see how much money that movie made, and it made $306 million domestically, but here's the kicker, $511 million internationally. - Yeah, there we go. - Independence Day made over $800 million worldwide, so double what Twister made, and that gap between number one and number two, it's just wild, which by the way, I would totally cover Independence Day one day, because I would call that a genre adjacent movie. (laughs) - Oh, can I come back for that one? - I love Independence Day. (laughs) - That's another one of those ones where it's like, the script is kind of ampeh, but there's so many great character actors that make it worth watching. - How dare you, Jim? - I know, I just don't think it's that a rigid story, we'll put it that way. - Okay, I think you're thinking about Independence Day resurgence, not Independence Day. - Oh, wow, wow, never thinking of that movie. (laughs) - No, I think Independence Day, it harkens back to the '70s disaster movies, where it's like one big disaster movie, but we're also following, almost like a series of vignettes, where we're following different groups of people. I just, I love that setup for a disaster film, but anyway. So, critical reaction on Twister was mixed. The general consensus was good effects, bad script. We're looking at a 63% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 6.1 out of 10, and Letterbox users have given it a 6.4 out of 10, which is just Fox. - People need to have more fun. Why you gonna fuck up? - I mean, on a star scale, what would y'all give this in a star rating? - Eight. - Yeah, I'm probably there too. It's like a four and a five. - Okay, so like, yeah, yeah, it's, but the average is like three, maybe a three and a half, we're being generous, which I think is, I do wonder that all these Gen Zers who are gonna be watching this week in the lead up to Twisters, if they do do that. I may just go ahead and HBO, so we'll see. - There we go. But it did get two Academy Award nominations for Best Visual Effects, which it lost to Independence Day, and Best Sound, which it lost to the English patient. - What? - I know! (all laughing) - I do not remember the sound designed well enough from that movie, but that is surprising. - They used a friggin' Campbell's moan in this to mimic the sound of a tornado with that English patient watching the sound design? - I know, I know, it doesn't make any sense to me. Okay, like visual effects I kind of get for Independence Day, yes, like that's a pretty spectacular visual. - Oh yeah, yeah. - Yeah, and we're using miniatures in that movie too. It's great, also the practical, "Alien Effects," I'm like, "Oh my God." Anyway, can we just cover Independence Day? - Guess the focus, focus for now. - I don't 'cause I'm the film expert. (all laughing) - Oh my God, Harvey Fierstein. But yeah, there's the queer side of it. - There it is. - Oh my God, yes! He dies very early, spoiler alert, but yes. (all laughing) - Oh, this is a queer canon. - Wow, in the 90s. - Yeah, in the 90s, but yeah. So I mean, that is the making of Twister. Way more information was available about this and I thought was going to be. I had no idea, this to me was just that disaster really, I watch all the times of kids, so. - There we go, the more you know. - The more you know, but Joe, kick us off with this plot. - All right, so we open as we have mentioned earlier in not a flashback, but like in older times. So June of 1969. - But you're also forgetting the cloudy Warner Brothers logo. - Ah, yes. - And the opening credits, the title credits just getting blown away. - Oh, yes, so good. (all laughing) - I love it when they put the added extra touch on it, though, right? - Oh yeah, absolutely. I think 'cause it doesn't, the eye is also a twister that then becomes the eye, or maybe that was the trailer, but it was definitely a thing. - That's amazing. - Yeah. - So June, 1969, we're introduced to young Joe Harding, who was played by Alexa Vega. - I had no idea, and also would never have been able to like tell just from watching this. - No. So, young Joe is woken up by her mother, character actor Rusty Schwimmer, who I love. You know, she was in every movie for a while and it was fun to see her again. Do you have a name, at least one movie for me? - So, big ones are things like Perfect Storm, smaller things like the Velco experiment, does some TV nowadays, but yeah, back in the day. When you needed somebody to come in and kind of do like the motherly figure, she was the woman you call. - She's also, I'm sorry I'm looking at this now as you're doing this, but she's in Jason Ghost to Hell, and I think she's Leslie Jordan's boss at the diner, which that's just wild, but she's also the police woman in Candyman, who I think makes Virginia Madison strip down. - Yeah. - Oh. - Anybody. - Sorry. - I just pressed. (both laughing) - Okay, so that's the mom. Basically, we are waking young Joe up so that we can get to the storm cellar because the storm is coming and then Joe gets to watch her father played by Richard Lineback, gets sucked away into the storm. - Okay, but did it bother you all how little they seem to care about this fucking dog? - Well, no, but I do love that the dog is called Toby, which is sort of like a callback to Toto. (both laughing) - I think this is very Wizard of Oz folks. - Yes. - I mean, Trace, at least they don't kill the dog, which is what I thought they might do. - No, they were about to leave this dog out of the storm cellar. Like what the fuck? - No, but the dog had to be saved like and we were gonna keep bringing it about day to day. - Yeah. - Just in the last minute jumping in to say, hmm, but like, I mean, watching this today, I got to say though, as the dad's trying to hold the door shut, which I'm like, maybe don't. - Wanna go and anchor yourself. (both laughing) That was dumb, but it is scary 'cause he's like, I can't hold it. Like, again, I had those feelings of like eight year old Trace be like, this is horrifying. Like what, what if a twister came for you, right? - And if you live in certain parts of the country, you're dealing with this all the fucking time. - And it does capture the power. Like it's a great opening scene 'cause it does you really feel the power of these things. And it also gives us a little bit like, there's a little blurb on the TV saying, it's big, might be an F5. And so you get a little hint of the science right off the top too, which I appreciate it. - Yeah, which I feel like now, like that that scale is so, it's common knowledge, but I feel like, but I only know it because of twister. - Oh, 100% same. (both laughing) And actually it's been updated. So in America and Canada, they actually used the enhanced Fujita scale, the EF scale now. So I think in the new film, they'll be encountering an EF5 as the sort of big dad of the movie. - You know, I gotta say, I haven't been like really excited about Twister. It's like the trailer didn't really do a lot for me. I was kind of like, ah, like whatever. But how dare you? Glen Powell alone should get your hands on that fucking scene. - Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. - For sure, Anthony Ramos, like, I mean, trust me, I'm all there, but I was kind of like, eh, but re-watching this kind of like, again, like, is there something about the movie magic on display here that I'm, you know, it's from a director of Manari. Sorry, the new one is, not this one, obviously, but like, I'm more curious now than I was before. I feel a twinge of excitement that I wasn't feeling before after having re-watched the original film. - Right, yeah. Okay, so we jump ahead to the present day, i.e. 1996. And we check in at the National Severe Storm Laboratory, which is an SSL, and we pop back here a couple of times throughout the film. I think you could kind of cut a lot of these scenes out, except for the fact that I think they want to ground this partially in real science, which to me, is a very Michael Craton thing to do. - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, that makes sense. - But it also seems like this company, this lab, is only communicating with Carrie Elwes' team. So every time we have them, we cut back to them, but I agree, it seems not super, it almost feels like it's painted them in a bad light by only pairing them with Carrie Elwes, because this movie has a minor narrative thread about bad corporatization of science-type stuff. - Yeah, it's like grassroots versus big, big core. - Yeah, that is the weird thing, and I kind of want to talk about that as we go along, 'cause I have some feelings about Michael Craton. He became increasingly conservative. He became a full on not job before his death, but he also wrote some of arguably the most important books to movies that we've seen in our day in terms of like '90s and early 2000s films, but he was kind of the shit, and he did a lot of these sort of pseudoscience action tags, but yeah, I think that this film has a very weird tension at its core between our protagonist, Bill, who we learn is a human barometer, and it's all about his sense, right? Like it's not about the science with him, and our villain is Carrie Elwes, who is all about the corporate cello, but he has all the science still, because he's a fucking doctor, but we paint him in a bad light as though the science is bad, and it runs counter to how Craton's content usually goes. I think it's so weird. - But that's where like the whole, oh, he stole the Dorothy prototype that is passing off at his own. Like you have to have that to make him an actual villain, because if it's just science versus grassroots, then no, that's not enough to make him an actual antagonist in this movie. - Totally, and I kind of, I do think it's intentional in a way, and I think it may be part of the key to the film's success in a weird way, 'cause it is also this sort of dynamic between like country and like urban, you know, it's like middle America, like even the way that they talk, like think about the way that Meg like speaks to Melissa, not that it's rude in any way, it's just very down-home. - Patronizing. - Yeah, but in that like we know better 'cause we're like country. But that is like America, you know. - Well, even, I mean, when we're introduced to Bill, as he drives with Melissa to go and get these divorce papers signed, it's the first thing that Joe comments on is, oh, well, you got your new truck, you got your new clothes, you've got this whole new life. And in some way, she's suggesting that he's sold out as well because he's a let go of his country dreams. - Yeah, that's why there's some other things, 'cause this movie, I feel like a lot of movies in the 90s really didn't want people to like the profession of therapy, totally. - But it's like, 'cause Joe says some things about therapy that I'm kind of like, "Ugh, like that." - Yeah. (laughing) - Joe, your survivor of trauma, maybe you could benefit from some therapy. - But I look, 'cause Melissa reads Jamie Gertz's character. I love Jamie Gertz, and I was like, "Oh, why isn't she acting more?" She's married to a billionaire, so she's doing just fine. - She's doing just fine. - Yeah, for