Death Becomes Her | Episode 26

Adam and Charlotte are joined by a very special guest this week, Charlotte's childhood friend Crissy. They discuss a film that left a lasting impression on both of them, the Robert Zemeckis 1992 classic, Death Becomes Her. The team gets into some of the intricacies of sound restoration, what films they didn't like as kids and even discuss Crissy's early obsession with The New Kids on the Block.

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Adam: All right. Welcome back everybody. We're back. We have a very special guest 

Charlotte: today.

Charlotte: We do an outta 

Adam: towner. Yeah. Charlotte, why don't you explain who your special guest 

Charlotte: is? My special guest is my childhood friend, Chrissy, who's in visiting. Say 

Chrissy: hello, Chrissy. Hi guys. Thanks 

Charlotte: for having me. Thank you. Thank you for letting us convince you to come on here and talk about 

Chrissy: movies. I'm very excited. 

Charlotte: Now, you wouldn't call yourself a big movie person, right? 

Chrissy: I'm not educated in the things that you guys talk about as far as, special effects and who people are but 

Chrissy: I love good entertainment and, I love to learn about what you guys do. So I'm excited to be here. 

Adam: You took her on a trip this week, right? To work with you? I 

Charlotte: did. Because when people come to visit me, I say, I'm bringing you to work because I just can't get enough. For anyone joining us for the first time I work in film restoration, Sometimes work is just watching movie.

Charlotte: That's a real simplification of what it is. But you can go and see a movie and this past week we happened to be doing the audio in a couple of films. So one was a campy sci-fi film and the other was a full on restoration of a classic film. So you got both ends of the spectrum.

Chrissy: It was very exciting to be there. You kind of acted like, I shouldn't be impressed, but I left there very impressed. And even more interested in, what you do and to see how, not just the audio gets restored, but maybe next time I come out how the picture gets restored yeah. 

Charlotte: You were saying that you wished you could go to a picture review session. Absolutely. We only had the audio so to be a little bit more descriptive about what exactly we were doing with the audio, when I'm preserving or restoring a film or working on the ReSTOR.

Charlotte: We evaluate several sources and we pick the best one. Or sometimes it's a bit of this, one bit of that. One, if things are missing from one element and not the other, and we let the engineer go in and do some cleanup work.

Charlotte: And then what we do is we go in and we watch the film with the audio and we write notes and we fix things and that's what you got to see us 

Chrissy: do. I feel like it was a lot more than that. Seeing how, you can hear the smallest little ticks or blips or know, you come away with this huge pad of notes and, we go back through and absolutely. Things that I could not ever dream of hearing. Now, I probably will hear, I know it's 

Charlotte: one of those things you can't un unhear pops and ticks after you learn to hear them. 

Adam: What did you say is the most common imperfection in a soundtrack? Is it the popper tick, do you think? Or, is it the noise floor. 

Charlotte: It's really all of that. It depends on the element, it depends on what kind of element it is. The age of the element all of that stuff's gonna be in and how well it was taken care of.

Charlotte: So I don't know that there's one more prevalent than another. But by the end of the session you were hearing stuff? Absolutely, yeah. We would just, I would say a time code and the engineer would just play the clip. I wouldn't say what it was and you knew exactly what it 

Chrissy: was. Yeah, it was very interesting too, to look down, cuz we're sitting behind him and a little above that we can see those blips in the wave on his, yeah, I'd have the, on 

Charlotte: his lap, the wave form, and then we'd go in with a spectrograph.

Charlotte: So it was all different like a rainbowy colors and you can actually see where the pops or ticks or if there's a dropout in the sound. 

Chrissy: And how he magnified. He would, go in and magnify one little. Spot and be able to really narrow into 

Charlotte: where it was. Yeah.

Charlotte: It's incredible what they're able to do.

Charlotte: Next time your here, we'll have to schedule some picture reviews or maybe we'll have another audio review and we'll give you a quiz. See if you remember what. Yeah, I look forward to it.

Charlotte: So Adam, what are we talking about today?

Adam: Today we're going. Focus on one specific film, and that's not something we do often. But this came about in conversations. We were trying to come up with topics that we could talk about with Chrissy and you guys were discussing films that you watched a lot. It's children movies that you watched over and over again.

Adam: And the one that kept coming up was Death Becomes Her the Robert Zeus film from 1992. 

Chrissy: Definitely a favor for both. Love It. Yeah. 

Charlotte: Such a good movie and it holds up as an adult. Yeah, 

Adam: it's absolutely fantastic film pioneering for its time period.

Adam: But what was it about this film that drew you to it as kids? And I'll ask Chrissy 

Chrissy: first. We were looking at the year of the film and how old I was, just to try to put my head in the right place about. What kind of person I was at that time, we kind of come up with nine, 10 years old and it kind of impressed me a little bit.

