Oops! All Wildcards: Romancing the Stone (1984)

Gather together from the cosmic reaches of the universe. Here in this great screening room with comfortable recliners are the most powerful forces of good ever assembled.

Keith. Like, I'm explaining like things that when I grew up that were creepy, like, I'm like, yeah, like Gremlins.

Terry. Oh, you might need, you might need to cut that. Derek.

When you experience that movie as a preteen boy, it shapes a lot of weird things in your head. And the Power Twins, Zapp and Jordan, with their magical lemur snort dedicated Welcome back to Fumbling Their Way Through Movies, one forgotten gem at a time. This week we watch the 1984 action-adventure romantic comedy, Romancing the Stone. This is Fumbling Through Film. I love the ocean. You know, you just kind of get out there all by yourself, nobody else around. It's beautiful. So that's what I want. Try to get enough money together, buy a boat, sail around the world. So you're just gonna sail away all by yourself?

Yeah.

Sounds lonely, Jack T. Colton. What does the T stand for?

Trustworthy.

Hello and welcome to another one-of-a-kind, genre-defining, brand new episode of Fumbling Through Film, the only show that I guarantee dares to bring together 3 dudes to talk about movies. These aren't just any movies though.

Hmm.

I always do a little dramatic pause there now because I know there's gonna be some sort of peanut gallery filler.

I'm staying quiet this time.

These are the ones we've either missed, overlooked, or feel are simply worth revisiting.

Yeah.

Otherwise known as, aka. No, altern— otherwise starts with an O. Okay. Alternately known as, aka.

Also known as.

Oh, keep it simple, stupid. That's what it should be. I don't know why I was trying to think of some long A word. Uh, also known as any movie. No, I'm known as Derek and I am a fumbler. Joining me here in the Fumbledome, the place— I don't think I've mentioned this in a while. It's a, it's a goddamn, uh, planetarium that we got at a police auction and renovated into a screening room.

We owned ourselves first. We previously owned it.

We lost it. We repurchased it. And now because nobody wants to come to the planetarium after the stink of what happened earlier or before.

Uh-huh.

The dark things that happened here.

The dark things that happened that we will never discuss.

Oh yeah. Legally, we're not allowed to discuss it.

I still say it wasn't our fault.

But you know, one day, one day maybe we'll reopen. But until then, uh, joining me here watching films is the Prime Minister of Fumbling and Film, Keith.

Hey, hey, what's up, KG? Also known as Fumbler Extraordinaire. Hey, hey, hi, hi.

Oh, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Keith.

Yo, yo.

Knocking Terry back. He's just like, oh my God! What a what a profound statement.

Indeed. Wow. I'm gonna fall out.

I keep trying to come up with something else to come up to say, but like Terry's been like killing me every single time I say something on these intros. I'm I'm I'm flustered.

Kill.

I mean, he had like multiple weeks to come up with something.

That's what you got. Maybe it's been a couple weeks. Yeah, that's what you came up with.

Hey, what's up, KG? Funder extraordinaire, and you know. Um, I don't make films, but if I did, they'd have samurai.

Wow.

Okay. I like that.

That's what you just came up with on the fly?

That's a good one. I like that. All right.

Well, that, that other Shogun, uh, movie Shogun, uh-huh, is Dr. Dre of Kansas, Terry.

Hey everybody, it's me, Terry, uh, also known as the, the Ronin of Kansas, the Plains.

Yeah.

Plains of Kansas, uh, you know, finding lost films, picking them up, fumbling them, and then moving along.

Yeah, I was definitely thinking you had more of a Ronin vibe to you.

Yeah, I'm more, I'm more Ronin-like. I, I'm kind of, you know, I can— Shogun's not bad. I could be that. I could be both, right? Yeah, technically. I don't know if that's actually true or not, but—

Yeah, I don't know if it is or not.

No, more research is required, but right now I'm both.

Hey Siri, can a shotgun also be a Ronin? A shotgun can be a powerful secondary weapon for a Ronin. It bridges the gap between your katana and assault rifle, giving you a strong option for close to medium range engagements. This is from thetouchedadvocate.org.

Okay. Well, I am a shotgun. That's true.

Now, why is a shotgun a powerful alternative for a Ronin?

You know, in case they don't have their sword handy, they just pull out their shotgun. Yeah, it is a powerful alternative. Like, I would be shocked if I went up to a ronin to do a sword duel and he just pulled out a shotgun, like a sawed-off, just pulls up underneath his trench coat, I guess. Yeah.

Now the real question is, can a ronin also be a clown prince? I mean, that's the— well, no, again, Terry, you get a, you get a ton of extra names as these episodes go on.

It's true. I collect them. I collect them.

The Ronin of Kansas is pretty damn cool though. I like this.

That is pretty cool. Yeah, I like that a lot actually. Yeah, Crown Prince of Shogun.

The Crown Prince of Shogun. Oh right, I'm just— I'm trying to think of what the portmanteau of Kansas Ronin is. Cronin? Ronin's Ass?

Ronin sounds good. No, we're not doing Ronin's Ass. Yeah, there we go.

Yep, Ronin's Ass it is.

Terry the Ronesass. Wow.

Ronesass, the shogun of Kansas.

That's what it is, clearly. Uh, you know what else it is clearly? Time to do the podcast.

Oh, goody.

But we gotta tell people what it is we do here first before we get going, because I don't want them to be confused.

Yeah, it's complicated around here.

I don't—

it will be a little bit.

I give our listeners credit, but but I, I don't want to be confused. What we do here is we watch movies, but not just any movies. Oh, you said any movie. Every month, one of us picks a theme, a genre, a guiding light, a way to live, and we each choose movies that adhere to that theme or genre or whatever. And the 4th week, we watch a wild card, but This is a weird month. This is the hidden month on the calendar. It's month 13.

Uh-huh.

And so what we did, instead of choosing a theme, we took all of the misses from the previous wildcard weeks, all the wheel misses, put them on a big wheel, and we pushed them around the cul-de-sac, said, yay! And we put them on the wheel. And we spun and we got things, right? There were 12 times 2. There's 24 movies on there. Well, 23 unique movies, 24 movies.

There's one duplicate.

One duplicate. And we spun the wheel and we got Romancing the Stone. And that came from our trilogies month.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

I don't remember what movie would have inspired it, but I'm guessing it was— oh, I do.

The Mothra movie.

It was Robert Zemeckis because of Back to the Future 2.

Of course, of course, of course.

And that was on the wheel and it was my pick. So even in the month dedicated to all the ones that weren't picked, and when my picks were made a majority of the wheel spins, I still found a way to come up on the wheel. So good for me.

You're really— you're— yeah, I don't know how you're doing it, but the wheel seems to have like a connection with you, some, some sort of personal connection.

Me and that wheel, we go way back.

I think off the mic you guys are like hanging out together, you know, like grabbing some beers or something. Yeah, watching football, you know, just, just bonding. And then yeah, you come back and you're like, oh, it's totally unbiased. It's not. It doesn't know. I mean, we would have no idea.

Nope. Well, you would have no idea that every Thursday me and the wheel go out, get some beers, and watch football. That's what we do.

I'm, I'm actually, I'm, I'm I'm trying to go back through, I'm tracking all the data here, and it seems like this website might have been bought by Derek Laskow at some point in time.

Yep.

If you find out who owns Wheel of Names, it's me. All right. Now, before we talk about our viewing of Romancing the Stone, before I take you closer than you could ever dream of getting to Romancing the Stone, did any of us have any previous knowledge and/or experience of Romancing the Stone?

No, nothing, nothing at all. I, I'd heard of it like off of, you know, just random mentions, I guess, but really I didn't know what it was about, didn't know when it came out, didn't really know anything about it. I didn't know anything until I watched it. I didn't watch— look up anything either. I was just going blind for this.

Blank slate, tabula rasa.

Yes.

So I don't know if I saw this one in the theater. I know my dad took me to see the sequel Jewel of the Nile. in, in theater. But I also remember this being on TV a lot then, like, you know, like probably like a year after it was in. So I, I've seen this movie a good number of times, but I hadn't seen it for several decades. And then about 5 years ago, I had one of those weeks where my wife and my kids went to visit the in-laws, and I was here home by myself with the dogs. And I was like, all right, let's watch Romancing the Stone.