her. - So she made a choice, I guess, yeah. - She did make a choice, but I mean, look, I watched that sitcom she had with Mark Addy still standing, that was on CBS for like four years in the mid-2000s, and everyone hated, and I loved it. (laughing) - You know what, you're a forever stam, then? - I'm a forever stam, but no, I love that she's our audience surrogate here, like it's not our two leads, it's this character. - Yeah, she's very much the woman who's caught in the middle, I mean, I know we joked about how Helen Hunt was kind of graduating from mad about you into movies, and this maybe isn't the most challenging role for her, but it is funny how much of her and Bill's interactions are very traditional rom-com. - Mm-hmm, do y'all think they have the chemistry for it? - I do, personally. - I do too. - I like them together. - Yeah, I do too, I do like them together. And here's the thing, I'll wait till we get to Melissa's exit, it's fine. (laughing) - Sure, I mean, we're more or less there, so like, we basically go from the lab into this sweeping aerial shot as Melissa and Bill are driving down the road and it's berry country, it's, you know, a lot of grasslands and dirt roads and that kind of stuff. Quick note, this score is doing a hell of a job of making certain sequences very exciting. - Okay, I cannot, the score is amazing, this score is very 90s and this score is also very American. - But, it's also very eclectic though, I think there's so many different styles of me, the accompaniment of choral music with every twister we get is a genius choice. - Oh, it's so fucking operatic. (laughing) Like, that base deep rumbling of the twister coming. It is also kind of a callback to the donna, donna of jaws, actually, when I think about it. - Yeah, yeah, I can see it. And then here, this is so exciting, exuberant, it's very much like, welcome to the ride, come along with us, we're going to show you an amazing time today. - Yeah. (humming) - I mean, so much of this feels like we are curbing from fucking Jurassic Park, even when you guys were talking about the dad getting sucked up into the air and it's, you know, this moment of oh, but it's also very exciting and we're kind of holding on it, it feels like the opening of Jurassic Park with Maldoon and the Velociraptor, right? - Actually, Edison, I'm so glad you just did that little, that ditty right there because, I think I mentioned this when we talked about Jaws before, but like watching movies like this and the score specifically because I think both this and Jaws know they're movies that have like scary scenes, but then like, you know, like happy scenes. And so I remember watching Twister so much when I heard like that ditty you just did Edison, I was like, okay, cool, no danger is happening yet because it's happy music. So I know that I don't have to be stressed out yet. And then, you know, you have a moment where Melissa's in her hotel room and she's like looking at the wind, blowing her curtain and the score, the ominous score kicks in. And I'm like, oh, it's going to get scary. - But it's also, it's also such an intentional score, not just for like how it sounds in this, but it's a callback, I think specifically to Jaws, I'm just going to keep doing it because there's a, one of the songs or scores in Jaws is called The Great Shark Chase. And it's exactly that. It's when they're out on the boat, like going out to sea and it sounds so similar. So it evokes this like, I'm in the wilds chasing a monster. - That's exactly the track that I'm thinking of too, because as a kid, you're watching like, oh my God, they're going on the water, they're going to get attacked by this shark. But no, we have to do like 20 minutes of male bonding, happy male bonding. - Right, yes, we could cover that movie because their interactions are so gay. - I don't think anyone would object to us covering Jaws. - Can I come back with that one? - It's just like, how many repeat appearances in my booking on this podcast? Okay, yeah, so we're introduced to sex therapists, Dr. Melissa Reeves, played by Jamie Gertz, as well as former tornado chaser, Bill the Extreme, played by Bill Paxton, who I fucking miss all the time. - Oh God. - He died like almost a decade ago, it's unreal to me. - Every time I watch one of his movies, like he strikes me as someone who is so surprisingly versatile because I was thinking of his role in Aliens where he's like the fun goofy, just like comedic relief. And then here he's properly leading man. - My two favorite packs of performances, so one is frailty, which he actually directed. - Oh, that's a rough one. - And this is not a movie, but it's a show, but the HBO series Big Love, where he was the polyamorous, whose wives were Chloe 70, Jen Triple Horn, and Jennifer Goen, like that, that show was amazing and he was fantastic in it. - He's great, he's great in everything. And he's great in this, I mean, he's a super versatile actor, but he has that everyman quality that he's not quite too handsome, like he's a great lead. - Yeah, he's the charisma that just exudes out of him. Like he was a real talent, like seriously. - Well, it's gonna be fascinating because, you know, we've talked about Twisters a little bit, but like when you compare leading men, I mean, I've heard people talk a little bit disparagingly about Glenn Powell, I quite like him, but he is unabashedly a contemporary movie star, right? Like he looks like he is primed to supplant Tom Cruise as the next super-hot leading man, and that's not who Bill Paxton is. And yet I think his look, his almost everyman aesthetic in this film is so relatable. I think it helps the film to go down easier. - And I agree 100%, also Helen Hunt is that. Like Helen, it's not like Helen Hunt was Sharon Stone, you know, it's not the same quality. And something else that I appreciate really broadly about the casting in this film is that they're adults or they at least read as adults. And like I'm excited for Twisters, it was on my most anticipated list on the Talk Move to Me podcast for this year. I love Glenn Powell as well, but like Daisy Edgar Jones is great, but like Anthony Ramos, Brandon Parade, they're young. Like Moratierity is playing a character named Kathy, so she's gotta be the liken and make character, but she's not. - Oh my God. I didn't know she was in it, but that's good. I love Moratierity. - Oh my God, she's over 40. We're gonna have to kill her off on a farm. - But she is not Lois Smith. Like she's not, you know, it's just so, so I don't know, yeah. - 'Cause we need hot and we need young. That's what we have decided. Character actors to the side, only hot people need to apply to Hollywood nowadays. - Well, and I was listening to your guys' episode on Alien and it was like, you know, you're talking about Alien Romulus and that's the exact same. Like look at the characters in the Alien film. They're adults again, and this one, they're literally like, it's even part of the plot. - But I do wonder though, like, okay. So like, how old do we, so how old was Helen Hunt when she made this movie, right? She would have been, I guess like 32 when they were filming this movie. - But I feel like she's playing a character who's probably meant to be late 20s, early 30s. Like she's playing appropriately aged. - Okay, but like, Glimp Howl is 35, his my age right now. So like, Glimp Howl is actually older than Helen Hunt was filming Twisters and when she was filming Twister. But the accent was in his 40s. - Maybe what the difference is that we're slightly harping on here is that people look more, I'm going to say this, I don't mean to sound disparaging. People just look a little faker nowadays. Like everybody's got a skincare regime, they got personal trainers, everybody's fit as fuck. Like, you know, Edison, you said Helen Hunt looks great. I think she looks absolutely stunning in this film, but it is, it's a relatable kind of beauty where you look at her, she's unabashedly gorgeous, but she's not styled to the gods. - Yes, also just Anthony Ramos is 32, so he's probably 31 many film Twisters, but Daisy Edgar Jones 26, probably 25 when she filmed Twisters. So we got a decades worth of actors. - I guess that's true. I promise they will all read much younger. - Oh, I 100% think they will as well, but I also wonder like, okay, if you were the age now of the same age when you saw Twister in 1996, would these people maybe look older to you and read older to you because you're a child watching adults? And maybe I feel like maybe we're holding onto that child memory, even though we just launched it, like of these actors. - I love that trace, but no. (both laughing) - I understand what you're trying to say. I mean, it's difficult, right? We're talking about this movie and we all had such strong nostalgic connections to it that it is hard because yeah, I think we're immediately transported back into a frame of mind that's almost childlike glee. So yeah, I mean, I would be curious if we've got younger listeners who are in their late teens, early 20s who are thinking, oh yeah, I'm looking at that Twister movie and yeah, all of those people look like proper adults. - Yeah, yeah, I believe that you feel that trace, but do you know? Do you really know? - Do you see? - Do you see? (both laughing) - Okay, so let's introduce the rest of the team. I'm going to cast a bit of a fine line between who we need to actually care about and who is just not even red shirt fodder or anything because very few people die in this movie, but we do have a surprisingly large cast considering how much we're using some of these actors. - Yeah. - Okay, so the two people we actually need to know are Dusty, played by the one and only Philip Seymour Hoffman. Great role for him. - Yeah, oh my God. - And then we also have Rabbit, who is more or less the navigator of the group and he's played by Alan Rook. And then we have the other people who are here, but they're arguably not really doing all that much. So we have Joey, who is played by Joey Slotnick. We have Preacher, who is the guy who nearly gets decapitated at the movie theater, played by Scott Thompson. We have Belzer, who trace you immediately messaged me after last week where you were like, you will not guess who is in this fucking movie. It is Todd Field for the second fucking week in a row. - Oh, Joe, guess what else he's in? - He's not haunting. - He's in the haunting. (laughing) And it's a weird cause Todd Field, like, he's an eye of a fight shot, but he wouldn't go on to direct and get Oscar nominations for in the bedroom, little children, and tar. - Oh my God, that's him. - But I disparagingly was like, oh, this guy, who is he? Why is he even in this movie? - I called him Bobo Edward Norton. - I had no idea until this very moment. That is absolutely wild. - Yeah. (laughing) - Okay, so Belzer is connected to Haines, who is the only other female on this group. - And I think you're missing Lawrence, Jeremy Davies. - Am I? - I mean, he's in this crew. (laughing) - I mean, sure, that's what I'm saying. There's two of many people. - No, I agree with you. - Like, 'cause we also have Sanders, who was played by Sean Wayland, you know, from People End of the Stairs and a couple of other things. - He gets, like, one shot. Yeah, Jeremy Davies, I went over from Lost, really, but obviously I saw him and I was like, oh, that looks like a young Jeremy Davies. Oh, it is a young Jeremy Davies. (laughing) - Yeah, it's just, it's one of those things where I think if we made this film now, we would be more economical with how big a group we need, because at the end of the day, if we're not killing off any of these people, I don't know that we need all of them here, because then we still have our competing group of people who are working with Dr. Jonas Miller, played by Kerry Elway's. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I don't know, I definitely get that, but I kind of disagree. I like that it's a big crew, and a lot of them don't need much, but it makes it feel a little bit more, I don't know, yeah, to me. It's like all of this huge team, and they're all in this together and, hmm. - I mean, do you, either one of you, like, would it have been better or just an interesting difference if we were killing off some of these people during this 24-hour period, mind you? - Maybe, just as long as it wasn't Dustin, I just could not have seen Philip Seymour Hoffman go that way, because. - He's an actual supporting character in this film, I would argue. None of these others are actual supporting characters. - That's a good point. - They're tertiary characters. - I mean, I think the problem is, hey, this isn't the kind of film that's really doing that, even though I've made comparisons to Jurassic Park, and I'm still gonna maintain you two can have your jobs, comparison, I'll go with Jurassic Park. We do kill people in Jurassic Park, but not people that feel connected integrally to the group, like, if we lost one of these people in this movie, in Twister, I think the movie would have to shut down for a period of time. Well, people grieve because they wouldn't just say, oh, okay, well, we're fine, let's go chase the next tornado. Like, the closest we get is Aunt Meg, and the only reason we leave is because she says, go get the F5 in this. - And that was enough, I think that was enough, 'cause we needed to see what somebody be in her. - Somebody had to get her. - Yes, but the only people that die are the quote unquote, bad guys, right? - Exactly. - And we don't care about them. - No, no. In fact, we cheered and clapped when it happened. - So, Bill and Melissa show up as the team is sort of setting up for the day. Everyone is so excited to see Bill. So we understand immediately that he has a connection to this group, you know, it's good character work without hitting us over the head with it. And he abandons Melissa, this will be a recurring, not gag, but development. Like, whenever he's got the opportunity to, he leaves Melissa behind so he can go and spend time with Joe. - Yeah, it's not super great of his character, but it's also like, it's who he is, right? - I think Creighton and Marie Martin's script does a good job of moving the blame off of Bill when we finally get the breakup by reassuring the audience. Don't worry, he's not a bad guy, 'cause Melissa's actually fine with it. She deserves to be in like the Pantheon, I'm sorry, the very small group of like really great other women in the love triangle, along with Bridget Wilson from The Wedding Planner when she's like, okay, it's fine. You can go marry Matthew McConaughey. - Right, and like she's, it's heartbreaking when she says, don't worry about me, I know my way home. - Oh, it's so good. I just feel like, trust, I know we're not going to, but if we get a legacy character returning in Twisters, I really just want, I want someone to say that their psychiatrist is Dr. Melissa Reed. - Oh my God, please, please, please, please, I need it. - I really need that fit service so bad. Can you believe that she was nominated for a Razzie Award for this? - What? - What? - Oh. - We're still learning actress. - My God. - Just for the proof that the Razzies are out of their goddamn minds. - Out of their goddamn minds. - I cannot. I cannot. - That's bullshit. - That's bullshit. - This character is great, I remember liking this character even when I saw this as a child. - She's so funny, she's so funny. - She is, she really like, she has the best lines of the whole film. - Oh God. - Said them throughout this whole episode so far. (both laughing) - Okay, so well Bill goes over to meet with Joe. We are getting some exposition about Dorothy. So these are the metal containers that Bill helped to design. These are gonna measure tornadoes from the inside of the funnel using hundreds of little sensors. And this will give us earlier tornado warnings because of course we are trying to beat the average, which is just three minutes. - Can you imagine an alarm going off and you've got three minutes? It would take me three minutes to wake up. - Yeah, like where are my keys? Where's my phone? Oh, I'm dead. - Because they want to increase the time from three minutes to 15 minutes. Even 15 minutes doesn't sound that long, but I guess when compared to three minutes it is. - Right. - Oh yeah, three and 15 minutes is long enough. I scroll for a second on Instagram too, but for it, it all wins. (both laughing) - Hey y'all, Mark safe from the tornado. - I'm gonna go live everybody 'til it cuts out. - Oh god. - Oh, things I don't want to see in the new movie, Instagram influencers getting, well maybe I do want to see them sucked up. - Maybe getting sucked up into the suck zone. - Oh no, they're totally going to kill influencer who's trying to capture the tornado. They're totally going to do that. - Yes. As long as somebody uses the term "ruage" in this, that's another amazing Dustin's character. He's going to root the day he came up against the extreme baby. I'm talking imminent "ruage." (both laughing) - Nice burb-ed, yes. - Get three coffins ready, kid, because our latest podcast "Make My Day" is venturing off into the wild and sprawling frontier that is Clint Eastwood's career. More movies than Stephen King has books and more genres than all of the franchises we've covered over at the Halloweenies. Now, I know what you're thinking. Do they really need to start another show? - Well, to tell you the truth and all this excitement, I kind of lost track myself. But being this is a podcast, the most powerful medium in the world for pop culture conversation and Clint's output is infinite, you've got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk? Find out today and subscribe to "Make My Day," a Clint Eastwood podcast now, wherever you get your audio. (upbeat music) - Okay, so let's head out for our first chase of the day. We basically hustled Melissa into, I mean, yeah, it's one of the dumb early things where we just say, oh no, Joe didn't sign one of the pieces of paper on the divorce proceeding, so we've got a chase after her and everybody just goes, whatever, we're here for the ride, we don't care. - Also, Joe very intentionally did not sign that paper. - 100%. - Yes. - So on the road, they are overtaken by this fleet of black SUVs, this is Dr. Jonas Miller, Kerry Elway's, yes, we said he's the cello because he's got corporate sponsors, to which I say, who among us does not wish for? Yes, he's not in it for the science and that's, I think, the real kicker. That's what makes him a villain. He just wants the glory, he wants the fame. Which, I mean, relatable, sure. - And he probably gets it in the end. - Well, yeah, rest in peace. (laughing) - Peace is. - So we've got this little action sequence where they end up forcing Bill off the road, so then we all pull over at the rest stop with the diner and we see Jonas going on TV, little altercation, so we can build up the rivalry and help the audience understand why we hate him. - I love this retort from Bill after, like, you know, Jonas antagonizing. He just goes, "You slide!" Like, okay. (laughing) - It's very G-rated. And then we move into the diner and this is where we get our first real interaction between Melissa and Joe. - And this is the one you were talking about, Edison. I think this is one of the best, like, dialogue-driven sequences in the film. - I agree, it's so good. It's real because you can see the, I love that she's the therapist because you can see her direct, sort of, mature approach to Joe and Joe being like, (laughing) - One lemonade. - The only thing that, 'cause she goes, you know, like, not that I blame you, I just hope this isn't some desperate attempt to keep him in your life. And I think desperate maybe is the, like, the wrong word choice for that? - Yeah, it's too strong. - Yeah, it feels a little aggressive. But outside of that, I mean, I was kind of like, "Damn, Melissa, good for you." (laughing) - Man, she's gonna piss on her own tree, honey. (laughing) - And meanwhile, Joe was just like, "If you need to pee, you should probably do it now "because there aren't a lot of stops on the road." (laughing) - Yeah. And they're drinking coffee, too, ugh. - I know, right? Like, there's someone there has the shits. - You gotta do it before we even head out. Like, I'm not waiting till we get to the diner so I can use the diner restroom, no. - These people definitely only drink diner coffee and would turn their noses up at anything fancier. - Yeah, truly, yes. All right, so we hit the road and we are in Joe's track. So we've left Melissa back with Dusty so that Joe and Bill can drive ahead. This is when they're bickering about their commitment issues. Again, it's character backstory that we need to know so that we understand the nature of their relationship. And then we take a sharp left to intercept the tornado and Jonas and his team follow. So we learn that Bill is really the person who can sense and direct things and Jonas is just a follower. - This is also where we get the anti-therapist stuff because Joe is like, Bill tells Joe she's a therapist and she just goes, "Oh, yours?" And Bill is so offended and so prospective of this. I'm like, "Okay, come on." It's like, "Well, I guess if it was his therapist, "that'd be very unethical." But still. (laughs) - Ooh, yeah. - It would be unethical, but it wouldn't be like a burn like this and their whole exchange, you're right. It's like very, who would ever go to a therapist? Very much so. - Yeah, 'cause he's annoying. - But then we get this first reveal. Like when this first twister is revealed, again, we have that choral score kicking in, but it's one of the smaller twitches we're gonna see today, but it is a marvel. - Yeah, we've got this big action sequence as they drive it into the ravine. Of course, Joe is goading him that he's lost his nerve because of course he's a kind of sellout in her mind. So he has to prove it to her and then he can't get out of the ravine and we end up smashing into this low bridge. And then just to confirm that Joe is definitely still fucked up from her childhood trauma, she is still willing to try to set off the Dorothy even though it is completely unsafe and Bill has to hold her back. - But that's the, I wanna see it. I wanna see it. Like she did. She's echoing the words of every audience member too, by the way. (laughs) - Yeah. So they do end up surviving this one, but her truck does not. It does end up crashing directly in front of Melissa's vehicle and she freaks out. And I feel like in 1996, we as an audience all laughed at her because she's such a scaredy cat. Ooh. And now I'm like, oh, a fucking vehicle just dropped in front of her on the highway. Yeah, she's right to be hysterical. - Yeah. 100% I'd be like, okay, where's my ticket out of here? - Also like, how many cars does Joe go through on it? Like this is it, again, this movie takes place. I wanna say over 36 hours. There's all these choices around this day, except for the F5, which is the next day. And yep, how many cars did she go through? - And they also like, they don't strike me as being all that bothered by the fact that their vehicles are getting destroyed. And it's like, they also don't strike me as being all that wealthy. And I can't imagine like car insurance companies replacing your vehicle if you're a fucking tornado chaser. So. - We make a big deal out of how Bill doesn't have insurance. - She has liability insurance. Like he is going to pay out the ass for this new truck that gets destroyed. - But it's for the science. - I would, yeah, I would, they're just leveraging it. Like, well, when the grant money comes in, if we can actually pull this off, maybe. - I didn't realize, I guess the twisters keep going up. 