Chrissy: I always felt like I was a really shy, timid kid that maybe was a little scared of things at times. But when I watch this film again and you see. All the happenings of the film. Mm-hmm. I'm like, dang, I'm kind of proud of myself.

Chrissy: I love this film. I love the stuff that went on. And it excites me as much to watch it today as it did when we were 10. Yeah. Yeah. 

Adam: Thematically, it's a little darker. It's a little darker than a lot of, things that you would consider kids fair, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Charlotte: And it wasn't necessarily a kid's 

Adam: film. no, No. I don't think it was made for 

Charlotte: kids. Not at all. Even though it's very zany and very loony tune at time, I would say a lot of the, or maybe Roger Rabbit esque. Yeah, there you go. There's even a Jessica Rabbit esque 

Adam: character. Is that what drew you to a Charlotte the kind of over the top special effects, or what was it?

Adam: Yeah, I think 

Charlotte: I've always liked dark comedy, but I've also always liked horror, so I've always been drawn to that sort of thing. It wasn't really scary, but it it deals with the occult a little bit. 

Adam: Yeah, very mildly. But yeah, I think you're right. This is what people call a gateway film.

Adam: Mm-hmm. Now it's a, movie that deals in darker themes horror aspects, but deals with it with a light touch. 

Chrissy: Definitely a light touch because looking back at horror movies that I remember seeing when I was a kid, I was that kid that was like, I'm gonna watch this cuz I'm cool like that.

Chrissy: But I was watching it through like pure, peaked fingers and this is absolutely true. Yeah. Absolutely. So 

Adam: you were drawn to it. 

Chrissy: I was definitely drawn to it. This one had enough comedy in it to keep it light.

Chrissy: But yeah, other horror films that we watched when we were kids, I would've never admitted that I didn't wanna watch them. But like I said, this one had, a different feel than anything else. And when you guys were asking me what films really stuck out when we were kids 

Chrissy: several of the movies came back to this director and looking at the list of movies that I've compiled, he's, four out of 10 of them. Yeah. And you had no idea. I had no idea. So that's exciting to me. 

Adam: Alright. What other films then by 

Chrissy: Zeek? Looking at Back to the Future, Roger Rabbit, of course.

Chrissy: Forrest Gump. Yeah. Who can't say that you haven't seen that 20 times? People that are our age. 

Yeah. 

Adam: Yeah. Charlotte can recite it word by word mostly. It's got such a great soundtrack. 

Charlotte: Yeah. And loves the soundtrack. 

Chrissy: Oh yeah. My family and I, if you watch it with us, I don't know that there's too many scenes where we aren't.

Chrissy: Repeating, yeah. The first 

Charlotte: time I saw Forrest Gump, I did not want it to end. And it was a really long movie, so I got plenty. But I remember thinking, don't end. Don't. And I don't know why. I just don't. 

Chrissy: It doesn't have to because you can just hit that button again and play it again.

Chrissy: Sure. 

Charlotte: We might have had to return it to the video story then. 

Adam: Yes, for sure. Hey, when I met you, you still had the double cd, do you remember? Yeah. The Double Force Gum soundtrack that opened on both 

Charlotte: sides. Yeah. And I think they released a part two of that soundtrack. Did we ever own that?

Charlotte: Yeah, I owned that too.

Adam: so here's the synopsis for Death Becomes, or 1992, directed by Robert Ekk. With a t r T of 104 minutes. Madeline is married to Ernest, who was once arch rival, Helen's fiance, after recovering from a mental breakdown, Helen vows to kill Madeline and steal back earnest.

Adam: Unfortunately, for everyone, the introduction of a magic potion causes things to be a great deal. More complicated than a mere murder plot 

Charlotte: starring Merrill Streep. The St. Striper. The St.

Charlotte: Striper. Goldie Han 

Chrissy: Bruce Willis 

Charlotte: and Bruce Willis. 

Adam: Yeah. It was a role that he wasn't known for on screen. Yeah. It was the helpless nerd. Yeah. He was a pathetic human being in this one.

Adam: No action. Super comedy role. He's really good too. And his 

Charlotte: scream. Can we talk about his scream? 

Chrissy: How many did we count? 

Adam: Did you 

Charlotte: have four? Yeah, 

Chrissy: I think four. Four screams. Yeah. And they are awesome. 

Adam: They're so not in character for Bruce 

Charlotte: Willis. They're very nerdy screams. 

Chrissy: Yeah. I actually questioned whether it was his voice or not, but when we rewatched it, it's absolutely him. Yeah. The 

Charlotte: first time I heard the scream, I thought it was Meryl Streep. 

Adam: I thought it was your brother.

Charlotte: It does actually sound like my brothers scream. 

Adam: Charlotte always used to make her brother scream really high pitched in all of the films that she made as a kid. 

Charlotte: Yeah. All our short films, there was always a shot. My brother would turn around and look right at the camera, let Rip with a scream. High pitched Howell.