And that's what you threw on?

It was one of like a, uh, you Laundry list of movies to watch during the time.

And I was like, are you sure it wasn't Romancing His Stone?

Or what? It was definitely— was not Romancing His Stone.

Um, library thing.

My, my fa— my favorite ever. Yep, my favorite ever TV Funhouse, Romancing the Bone.

Mhm. Screw Pa.

Screw Pa, Romancing the Bone.

Um, Yeah, I hadn't seen it. I was always like, man, you know, kind of really want to watch it again. And, um, so I have seen it more recently than expected when it shows up on here, but I have plenty of history from back when it first came out also.

So I knew of the movie. I remember when it came out. I have had more history and experience with the TV Funhouse cartoon. with Screwball than I did with the movie Romancing the Stone, which is weird because it's like a mid-'80s, it's PG, and it kind of has Indiana Jones influences. So you'd think I would have seen it, but I never did.

Yeah, especially because, I mean, it was— it seemed like it was a big staple for like early, like, what, like TBS and stuff like that as well?

I said it didn't have cable.

Or maybe like WGN would have had it on a lot. I, I just remember like Seeing like chunks of it at a time as well. Yeah, beyond actually seeing the full movie, just because it was on flipping through the channels. My dad probably stopped and started watching it like mid movie or something like that.

Dad, a fan of Kathleen Turner?

Sure.

All right. Well, I guess that leaves us with nothing to do but for me to take us closer than any of us could have ever imagined we could. get to Romancing the Stone with another edition of the patent pending, patent pending Fumbler's Deep Dive. Romancing the Stone, rated PG, 1 hour 46 minutes. This son of a bitch came out on March 30th, 1984. A mousy romance novelist sets off for Colombia to ransom her kidnapped sister and soon finds herself in the middle of a dangerous adventure hunting for treasure with a mercenary rogue.

Yes, pretty good.

Gets a 6.9 on IMDb and an 86% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Wow, that's really fresh.

I, I gotta say, like, so when I turn this on and I start watching, it says PG. It had a litany of things under it of like, like sexual content, smoking, following, like a whole bunch of different stuff listed there. I'm like, hmm, it's only, only PG at this time.

Well, this was pre-PG-13, not quite R enough. Now if we would have seen all of Kathleen Turner's boob, it would have been R, I think.

Also, I think, uh, I also, I think if it came out a year later, we would have got a PG-13 because '84 is also, um, I think is also Temple of Doom and Gremlins, which are The main 2 movies responsible for starting.

Temple of Doom is after this, right?

Hmm.

Lots of, lots of crocodiles. This movie was made on a $10 million budget. It opened to $5.1 million, which was good for 4th behind Police Academy, Grace Stoke, The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.

Whoa.

So that was 2nd, and it was also a new release.

Grace Stokes.

Grace Stokes.

Christopher Lambert's playing Tarzan.

I don't remember. And number 3 on the charts was Splash.

Oh, of course, of course.

It did finish with $76.5 million domestic and $86.5 million global. Pretty good.

That is good.

Roger Ebert had this to say when it came out. After all the Raiders ripoffs, it's fun to find an adventure film that deserves the comparison. That has the same spirit and sense of humor.

Wow.

Okay.

He liked it. Good. Yep. Peter Travers from People Magazine said, Turner is terrific. Douglas is fine. And the action is slam bang. I don't know if he means fine as in like passable or like, or if he means it's fine and lots of laughs and it all works out just right. And then alternatively, Vincent Canby from the New York Times said this, oh boy, an elaborately produced. Mostly charmless adventure comedy that intends to make fun of a kind of romantic fiction that's one step removed from what the movie is all about. Okay.

He's also not wrong.

Nope. Not at all.

Yeah.

Not wrong with parts of that.

But yeah.

This thing was directed by Robert Zemeckis. He has 37 directing credits going back to 1972. Such things as Used Cars. Beowulf, The Uncanny Valley Nightmare of the Polar Express, 2022's Pinocchio, 3 episodes of Tales from the Crypt, an episode of Johnny Bago. But, but I have no idea what it is, but the name made me laugh. But in 1997, he directed the Carl Sagan adaptation Contact.

Oh.

Dr. Ellie Arroway after years of searching, finds conclusive radio proof of extraterrestrial intelligence sending plans for a mysterious machine. Stars Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, and Tom Skerritt.

I've not seen that, but I've heard it's good.

I remember liking it. I haven't seen it since theaters. Oh yeah, Zemeckis also directed Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump, and Cast Away.

Oh, right. Just a couple things.

Just in case. Yeah.

Ugh.

This movie was written by Diane Thomas. She has 2 writing credits, Romancing the Stone and its sequel, Jewel of the Nile. Unfortunately, Diane Thomas passed away on October 21st, 1985, the same year The Jewel of the Nile was released. She was only 39.

Oh, that's too bad.

It is too bad. She attended UCLA, and after her untimely death, her alma mater created the Diane Thomas Screenwriting Award.

Oh, so that's good.

This movie stars Michael Douglas as Jack T. Colton. IMDb says this: he's a legendary actor with 50 celebrated years of film, television, and producing experience. Michael Douglas is known for his era-defining roles and enduring cultural impact. Clearly his publicist is on IMDb. He has 69— nice— acting credits going back to 1966 in such things as Coma, Running, It's My Turn, Fatal Attraction, Wall Street, Avengers and the Ant-Man movies, You, Me and Dupree, The Game, Traffic. But in 2001, he was Mr. Burmeister in One Night at McCool's.

McCools.

McCools.

Cool, I like this guy.

Every man has a different recollection of the beautiful young woman who wreaked havoc on their lives during the heated night. Starring Liv Tyler as the, uh, aforementioned beautiful young woman, Matt Dillon, Paul Reiser, Reba McEntire, Andrew Dice Clay, and Mary Jo Smith.

Remember that?

I remember that was like supposed to be a big deal when it came out, and I think it was— Yeah, and yeah, pretty much flopped there. But it was like supposed to be a big deal of like all these different people in there, like just, you know, big ensemble cast and everything like that. Just kind of stumbled. Um, I really like, uh, The Game.

He's got some really good movies on his resume for sure.

Oh, there's another good movie called The Ghost in the Darkness. Yeah, him and Val Kilmer.

It's supposed to be a big fan of that with the lions, the lion killing.

It's supposed to be— it's supposed to be based on a true story.

That's another movie that puts me to sleep every time I try to watch it, and I've tried to watch it several times.

I've never— I think my parents had the DVD of that one, but I never watched it. I never watched it.

I could picture the COVID art. It's like orangish red with a lion.

Very lion-focused.

Very lion-focused.

Obviously.

This movie also stars Kathleen Turner as Joan Wilder. She's an award-winning nominated actor with 81 roles in TV, film, TV and film going back to 1978. She started out in 243 episodes of The Doctors. Oh, it's a soap opera that was on the air for almost 20 years, like from the '60s to the '80s.

I was hoping it was Doctor Who, like all the doctors hanging out.

And there's 243 episodes that you've never heard of or seen before.

It's just a sitcom of them all hanging out together like roommates or something.

It's like Cheers but with all the doctors.

That would be awesome.

All the Time Lords, just before they all went extinct, I guess.

Uh, she also starred in movies such as Prizzi's Honor, Peggy Sue Got Married, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Naked in New York, The Real Blonde, Baby Geniuses, The Man with Two Brains. But in 2013, she played Styx in the dramedy Gods Behaving Badly. Greek gods—

That's what the name of it is?

That's the name of it. Greek gods living in modern-day New York intervene in the lives of a young couple. It stars Alicia Silverstone and Ebon Moss-Bach. Bacharach as the couple, and Sharon Stone as Aphrodite, Oliver Platt as Apollo, Will Swenson as Ares, Edie Falco as Artemis, John Turturro as Hades, Rosie Perez as Persephone, and Christopher Walken as Zeus.

I don't remember this at all.

Me neither.

What's it called? Gods Behaving Badly?

Gods Behaving Badly.

That's a really weird title.

I don't like it either.

But Christopher Walken as Zeus? Now that's interesting.