'Cause I think this one's an F1, the next one's an F2. I think, yeah, I think we let skip a four. - We skip an F4. - Okay, we skip an F4. Okay, got it. Wow, interesting. - Well, of course, because we've got to escalate. It's like it accompanies the rising action. - Well, because as soon as this is done and everyone's kind of gathered their bearings, it's like, oh, hey, there's an F2 tornado somewhere nearby. So let's go after that. - Absolutely, yeah. So once again, we stick with Joe and Bill and now they're driving his expensive new truck, except we do have Melissa in the mix as well because we're down a vehicle. - I wish there was more of Melissa in with them, but I love, I'm also a sucker for the going between cars and seeing what everyone's talking about as they're heading out there. But I think having Melissa in here, the one time we really get the love triangle in a car, I think it's really good. - It's perfect, it's perfect. It's just, I feel like it's just the right amount because it gives us the comedy. And I just, this is a classic scene. - It really is, here's the thing, it's not even the cow. I mean, the cow stuff is really funny, but it's when she's talking to that patient, she's like, Julie, I know you're upset, but you've got to breathe. We've both just got to breathe. (both laughing) - And like at the line, I think he said it in the opening, she did not marry your penis. - Yeah. - Okay, she did not just marry your penis. - Yeah, insinuating that she did marry your penis, but not just the penis. She married the rest of you as well. But I mean, again, this is an interesting piece to look back on, because in 2024, this is a very real profession. There's a lot of people who would benefit from having a Dr. Melissa Reeves in their life nowadays. But back in '96, this character was considered a joke. Like the things she was saying were funny, but her profession was a source of mockery in this world. - Well, it was definitely something only like Oppity Rich City people did. - Yes. - I mean, it's because all us audience members, like we were like, oh, we want to be the tornado chasers. We don't wanna be the uptight, stick up our ass therapist. And as an adult now, I'm like, no, that's me. (both laughing) - Yeah, I don't wanna die in a fucking tornado. You know, I wanna have this brief little taste, not even this one on the bridge with the sisters. I maybe at most want like what Joe and Bill went through where it's like, I wanna drive in the ravine and then be like, oh, I'll just grab this pool for a couple of minutes and then it's over. Like that is the extent. And then I wanna go back to the city of my proper life. - Oh God, it would be so fun though, wouldn't it? - But, okay, so we have to one it. So we go up, you know, we're at F2 tornado here, but it's, yeah, as you said, it's not just like one tornado. It's, we have sisters and their water spouts, which I, again, the escalation here is so awesome. I love, this is gorgeous. Yeah, it is. - And one of the interesting things is that every time we escalate the tornado, we also get new weather phenomenon. So again, this is the sort of Michael Creighton pseudoscience a feel of it. So, you know, we learned with an F2, we're gonna get things like horizontal rain. And we also learned the language. These are barn burners. So they're going to burn fast and bright. So when the truck ends up getting caught in the middle of these two twisters, it's okay. We just have to survive long enough for them to exhaust themselves and then they're done. - Yeah, I love that. It's smart because you, you know, we're gonna see several tornadoes throughout the course of this film. They must have spent so much time brainstorming and researching sort of how to come up with novel ways to show the storm. So it's not just the same thing over and over again, right? We always see the biggest was gonna be at the end, but I think it's really smart because you don't just watching that like as a kid. Yeah, they're all new, but it's not like you're clocking the intentionality of that. It's just cool. So we should note that when Joe's truck got picked up and dropped, we did lose a Dorothy. So we're down to only three more Dorothy's 'cause we only have four. And also just to confirm Jonas's villainy when he drove by, he did not stop to make sure that they were okay. Even though you could clearly see that there was a crushed vehicle on the road. - He's a real asshole. - He's a real asshole. - He's a real asshole. - He is a slime ball. - Okay, so after we survive the cows and the sisters, we decide we need some sustenance. So everybody demands of Joe that we swing by and visit Aunt Meg who is played by the incomparable Lois Smith. - Fun anecdote though, the cow was taken from the Zebra in Jumanji. They use the same model in re-manitored cow. - Oh, interesting. - Yeah, 'cause because when the Jumanji game ends, a big tornado comes and sucks everything back into the game. There's a Zebra that just flies in front of the screen. - Okay, that is very cool. Lois Smith, by the way. - One of my favorite gags in this entire movie is when Philip Seymour Hoffman's Dusty goes, "Oh, you got cows?" And she goes, "Well, do you see any cows?" And he goes, "No." And she goes, "Mm-hmm, neither do I." (laughing) - Yeah, I'm Meg Butcher of Rome front yard cows. - Yeah, and make her a famous gravy. It's apparently its own food group. - But this woman just felt like my grandmother in when I was a kid. This character who has, what, two, three scenes in this movie makes such a big impact. I credit a lot of that to Lois Smith. I mean, truthfully, I won. - Oh, 100%. - Only knew her from that first season of True Blood when she played Sookie's grandmother, but... - Yeah, but the same kind of role, right? Where she hasn't really got much to do in that show either, but spoiler alert for an old HBO show, when she passes, it's devastating. - Devastating. - I remember watching that episode live, and it was rough. - And if she had had died in this, it would have been devastating. - Yeah. - Because you're right. She doesn't need to do much. We know who that archetype is, and it's somebody that we all love. And she is somebody who you want to be around. And I just, I love that character. - And you could just tell how they all love her. - Well, and I think the success about most of Meg's arc, I mean, I don't want to call it an arc, but like her plot and her scenes, is that you do, the movie does a good job of actually making you think that this character could die. So in that same later when they're rescuing her, like the suspense is actually real, because you don't feel like this is a character blocked by plot armor. - Yes. - Right. - 100%. - Yes. - And she does have a couple of kind of sincere moments of dialogue as well. Like when she's having that conversation with Joe about Bill and she says, you know, he didn't keep his side of the bar again. And it's very real. - It's tender, right? - Yeah, but it also was like, she's very much angling against Melissa. Like, but maybe it's, 'cause I mean, like, the truth of the matter is that Melissa and Bill aren't a good match for each other. Like they, it's just, and maybe Meg sees that, but sometimes it just comes, like when she's talking to Joe, it comes across as a little like pointed. - Sure, but I think the movie has also been telegraphing since the very beginning, like every time we see Bill, he has an opportunity to get away from Melissa. He takes it. Like visually we are separating these characters at every opportunity. - Yeah. - But I mean, this is also very traditional. Like this is why I said it's a rom-com because they're bickering, there's another woman, but we know like, I would argue one of the greatest strengths of Twister is that we know everything that's going to happen in this film well before it ever happens and it doesn't fucking matter because the movie is still really enjoyable to watch. - A hundred percent agree with that, yes. - So credit to Helen Hunt. I don't think that she gets a ton of comedic beats because she's the romantic leading lady of this film, but after watching Jonas' TV interview at Aunt Megs, I love that she says he really is in love with himself. I thought it was just a summer thing. (laughing) So as Bill and Joe alternate using the shower to freshen up after the ravine, you know, d'amage, basically we've got the guys explaining to Melissa all of the stories about why Bill is the extreme. We go through the F scale so that we understand it when we talk about the storm size and quality later. And we also learn a course that there's only one person who's ever seen the F5. - That's Joe. So again, I hadn't seen this movie in 20 years. So it's kind of weird how certain lines of dialogue, images, music cues, like have like permanently ingrained in my brain, but the none of you have ever seen an F5, just one of us, like that, it feels so momentous. (laughing) - It does, yeah, the finger of God. And actually what a line was so good. But also now that you're describing this scene, I think it's also maybe key is why we love Aunt Megs so much is because this whole scene is home. And it's actually the only house or home that we're in in this entire film, other than the one they drive through. - Right. - That doesn't count. - Right. - Yeah, like this is the base of operations. Like this is where we are leaving our heart and then we go on the road so that we can do the science and the thing that matters to us. But yeah, we always have to come back here. This is what grounds us. - Yes. - So we get news of an F3 coming in. So we have to take off. This is when we get some