Chrissy: We were actually joking the other day that might be one of the reasons for some of my hearing loss. Yeah. 

Adam: Did you ever help out on those as a kid? 

Chrissy: I don't remember helping out much when she had the video camera, but I know that we did a lot when her mom had the video camera. When we were much younger.

Chrissy: Yeah. We had the 

Charlotte: vhs. It was a JCPenney model. 

Adam: Yeah. Those things were huge, right? Yeah. Huge. Oh, huge. Yeah. That was my first one too. I did Suspicious Minds on that one. 

Charlotte: That's an Elvis Presley song. Yeah. You didn't do 

Adam: that. My movie was about Elvis's severed head falling from the sky.

Adam: What, and needing to drink blood to stay alive. What? That was my version. His head was alive. My version of, suspicious minds. You shot this? I did. It's on vhs. We have it in the back room. I just found it yesterday.

Adam: Should it be unearthed? Oh, it should be. It's hilarious. It's way too long. It's like 45 minutes. Oh yeah. No, I need to be condensed. How about edit that? Is that what I'm hearing? It needs to be condensed into a nice 10 minute 

Charlotte: version. I'm sorry, did you say four to five minutes? No, that's what I think I heard.

Charlotte: So Chrissy, what's your favorite part of the movie? That becomes her?

Chrissy: I'd have to say. My first real giggle and memory burst, that kind of brought me back to the moment is, Bruce is fighting with his wife at the top of the stairs and he lets her go in a moment of guilt, and he wants to take it back and then he realizes, oh, this is my moment.

Chrissy: And he just boop, just hits her with his finger, 

Charlotte: yeah. He lets her fall down the stairs instead of helping her. Yeah. Back up. 

Chrissy: Yep. He was, but 

Adam: actually pushes her with one 

Chrissy: finger. Pushes her with one finger. Finger. One finger. Yeah. Yeah. So that's probably a favorite part for sure. And probably the scene where Meryl Stre bends over and, pierce through the huge hole in Goldie, HN in, in Goldie, Han's abdomen.

Chrissy: That's a cute little spot that sticks out. I love when 

Charlotte: Goldie Han gets shot with the gun and then she, It's got that big hole that she stands up from out of the fountain that she's in, and water is just gushing out of her. Yeah. And at first you just see, 

Chrissy: at 

Charlotte: first you just see the water gushing out and then she turns and you can see that there is a hole there.

Charlotte: And you see Bruce Willis and Meryl Streep through the hole. 

Adam: Yes. Framed perfectly in that hole. It's awesome. 

Charlotte: And when you think about how they did that effect back then, it's really impressive. 

Adam: They were pushing cgi. At that point. 

Charlotte: Even the practical effects in the movie are great because the suit that they had, Goldie Han in the Fat Suit.

Charlotte: The Fat suit, which they called the material flabbergast and they said it was like, jello, that looks great. I think it does. She looks really good. I 

Adam: think 

Charlotte: she hams it up too. Oh, she's 

Chrissy: awesome. It's everybody unbelievable. 

Adam: Everybody hams it up in this movie. Yeah. Everybody does that up.

Adam: That's kind of the appeal. I think everything is just so heightened in this film. Everybody's acting at 11. 

Charlotte: Especially Bruce Willis. 

Adam: You just like that scream. 

Charlotte: I do love the 

Chrissy: scream, 

Charlotte: but I also love, he's got this makeup on where he looks pale and he is sweaty the whole time, but he's always yelling like this.

Charlotte: Yeah. He's always gone the whole time. He's out of breath and just his voice is breaking. Yeah. At his wits ends. 

Chrissy: Yeah. 

Charlotte: And he feels so bad for him, 

Chrissy: but he's also kind of an idiot. Oh, he's a total, I'm gonna say I don't feel bad for him. Yeah, you don't. No, 

Adam: I think he's a total idiot. 

Chrissy: He, left this, sweet little innocent woman for, the star of the show that's set out to steal the husband and you get what you get grass it and always greener on the other side.

Chrissy: That's true. 

Charlotte: One thing that both you and I really admire about Roberts Mecu Adam is the fact that when he does a movie, he wants to do things that don't exist and then he creates the technology to be able to do these things.

Adam: Yeah. He'll come up with a concept and there's no way to do it until he figures it out. James Cameron's kind of the same way. And I really respect that, cuz it's the technology that really drives filmmaking. 

Charlotte: But with still such an emphasis on the story. 

Adam: On story.

Adam: Yes, absolutely. Cuz Zeus was also a writer too. He would always tell very real stories, but driving technology to do it. 

Chrissy: One movie. I was really surprised looking at the list of his movies, Castaway, that's a huge movie. That everybody talks about and repeats things that were said in the movie.

Chrissy: Wilson. Yeah. Everybody knows Wilson, right? 

