M-O-O-N. That spells, problematic. This week on King Me, the end of the world is just the beginning. We're talking about the stand.
King Me! King Me! King Me! King Me!
King Me! Welcome to King Me! This is the official program of King Me. It's the Stephen King movie podcast, don't you know?
Right, unofficially. Unofficially. Unofficially. I'm Dan Gagli, already.
I'm Rob Yvonne. And I have a cold, Rob. Are you okay? Yeah, I was always doing that intro.
I was like, people are going to think I'm a little brat. They're going to think I'm a little brat who steals sweets. I'm cresting the hill, I think I'm on the mend. So I'm going to do my best.
Allergies? Yeah. In a big way. Every year I forget that I have them.
And every year I'm like, I've never had allergies before. Yeah. But then I can look back. There's a long trail of tissues leading up to this moment.
Well, before we get started, I just want to remind everyone. Let's take care of the business. Yeah, so let's air out our clean... Yeah, let's air out some grievances.
Yeah. First thing I want to take down is you the listener. Because we only have 22 reviews on iTunes, and I know more you listen to that. We check the stats all the time.
Yeah, all the time, compulsively. But we do encourage you to rate and review the show on iTunes. It helps people find the show. You know, fans of horror movies, fans of movies in general, fans of Stephen King.
Stephen King himself. Funny things? Yeah, right. I think that's who this is most valuable to.
I think so too. I like to think so. At first, I was targeting Stephen King fans, which I think is the right direction. But also, fans of funny things.
Hey, we have crossover appeal. I think so. We have a lot to offer. But I think we are...
Yeah, we know less about movies than we do about yucks. Yeah. Probably. We're in the business of getting laughs and business is good.
So we do encourage you to rate review the show. We have one new review this week from Stephen King himself. What? The title of this review is I, Stephen King, approve from username Happy King Tears.
Yeah. As a master of horror, I'm pretty revered. Wow, holy shit. All right, do over.
Okay. You have allergies. I do. And it's attacking the language center of my brain.
Right. As a quote master of horror, I'm a pretty revered author, parentheses, and have tried my hand at being an alter to less success, maximum overdrive. I'm here to tell my masses of fans to listen to this podcast in caps. Yeah.
Robyn Dan are funny good boys who make even the most plotting nonsensical movies, a delightful romp. We're rompers. I love it. I love to romp.
Romp Avon. Anyway, none of that's in review. Or this episode with the addition of great guests, you can't go wrong. Even if they vehemently refuse to discuss the source material of the films, mine, Stephen King's books, that's me.
I would still recommend this podcast to everyone and anyone who enjoys laughing, film, or Javier Bardem impressions. Well, I don't know what they mean by that. Yeah, I don't know about impressions. Javier, friend of the show, Javier Bardem.
Yeah. Yeah. He's been on several episodes. Several.
I mean, if you get the impression that Javier Bardem has been on the show several times, then yeah, in that respect, there are Javier Bardem impressions. So as we said at the top, I think, in so many words, we are talking about the stand, a two part mini series. Well, Dan, before we get into the stand, I have a bit of business too. Oh, excuse me.
Oh, I'm sorry. We have a Patreon page, red door podcast. You can check it out. We have a link on our Facebook page.
Rob's saying his green mind is vanity. And this gentleman, he donated to our Patreon. His name is Franklin Kota. Hello.
We just wanted to say, thanks, Franklin. That was really sweet of you. And we really appreciate that. Yeah.
I think I do more. I get the feeling that I appreciate it more than you do. You think so? Yeah, because I'm on an empath.
Well, so I know what this sacrifice that he's making. I knew about this like weeks ago, so I've had more time with it. I feel like you're shooting yourself in the photo a little bit. And I love Franklin.
Oh, wow. See, I love him, but I don't love him like that. So yeah, maybe you win. Yeah.
Yeah. At any rate, thank you. Thanks for the fun. Thank you so much.
And for real now, we're talking about the stand. Now we can talk about the stand. It's a two part mini series from 1994. Yeah.
It won a prime time Emmy and had two nominations. No shit. Yeah, you want to. Oh, excuse me.
One two Emmys had seven nominations. We'd like to know what they are. Me too. I'll leave it up.
You don't want to know? No, that's fine. Outstanding individual achievement and makeup from any series are special. That's pretty specific.
Yeah. I feel like it went uncontested that year. Yeah. Cinematography.
Yes. Outstanding mini series. Best performance in a mini series. From who?
Gary Sinise. He didn't do shit. Yeah. He didn't do shit.
And I'm sorry. So the other awards were a fucking. There's some other screen actors guild and the Saturn awards, but some nonsense. As if.
All right. So the stand directed by Mick Garris. Now you might know Mick Garris's name. Yeah, I might not though.
Because we talked about him on the Sleepwalkers episode because he was the same guy. Oh, okay. And I probably brought this up on that episode, but I'll do it again. He directed Critters too, which is my favorite critters.
Thank you. Favorite number of critters? Yeah. Yeah.
There were too many. Is that is it like Critters too? Colin too many? No, I wish.