nice heavy metal off-roading action and we get a comedic beat when they all break back onto the highway and nearly run Jonas off the road this time. - Yeah. - So the sky darkens and Bill trusts his human barometer instincts so he ends up taking a side road that Jonas does not follow. And it seems like we're gonna get there. We're gonna beat him. We're gonna be able to set up a Dorothy but there's no visual contact. So we're just waiting. Where is it? Where is it, Rabbit? You've let us down the wrong path. Where are we going and so on? And then all of a sudden we get hail that becomes upflow. We get debris that begins to fall. And yeah, we start to see this. And then a speedboat comes out of nowhere. And then logs and trees come out of nowhere. - Melissa is not having this. (laughing) - I love that she's not even here. It's Dusty saying look through the telephoto lens and Melissa is already piecing the fuck out of it. - Oh, you people are all crazy. Do you know that? (laughing) - Dusty, did you just miss that truck? (laughing) That's awesome. - Yeah. - Oh boy. - Yeah. - Also sidebar about Philip's more often. I love that his character, Dusty, is just always in this like the way he wears his hoodie as more like a cowl, where it's just kind of attached to his baseball hat and like a jerky. It's such a weird and specific choice. - Yeah. - Yes. - I love it. I wonder if that was his decision of the costumer's decision. - Or both. - I feel like it was his. I'm sure it was like one of these quirky, he was a young super, super talented, like interesting actor. I feel like that was him being like, I'm gonna do this quirky thing. And it makes sense for the character. And like it does somehow. - I think this was my first exposure to Philip Seymour Hoffman. And I found him so charismatic. Like I could have easily seen him getting trapped in a wacky sidekick kind of role for the rest of his career. But I mean, even if that was the case, he plays this role too perfection. He is so energizing every time he's on the screen. Like I think he'd be a lot in real life, a dusty kind of character. And yet he brings so much energy to this movie. - Yeah. - Which when you have Bill Paxton as your lead too, that's a lot of energy right there. So that's really saying something that he makes an impression. - Right, yeah. So I did mention that the trees and the logs are happening. That's actually a later scene. So I apologize. This is just the moment where the power line falls on the track and we have to break out of there. This is really Joe's freak out moment where we've lost another Dorothy. She wants to stay. He doesn't understand why she needs to do this so much. And it's this moment where Melissa hears him comforting Joe over the radio and you really understand, oh, their relationship is over. - Well, yeah. Cause he's like, look what you got in front of you. It's me. But okay, going back to like Helen Hunt, it's like, oh, this isn't really a good acting challenge. I get it, but her delivery of, you've never seen it miss this house and miss that house and come after you is still interesting. - That's fine. It's so fucking good. Because, Edison, you mentioned earlier that there's a kind of character design to the sounds for the twisters and they have a personality in this movie. So when Joe says something like that, it ties it all together, right? It makes you feel like the tornadoes are living creatures and they have a kind of, they are the villains of this movie, right? When Joe says, oh, they skipped that house and they came after me. And later on, when we see that F5, it does feel like it's chasing them. - Oh yeah. - Literally, that's so true. And it does. It gives them this sort of malevolent, intentional quality that is we wouldn't necessarily normally think of. I love that line. I will say that bit, like she's got this Midwest accent that only pops out sometimes, but it's that may come after you. (laughing) - Oh yeah. - But I will say, Jamie Gertz is though like her, she doesn't even say anything, but her reaction, she's in the rain, but like, you can see the tears coming off her. It's such a good, silent moment for Gertz. I wish she had more of them like in the film. - Yeah. It's quietly devastating for both women. - Raising them and it got fucking damn it. - Yeah. Okay, so we do, I'm cutting back briefly to an SSL at this part, because this is where we learn that we've got two storm cells that are going to come together. They're going to converge. And obviously, because we've been paying attention as the storms are escalating, we learn that this is going to be a very busy day for storms. We can anticipate that we're going to get to that F5 shortly. - Shit, okay, then we don't skip it F4 'cause this was the F3, we just got F4s, the drive-in, F5 is the night. So we do all of them. Good movie, good for you. - Oh, I guess yeah, the F4 is the one that hits Ant Meg's house. - Yeah. - So I guess we learned that it just side swipes the drive-in. - The drive-in, yeah. - Which, okay. Do y'all know what this is rated PG-13 for? - What? - Is it weather something? - In tent, and I quote, "Intense depiction of very bad weather." (laughing) - I think the perfect storm has something similar to that too. It's like a very, very bad storm or very bad water or something like that. - Very bad, but that is absolutely hilarious. - It's wild, just intense depiction of very bad weather. (laughing) - Truly. - Watch out for the kids. (laughing) - It's accurate, I guess. (laughing) Okay, so I do love that we go from this like, oh, the storms are converging to the twins and Danny in the shining at the drive-in as we see lightning strikes in the distance. - This is the first time I ever heard of the shining because I had to ask my dad what they were watching and he had to tell me what the shining was. - So what do we think of this decision? Because obviously we would have had to pay money for this. I mean, Spielberg would have had a relationship to Kubrick so maybe they could just get it on the cheap, but do you think that this is an appropriate film to throw up on the big screen? - Oh, sorry, this is a Warner Brothers movie. They didn't pay for that shit. - Oh, okay, no. Maybe we got it for free then. - Yeah, I think it, I don't know. Yeah, there's certainly like what was the reasoning for having it be that film. I guess it's a classic, it's a horror, it's like-- - It's an immediately identifiable film, I guess. - Yeah, I mean, I do, 'cause like, it's obviously like, you know, we have the sisters, but like whenever the tornado actually strikes, it's the act through the bathroom door scene. And I love that we're watching the screen get torn down as Nicholson is swinging the act. So I mean, I have to assume yes, the movie was probably a intentional selection, if only for the scenes we're seeing. - Right, that makes sense, that totally makes sense. - I can, so wait, you think the sisters as a reference to the sisters' twisters that we got on the water earlier? - I would say so, yes. Although I guess maybe we remember it was like, we got sisters and then just cut to the shining. - I bet if we like looked up classic drive-in movies, the shining would be one of them. - Yeah, oh, why not? - Like you're everywhere too. - Yeah, no, that's a good call too. Okay, so yes, this is playing on the drive-in. We do get this moment of Melissa just laying in this motel room by herself, having a bit of a cry and thinking about the future, again, completely silent. Garts is so good in these little introspective moments. - Also, can I just say, she is absolutely gorgeous. - Yes. - Oh yes. - Yes. - So beautiful. And again, that moment where she just looks at the wind blowing her curtains and she's like, it says tornado coming. - I've learned enough over the last 24 hours to know what that means. - But that, going back to what you said, it feels like a malevolent presence. Like these twisters are characters in this movie. - Yeah, it's almost like a ghost movie, right? Where we see this, you know, before we hit Aunt Meg's house, we've got all of her wind chime kind of art displays in the lawn starting to spin. And obviously we know what it means 'cause we're watching a movie called "Fucking Twister", but it's a little, you know, final destination. Death is coming for you. - It's so, it's so effective. So I know it's not a one-to-one comparison, but like, you know how people get really mad at Jaws, like like naturalists in an environmentalist, because like, oh, it's like doing real damage, like the public perception of sharks. - Right. - Do you think Twister got any of that? I guess Twisters aren't really like organic animal things, but still, I don't think Twisters are going to be going, I don't know if the humans are going out and murdering Twisters by the tens of millions each year. - I don't know, it sounds like they are. - They're just out protesting with placards. - But actually, wait a minute. - Tornadoes are people, too. - Isn't that the plot device of the new one? Is it about destroying a Twister, actually? - Oh my God. (both laughing) Let's petition outcrush. - Truthfully, I don't know the plot of Twisters, but it's about Twisters, no. I imagine it's a remake of this with new people, but. - I think they might be tried to destroy the Twister. - They're going to try to stop weather. - Well, I mean, if it does, I mean, I'll be interested to know if the new film engages with a dialogue about things like climate change. Again, one of the ways that Michael Creighton became increasingly conservative is that he didn't believe in climate change. - That's weird. - Yup, a man of science. Okay, so yes, Melissa is noticing that something is happening, so she exits the room, she goes out. The TVs have stopped airing. We've gone to static, there's a silence. I love this. Like, we've repeatedly had these moments, right? The calm before the storm, and everybody here perks up and just takes notice, and then we've got Dusty, who runs out, trailer moment, it's coming. - It's already here, man, it's so good. It's so good. - And this, I think, and maybe that's part of the reason why we're using the shining tube, because this scene feels the most like a horror movie because it's the only one set at night. - Oh, yes, yeah. - Totally. Another way where they found a novel way to sort of change it up. - Well, yeah, because we don't even get a really good look at this twister because it goes off to get Meg, but there's a shot, again, with the, I wanna say it's with the screen and full frame, but we get a lightning strike, and we can see part of the silhouette of the twister behind it, and it is horrifying. - It's, again, calling it back to the jaws of it all, but it is actually way scarier when you don't see it, you just get a tiny glimpse, and you're like, "Holy shit, it's right there." - Well, because this is the scene that calls back to the prologue the most, I think, because we have a bunch of people hiding in a bunker or shelter, and no time. It's like the second you see it, and one second later, it's on you. - Yes, 'cause this is the F4 that we will learn. It ends up destroying