Charlotte: Yeah. There was a funny story from Death Pacus when we were watching the making of, where Zeus was talking to the writer and he asked him to put in a scene where someone fell down the stairs, and hit their head on the stairs. And David Kepp said, can you do that? Can you film that? And he said, no, 

Adam: but I'll figure it out.

Adam: Yeah. 

Chrissy: We were watching some of the behind the scenes footage, most people have only heard of green screen and watching the making of it was all blue then. And just watching Meryl Streep with, that blue hat over her head so they could twist her head around backwards and she had to film every scene twice, once forwards and once backwards.

Adam: Yeah. I loved when she was telling that story about how her mom was on set and she's like, honey, why do you have a blue bag over your head? Bag over your head? They pay you all this money to act on screen and you got a blue bag over your head. I thought that was really funny.

Adam: Yeah, it was. I think the fact that he got such great actors to be in this film is a testament to his storytelling. 

Chrissy: One of the greatest parts. At the very end when the girls, when they fall down the stairs and they break into a thousand pieces and their heads are spinning and yeah, the sound effect is like a saucer spinning on the table.

Chrissy: As Goldie, Hans. Goldie, Hans. Yeah. Head spins back into frame. That was great. 

Adam: Yeah. And they're stuck, broken for the rest of, eternity. Yeah. What's 

Charlotte: great is they're leaving a funeral and they're walking towards the steps and they're yelling at each other for losing a can of spray paint, and we can see clearly that the spray paint is on the steps that they're walking right towards.

Charlotte: That does, that's just good filmmaking. 

Adam: I think that's a much better ending than I guess, the original ending. 

Charlotte: This had a different 

Adam: ending. Yeah. Originally we read about this originally once Bruce Willis gets the vial and escapes from Isabella Rossini's house, he drive to his local bar where he, had a.

Adam: Budding romance with the bartender there. 

Chrissy: And I guess they had taken that out of the beginning of the movie too, because I don't remember that in the beginning of the movie. 

Adam: I, yeah, I think there was a scene that set this up at the beginning of the film. The scene earlier is where they would've set up that there's a regular there who's always at the end of the bar and he's always passed out drunk.

Adam: And this time he wakes up and he has a heart attack on the bar. And Bruce 

Chrissy: Tupe falls off. Yeah. Yeah. That was in the 

Adam: notes. In order to escape from being. Goldie Han and Meryl Streep's slave for the rest of eternity. He fake his own death and then ends up marrying the bartender. A head 30 years, 

Adam: meryl Streep and Goldie Han are sitting in Paris looking at this old couple that are in love and they realize it's him. And then when they start running towards them, they get hit by a bus and break into a million pieces. Oh, okay. That was the original ending, it didn't test. Well, That's the reason that they removed it and then refiled and I think the ending that they have is way superior to that.

Adam: They said it was just like a letdown, it was too happy of an ending. This one had to have that kind of easy comics twist to it.

Adam: So in 1993 there were only three films up for Academy Awards. For what? Best visual effects. What? Yep. Only three Alien. Three Death becomes her and Batman returns. So Death Becomes Her Beat. Alien and Batman. Beat Alien. Three. Yeah. Batman two. Batman. Two. 

Charlotte: It's the only original. You know why it won, 

Adam: right? Why did it win Charlotte? 

Charlotte: It's that scene with Meryl Streep with the boobs. Oh, yeah. The boob lift. Yeah. After she takes the magic potion and her butt lifts up and then her boobs lift up, which was all practical effects. Actually. It wasn't even, 

Adam: it wasn't even a visual effect. I mean it was visual.

Adam: It was visual, 

Chrissy: That counts, right? Yeah. Charlotte, I would like idiots. I would like to think that we are that close in friends, that if I ever needed a boost, you would just help me out. Get up in there. The story 

Charlotte: is that they had a, what did you 

Adam: read? A pneumatic bra that they built and they didn't like the way it looked.

Adam: It didn't look natural. 

Charlotte: Yeah, it looked too weird. One of the guys stood behind her and just manually lifted him up one at a time. 

Adam: Time. It was her time. It was her makeup artist that did it. Yeah. She's an 

Charlotte: actress. She's professional. Okay. Not a big 

Chrissy: deal. It was great when we read that we had to watch it again and Yeah.

Chrissy: You're looking for looking for the hand. See it. Where is it? Where is it? Yeah, it was great. It was,

Chrissy: I have to say there's a part that I did not like a special effect that stuck out to me. Uhoh. During the scene where they're sword fighting with the shovels next to the fireplace. Goldie Han hits Meryl Streep straight over the head, and her head sinks down into her shoulders 

Charlotte: and it has that cartoon and 

Chrissy: And it has this ripple effect around her neck.

Chrissy: And it's kind of shocking because the following scene where she picks her head up is amazing. The effects that they used in that moment were so good that it shadows the moment before. And maybe that kind of brings, all more fun to it, is that it was really ridiculous how it sunk down in her body like that.