I don't think movie titles were quite so very. They weren't. They were just their own numbers. And honestly, I like that.
Yeah. Just when it's easier to order things on like a shelf. Yeah. I feel like as the Corn Kids series goes on, it gets more and more confused.
Yeah, it gets wacky. Urban Harvest. Yeah. Urban Harvest, which is the next.
Yeah. Corn Kids movie. Not the next movie, but the next Corn Kids is Urban Harvest. You would think it would take them many more sequels to get into the big city.
Yeah. So the big, easy. Yeah. Some Mick Ayers.
Mick Ayers. He directed this thing. Veteran, King, Director. How do you think he did with this?
Just overall? Honestly, I kind of liked this. Me too. Me too.
Good. And when we get to IMDB at the end of the show, you'll see that other people liked it too, like more than a lot of other things that we've done recently. Yeah. I was so nervous about this because it is six hours long.
Right. And which this is the longest movie that we've watched so far. Long Tommy Nockers. Was that four hours?
Tommy Nockers was four, even though it felt like eight. Golden years also four. Interminable. Yeah.
That felt like days. Yeah. That was really hard. That progressed in real time.
Yeah. But this six hours, and it felt like it moved pretty quickly at a good pace. Yeah. I mean, this is like an ensemble cast.
There are a million characters. Like before they all get together, they're cutting back and forth between a bunch of different people's storylines before they all converge. And it keeps things zipping right along. It really does.
Yeah. So let's run down this murderer's room. This who's who now? Of actors.
So we said Gary Sinise. Yeah. He's our hero. He's our protagonist.
You written. This is right before. Tom Hanks. I thought it was called Tom Hanks.
Yeah. Tom Hanks. Molly Ringwald. Jamie Sheridan.
Who you don't know. No, you don't. But if you go to his IMDB page, he describes him as virile. That's a very hard and said John.
He leads off with virile. And I say he, yeah, I say he because he clearly wrote this. Yeah. He's our antagonist.
He's Randall Flag. He's sort of the devil. I'm pretty sure he is the devil. He seems too easily defeated to be the devil.
He does have like, he's a bit of a whiner. He's a whiner, a diner and a 69er. Sorry. I know.
I know. I know. No, no, this is good. This is good.
We haven't done this in a while. And I like it. I like where it's going on. What the unhinged sort of approach to it.
Yeah. He's, I don't know. I think he's like a self proclaimed devil. Yeah.
He's the, he's a demon. Randall Flag playing a demon playing the Marlboro man. Yeah. Once again, we have that like that King trope of like evil southerners.
Yeah. Although some southerners are good. Gary Sinise's a southerner. That's true.
He's quite sexy. He calls himself a hillbilly. I think at one point, even though there are no hills in Texas. That's right.
Anyway, I don't want to get into topography. I could go off for hours. Laura Sanjicomo as Nadine Cross. Yeah.
Who thinks she wants to fuck the devil. At first. Yeah. Oh, that's a weird connection to sleepwalkers.
Like the exact same. Oh, yeah, yeah, rapesene playing out. Yeah. Yeah.
Like very similar. Oh, sorry guys surprise. We broke the streak. Yeah.
We got another one. Ruby D. Oh, you know what? Abigail.
Sorry to. Especially it's such a pivotal moment. But Jack Steiger, friend of the show, former guest of the sleepwalkers episode, actually, he pointed out that we never closed out townie profile at the end of last week. So technically we are still in townie profile.
Should we close it out? Yeah. Well, yeah. I don't think there are no townies to talk of, right?
No, there are no towns. Right. Frankly. Yeah.
It's like Boulder accounts. Yeah. But nobody's from there. Everybody just goes, all right.
We're closing. We're closing that townie. All right. Well, here comes Big Bad.
Yeah, that's plenty of that. And that'll do it for last week's townie profile. Yeah. Yeah.
Closing it up. So as you're saying, Ruby D as mother Abigail. Mother Abigail. Right.
Our, she's playing the most magical black woman of all time. Yeah. It's not great. We're going to see a few.
Some problems? Yeah. Some problems. All right.
Well, I loved it. She looks like Yoda in this movie. She looks exactly like Yoda. Oh, she's supposed to be 109.
106. Okay. There you go. Aussie Davis.
He's a good guy. He's a good time at the movies. Yeah, he does a lot with a little in this movie. Yeah.
He doesn't get that much. But I enjoyed his time. Yeah. Miguel Ferrera.
He's this he's the right hand man to Randall Flag. Right. I didn't rhyme. I said it like it did though.
Corin Nemec as Harold. Which one's that? Which one is Harold? He's the, the nerd.
Oh, the one that's in love with Molly Ringo. Oh, you mean the chisel jawline guy who's just wearing glasses? That's right. Yeah.
With like a few fake pimples on his face. Yeah. But only in the beginning. Yeah.
Yeah. As soon as he applies to the world ends, his skin clears right up. Yeah. You know what's great for your complexion is everyone you know, I stress.
Oh, we piled on to one person. Rob Lowe. Who else? Who else to?