Aunt Meg's house, and they say they had no warning. - Yes. - No warning. - So what do we think of this hiding in the projection pit as we just, in some ways it almost, it verges on comical for me, because we're in the pit, and then we get hit with broken glass, and then the roof peels off, and then all of a sudden, cars start coming near us, and then the sign nearly decapitates, and it just feels like, what else are you gonna throw at these people right now? - This caps? (laughing) - Yeah, exactly. This feels like the most dangerous scene to shoot, because it feels like it's the most practical objects that are flying around the frames. - Yes. - But this, again, that twist your quote, unquote, awry at the universe. It's like this is kind of, this is the moment they were replicating. - Yeah, okay. - That's right, I do remember this now, actually. I did go to that when I was in grade 12, I think, for a high school trip. - Fun. - But yeah, this is really scary, this scene, and I love it. Watching it now, you're right. It's like a little, maybe slightly over the top, where you're like, okay, but at that time, I really felt like these people were in extreme danger, and I just imagined that. - Well, when Preacher got it, and not just because I was thinking ahead to, yes, the haunting, and what happens to a certain character in that film, but when he gets a hubcap across the head, I fully was like, wait, have I repressed, and did this character just lose the top of their head? - I feel like it should decapitate him, but it just gives him probably a concussion. - Right. - Or a skull. - Well, because if you're right, if it had a killed him, then they wouldn't have been able to rush off to save Ant-Man. It just wouldn't have made sense for the film, yeah. - I will say that this is also the scene that I dislike Bill the most in the entire film, because Melissa is properly freaking out throughout all of this, as all of us normal people would be, and he just keeps telling her, it's okay, honey, it'll be all right, it's okay, and I'm just like, Bill, you could very easily die in this situation. - Yeah. - Shut the fuck up. - Yeah. - But I do love, though, that it gives Melissa this agency. She's the one that realizes, okay, I did not know what I was getting into by getting with this man, 'cause he was going to leave this life, but it's just too tempting, it's too tempting. He gets drawn back in, so I at least like that Melissa is the one that is the, not a gresser. - Well, yeah, 'cause she sees the writing on the wall of what it would be, if this is so much a part of him, that he cannot resist in it, I don't think you could ever really leave it. And she knows it, so she's like, okay, I need to cut my losses now, because this is it. - Yeah, well, and I mean, as Bill's been leaving her, every chance he can get, he's only been in the car with her once. - I think one of the other reasons that this works in terms of the breakup of this pair is that it's not her looking at Jo and saying, I can't compete with her. It's that she can't compete with this lifestyle. - Oh, yeah, yes. - And that's why she has to walk away. - Listen, I can't compete with this. I don't even know where to start, because it's like, yeah, this is an entirely different world. I don't think she even think people like this existed. - Yeah, this isn't like, please don't take my man moment. - Mm-hmm, yeah. - Jolene, it's like, okay, y'all. - Oh, so like, let's be clear, she is faced, this is the fourth tornado she has faced today. - Like in a day. - In a form, formalist, justice for Melissa, let's get this lady outta here. - Wait, a hundred percent. - And this is the worst one, because it's like, I think this is the ones that comes close to like actually killing one of them, but still like four tornadoes in a day. - Yeah, six of you can't put the sisters. - What I really want in Twisters, if we do bring her back as this legacy character, even if it's just a fun little easter egg, I hope that we get a kind of she devil moment where we see a book that she's written, which is like, my love life in the Twister, or like, something like that. - The story is stupid and ridiculous. - Oh my God, I mean, even if we don't see her, if a character has a book written by Dr. Melissa Reeves, I will be totally satiated, satiated. - It really needs to happen. - Yes, so say goodbye everybody. Jamie Gertz is officially piecing out of this film, but she will be okay. Don't worry about her. - There's also like, oh, I mean, only, I want her in the rest of this film, but there's only 30 minutes left in this movie. - I'm not gonna lie, this was the moment where I said, oh, right, this is a two hour film, because I fully thought, okay, that was the climax. Now we're gonna hook up Bill and Joe. Let's wrap this, what do you mean we've got 30 more? Oh, I guess we gotta get that F5 in there. - Okay, so we sure do. But that's the thing though, I feel like this runtime flew by for me. - Okay, so yes, unfortunately, even though Melissa is gone, we still have to go and rescue Aunt Meg because we realize, oh fuck, that's where that giant storm was headed. So I love that we hide this. So we just cut to, it's been an hour, we're finally pulling up at her house and we see that the entire street is devastated. - So apparently to a part of this was, they found an area in this section of Oklahoma without a neighborhood that was kind of demolished by a really bad hailstorm. And they use that for some of the shots of the ruins. - Oh. - It looks very convincing. - Yeah, I mean, to be clear, it had been like ruined for like at least five years. Like no one lived here, but like the ruins were still there. - Okay. - Oh, wild, okay. - They're not just capitalizing on poor people's actual living conditions. - Exactly, but I do love the nice little touch because Joe sees her younger self and her parents standing in this wreckage. - Actually, it's not actually her and her parents because that is not her mother, but they look nearly identical. - Yeah, it's like a call back. - Oh, I definitely thought it was like, I thought she was just hallucinating. - Oh. (both laughing) But it's fine, okay. Whatever, it's close up. She sees herself in the little girl. - Yes. - There we go. Yes, yeah. So we end up getting to Aunt Meg's house. It has been thoroughly destroyed. We need to go inside and we get this. Okay, the house is collapsing. We need to get Meg out. We also do make an effort to make sure that her dog, Mose, gets out. - Yeah, we do. Learn that lesson. - Yeah. So everybody gets out safe and I love that the minute they get out with everybody, the whole house goes down. - Yeah, this whole scene was, again, just really great and moving. And I guess you kind of knew now that she's probably alive or, you know, but it was like, oh God, you just really hated to see Aunt Meg be like injured. It was really scary. It felt real. - Again, there's really, 'cause the semester is gone. It's just quote unquote, these are the ruins of this house. It seems to be standing on stilts, mind you, but there's this constant threat of, okay, when is this house gonna collapse every move? But I love the touch when the floor gives out and then there's that TV that enormous TV that almost, but it's only connected by the cable and like we're just waiting for it to let go. - Yeah, which as horror fans, right, we've seen that kind of moment before, you know, that actually, you know what, Trace? This feels properly disaster movie. - Yeah, absolutely. - And like you said earlier, Edison, we're finding new ways to sort of negotiate the scariness or the tense situation. So I love that this part doesn't even need to rely on a twister. It's, oh, the aftermath can be just as dangerous as the storm itself. - It's great. - Okay, so we get this one lovely final moment between Joe and Aunt Meg before she is sent away by ambulance and basically Aunt Meg gives her the, I'm okay. I'm gonna be fine. You need to go and fucking finish this, because I love that it's not even like, you need to do this for you. It's this can't happen again. And I think in part, she's saying it can't happen again because look, people are gonna die, property damage, all this other stuff. But it's like, oh, Joe cannot mentally handle potentially losing someone that she loves. Joe has to go and finish this just to get over her shit. - Which that's why I would have loved to see an actual like twister two with Helen Hunt to be like, where are all your problems fix, honey? I don't think they were. - She's seeing Dr. Melissa Reeves. She's in deep therapy for all of her fucking shit. Get that baggage unpacked. Also, I don't believe for a minute that Joe and Bill would have worked out just saying it. I think that they would be divorced in a sequel. - They're two strong personalities. - Yeah, but yeah, Meg telling Joe like, go stop it. Before this, it's really stupid and cheesy, but at the same time, it does work as well, right? - It works. - It absolutely works because it's like this, yeah, it totally works. - I think this movie has a proper amount of ridiculous cheese, like it's very conventional Hollywood films and a lot of ways. But I think this is an example of all of that done right in a way that says, yeah, you know what? You know what we're doing and we're doing it well and everybody's on board because we're having a great time. - Yeah, so dusty announces. We've got an impending F5, so off we go. And this is when we realized we jumped over it at the drive-in, but Bill thought, oh, something's not quite working with Dorothy. We've got to switch something up. So bring in the product, fucking placement. Let's cut up about a hundred cans of Pepsi Cola so that we can help these sensors fly. - Yes, and I love that. 