Chrissy: Yeah. 

Adam: It was really cartoony. It was, but I agree with you. I think they could have probably done that better. Yeah. It doesn't look very convincing. Yeah. The 

Chrissy: color's off a little bit. It almost seems like an insert. It is because I different actually saw a picture of her and where it's pulled down further and you can see her actual skin underneath.

Chrissy: So it's an actual piece that they added in between her and her clothes. 

Adam: Nowadays they would do that practically like they did back then, but they would blend it with a digital effect Mm-hmm. to make it look more natural.

Adam: And I think that's what we're responding to is that unnaturalness. It looks very physical on the edges. On the 

Charlotte: edges. 

Chrissy: Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. Nitpicking though, right? Yeah. If you had to find something, this is a great movie and that's absolutely nit thinking. 

Charlotte: I think Bob's Mecu would give you a pass for that.

Adam: Yeah. We've been talking a lot about Bruce Willis. Did you know that Kevin Klein was originally scheduled to be Ernest in 

Charlotte: this film? That can you imagine 

Adam: it would be a totally different film. Totally different film, yeah. But he ended up bailing at the last minute to do that movie Dave from 1992, where he plays the president.

Adam: Yeah, I know. 

Chrissy: I'm not familiar with him at all, but I can definitely say that watching Bruce Willis in this movie makes me sad that we haven't seen more of the side of him. 

Adam: Yeah. I do like the goofy side. 

Charlotte: After Kevin Klein dropped out of the project, they were considering Nick Nte for the role, and then they were considering Jeff Bridges 

Adam: I'll tell you what, nobody plays a drunk better than Nick Doty.

Adam: Jeff Bridges 

Charlotte: could have done it too. Yeah. 

Adam: Jeff Bridges can do anything. That guy's amazing. Yeah. Imagine the dude, 

Charlotte: but yeah, with a job. 

Adam: Yeah. I, the hot wife. Can you imagine the dude playing that character? He would just like not be bothered by these women. 

Adam: It would be a completely different dynamic, 

Charlotte: He would not have spilled his own beverage towards the end, whenever the ladies are trying to drug him with a drink because he is an alcoholic and he spills a drink everywhere. He is walking away and talking 

Adam: and then dumps it out. The dude wouldn't have done that.

Adam: Dude. Never dump it out. No. Neither would Nick Nolte. He would've drank that drink. 

We're 

Charlotte: talking about the Big Lebowski. 

Chrissy: All right. Just making sure. Familiar with that one all for sure. All right. Did you 

Adam: know that this movie was originally supposed to be Tales from the Kryp? ZECs was part of the production team behind Tales from the Crypt, and they were looking to segue from the H B O TV show into feature films that were based around the concept of Tales from the Crypt Can totally see that.

Adam: It feels like that. It feels like that kind of movie, right? It does. Yeah. I also read that the Frighteners was also considered to be one of those. I'm glad it wasn't. And yeah, from Dust Till Dawn was originally going to be a Tales from the Crypt film as 

Charlotte: well. Interesting. So why did they not, 

Adam: they eventually made one, they made Demonn Night, which is I think I've talked about this on the podcast before.

Adam: One of my favorite films. I just absolutely love that movie. But that wasn't until 1995. The show started in 1989. 

Adam: Oh, can we talk about Sidney Pollock showing up in an uncredited role as a doctor? 

Charlotte: Yeah. I'm not even sure I knew he was in it. Yeah. Because the last time I saw this film, I was a lot younger. Yeah. 

Adam: I don't think I even knew who Sidney Pollock was.

Adam: But he's really funny in 

Charlotte: it. He's an incredible director of Tutsi. 

Adam: did Out 

Charlotte: of Africa with the striper.

Adam: He was just coming off of directing Havana with Robert Redford. And I think he was between projects and did this as a favor for Zeus. Showing up.

Adam: Yeah. 

Charlotte: It was before he did the firm. 

Adam: Yeah. Oh yeah. 

Charlotte: He was geared for the firm. He did three days of the condo. Oh yeah. That's a great one. Three Days of Condor is an amazing car. Come on. It's Sydnee Pollock. He has so many, 

Charlotte: One of my favorites of his is the Slender Thread. 

Adam: Is that the one with Sidney PAE that we 

Charlotte: watched? Yeah. When he's working at 

Adam: a crisis center?

Adam: Yes. We, We watched that one. That was really good. Yeah. He 

Charlotte: works at a suicide hotline. Sydnee Pollock directed 

Adam: that. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah. That's awesome. That was a really good movie. Highly recommend that one.

Chrissy: I, ed didn't realize this when I was younger, watching the film. When it pans back through and they show someone coding, on the other side of the hospital it's actually him.