It is interesting. There's a lot interesting about that, all that, at least the cast.

I always think of, uh, when I think Catherine Turner, I think of, um, one of the Austin Powers ones where like they named like whatever weapon, it's the Catherine Turner Overdrive.

Yep. I always think of, uh, Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Was that— she voiced her?

Yeah.

I didn't know that.

No, you— oh, you can't even recognize it in her voice. And she's just got that, that, that, uh, smoky sort of voice. Do you like her? I, I am a— I have a huge crush on, uh, Kathleen Turner.

Yeah, she looks great. She looks great. She—

yeah, she looks, she looks dang great in this movie. But I can't tell if it's her or like my fetishization of Jessica Rabbit.

It's hard to get past the Jessica Rabbit fetishization.

I mean, when you, when you, you, when you experience that movie as a preteen boy, it shapes a lot of weird, uh, uh, just things in your head.

Things change.

Yeah.

Things change after you see that. Yeah, it's weird. It's weird. I don't know, it's, it's the magic of the movies.

It is. And then that movie is— so that movie ends with a thing that terrified the crap out of me as a child, with, uh, with the judge. I can't remember what his name is.

Melting.

Judge Doom. His eyeballs coming out all cartoony, melting and screaming. Yeah, I used to think that was terrifying.

They melt them in like paint thinner. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.

What's it called? It's called, uh, The Dip. Oh God, recently just watched that movie, maybe about, about a year ago with the kids, and I told them before we watched it, I'm like, I'm gonna warn you now, the ending has a moment that I used to be so scared of. They laughed at me.

They laughed at you?

They laughed at me.

It's pretty creepy when he gets like melted.

Yes. So they laughed at you when you told them that, or after watching it?

No, when they saw it. I'm like, because I paused beforehand, like, it's coming up. And they're like, okay. I'm like, if you have to turn away, I understand.

You're like, you don't have to watch, you can walk out of the room, we'll just let it play. But even they thought it was funny.

At then, 7-year-old was just like, I guess it's kind of scary.

Wow. What about when like the little shoes get dipped in it?

Yeah, it's just like You like feel so bad about those shoes getting erased from existence.

Yeah, I'm running into the same problem like with, with my older son. Like I'm explaining to him like, cuz he's kind of getting into like horror films now and like I'm explaining like things that when I grew up that were creepy and like, I'm like, yeah, like Gremlins. Like I remember seeing it and then I was at my neighbor's house, uh, say my, my friend who lived next door and I had to get up in the middle of the night to go home cuz I was just freaked out. And he just looks at me, he's like, those little things? But he just starts kind of laughing at me.

I'm like, would you listen, man?

I was 9.

3 channels and there was nothing on them. There's no YouTube, there's nothing.

If we don't— yeah, you don't get exposed to things like this that often.

It's terrifying.

These kids, they just have a higher fear tolerance.

Yeah, they sure do. Yeah. All right, the last person we're gonna talk about is Danny DeVito as Ralph. Danny DeVito has amassed— another publicist. Danny DeVito has amassed a formidable and diverse body of work as an actor, producer, and director that spans the stage, television— television, I don't know why I pronounce it their way— and film.

True.

He has 158 acting credits in TV and film going back to 1970. He's in 120— 112 episodes of Taxi, 169 episodes of Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He was also in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Oh yeah.

Going Ape.

Oh no.

Terms of Endearment. The music video for Ray Parker Jr.'s Ghostbusters.

He was?

Yeah. Uncredited, it said. Ruthless People.

I don't know. Was he a ghost?

Maybe it was an embarrassment at the time to have Danny DeVito in there.

I don't know. Did he play Slimer? Maybe.

Twins, Batman Returns, Space Jam, Get Shorty, L.A. Confidential. But in 1994, he played Dr. Larry Abergast in the Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy Junior. As part of a fertility research project, a male scientist agrees to carry a pregnancy in his own Oh God.

Yeah, Arnold gets pregnant.

Arnold does? Danny DeVito.

No, Arnold.

Oh God.

Directed by Ivan Reitman, stars Arnold, Danny DeVito, and Emma Thompson.

Arnold gets pregnant?

Yes.

Just reading the— I've never seen the movie, but just reading the premise, it's absolutely laughable at best. You have to suspend all disbelief for this to work.

How would— he must have gotten some major surgeries though.

Yeah, they would have to like implant a womb and stuff like that. Like, how's that work? Like inject an embryo into his abs and it'll just grow.

You just—

maybe it will.

Yeah, I don't know. You inject the womb cells into his stomach and then eventually they grow to where they're supposed to go and then they just kind of start to form. That's how it works. It's science.

Makes sense. It's science.

Yeah. Interesting. I, I wanna see it. I bet it's like an hour of the movie is just them explaining the heart science behind it.

No, really. You can, you can let us know.

They're like doing the surgery and they're like, all right, now step 2, we have to replace his internal organs.

They're just staring into the camera going, yes, this is really what we're doing. This is how we're going to explain this.

It's phys— it is physically possible if you remove Many parts and replace them with other parts, and he doesn't die during this operation. Then we will. Yeah, Arnold actually had to go through it. That's the hard part about the movie is that he had to.

Now it would have been really interesting as I sit here and think about it if they would have converted done like something where like all right the baby will gestate inside your scrotum or something like that.

It should fit.

Yeah, but it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

There's just enough. There's just enough room in there. There's just enough room.

It's got to be something like that because there's no room inside to put like a uterus.

No, right?

There's not.

No, we'll just stick him in the scrotum and then he'll grow out. You might have to get some like, uh, extra skin installed. Um, you know, oh, it's like throughout the movie, like you see the timeline, like his scrotum's just getting bigger and bigger.

He's gotta wear like the hammer pants to walk around.

Just like a huge bulge. We're like, what's going on down there? Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm pregnant.

It's not a tumor.

It's not a tumor. Yes. I would love to watch this movie. I actually, I do want to see this also.

Like, and I know it's not, it's not like his like action role, like buff. But I mean, all the same time, Arnold is still like Arnold. He's like, yeah, big and muscular and all. But, and then having a, you know, and then he's got his pregnant belly sitting there. Yeah, it's so weird.

Yeah.

And I don't, I don't think I actually have, I've ever seen that because I was just like, this is okay.

This is— Yeah, it's done. The idea is dumb as hell. But it was that stretch where Arnold was doing like, he did Kindergarten Cop, he did Twins, and he did Junior.

He'll just do anything at this point.

Yep. Comedies.

Yeah, he loved comedies.

But Danny DeVito, I mean, dude, that is a— like, he's had like strong moments of like the last 5 decades.

Formidable.

Yeah, that's formidable and diverse. Crazy, like how much stuff, because he's also got like a lot of directing stuff. Like, um, I think he's— Matilda. Yep. Um, what's funny, uh, I think War— I think he directed War of the Roses also. Which is that—

maybe, I don't know, except he's in it.

Um, yeah, and that the new one with Benedict Cumberbatch and that lady.

Oh, The Roses.

Oh, that, that movie that just came out?

That's that— no, that's a remake of The War of the Roses. Oh yeah, but like, he— yeah, so I mean, he's, and you know, like you said, like 100 and some episodes of Taxi, and now at the far end it's 160-some episodes of It's Always Sunny.

Sunny. Yeah.

He was the Lorax.

Yeah, really?

He's done a lot of stuff.

Yeah, a lot of, a lot of Jersey Mike's commercials.

A lot of Jersey Mike's commercials.

Yeah, it's, it's just nutty, like, how, how big of a career he's had.

Yeah, and, and he's been popular, or like one of those like, oh yeah, him, all right, like sort of actors when you see them for 50 years now.

Yeah, he's recognizable. Everybody knows you're talking about—

he said, damn.

Yeah, the small part where he's— where maybe like he kind of drops off a bit is because that's, I think, when he jumps into directing. And so like, you don't— he's not in front of the screen as much.

Maybe even after like that post-Taxi, pre-Twins.

Yeah.

Or Batman. Yeah, that little chunk there in the late '80s where it's like, yeah, whatever. But people were like, meh, whatever about everything back then.

They, they've been trying to— I guess they've been trying for like years to do— they want to do, uh, triplets and have Eddie Murphy as the third one.