'Cause I have no idea how aerodynamics works, but I can tell you that I believe that this will probably work. - Sure. - Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't believe they got all those wings cut out of the soda cans and the time it takes them to go chase this F5 for tornado. But yeah, many people look like they can barely drive and also read like the map and the weather station, but sure, we were cutting up hundreds of cans. - Oh my God, like there's the line to where Rabbit is like, you have to roll the maps. And I'm like, oh my God, remember the 90s when there was no Google Maps and you just had a map. - Yeah, I love when he pulls out that red leather satchel. And he just says, oh, I don't even know that this one's on the map. I think this is what like old Bob's Road or stuff. All right, so we have a giant funnel on the horizon. - I do love that they say what, it's one mile in diameter at the base. - I have the imagine. - Ooh, like no mile. - Maybe when you, like it looks like a chode. Like it's a chode of a tornado and it is again, very scary looking, it's just pitch black. - Yeah, I also like that just they just jumped right to it. Like we didn't need any more road trip moment on the way to get to the tornado, it's just like boom, we're there. And then there's that shot where we just reveal it and it is just, I mean, it covers over half the screen, I feel like. - Yeah, I mean, we've kind of still got multiple set pieces, right? So initially we're gonna try to set this up in this abandoned road and it feels very similar. I think this is why I got confused thinking that the logs were earlier because they do look visually fairly similar, but this one is quite a bit more dangerous for Joe and Bill because it's, even though the rest of the team is there, they're definitely hanging back. And this is when, yeah, we get logs pinned under the truck and then all of a sudden we've got this semi-tractor just fucking falling out of the sky to where it's not trans for a truck, like holding fucking petroleum. So it's pretty much prime to explode. But then that's the, 'cause yeah, they get stuck on this tree. And then the 18-wheeler thankfully knocks them off of the tree, but it gets every second, every split second, it could explode. Like it could just explode. - I just love the, it's almost comedic how hilarious this whole sequence unfolds 'cause it's a happy set of coincidences, right? Like, oh, the truck might kill us. No, it just nudged us. Okay, now we can get away. Oh, it just fell in front of us and it has exploded. But now we just need to drive through it. - And then now, oops, this house is rolling into the road in front of us. Like, so we're just gonna drive through that. - Yeah. So this is the part where we realize, okay, Jonas might actually beat us to it because he is in fact closer to the F5. So they get him on the radio and they say, okay, we're gonna try to help you and he doesn't want to hear it. And he certainly doesn't want to hear their warnings that it could shift, which of course is what happens. And he and his entire team are killed. - I mean, it's pretty good, but Eddie gets like whatever that thing is through his chest. - Oh, that is some final destination. Two-shirt right there is an hunt. - And you feel really bad for him 'cause he's the one that's kind of like, maybe we should listen to them and carry L.S. being carry L.S. like, no. - Yeah, you're not like mourning these guys getting their comeuppance, but no. - It's very much, well, you should have listened to Bill because we establish multiple times in the course of this film. Bill knows what the fuck he's talking about. - Jonas, the carry L.S. character is so, like, insidiously, unnecessarily evil in this movie. - He's so glib, yeah. (laughing) Like, it's borderline caricature, but that's just kind of what carry L.S. started doing at this point in his career. - Mm-hmm, yeah. - Yeah, I don't know. I guess I'm thinking about Ella enchanted too when he's like the evil uncle or whatever. - I mean, this is definitely still prime carry L.W.A.'s territory. You know, we talked earlier about how everybody is kind of normal hot and then there's like carry out ways who is villainous hot in this movie. - Which, again, that's why it's always been like, I mean, like, I like The Princess Bride a lot, but like, yeah, he does have like an evil to him, but then I guess they use that in that movie 'cause he's like maybe a villain, maybe not. - He just reads his little shmarmy for sure. - Yeah. - Yes. - Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah. - Except in The Princess Bride, he was so hot. - Oh my gosh. - That's very, very hot. - But hair just kills me. - Okay, so we should note that we did lose a Dorothy when we were dealing with the fire and the trees and all that kind of stuff. So we are down to only one. So Jonas goes up and it means, oh, now we're the only ones who can get this done. So we've got one Dorothy, one chance, and it's gotta happen because that F5 is there, baby. First we do have to do a little bit of comedic, left and right, dodging on the road as we are dropping farm equipment all over the place. - And then they drive through a house. - Yes, and this looks so fucking good. Like the moment a bill driving up the downstairs is so good. - It's, this is just, again, movie magic at its finest. This is like, ah, it's so good. It's so good. - It's such a great ad for whatever manufacturer make this truck. - Right, whatever that truck is. - This truck could just do anything. - Get you an F4-1-5, but here's the other thing. The reason this looks great is because that is a fucking house. Nowadays, this would be a CGI monstrosity and it wouldn't look half as convincing. - A hundred percent, yeah. - Okay, so we set up the fourth and final Dorothy and then we put the truck on cruise control as we drive through the cornfield. - This is such a fucking great scene. I love when they jump out of there watching it drive into it and you just see the path being cleared. - But oh my God, why did they wait so long? I was dying, like, okay, bail, bail anytime you're driving into the one meter diameter bay. - But then the Foley work whenever the Dorothy, like the sensors actually get lifted up. It's like the clinky, clinky, clinky, clinky, like sound and then the rousing score 'cause, oh my God, they did it, they can study it. - Yes, tornado from the inside. - We've got numbers, it's Christmas. - Oh my God, there's like still 10 minutes left in this movie and we've already done the climax. So what's going on? - Yeah, yeah, which again, I definitely thought, oh, okay, that's the end of the film. Yeah, we did it and then you realize there's still like 10 feet away from this fucking tornado. - Well, okay, I do have some questions. I'm curious if you all feel the same because there are things much lighter or heavier than a person getting lifted up by this tornado and Joe and Bill never get lifted up until they're actually anchored to a pie. But I was like, I feel like you would have gotten picked up at some point. - Yes, I would think so. I mean, it is ripping up a barn, the roof on a bird. Like a wooden fence that's literally hammered into the ground. - Yeah, yeah. - You just got to suspend your disability because, oh, aren't we having fun? - Yes, we are. - But yeah, the shift in this, so we have 10 minutes of basically Joe and Bill just running from a tornado, but oh my God, there's like little moments in this 10 minutes that are just like, okay, when they make it into the barn and it's filled with farm tools and Joe is just like, oh my God, who are these? This is final destination. (laughing) - It's hilarious though. Like it is such a perfect little comedic beat in what is otherwise a pretty full-on action sequence, right? - Oh yeah. - Yeah, 'cause we've got that moment, but it's like the, we've got, you know, fence posts coming in through the window and embedding themselves in the wall near their heads. I love that. And it's smart to give us that just just moment of pause. So you can catch your breath and have a little chuckle and then be right back on the ride. - Yeah, because as soon as you get off that, then all of a sudden like there's a thresher that almost hits them in the head. Like they duck just in time. - Yes. - Is that what that's called? - What? - I thought it was a thresher, but it might be the wrong piece of hard equipment, but it's like a, it's, I know it's in that Shyamalan's the happening, some guy just throws himself under it. - Right, yes. - I don't know what it is. It's like a piece of farm equipment that has a bunch of like rotating choppy things. - Yeah, it's not a thresher 'cause that's definitely something different. Oh my God, arm vehicle, grass cutter, giant weird choppy rotating lawn mower thingy. - I don't know what, oh wait, eight different types of farm vehicles. Okay, the main picture is this one. So let me see, it is called a combine harvester. Oh my God. - Perfect, there you go. For all the listeners who were just desperate to know. - You had to know, right? - I was desperate to know. I was gonna call it a thresher and some farm listener was gonna come out after me. - Or anybody who's watched drop dead gorgeous because that's what Tammy goes up on when she's having a good smile. - Oh right, that's the thresher. Oh my God, that's why I was thinking of it. (laughing) Anyway, combine harvester, y'all. - Anyway, yeah, multiple close calls. It's a lot of objects flying at us, you know, I don't think we were doing 3D in '96, we had fallen off it and it hadn't gotten back in a large way yet, but all of these sequences was like, oh, we would have done great with 3D because everything's flying. - A hundred percent. - Okay, so we have ditched the murder barn and we jumped to the other barn and this is where Bill says, oh, these pipes go down 30 feet so we can anchor ourselves to them and we should be okay to which I said, sure, Bill. - With a belt? - With a couple of leather belts, you know, he does reject one, so clearly trust Bill as we have done this whole movie. So we anchor ourselves and then we blow the lid off this barn and we finally get to levitating. - Yeah, but we're also in, is it called the Eye of the Storm for Hurricanes or do we call it the Eye of the Tornado? - I don't think they ever say it, but yeah, like that's basically what it is. And there's like another mini twister inside of it, which is wild. - That is super wild. - Yeah. - Wait, I need to know now. - What is the Eye of a Tornado? - Oh, the region inside a Tornado is called the Death Zone and it's characterized by low oxygen temperatures, but sorry, and it's characterized by low temperatures and oxygen levels, making it difficult to breathe. - Which we're not doing in this movie because they're definitely looking up in awe and it's almost this moment of wonder because they can see the blue sky at the top. - And it gets quiet. I feel like the score and all of the wilds like fully work is like muted during the scene. But I guess in real life, yeah, they would be dying. - They'd be, you know why that's why it's gone quiet and it's because actually they're going brain dead because they can't breathe. - Actually the last two minutes is moving to hallucination because they are low on oxygen and they're dying. - Oh, I'd be interested to see if that peaks up in the new film, right? Where only somebody gets caught in it but then they can't breathe 'cause there's no oxygen. - I mean, they have to one up this movie and it's gonna be really hard to do that. So yeah, we should be killing people in that movie. - I'm definitely curious to see what the specific sort of callbacks will be. - Yes, yeah. 