Chrissy: So he walks out of the room after he finds, no heartbeat and low body temperature on Merril Streep and he just panics and freaks out and he just goes outta the room and codes and dies in the next room. They're just working on him. Yeah. He 

Adam: has a heart attack. 

Chrissy: Yeah. Yeah. I didn't notice it was the same guy.

Chrissy: Yeah. And it is, it's the doctor, just cuz 

Adam: he couldn't deal with it. They were clinically dead and just went against everything he believed. Oh, also, Chrisie and I were watching this thing and someone figured out that Goldie Han's character says that she took the potion originally in 1985 on the day that Marty McFly takes off in the DeLorean. In 

Chrissy: fact, in the back 

Charlotte: to the Future. Wait, that's 

Chrissy: October 

Charlotte: 21st. October 

Adam: 21st. 

Chrissy: Yeah.

Chrissy: 1985. 1985. Yeah. There you go 

Chrissy: yeah, so they were saying that this movie was stuck between. Back to the Future three in Forest Gum. There you go. To see those movies All three side by side.

Chrissy: And this one stuck in the middle. It wa it was comical to see that. 

Adam: This was a departure for Z MEUs too, cuz it was a kind of lower budgeted film. Compared to 

Chrissy: those two films. 

Charlotte: That is an awesome fact about Back to the Future, by the 

Adam: way. Yeah. It was this guy Minty online that came up with that one, or that's where we saw it anyway. But I thought it was really fun. He said if it was a shared universe, then that was happening at the same time that this was happening.

Adam: That she got the potion anyway. 

Chrissy: How well did this movie do in the box office? . 

Adam: It had a very modest budget. It was 55 million. It ended up being what they call a triple 149 million worldwide.

Adam: It only performed modestly here in the states, though. It made 57 , so just barely over what it costs. But they made it up overseas, so 

Chrissy: if only they get credit for as many times as it played in our living room. 

Adam: I think it was a gigantic success on home video though.

Adam: Yeah, for 

Chrissy: sure. 

Charlotte: Yeah. The three principal actors, Meryl Streep, Bruce Willis, and Goldie Hahn, as well as Z Mecu and Steve Starkey all took lower salaries than usual in exchange for profit participation. 

Chrissy: What is profit participation? Adam, 

Charlotte: this was your, more your 

Adam: world than mine.

Adam: This was world, my world. Oftentimes in order to make a movie at a certain cost major Stars will do it for less upfront money in order to get points on the back end. So they get what they call profit participation because depending on the profit of the film, you earn money based on how much it earns.

Adam: So 

they 

Charlotte: make a percentage at the end, 

Adam: 5%. So it's rumored. For instance, in 89 when they made the first Batman movie. Jack Nicholson took very little upfront money cuz he was a very big star at that time and they couldn't afford him to make that movie. But he got multiple points on first dollar back and so he ended up making over $80 million in the end come out better.

Adam: Way more than he would've ever earned as an actor up front. It's not something that a studio will do that often. So 

Chrissy: there're investors in the film basically offer offering their 

Adam: time, basically. Yeah that's exactly it. Yeah. And they, and honestly, it it's a smart move on a studios and because they have a lot more invested in making this movie happen.

Charlotte: So they'll, but also the actors are gonna be more willing to go advertise do interviews because they want it to be more successful. 

Adam: The more successful it is, the more money they make. Exactly. Yeah. It's a very smart 

Charlotte: move. It is. But when you are going to restore a film, that can actually make things a little complicated sometimes.

Charlotte: Because when you have several groups of either estates that might own a film, they might dictate how much they want you to spend on remastering or restoring something. So sometimes that can interfere with things a little bit. Studio rights are so complicated. 

Adam: Yeah, they are. So this movie came out on the same day that Buffy the Vampire Slayer came out and it beat the living hell out of it. Oh, the movie? Yeah. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

Charlotte: The movie. I was, I thinking you were talking about the show.

Adam: So I was never a big fan of the movie. I actually really like it. I really love Paul Rubins in it. He's really funny. And his death scene at the end is hilarious. 

Chrissy: Yeah, I was a big fan. I was a big fan. Yeah. This movie, death Becomes Her definitely stands out more for me. But Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that's a classic of our time, for 

Adam: sure.

Adam: Yeah. Buffy only went on to make 16.5 million. 

Charlotte: I feel. At your house. Chrissy dropped dead. Fred came on 

Chrissy: a lot. Oh my God. Yes. Dropped dead Fred. He did the movie. That's a weird movie, isn't it? I'll still watch it today. I swear. You watch it. We 

Charlotte: have it in the back room. We'll watch it. I swear you'd put it on when you wanted me to go home.

Chrissy: Be like, oh look, at the time, not many people Sun going down to come to my house. And we were just discussing Is that my mom calling? 

Charlotte: Unless Drop Dead. Fred's 

Adam: on. That was the key.