No, please not.

Uh, they're not— I mean, at this point in time, it's, it's never gonna— but I know they had been pitching it for like quite a while.

Yeah, well, it could happen in this day and age. It could happen.

Anything can happen.

Then Arnold's pregnant in it.

That's— he gives birth to 3 Eddie Murphys. Oh wow, that's where the triplets come from.

Like a crossover. They take place in the same universe. Twins and triplets and that other thing.

Junior. Terry, have you ever seen Twins?

No, no, no, I haven't.

I, I've seen it once and I guarantee it's not a treat. I don't remember it being particularly amazing.

I think the only funny thing about it is Danny DeVito and Arnold being next to each other and saying they're twins.

And that's like, I think that's the whole premise.

That's all I need to know. How could you make it a 90-minute movie?

I don't know, but I think that's what somebody— like, it was probably like some, you know, be funny if DeVito and Schwarzenegger were twins, and somebody wrote a movie about it. I think that's what happened.

Someone got paid. That's great.

Someone definitely got paid. I didn't, but I still got some fun facts here.

Oh, a dollar for every fun fact, maybe.

Oh my gosh, my list would be even longer if that was the case. Studio executives were sure this film would flop. Robert Zemeckis was preemptively fired from directing Cocoon in 1985.

Wow.

It turned out to be such a success that Zemeckis was able to put forward— to go forward on his own project, Back to the Future.

Wow. Well, he lucked out on that one.

So Romancing the Stone literally paved the way for Zemeckis to make Back to the Future because execs were sure it was going to flop, so they fired him from Cocoon. And because it was successful, he was able to do Back to the Future.

How crazy. Crazy. Why did they just assume it was gonna flop?

Yeah, they probably saw some early, early screeners. That's my guess.

Cocoon's a really good movie.

It is, but, and that, that's Ron Howard though, isn't it?

Cocoon, I think. Yeah, I think he steps in. It's him, uh, and Wilford Brimley looking like—

no, it's Ron Howard directing, I think.

Yeah, no, but it's also got Wilford Brimley looking like he's 80 regardless.

And, and, uh, uh, what's his face from, uh, Police Academy?

Uh, Guttenberg.

Steve Guttenberg.

Yeah, yeah, the Goot.

The Goot. This film marked the beginning of director Robert Zemeckis's partnership with composer Alan Silvestri. Ever since this movie, Silvestri has composed the music for every Zemeckis-directed film.

Really? Wow, that's, that's kind of cool.

Yeah. Though described by some film critics as a ripoff of 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark, Uh, no. The original screenplay had actually been written 5 years earlier, around 1979.

This is not a ripoff.

I don't think so. No, this guy's got a hat and they swing from a vine.

Yeah, man, that's about it.

That was about it. And the swing from the vine was more Star Wars than it was Indiana Jones.

Yeah.

The film was originally to be filmed in Colombia. Where the story takes place. However, life imitated art in that Colombia also suffered an increase in American kidnappings, so production was moved to Mexico. Hmm. Okay.

Better safe.

Better safe than sorry. According to Kathleen Turner's memoir, Michael Douglas originally offered the role of Joan to Deborah Winger. They met at a Mexican restaurant to discuss. To discuss it, but according to Douglas, she ended up biting him.

Huh?

She didn't get the part. Long story short, yada yada yada. She bit him.

Long story no. We need more details. You can't long story shortly. Yada yada yada. She got.

Oh, that doesn't work.

Feel like we need more details. I that's how did that even happen?

Fun fact, and well read Kathleen Turner's memoir. I don't know what it's called. I'm assuming it's My Life as Jessica Rabbit. It probably is something just for her. Something like that.

Yeah. Well, that's interesting. I wonder— I would love to know why he got bit, but I probably will never know because I'm not going to read that book.

No, the phrase—

fine, fine, I'll read the—

oh, Keith's gonna bite the bullet next week.

We'll find out.

He's gonna bite the bullet to find out why Douglas was bit.

I bet you that that in the book is the exact same. It's like yada yada yada. Long story short, he got bit. She didn't get the part.

And and it's the last three pages of this book.

Yes, that's how it ends.

Yeah.

You're reading the whole you're reading the whole thing just to like hear this part of it, and it's like. And yada yada yada. God dang it.

Like the publisher like told her, oh, we can only have like 200 pages. So wrap it up.

Wrap it up.

She's getting the wrap it up signal.

It's like, yada yada yada, and it's over. I would love to read a book that just at the end was like, and yada yada yada. Long story short, everybody made it out okay, and the villain was defeated. The end.

That would be awesome. The phrase romancing the stone Is a piece of jeweler's jargon referring to a step in preparing a gem for use in jewelry. Okay, there you go. It's there's like a double meaning to the phrase.

I didn't know.

Me neither. The treasure map that is integral to the movie was designed by puzzle columnist Dr. Krypton.

Dr. Krypton.

C R Y P T O N.

Crypt, like, as in like getting buried in a crypt?

I'm assuming like cryptography.

Oh, ah, okay, sure. You know, he's not the Cryptkeeper.

Nope, he's not.

Here's a map to find buried treasure.

We can trust this. They just do some pun on map, uh, about death and stuff. I, I can't think of off the top of my head. That's what made the Cryptkeeper, uh, genius. He He was so witty all the time. Yeah, his puns.

Yeah, you could not beat that guy at a pun-off.

Nope, you could not. Ralph's white car is a Renault 4L. It was the biggest selling car in Colombia at the time and called the Faithful Friend in TV commercials.

Wow, sounds like a nice car.

Authentic to Colombia. The Rolling Stone issue that Jack finds in the dead pilot's bag is the September 9th, my birthday, 1982 edition featuring Elvis Costello on the COVID They also found out the Doobie Brothers broke up.

That hit him pretty hard on that. Yeah.

Now the next 2 are the what-if worlds. Clint Eastwood, Kurt Russell, Jack Nicholson, and Christopher Reeve Turned down the role of Jack T. Colton. Wow.

All of them said no?

All of them said no. Paul Newman turned it down because it said it was too violent. It was unnecessarily violent.

Wow.

Okay.

He didn't like the alligator thing.

I'm not gonna lose my— I don't wanna watch somebody lose their hand.

So that's just mean, you know, an alligator. Why would someone write that? It's just so distasteful. Mm-hmm.

Look at them snappers.

Bob Hoskins turned down the role of Ralph, which eventually went to Danny DeVito. Hoskins and Robert Zemeckis would work together 4 years later in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Kathleen Turner, who plays Joan, would also provide the voice of Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Oh, Bob Hoskins was also Mario in the Super Mario movie.

He was. Yeah.

Bob Hoskins was awesome. Yeah.

Yeah, him and, uh, um, John Leguizamo. Yeah, played Luigi.

Yeah, yeah, what an iconic role.

And, and what's-his-face played King Koopa, uh, crazy guy, blue velvet, uh, Apocalypse Now.

Oh yes, I know who exactly you're talking about. Waterworld.

What's his name?

He's like huffing the fumes.

Yeah, what is his name?

His name, he was insane. Yes, and that's a crazy cast.

I can't think of who it is.

Dennis Hopper.

Dennis Hopper, that's his name.

I can't believe they got Dennis Hopper to be King Koopa. I need to rewatch that.

No, it's terrible. Don't watch it. And then this is my final fun fact, and I wrote it before I— I copy-pasted before I watched the movie. And after watching the movie, it makes me chuckle. The fabulous saxophone lead slash solo on the film's score Scores ends credits was performed by noted musician Gary Herbig, who calls it one of the highlights of his career. If you don't know who Gary Herbig is, he is known for The Unknown Cyclist, Fortune Dane, and Olivia Newton-John's Physical.

Wow, this was the highlight of his career.

Before we even get into it, I hated the music in this movie.

It was not that good. It kind of got annoying at times.

It was very annoying. But one of the main melodies in this music, in this, in the music in this movie was also the music from Sonic the Hedgehog, like the Green Meadows, Green Hills Zone or whatever that— what? Like it sounded Identical, so much so that I had to like stop it and like listen to it again. It sounds like the Green Hill Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog. I wrote down a timestamp here, so let me see if I go to that timestamp. No problem. My little muse is fireproof. So there, I don't know if you heard it. Do do do do do in the background.

