Wednesday, October 1, 2014

F This Movie! - Maximum Overdrive Commentary

Kick off #ScaryMovieMonth 2014 with Patrick, Doug, Mike and JB asking the question "Who made who?" Stephen King, that's who. Also cocaine.



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14 comments:

  1. Awsome to get all four of you together for this Scary Movie Month Podcast. Downloading now :)

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  2. You scared me with that stuff on the FB page from "Halloween III".... :-)

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  3. I can save you some pain; Dreamcatchers indeed does not work on the page. Easily one of the worst Stephen King novels.

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  4. The interesting part is that Patrick predicted the ending of the short story. Not only is your ending a better ending, that IS the ending. Then King tacked on this ending so the movie would be more 80s.

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    1. And the TV movie version, "Trucks" has a different ending all it's own.

      That's worth a look, btw. At least, you get to know (and in some cases) like the characters.

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  5. Excellent Maximum overdrive is on youtube in HD. Im gonna do the commentary as it should be. Im so excited
    But someone please tell me. Do you start the commentary at the start of the film. The before the credits or after. Please help me sync

    The podcast is 1hr 37

    Youtube movie is 1hr 35

    Hopefullys its the same version or cut?

    Thanks on advance

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    1. You should just be able to start it as soon as you see the opening logo. Not sure why the time discrepancy is there; hopefully it syncs up pretty closely.

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    2. I watched the YouTube version. They cut out the end credits. Everything synchs up. Nice work on the commentary fellas! I laughed a lot.

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  6. Great commentary, guys! I haven't seen Maximum Overdrive in decades. From what I remember, I can hardly defend the movie, although I would still like to add it to my collection... someday. Nothing could have saved this movie, but I can't place all the blame on King. Several circumstances contributed to the brick wall test dummy collision that was Maximum Overdrive; King's supposed coke- and alcohol-induced haze, script problems, budget problems, and I'm sure having to deal with Dino. If King's script for this was anything like the unwieldy script for Storm of the Century, it was probably a complete and total mishmash: badly structured and formatted, and overwritten. King has never been adept at writing screenplays. They read more like novels jammed into script form, with literary prose inappropriately placed within screen direction when it could have reworked as dialogue. Instead, the prose just dies on the page. I'll argue it's the only place his prose has ever been worthless. Screenwriting is the only form I'd say King has never conquered.

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  7. AWWW YEA! Emilio Estevez at his best rebellious gas station mechanic! I love that the premise quickly turns from supernatural vehicles wish to commit human genocide till they realize that they have a far better use as slave labor for their gluttonous fossil fuel needs. Woah! this shit just got real. I mean come on that army jeep with the machine gun can be nothing else then a representation of Big Government knocking down the door of the everyman to chain them to a dying economic system based on the flow of sweet sweet foreign oil! It is plain as day! So yea probably a lot of cocaine involved in the making of this war torn America, where car forces you to work 18 hour days in the hot sun.

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  8. Pat Hingle and his pants....I've known guys who when they sat down they would undo their belt and/or the button on their pants for comfort (as they were "apple" shaped). Most of them were nice enough to fix that before they stood up....

    That's my theory anyway.

    JB never said who he thought was the worse person to appear at conventions, btw. :-)

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    1. Yeah, JB. Name names, that's what this comments section is for. ;-P

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  9. So, caught the movie earlier this evening for the first time and just finished listening to the commentary track. It does feel like an odd warm-up to "The Mist" but also like a ripoff of a John Carpenter/Howard Hawks siege movie, which saves on the budget but makes the world the movie unfolds in feel really small and tiny. And instead of being under siege with cool or bad-ass characters like those of "Rio Bravo" or "Assault on Precint 13" we're stuck with either unlikable or uninteresting types who (a) have no personality outside of their one-dimensional roles (asshole boss, filthy second-banana, religious hypocrite, etc.) that (b) we have to be told who they are (Emilio Estevez's constant "hero" mentions even though he doesn't really act like one) because they's otherwise stock types. And good Lord, the middle act of the movie and the overall pacing (5 min. of gas filling footage, a sex break for characters that just met, sewer-diving to save an unlikable character, etc.) is more deadly than that killer Coke machine. I don't care for AC/DC, but that "Chop Chop Chop" music attack we get every 15 or so minutes? About as memorable as Pat Hingle's bargain basement impersonation of Boss Hogg. And good God, the amount of looped ADR lines from everybody off-screen was insanely distracting.

    On the flip side, the movie's lengthy gaps of nothing gave your commentary track a chance to shine on like, well, the heroes y'all know you are. :-) I nearly lost my shit listening to the 'truck gives girl a cup cake' giggling, Mike's impersonation of Dino Di Laurentiis and the never-boring cocaine jokes. Loved it. I so look forward to you guys doing "Exorcist II: The Heretic" next year, because I know as soon as Patrick sees it he'll fall in line and agree with JB that it deserves the commentary treatment.

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