Adam: When Drop Dead Fred came out, you knew it was time to go. Huh? Time 

Charlotte: to go. Yeah. It was the equivalent of turning the lights on at a bar. Yep. I 

Chrissy: didn't know you disliked it so much. 

Adam: That's why we're gonna put her through it tonight. 

Charlotte: Just, 

Chrissy: no, I'm, she's not gonna do, I 

Charlotte: got some dishes to do.

Charlotte: Laundry. Laundry and another roomy. Wow. 

Adam: That's a good strategy. Sweet. 

Chrissy: The chimney. Yeah. 

Adam: If I want something cleaned, I'll just put on Drop Dead, Fred. Yeah, 

Charlotte: I know where the Breakers are.

Chrissy: I promised to never put you through that again. I don't 

Adam: promise that. I'll do, I'll 

put 

Charlotte: her through it tonight. That was only as a kid, I don't know what I didn't like about it, but I just remember really not liking the movie. I 

Adam: just thought he was really obnoxious. He was right. Yeah. He 

Chrissy: was absolutely obnoxious.

Chrissy: I would 

Adam: like to watch it again, though. I haven't seen it in decades. Yeah, it's been a long 

Chrissy: time. Make believe friend, that she has and she finds 'em in her dreams, I believe, . And she gets in trouble her whole life into adulthood because she has this imaginary friend that will not go away.

Chrissy: And he does things to the animals. He does things to her mom's garden. He's just a huge trouble maker. Yeah, I think that's what 

Adam: I didn't like about it, was that she was his only friend. And he would get her in trouble constantly. Even though she said, don't do that.

Adam: Rude, I'm gonna get in trouble. So he is just a dick. Really? Yeah, he was. 

Chrissy: Yeah. I can't tell you why I liked it. 

Adam: Charlotte liked 

Chrissy: little monsters though. Yeah. I liked that too. We used to draw them a lot. You remember us drawing mainly like the No, you're thinking I real monsters. Oh, yeah. So I know which one you're talking about.

Chrissy: Yeah. Little 

Charlotte: monster's. The one with Fred Savage. Savage. And is it 

Adam: Howie? Howie Mandell is Monster Man. Mandel. Yeah. Yeah. Howie Mande. 

Chrissy: So that has the blue guy in it, right? The how he meant was he an alien or was he a monster? He's 

Charlotte: a monster, yeah. He's a punky teenage monster.

Charlotte: Yeah. They all lived under the bed and yeah, there's a whole world 

Adam: underground underneath the bed world. Which is cool

Charlotte: did you have a film that you just didn't like that maybe all your friends liked Adam The Crow? 

Adam: I wasn't that young.

Adam: I wasn't that young. Yeah, that was what, 94? Yeah. But, or was Everybody loved the Crow and they would put it on over and over again and I really don't like that movie. I did. It just had a good soundtrack. It looked cool. But I read the comic book first and I didn't think it was as good as the comic book.

Adam: It had a great soundtrack. I thought the acting was really bad in it. Yeah. 

Charlotte: It might have been the curiosity factor too, with the whole death of Brandon Lee during the shooting or the breath of the breath. The 

Adam: breath. Did he have good breath? 

Charlotte: No. No. Terrible breath. Terrible breath. Yeah.

Charlotte: That's bad. Was it halitosis? 

Adam: Yeah. Especially now he's dead. It's probably even worse. 

Charlotte: Yeah, it is. I heard Clark Gayle had bad breath too. I heard that 

Adam: too. None of the ladies wanted to kiss him. Yeah. 

Chrissy: You're making me wanna go brush my teeth. 

Charlotte: Yeah. I heard Chrissy had bad breath, so I'm not on the next podcast.

Charlotte: Chrissy, you wanna alt Alto at sports to live by? Never turn down a mint. 

Chrissy: Charlotte always had mints. Alt altos. Still Charlotte. Still 

Adam: always has mints. Yeah, she's an 

Charlotte: alt alto freak. This episode of Perf Damage, brought to you by Alt Altos. 

Charlotte: Alt So you 

Adam: hated the crow? Yeah, I don't like the crow. I still don't like the crow. You don't like the crow? I don't own it on any format. All 

Charlotte: right. And now how about a film you loved but everybody else hated? 

Adam: Oh, there's a lot of those.

Adam: I know I loved Sheena. That was a bad movie. It's terrible, but I liked it. You like a lot of 

Charlotte: terrible movies? Movies. That's actually not even 

Adam: a good question. That's not even a good question cuz I could just list 90 movies. 

Charlotte: Hey, however many you list, you have to add 'em to the letter box list.

Charlotte: True. So i's true. I'm just baiting you here. 

Chrissy: I have to say, now I have some insight on if I ever have to get you something for your birthday or Christmas that I know you don't have the crow. It's a crow. It's the crow. It's the crow. Yep. Yep. 