Yeah.

Yes.

And now if I go over to the Green Hill Zone here.

Oh yeah.

It's 100% the Green Hill Zone theme. I heard it and it made me flinch when I heard it.

I was like, what? I've heard this somewhere before. Yeah.

And I had to like rack my brain for a second. I thought it was Mega Man at first. I'm like, no, it's not Mega Man. It's Sonic the Hedgehog.

Makes sense why when the camera kind of pans to the left a little bit, you see a little blue blur fly by.

You do see a blue blur, blur, and a blue blur as well.

And a blue flying by. Oh yeah, see all those things.

All right, well, I got us too goddamn close.

We're digging into the Sonic Green Hill Zone theme song. Yeah, I think we got pretty close.

Wow, too goddamn close. Oh, well then I guess we should talk about our viewing of Romancing the Stone.

We should. I think we should.

I, I gotta say, one of the first things that, that popped into my mind was as they're watching like that opening part and like they're showing almost like a movie version of one of her romance novels while she's writing it, and then she's done and She sits down with the cat and just makes the cat a nice little meal and everything. And the first thing popped in my head was, this is how Terry sits down and watches our movies. And his cat sits down with a little bottle of wine and, uh, and it makes the cat as comfortable.

You think Terry sits down with a bottle of wine and a cat and what? I mean, there's worse ways to watch a movie.

To watch every movie we do.

It's either that or, yeah, this is what you do after we finish recording.

One of two. It's time to celebrate. Another recording done.

I don't know. That's the first thing I thought of was she's going around, she's making up the nice meal and everything with the cat. And I'm like, oh, this is probably what it's like for Terry when he sits down with the cat to, you know, watch some movies.

Yeah.

That cat wishes I gave her food like that.

My cat wishes it got fed.

Yeah. Has to hunt for every scrap.

Yeah.

Some days I'll wake up with chunks of flesh missing. Missing.

Yeah, if it don't— it doesn't find a mice— if it doesn't find a mouse, it's, it's starving for the day, people.

I'm, I'm the, I'm the prey, actually. Yeah.

The hunter becomes the hunted.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, yeah. No, that is— I mean, I do sit on the couch a lot, and then the cat shows up, and then we hang out. That's true.

There's— you can't— if you have a cat, you can't do anything without the cat.

Yeah, I mean, literally always under your feet. About, I don't know, 3 minutes ago, the cat was on my lap as we were talking. She left because, I don't know, she got bored, but she'll be back, I guarantee, by the end of the episode. Maybe I'll give an update. Cat, maybe this new segment, cat alert. Cat just jumped on my lap, guys.

Yeah, but yeah, if it purrs, it meant it's thumbs up. Uh-huh.

Oh, we'll give you the Peaches review. Yeah. Yeah, no, I, I don't give her that fancy of food, but that seemed like a nice time. I don't know, I think it's the worst ways to spend your time than drinking some wine and hanging out with the cat.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, agreed. Keith said it as like a jest, but, but it's not bad. That's not bad living.

It's not bad living. It's just that made me laugh because that's the first thing that popped in my head when I'm watching. I'm like, oh, it's Terry and his cat getting ready to watch a movie.

Yep, Terry just wrapped up a romance novel. Gonna go watch a movie.

Yeah.

Yep. Yep.

Keith, I, I need you to go in the Wayback Machine to when we watched Crocodile Dundee.

Okay, good. Excellent. This is good.

Is— was there something in the deep dive about how this is like Paul Hogan, like he's been working on the script for like a million years and this is his love and his passion was Crocodile Dundee?

I don't know if it if that's how it started, but that's— I think the adventure became his passion.

All I know is, as I'm watching this, is I felt like it was like Crocodile Dundee.

Yes. I thought it like the first, the first half, the half that we kind of enjoyed of Crocodile Dundee.

Yes.

Yeah.

When like they're in the plane, there's a snake and he saves her and like, as she's berating him and all this kind of stuff, it was And then Crocodile Dundee was 1986. So this is even earlier than that. So they just repurposed that sort of interaction. I guess it's kind of a cliché interaction, but still.

City person versus like woodsy folk.

Yeah. And which I think also saving the city person.

It leans into that. It leans into that whole, like kind of with the whole romance novel like setup was a bit, uh, as well. But yeah, yeah, that's probably been done a billion times, uh, in other movies as well. So, but I, I thought of Crocodile Dundee immediately, and I never once thought about Indiana Jones as a comparison. No, but I thought about this, and I thought about Midnight Run.

Mm-hmm.

Because there's— in Midnight Run, I think one of our— I think like our only kind of like real complaint was like they kept repeating.

They had to keep running.

Well, they kept running and like you get this, like the FBI showed up here, boom. And then he punches the dude and, and there seemed to be a lot of that like repeat going on in this as well.

It's that mid-'80s sensibility.

Yeah. But those are the 2 movies that I felt like, it's like if you took the first half of Crocodile Dundee and then Midnight Run, you put them together, this is kind of what, what you got here.

Yeah. They both have very similar vibes, I think.

Yeah.

I think it's just the time. I know this is Robert Zemeckis and I know he's a beloved whatever. I didn't— his— the direction in this movie was too much. It was— there was no— everything was very hit smack you in the face with what it's saying, right? Like, The biggest, best example that I have is they're dancing in that town square at that fiesta. And the moment they start kissing, what happens?

Is it the midpoint?

Fireworks! Fireworks literally fire off in the background. Right? Like, it's, there's like, you can't like, it's like, well, we have to demonstrate a way in which these two are really digging one another besides—

Which seems to be very obvious through the whole thing. Like, yes, it's not a will they, won't they. It's just, it's like a when will they.

Yeah. And then I really hated— so he's laying naked on top of her, right?

Yep.

And they had that little conversation about getting a boat or whatever. I don't care. Because I was— I kept hoping that they would show Kathleen Turner's boob.

Watching very carefully.

I was, I was. And then, and then like my phone buzzed, I looked away from it. I'm like, did I miss something?

So I did better rewind.

Like, yeah, yeah, just like maybe.

And Derek, are you really thinking— is— are they showing— are they gonna show Kathleen Turner's boob or are they gonna show Jessica Rabbit's boob? Is that what—

either way, there's something in your head either makes them up.

Either one is acceptable, one is cartoonishly crazy, and I'll take either.

But going, going to the half speed, just frame by frame watching.

But yeah, and I guarantee that if I Google one, I could find one very easily.

Yeah, I don't think it'd be that hard.

Nope. Maybe not officially sanctioned, but I could find it.

Yeah, maybe it's officially sanctioned, but I doubt it.

By Disney? I doubt it.

It's possible.

But after that, they pan down and he reaches down and he pulls the map out of between the mattresses for some reason. Yeah, to put into his bag, I guess.

Even though he's already— even though he's already agreed to leave with her the next day.

Yes, and he determined that he could photocopy it. Like, I don't understand what— like, they needed to demonstrate that he has ulterior motives even though he He's laid on her naked. He's got different— like, I hated it. I hated that.

Even though they agreed to like do the same thing?

Yes.

Yeah, they just wanted to show that he's still not trustworthy necessarily.

But yes, and I, I didn't like that. I thought it was just flimsy.

It's unnecessary. I thought they already kind of like— he didn't have to have that part and it would have— the movie would not have changed at all.

Yeah, exactly.

So when I watched this, when I watched this a few years back I was like, oh wow, this actually really holds up pretty well. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot this time. I think because I had already seen it more recently, I, I actually watched it and I started picking apart things in it.

Sure.

Yeah. Like, like that didn't make any sense. I know they got the, like, uh, Danny DeVito and his cousin, they're, they're trying to get that map and they've got her bringing it. And that's the whole reason she's there.

I—

they don't really ever explain why the military guy is—

No.

Is there and after them. Like, I don't know, like they get, they get going along and, and you got, yes, the other people, they want to find this gem and stuff. And I— it seems like the girl is in on it, her sister. Like she got kidnapped, but then she's just sitting there like hanging out with them and like smiling and goofing around. Like, oh yeah, we'll get my sister to get the map for us, blah blah blah. But they never explained this other guy and why he's like feared, and all of a sudden he's like got like a whole army with him everywhere he goes.