'Cause this feels pretty epic. Like this is a very good way to end this film. It's not just the F5, but it's like, oh, we're quite literally in the middle of this. So yeah, it's gonna be hard to tell. - And everybody, here's my question. I wonder how many dumb teenagers tried it. - Rrr. (laughing) - I guarantee at least one. - Well, there's always a couple of films where you think, oh, this is engaging in risky behavior but they're presenting it as a kind of fun flight of fancy. I think at the moment in "Footloose", where Lori Singer goes between the two covers. - Oh god, yeah, it's a horrible decision. Horrible decision. - Just like fuck. - People die doing this, but sure. Let's make it look like a fun rite of passage that teenagers do. - Yes. - That's the old man in me though. (laughing) - Don't do it, kids, you'll die. - I mean, I doubt that there were a lot of people that just went chasing tornadoes on a whim after this movie. I'm sure they went into school for it. - Oh yeah, I wonder how many people sought it out and said, you know what, that looks interesting, but also, I don't think people just willingly hop in a truck and start driving after a tornado. Like, hopefully they do a bit of researching all the people in what they're doing. I know. (laughing) - You are way overestimated. - I'm so optimistic, right? - Yeah, oh god. Humanity. Anyway, this is beautiful. They survive it. They emerge and it's just them and the pipes and everything else is gone. But of course, true Hollywood classic final moment. We've got this family who comes out from their storm cellar and they're also fine, and we didn't lose the house. - Yeah. (laughing) - Whatever. - It's fine. - Well, it sort of represents like their weathered relationship, I think, maybe, to like a house that's still standing. (laughing) - That isn't their weathered relationship. Fuck off. (laughing) - But yeah, don't worry, everybody. We're gonna get grants because we've got numbers and I'm gonna run the lab. No, I'm gonna crunch the numbers. Blah, blah, the end. - The end. - Everybody's happy. - Okay, so I have one final bit of information leading into the sequel of this film. - Okay. - In 2020, Helen Hunt had pitched a direct sequel to the original film with a script she co-authored with David Diggs and Rafael Casal. She had intended to serve as director in addition to reprising her starring role in the cast, but the studio ultimately passed on their script. She said in an interview, "I tried to get it made with David Diggs "and Rafael Casal and me writing it, "and all black and brown storm chasers, "and they wouldn't do it. "I was going to direct it, we could barely get it meeting, "and this is in June of 2020 when it was all about diversity. "It would have been so cool." - That's interesting that she specifically tried it at that moment because as you were saying it without me paying attention and hearing the year, I thought, oh, well, there was your mistake. You tried to pitch it as a female writer, director, and a cast of marginalized actors. Like, of course no one's gonna support that. - Yeah, so I don't know, but nevertheless, we have an iconic piece of cinema in the original film. So even if Twitch isn't good, we still have this one. - I am so curious. I am so curious why their twist was movie good or not, but this one, I mean, I absolutely love this movie. I've watched it so many times. I watched it as I said a couple of weeks ago for this, and before that, I only watched it a couple of years ago when I was in Toronto, like, there was a big storm happening. - Oh, nice. - I've often watched it at a cottage if it's stormy. Like, this is my go-to for this, for that moment. What I like outside of the Twisters themselves is the storm in the hearts of our main characters. - Aw. (both laughing) - No, okay, but for real, I do think the real tension in this film is actually in the relationship between these two super strong personalities, Joe and Bill, and I like that. I like their back and forth. It feels adult, it feels like they have a real history and a real relationship, and it makes this more than just your average disaster film, and that's what kind of levels it up, and that they're both really, really great actors, and that everybody is in this. - Yeah. - What did you think? What were your final thoughts on it? - Honestly, it was just like, I really, really thought going back into this, that I was gonna be two jaded, a 35-year-old movie-goer to, like, really appreciate the movie magic on display, and I actually movie a magical one. Like, to me, that's really, like, this film is one of those body mitts of movie magic, and I'm happy I wasn't jaded. Like, I was watching this, and it was like, I was almost watching for the first time again. I mean, I do agree with the critiques, you know? There isn't, like, there is a story here, but it's not really a story-focused film, but I don't think it's a bad story by any means. It's just like, we're very much moving from set-piece to set-piece with a couple of moments of dialogue in between, which is fine. - Yeah, I think if nothing else, this movie proves that if you cast really likable actors in roles, even if they're a little bit underdeveloped, you can still make those supporting characters pop, and then what I love to have more of a backstory with Joe and Bill? - Sure, but also the film doesn't need it. Like, we need to care enough about these people and want them to get together because they're hot and they have friction, and then also we're here for the FX. So I think this movie is actually very smart. It knows what its limitations are and what the audience actually wants from it, and I think in that capacity, it's doing exactly what it needs to do. - Yes, yes. And I think we do get their backstory. - Yeah. - The storm is like a metaphor for their relationship. - Yeah, but it's also like, I mean, it doesn't have to be a de... This is a summer blockbuster, like that's what this is, and I'm not zooming out to be like, oh, we should excuse poor storytelling. But I'm also like, yeah, this movie's almost two hours long, so what more do we want from this, you know? - And I think the other key is you're right, the plot is very like basic, like step one, step two, step three, well step four, step five, literally. - Yes, it's a five step movie. (both laughing) - But I think also beyond just the great actors, it's like the dialogue is actually really pretty good. Like there's a lot, how many lines have we quoted in the episode? - And I'm just gonna say the quiet part out loud, I'm gonna bet a lot of the best lines are from Joss Whedon. - Yeah, 'cause he's funny. - I think so too. - Yeah. - I don't think Michael Kriton was moving up those lines. - No. - I mean, Trace, we have seen Looker. - We absolutely have. (both laughing) - If you want to talk about a movie that is Beige in both visual aesthetic as well as script. - Yeah, but at least it's entertaining. But all right, everyone, well that has been a twister, and before we re-announce what we're covering next week, Edison, first, thank you so much for coming on to talk to us about this, but let everyone know, where can they find you and your show on social media? - Yes, well, the show is called Talk Movie to Me, and I think y'all will like it, so you should follow us on Insta, Talk Movie to Me, or on anywhere that you can get your podcasts. Just look us up wherever. We're also on YouTube, Talk Movie to Me podcast. Check it out. And you can follow me @EdisonSkinner. - Well, that's awesome. If you want to get in touch with us, you can read us on Twitter and Instagram @horakwiers. Shoot us an email @horakwiers@gmail.com. Find us on Letterbox to keep track of all the films we've covered, and if you want to chat with other listeners, please join our Facebook Horror Queers group. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and if you want even more content, please support the show by becoming a patron at patreon.com/horakwiers. If you subscribe today, you will get 318 hours of Patreon content, including this month's new episodes on Hannibal Season One Episode Seven, A Quiet Place Day One, Maxine, and Long Legs, and to tie in with Long Legs, we've got a brand new audio commentary on David Fincher's 1995 classic, Seven. - Mm-hmm, nice. - But Joe, we've already said it, but a reminder one. What are we talking about next week? - Oh boy, the back half of the Yandavant summer blockbuster double bill continues. We're gonna talk about the 25th anniversary, because yes, baby, 1999 was the year. It's the remake of The Haunting. - See, we're calling it the back half of our Yandavant double bill, but it could also be the-- - The trifecta. - The trifecta. - Our Todd Fields trifecta. (laughing) - Who knew? It's like we planned it, and I swear to God we did not. - Yeah, I'm excited to revisit The Haunting. This is when I did actually was really excited to see in theaters as a kid, 'cause it was a T.J. 13 horror movie coming out when I was 10 years old. So I liked it, but I also haven't really seen it in a while, and everyone tells me it's absolutely atrocious, so we'll see. - Yeah, I remember being very disappointed with the FX work back in 1999, so I don't think I'm probably going to change my mind about that, but I'm excited to see if I am a little bit more generous about how underwhelming the queer love story is, because remember we're talking about bisexual Theo, AKA super hot Catherine Zeta-Jones. - Oh my God, I've forgotten that. - She is still bisexual in the film, but any romance between her and Lily Taylor is pretty much out of that movie. But, okay, well, I mean shit, that's a fun cliffhanger to leave off of, so everyone, until next time, we can cross out Twister. - Indeed, and cross out horror queers. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Get three coffins ready, kid, because our latest podcast, Make My Day, is venturing off into the wild and sprawling frontier, that is, Clint Eastwood's career. More movies than Stephen King has books, and more genres than all of the franchises we've covered over at the Halloween's. Now, I know what you're thinking. Do they really need to start another show? Well, to tell you the truth and all this excitement, I kinda lost track myself. But, being this is a podcast, the most powerful medium in the world for pop culture conversation, and Clint's output is infinite, you've gotta ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk? Find out today and subscribe to Make My Day, a Clint Eastwood podcast now, wherever you get your audio. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]
Watch out for that cow and get ready for "intense depiction of very bad weather" because we're discussing Jan de Bont's 1996 effects extravaganza Twister! Tagging in for the conversation is Edison Skinner, the co-host of the Talk Movie to Me podcast!
Join us as we do a deep dive into this film's very troubled production history before marveling at the sheer movie magic on display. From the computer-generated twisters (which still hold up!) to extensive practical effects, it's a true marvel of a film.
Plus: Pepsi product placement, a chode of an F-5 tornado, and plenty of love for Jami Gertz's Dr. Melissa Reeves.
References:
> Gumeny, Eirik. "Twister and the Perfect Storm of Success and Filming Disasters". Nerdist. May 2021.
> Daly, Steve. "The War of the Winds". Entertainment Weekly. May 1996.
> Handler, Rachel. "Helen Hunt Answers Every Question We Have About Twister". Vulture. July 2020.
>Siegel, Alan. "The Storm-Chasing Special Effects Team Behind Twister". The Ringer. May 2020.
Questions? Comments? Snark? Connect with the boys on Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Letterboxd, Facebook, or join the Facebook Group to get in touch with other listeners
> Trace: @tracedthurman
> Joe: @bstolemyremote
> Edison: @edisonskinner / @talkmovietome
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