Charlotte: Coming 

Adam: soon. Coming soon. Definitely. Yeah. That was such an in, incredibly popular film when it came out on, not in the theater, it was actually a bomb when it came out, but 

Chrissy: I think if we're talking about movies from our childhood, I think it would be fun to tell everybody that, when we first started discussing what movie or what genre or subject we were gonna discuss today, it was a little hard in the beginning because, when we thought about our childhood, up until probably around nine or 10 we didn't really watch tv, we were outside a lot and making our own movies.

Chrissy: Making our own movies actually, which

Chrissy: it definitely, 

Adam: yeah. I was the kid that was glued to the television, so I watched What? No, I am the person glued to the television. So 

Charlotte: kid. 

Chrissy: Yeah. Big kid. Yeah. The television time that we got, much younger than that, was definitely short-lived, but it was on an Nintendo or I think we had a Sega, we had what other systems did we have?

Chrissy: Atari actually. We had an old Atari that kind of hung around. Maybe one of the reasons why this movie sticks out so much, it may have been, close to one of the first movies I can remember really getting to watch more than one time. 

Adam: Yeah. I think a lot of movies too that you remember fondly as a kid when you go back and revisit them as an adult, they don't hold up and this one does. 

Chrissy: And I can say it definitely holds up. Enjoyed it just as much today as I. 20 years ago, probably the last time I saw it, and maybe 30 years ago when the first time I saw it.

Chrissy: So I wonder if we 

Charlotte: had it on a recorded tape with another movie. 

Chrissy: Probably recorded over something that our parents were pretty pissed 

Charlotte: about. Probably because we had a tape at my house that had Hairspray and then Beetlejuice and that tape. We wore it out watching those movies back to back.

Adam: Have we talked about the compilation tapes before? I think we have. Probably. 

Charlotte: I think so. Yeah. 

Adam: Probably my mom, my sister had one that had three Amigos Beetlejuice and one other movie. Was it Princess Bride maybe? Yeah, that was another major one. So yeah, sleeping Beauty. I know she liked that one.

Adam: Yeah, she was a big sleeping beauty person. 

Chrissy: So did you guys take VHS's that were bought from the store and punch out those things on the side so you could record things off tv?

Chrissy: They had these little clips on 'em that you had to punch out of them so you could re record over them. And when my mom would go back through and watch certain ones and she wanted to see her movie, that she hadn't seen in a while, and it was like New Kids on the Block. It was on tv.

Chrissy: I do remember getting in trouble for that. Yeah. 

Adam: I had one of those tapes that I would record live performances by bands I liked on. It was just a big comp tape of, faith No More and Red Hot Chili Peppers and a bunch of bands that I'm almost. 

Chrissy: Of now. Did you hear me say New kids on the block?

Chrissy: Yeah. 

Charlotte: She 

Adam: got you. I thought you were owning that. I 

Charlotte: thought you were just owning it. She was owning it. You were. 

Chrissy: I was proud of the year that I dred over them. I moved on. I grew up. 

Adam: Who was your favorite new kid? Jonathan, of course. Oh, Jonathan. Yeah. I don't even remember.

Chrissy: You weren't a Donnie guy? No, Donnie was a bad guy. I was probably too much of a goodie then. Who is the little 

Charlotte: guy Joe? I just remember Joe McIn little one. 

Adam: Yeah. Joe McIntyre. I know these things. 

Charlotte: You do know these 

Chrissy: things? Yeah. Okay guys, this podcast is taken a turn for the worst. Yeah. About new kids on the block.

Charlotte: It has, and I think that is our cue. 

Adam: Yeah. Thanks for joining us and going down. Memory lane. Yeah. 

Chrissy: Thanks for having me. I hope another memory lane. Yeah. I hope it gives your base a little bit of an insight on who we were growing up. 

Charlotte: And to all of our friends who live out of town.

Charlotte: When you come into town, this could be you. 

Adam: Yes. You have been warned. We will impress you into being on this podcast. After a 

Charlotte: few drinks, everyone's willing to be on the podcast, 

Chrissy: but you get a cold push pin. You do. 

Charlotte: You do. Get a souvenir pen. Souvenir 

Chrissy: pen. I will wear it with honor 

Charlotte: anyhow, if you wanna get ahold of us, we are perf damage podcast gmail.com. You can send us a note on Twitter at perf damage. Adam's gonna go through and create a letter box list to list every film we talked about today, which won't be too much work for you this week.

Adam: I think you'll be surprised. I think towards the end we had quite a few. Yeah. I 

Charlotte: just try to name drop 'em, give you something to do. 

Adam: All right, thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time here on Perfect Damage.

Chrissy: What is profit per? What is Profit Per, I can't even say it. Oh, this happens to me. 

Chrissy: So what is profit per? I can't say. Yes. 

Charlotte: I fill outtake come out. 

Chrissy: It's here. It's made it, I'm not even gonna ask it. No. All right.