Yeah.

It seemed kind of odd. It's— obviously he's trying to find this jewel as well, but they never established that. So I kind of was picking that part a bit as well. I'm like, yeah, mm-hmm, you know, there's this thing going on here and they, they don't really connect all the dots about why everybody wants it, because usually, you know, I mean, it's treasure, but usually there's like an established, like, why each person is trying to find it. When people are trying to find it to get a boat and save the girl, the other ones are just trying to get rich off it. And then this weird guy who's got, like, he's got this mysterious background because everyone knows him as well. Everyone knows Zolo.

Yeah.

Uh, and it, it just left a bunch of questions there. But like, I don't know, overall I still didn't mind the movie overall. Like, there's some really good parts to it. There's really good chemistry between, uh, Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas, I thought.

I remember—

I thought I remember Danny DeVito being more involved with them, like, getting it. I think—

I think it's the next movie he's more involved because he became like a fan. It's like Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2. He became the favorite of that. So Lethal Weapon 3 is mostly about Joe Pesci.

Yeah. And so I think that's the same thing. So I remember him being around more often for whatever, you know, thing was going on in the movie than he is.

Yeah, I, I found this movie like kind of— I guess the word would be mid. Yeah, it's like, it's just not It's so like, it felt very lifeless to me. Like, if you're going through that, it's like a middle C for me.

It's like, ding.

Yeah, right. That's, that's it. That's like, it's just like, I didn't hate it, but I had a hard time focusing on it too because there's just not anything that's like so out— like anything, like one thing that's outstanding enough to get me like, oh, interesting. Oh, interesting. It's also bland. Like, it's just— yes, I don't know. I, I don't know if I'm just not a Michael Douglas Fan, but I did not really like him in this movie. I didn't think he was very good.

I didn't think it's hard to buy him as like an action-adventure hero.

Yes, yes. I thought Kathleen Turner did good. I liked her character.

She probably was the best character, but everybody else was the highlight of the movie, in my opinion. Yeah, everybody else is because my crush.

Yeah, wonder why. No, I thought she was great in it, but I think everybody else is pretty boring, and it's just. The story is not that interesting. I, I, at first I was intrigued because it's kind of a meta thing, like where she's writing a story about all these romance things and then her romance stories are coming true. Like, and I was almost worried that it was going to be kind of like too, like so meta, like, like literally like her person she wrote is actually coming to life and all this stuff.

Yeah.

But it's not really that, which I was kind of pleasantly surprised by. I thought it was like, oh, it's just, I don't know, a similarity, you know, which is nice, but They don't really do anything great with it. I feel like it's still pretty dull. I don't know, it's not that exciting of a film even though it's supposed to be this very like adventuresque thing.

I think they— and again, I may have, maybe I zoned out or something at some point in it, but I didn't know like that.

I know I did. I did.

Go ahead.

Well, like, so they, they dig up the weird like bunny statue, uh-huh, and she's like, oh, in one of my books, like they hid the jewel inside the thing inside the—

yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Did it— would've kind of been kind of cool if they— if she referenced that, like if she referenced books more often as they went along. I don't know if I missed that or something, but like, no, you didn't. Like if they, like if they would've been like, she's got, oh, here's, she's got like 5 books about it and she's like, oh, in this one I did this, blah, blah, blah. And like if she kept referring back to like something that happened in one of her books.

Yeah. And like Michael Douglas could be proven her wrong or it could be proven right. You know, it'd be kind of a funny thing where he is like, Him getting annoyed that it keeps going correct.

He's like, no, you just, you wrote silly romance novels. That's not how this works. And then it constantly keeps happening and, and is correct every time. Would've been kind of funny. But like, um, yeah, like when there's just things that they didn't build off, build up enough off of that, like the, her life, you know, and everything going on, you know, with it and, and like, uh, the book and all the characters that she did, they didn't expand. on that in that way, which would've been much more interesting. But also, like, I think this is a, this is like a typical, like, mid-'80s movie though. Like, I mean, you get some that are like, you get some that are really good. There's some other stuff that's really bad, but this is like one of those ones that's kind of right. It's in like the middle of the bell curve of like, yeah, this in the '80s, some in, you know, mid-'80s, this would've gotten really good reviews and everything like that. But now. Now it's mid.

I'm going to tell you what, watching it after doing the deep dive and then watching it, I know why Zemeckis was preemptively fired from Cocoon. Because I just, I could see where it's a miss. Like people would see it and be like, this isn't good at all. And I couldn't argue with them. And I could also see where people are like, well, I love this. And be like, yeah, you're right. It does do some cool things. But like that back third, oh man, this third act of this movie is rough. Rough.

It's very, it's very long.

Yeah. And it ends with him driving a boat down like New York Avenue. Like, what is going on? Like, it just was not good. I didn't like it.

Rocking, uh, crocodile boots.

Crocodile boots. Yeah, that whole So many crocodiles in this movie.

There's a lot of crocodiles.

And that guy constantly repeating, like, oh, look at them snappers.

But even when Kathleen Turner's fighting Zolo— is that his name?— in the rain, and from a distance you could tell, like, oh, that's 2 men fighting, one's wearing a skirt and pantyhose, and they're rolling around And then she's over that grate that has like 6 alligators or crocodiles underneath it, right? And they're fighting on this grate, fighting vigorously. And they get off it and she hits him with a stick and he's on fire. And then he falls onto the grate and the grate breaks and he falls to his death into the crocodiles.

Yeah.

I was like, I know the movie was just about over, But I was 100% done at that point. Like, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna— I will, I will, through the graciousness of— and my commitment to the show, I will let the DVD continue to play, but I'm gonna be on my phone for the rest of the way through this.

You know, I'll continue to let it go in the background, but—

Yes, I was— I'm just like, done. Just, uh, and then, oh God, before that he was climbing the wall.

Oh yeah, and slips a bit. Like, and he slips there. The stairs right around the corner, dude.

Like, why are you climbing the wall, man? There's a way to get up there. Like, that whole— oh God, all of that was just, it was just too much.

It was terrible.

He's—

that gator eats the guy's hand with the gemstone.

Yes.

And then Michael Douglas's character grabs it by the tail and is trying to drag it back. What does he think is going to happen after that? That gator's gonna kill him.

He's gonna reach into the gator's mouth.

He was gonna wrestle it probably and then like cut it open and get the gem back, I think.

Because I mean, he got it.

That's what he thought he was gonna do.

He obviously got it eventually. So maybe he can just 1v1 a gator.

I want to know what, what did he do? Because he had to let the crocodile go to save Joan, right? Yeah. Did he go and kill every crocodile in that river until he found the one that had the gemstone? Or you just go through a bunch of crocodile poop until he found the gemstone.

A bunch of like— the country of Colombia has like banned him because he's killed their entire crocodile population.

Well, I mean, I'm assuming— yeah, I mean, he— it's obviously he found it and killed it because he made the shoes.

Yes, I know that, that I get that.

But like, oh, you're like, yeah, he just found it in the poop and then he just comes right in the crocodile.

But like, but what did he actually do? Because like, unless he marked that crocodile, to me— and I don't want to be crocodile-ist— but they all kind of look the same to me.

Oh wow.

You might need to cut that out here. We don't need to be—

but they're just, they're crocodiles, right? Like, yeah.

Sorry to all our crocodile listeners, but yeah, I agree. How would you know? Like, you could cut the back of him, his tail with his knife or something. I don't know. Like, yeah, he didn't do anything. So he must have went back and spent like 2 years hunting down crocodiles.

Yes, he had to have. Like every crocodile.

It probably didn't hang— it probably hung out around that lake for the rest of the time, you know. I bet it didn't go too far.

Yeah, probably because it had like a bowel obstruction.

Yeah, it may have died shortly after. It was choking to death.

He found it, he found it real quick, and then he went back in and Joan had already left. Also, uh, I know like part of the reason like she's going there is to like save her sister, but I kind of think— I kind of feel they could have wrote up something else.

It was flimsy. For another—

for another reason, like how to get her there because the sister's really like, doesn't really matter.

I don't care.

Like, it's— yeah. And she obviously seems like she's somewhat in on it a bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she is, but she isn't. Or I don't— they kind of flop back and forth with that a little too much depending on—

And then she faints at one point. I'm just like, why? Why are you fainting about? I was angry that she fainted.

I don't know. I don't know why she fainted. Yeah. I, and there's like the mysterious circumstances of her like sister's husband's death.

Yeah. They, they hint at these other things. So again, not seeing it for a long time and I was like, oh, this is pretty good. And now seeing it now, I'm, all these little things are like, yeah, yeah. I question that now. I didn't question it last time, but I am.

I mean, it's enjoyable enough.

Yeah.

But like there's, it's not going in, in the pantheon of great films. That's for sure.

No, not 1,001 movies to see.

No, I only know it would be in 2,002 films you have to watch.

I'm gonna throw it in there just because.

Or 3,003. It's— it was fine. It was fine enough. Like, okay, that's enough. 3,003, they're insane.

How many movies can you name that are— you cannot name 3,003 movies that are better than this.

Guarantee there might be 3,003 better.

I'd have to really think about it. I'd have to really think about it. It would take me probably 3 years to figure it out.

To come up with 3,003.

Yeah. If I didn't, I'm just like—

Just off the top of your head?

Yeah, pondering.

Very tough.

My nights, I'm just laying in bed just like, oh God, thinking like, did I say this?

Yeah, I did.

Yeah, I'm not writing anything down either. I'm just naming it by memory. That's how I get the counting sheet, basically.

Every night you go to bed, you just name off the list as far as you can go until you fall asleep. Yep, that's what I do.

Yeah, he's stuck at the same number every night.

I have to start going to bed like 2 hours earlier.

Yep.

And you know, maybe there's 3,000 of my movies There probably is better movies than this, honestly. There's a lot of movies. How many movies do you think?

There's a lot of movies. Like, it wasn't terrible. Yeah, like, I wasn't mad at the movie, but when the movie got to a point, I'm just like, I'm done. I don't need to see anymore. I know what's going to happen. I did not foresee the boat in the middle of the city though.

That was a good twist.

For no reason.

Oh, I remember that part.

Yeah.

I didn't foresee that though. I didn't, I didn't, I couldn't call that one coming up. You can call the crocodile stuff coming up, him falling through the grate into the crocodile. Well, that's just a matter of time before that happens. Mm-hmm.

Chekhov's crocodile grate.

It is pretty much. I didn't know it was wood, but apparently it was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all very predictable. I think this movie, very predictable.

But the scenes I did enjoy, like, uh, the very beginning when she's writing the novel.

Yeah, I like that.

And then she's done and she's like, she's like bringing herself to tears because she's so happy and she likes it.

I really enjoyed that.

She can't find any tissue anywhere in the house?

What's that?

She can't find any tissue anywhere in the house?

Oh yeah, yeah.

She's crying.

But yeah, she either cries a lot or I don't know what else you need tissues for. Blow your nose a lot.

Yep.

And then I enjoyed the scene, uh, that was our clip where they're in the plane, you know, and there's just kind of like a conversation where you're learning about a bit of mine, you know. She has the She's very accusational of him for not caring or being a typical man. She— he stabs a snake. You know, these things I kind of enjoyed. I like— I enjoyed those pieces.

Yeah.

Um, but the action set, that's the action pieces I didn't really like.

Boring.

Yeah, they were boring. Danny DeVito running down a hill, them chasing in a car, and then instead of Mike— instead of just the car stopping and Michael Douglas getting out and running down Danny DeVito, He dives off of a moving car onto him. Unnecessary.

Catch up to Danny DeVito, I guess.

Probably unnecessary. Like, those things are just silly to me.

Don't need them. You just blast him with a shotgun. He's running.

Admittedly, there's— there are many points where it's one eye on the screen, one eye on my phone, or one eye doing whatever. It was— it wasn't a tough watch. It just wasn't an interesting watch. I wanted to like this movie more than it actually was.

Yeah, it was— it took effort to stay engaged, and I've— sometimes I failed. Sometimes I failed.

And I think one of my biggest problems with it is the music and the sound effects. They just really put me out of it. Like that, that fake machine gun sound, it sounded like they had like those like Plastic guns that when you pulled the trigger, they made noise, and they just put that next to a microphone. That's what it sounded like, and I hated it.

Yeah, I didn't like the music that much. There was a couple points where it like did annoy me. Was like the drums like I had to like turn it down. I was like, okay, that's really loud and obnoxious. Let's get kicking in here.

It's yeah, but this is the sound. This is the score that made some make us go. All right, you're my dude, and we're gonna do this for every movie here on out. We're doing this forever, man. Yeah, blood pact till we die. Ride or die.

Blood pact.

Make a movie, you make the music. All right. Yeah, sounds cool.

And he did good job. Back to the Future's got a great theme. Yeah, I think he did Predator. That's also got a good theme.

But it's not a Zemeckis movie.

Yeah, but it's the guy who scored it. Same.

Oh, is it really?

Mm-hmm.

Oh boy.

Oh boy. Yeah.

All right. Did we do it? Did we get through Romancing the Stone? Romancing the Bone? Or Romancing His Stone? I still can't believe that your library has Romancing His Stone there.

Yeah, you have to check that out just to see what's going on.

Just, just for scientific— is it really what it sounds like, or was it—

I have a theory of what it's about, but I don't know.

I was assuming, I was assuming it was a romance novel.

But it's not stones. It's Romancing His Stone, singular.

It sounds like a porn parody title or something.

But it— but it's singular. Stone, not stones.

That's true.

Stone. It still is probably a porn parody, but a very niche one.

Yeah. Next week Keith will fill us in.

Hopefully so.

Yep. After he reads that book, the biography.

Kathleen Turner's biography?

Mm-hmm.

Miss— her memoir and watching Romancing His Stone?

Well, it said it was a series. Oh, but then once you bring it— once you bring it up, it doesn't actually list that as a— as an option of, of anything to watch.

Uh, put the hold on, see what happens. You probably get flagged.

Should I just Google it incognito?

Department of Homeland Security will be at your door.

Yeah, well, I mean Then you come when we're talking about dinosaur, uh, romance porn.

Oh, that was, that was months ago, Keith.

Yeah.

All right, well, what'd you guys think of Romancing the Stone?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Did you find out what Romancing His Stone is?

Yeah, it's about, uh, it's a love, a romance between a human woman and a gargoyle.

Yes, a human woman and who?

Even better than I could have imagined.

Oh, the sugar— her sugar daddy is a gargoyle. Uh-huh. He's got a prehensile tail.

No, we're starting a book club.

And it's a book, not a movie?

It's a book series. There's 2 of them.

Oh my, does 2 constitute a series?

Well, I mean, I'm sure the 3rd is pending.

Oh man.

Wow.

I hope so.

I don't want to read too much more about this. I'm concerned.

I'm glad you found out. I thought it was a movie, but if it's a book, that makes sense.

Terry, if you read it and you have any questions, um—

Yeah, I might have some, Keith. I'll have to give you a call.

Keith's the number one authority on gargoyle love.

So why does he use that tail like that?

All right, what do we think of Romancing the Stone?

Uh, B-. No.

Oh, that's generous.

I think I, I didn't like it that much. I think it was just such an average boring movie, I guess. Like, nothing really stand out at all, so I just was not very engaged. There's a— the beginning kind of interested. Um, I think that, uh, There's some like aspects that are okay. Like Kathleen Turner's great in it, but the rest of the acting, I feel like it's kind of phoned in. I don't really like Michael Douglas in this movie. Um, I don't know, I just— I really had a hard time paying attention. Everything is just so generic in this movie, I think.

Yeah, it feels really generic is a good word. And I can't tell if it's generic because we just have 40 years of existence after this movie came out. But it is really run-of-the-mill, and the scenes that I enjoyed were, were not the action scenes. I just didn't like the action stuff, and I really hated the sound work in this movie. Just loathed it, actually. The music and the—

Yeah.

Thumbs down for me on that. But the movie as a whole was fine. Keith's B-. I'm more of in the C- territory on this one, maybe D+.

But see, I think when I watched it like, you know, handful of years back, I probably would have been like an A-.

Yeah.

I was like, wow, this is really fun. And now watching it again—

Maybe it's the mood that strikes you. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, we know what we thought. What did the internet have to say? Well, on September 26th, 2014. Wise Guy Gabriel said this. One of the best adventure movies ever. This movie is the stuff dreams are made of.

Wow.

It has everything in it. Love, action, adventure, the eternal battle between good and evil.

Okay, sure.

The El Corazon is the heart of the movie. It's the MacGuffin. It's a MacGuffin. It's another goddamn MacGuffin movie where we're just chasing. It's like sneakers. We're just chasing a thing. The movie is one of Michael Douglas's, and he didn't use possessive. He used plural. Douglas S E S D O U G L A glasses. Do glasses. The finest performances. We all dream about adventure in our own lives, but. Few have the courage to follow their dreams because following dreams means risking everything to make that dream come true. Sometimes it's worth it if your heart is true.

Wow.

I love this review. Watch this movie and you will never forget it. It deserves to be preserved in the Hall of Movie Records. For all time and for all generations.

Okay.

Three found it helpful. One not so much. Ta-da!

That's a lot of passion for this movie. Wow.

I love the idea that there's a hall of movie records somewhere.

Yeah, that sounds awesome. I'd love to work there.

For all times and for all generations.

Mm-hmm.

Otherwise known as like a DVD.

Is it just like Blockbuster?

Yeah, that person was really impassioned.

Yeah, it's like, if your heart is right, follow your dreams. Like, wow, okay, that's not really what I thought this movie was about, actually.

No, not at all. It was like, screw over your partner, but don't, and you might get a boat.

Yeah, more like that, I think.

Not to be outdone, On September 10th, 2006, Trigger Happy, T-R-I-G-R-H-A-P-I, Trigger Happy had this to say. Terrible, period. All lowercase terrible. This movie is one of the biggest ripoffs I've ever seen. Hmm, let's think. Where have I seen this movie before? Hmm. Oh yeah, Indiana Jones maybe?

Oh, come on.

Only the Indiana Jones movies were fantastic. Romancing the Stone just plain sucks. I feel sorry for any of you who have commented on how great it was.

Wow.

You lead very sad lives indeed. This movie makes me want to commit suicide.

Oh wow.

Don't try to copy Harrison Ford, period. Ever, period. It's just not going to happen. This movie is the R-word. I'm not gonna say it. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. Never watch this movie ever. Boy, I went to this with like the benefit of the doubt, but now here I am.

Yeah.

I have to fill up 10 lines, so I'm typing randomly. This movie sucks awful. Romancing the Stone, who would watch it anyway? I remember being forced to watch it and going into a coma shortly afterward. 8 found it helpful somehow. 44, not so much. 1 out of 10.

That's a lot of strong hatred coming from that guy.

Wow.

Just too much.

That's too much.

I'm guessing Trigger Happy was an early teen.

Yeah, that sounds like a teen.

Yeah, I say he when they wrote it. I don't want to gender Trigger Happy. It could be an angry young lady as well.

Could be a 90-year-old man.

Yeah, we don't know.

I—

but the spelling of Trigger Happy leads me to believe that it was a teen.

Yeah, and just the vibe, the general vibe, the maturity level perhaps of the review. Yeah, it's not that bad. It's really not that bad.

No, it is. There's no way it's that bad.

The hmm's. I knew I was in for a treat when you were going hmm.

Yes, yes, yes. Well, we did it. We made it all the way through Romancing the Stone.

We did.

And that leaves us with like a few things. We got to get our next movie. Oh yeah, anybody's choice but the wheel. Yeah, the wheel's going to choose for us.

I'm excited.

And before—

Yeah, I'm excited as well.

Before we pull up the wheel, let me refresh everybody what's on the wheel. Okay, I'm gonna go from the newest editions to the least— the, the furthest away editions. So this wheel has 24 movies on it. 23, uh, unique. One has been removed, Romancing the Stone. So here we go from our most recent months. After Hours was a Terry suggestion. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Keith. Talk to Me. Oh, fingers crossed, Terry edition.

Yes, please.

Sky High, not the Disney one. My suggestion. Major Payne, Keith. Sniper, Terry. Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, Terry.

Yes, please.

Romancing the Stone was me. Take it off the wheel. Superman, Keith.

Ooh.

The Fast and the Fierce, please God, no, Derek.

I know that's gonna be bad.

Time Bandits, Keith. Chopping Mall, Derek. Time Bandits, Keith. Logan's Run, Derek. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Keith. Her, Derek. Fever Pitch, Terry. Hot Rod, Keith. Flashdance, Keith. The Swarm, Terry. Tommy, Keith. Dracula's Dog, Terry. The Last Dragon, Keith, and they shoot horses, don't they? Terry. That's what's on the wheel minus Romancing the Stone because it just got pulled. Are we ready?

Yep.

Here we go.

Oh my gosh.

Oh man, we were so close to the Fast and the Furious. Superman. Yeah, the most recent Superman, James Gunn's Superman, is what's get— was what got pulled.

Oh, that's right.

That is very exciting. It gives me an excuse to buy the DVD.

Yes. Oh, there you go, Keith. You finally got something picked on the wheel again. Wow.

Yeah, that's great. Now I'm screwed for next week, probably though.

Yeah, you used up all your— 2 years.

I used up all the mojo of the 75% of the wheel that's mine.

All right, boyos, good stuff. We're, uh, 1/4 of the way through our Oops, It's All Wild Cards month, and we're on our way to watching Superman and talking about Superman in a recorded fashion, and not just me typing out pages of, of like—

We have talked about Superman in a way.

We have talked about Superman. I know I've talked about Superman at length to anyone that would listen, and those even were reluctant to listen, I would still talk about it.

It's funny, just the other day at work someone was asking me what I liked about the new Superman. Oh really?

What you liked about it?

Yeah.

And now you'll be like, well, Well, let's go to the podcast. You can listen in a few weeks.

That's a loaded question. What do you like about this? It sounds like they didn't like it.

They prefer Man of Steel. I thought Man of Steel is much better.

Well, that, that's a preference to have, and that's fine.

Yep.

And I, I'm sure we'll, we'll cover that in a, in a week.

Oh yeah, we'll get all into it.

We'll get all up in that ass.

All right, super ass.

Uh, not Ronas.

No, no, we're not getting up in the Ronas. Nobody's getting up in there.

Ronasty, Clown Prince of Kansas.

Ronasty, I like that.

Oh, Ronasty's kind of cool, actually.

Yeah. Oh boy, I guess, man, we've done so much, and I guess that leaves us with nothing to do. but to end this the way we end everything.

Yep, I think you're right.

Billy Batson Sauce was a regular paperboy until one day—

Psst, kid, that cave's magic.

Huh?

Try it and see.

Intrigued, Billy steps into the cave.

Sure enough—

Young man, this cave is magic. To wit, I am a very powerful old man, and I am going to give you special powers which will appear every time you say the word SCROOPA. SCROOPA is an acronym, you see.

I didn't ask. So what special powers am I getting?

The S is for Sperms of Endearment. The K is for King Dong. The R is for Romancing the Bone. The E is for ET3: The Extratesticle.

Huh?

Those are all porn movie titles.

I've been in this I've been in this cave alone too long. I've forgotten the real list. Anyway, every time you say the word screw paw, you will become a ridiculous hillbilly with a magic mud puddle. Congratulations, boy. And here, take this empty mayonnaise jar with you. I don't want to throw it out.

I'll throw it out. Billy is extremely dissatisfied with his stupid new powers and vows never to use them to fight crime and injustice. Yes, I swear. Thanks for listening to Fumbling Through Film. New episodes drop every Thursday. Got feedback or questions? Email us at [email protected]. Follow us on Bluesky at Film Fumblers and on Instagram at film.fumblers. You can also follow Keith on Instagram at kg33lives and dadscardsdaily, Terry's on Letterboxd at Terry2099, And Derek's on social media at Derek, the number 9 and the word 9. All original music is produced by the Dr. Dre of Kansas, Terry. Hit him up for the bangers. See you next week as we keep on fumbling.