Shani Smith. Ray Wollstone. I'll throw him in there. Ray Wollstone.
He's as Glenn. Which is he's like, I don't know. He's very good in this, I think. Ray.
Yeah. Yeah. I like them. I like them.
Fine. Bill Fagerbick. I don't know how to say that he plays our our simple guy Tom Colin. He's also the voice of Patrick Star, which is where you guys might know him from.
There you go. Certainly where I go from. I'm a little boy. And yeah.
Yeah. We'll talk about that though. All right. So what's the setup of this movie?
The the pitch, the synopsis is the world of Iris is on the East on the world. A virus called Captain Trips for some reason. Right. We can't explaination for that.
No. But reference to golden years? Yeah. Captain Trips is a thing that happens throughout Stephen King's stories.
I know we're forgetting for Ben to talk about the book, but I think it comes up in the dark tower as well. All right. Well, if only we can talk about it. Also, I think Randall Flag might be in the dark tower, although I can't remember.
But we'll never know. Not on this show. Find another fucking podcast. Yeah.
So there's a virus. It's basically like a super flu. Yeah. It's like a very strong version of the flu that's unleashed in a government testing facility, which yeah, we got in the very beginning, it's a government testing facility.
And there's a guard who is his name Ray Campion. I know his last name is Campion because it was very frustrating to hear people say Campion. Is that right? Can you hear me?
Yeah. Maybe something like that. But the reason I bring him up specifically is he is a King alumni. Oh, is he?
Yeah. He was in the last movie that we watched. An evil thing. I didn't watch.
Who was he? He was the deputy. The deputy that gets his ass kicked by. Was it really?
He looks so much older in this. Yeah. I have the hiccups now. And I've had them for a day.
Just hit a sound drop every time you have a hiccup. No, I'll be right back. What? No, I have to.
I can't do it. Oh boy. Do you want me to vamp her? All right.
Anyway, it's my show now. You got to believe I'm going to do the best I can for you. We'll get those ratings. We'll get those listeners.
We'll get those sponsorships. We'll get mattresses smaller than a mini fridge. That's how popular this show is going to be. They're going to be the size of what's smaller than a mini fridge.
Not a regular fridge. That's bigger. Maybe like a mini version of another opponent smaller than a refrigerator. A mini blender.
Probably a regular blender. Oh, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is in the movie, Rob. That seems worth mentioning. Forgot about legendary film actor Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Walk it around quoting Monty Python. That's okay. Why don't you tell the people what you've walked back in with? Because I see a bottle of Gatorade, a bottle of Red, and a bottle of peanut butter.
Oh boy. Is red flavored. All right. You good?
You back? I don't know. I doubt it. I doubt it.
So I was just telling everyone that was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Yeah. I know. Yeah.
Come on. He was the tall guy. He was that one tall guy with the bell? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. He was the one tall guy with the bell. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. He was the one on the Python. That sucked.
I hated that. Why? Because it was stupid. Why throw that in?
Yeah. No, it is stupid. But there's so many weird cameos in this movie. I know.
But like you could have just had him say something else. Like it didn't have to be that money Python quote. It didn't even make sense. Did you say which one it was?
No. It's Bring Out Your Dead. As the plague is befalling humanity, he's walking around with like a sign. He's like a crazy New York street preacher.
Yes. And he's ringing a bell and he's yelling, bring out your dead in New York, where everyone is just dying everywhere. Like it doesn't make sense. There's no pile of bodies nearby.
There's no cart. And then Randall flight kills him. Yes. For no reason other than that he was annoying.
Yeah. I didn't know that he had a. I don't know. It's weird.
Yeah. For him to do that, this reminds me very much of the Green Goblin Skeleton Bombs from the first live action Spider-Man movie. If he got one of those, why don't you just use it the whole time? Right.
It's an instant kill. Yeah. All right. So, okay.
Do we talk? Are you okay? I don't know. These hiccups are really killing me now.
A day. A whole day for hiccups. I know. But you're probably you probably have a tight six back now.
I don't. My neck hurts. That's it. That's all I got.
That's stupid. Just real quick. The guard, he doesn't close the gate. Sure.
Yeah. Let's do it. To the facility where. He's quarantining the facility and he tries to get his family.
I think he starts the lockdown and then tries to get his family and sneak out of the gate before it closes. His car scrapes the gate and he gets out, bringing the virus down to the world. Right. And also keeping the gate open, but that doesn't matter.
Yeah. The virus doesn't respect. Yeah. Chain link.
Yeah. So we see him swerving around the road. Driving through the gate. He makes it to Texas.
Arnet, Texas. Right. And he crashes at a gas station. Gary Sinesis gas station where he's a mechanic or attendant or something.
Some sort of guy. Some sort of white shirt tucked in the high waisted blue jeans. Yeah. Yeah.
So 501s maybe. That's a good look for the time. Yeah. And like, and the guy, the guard, he like, he basically like falls out of the car and he's like, you have to help my wife and get.
And they're quite dead. Yeah. They're just like clean skeletons. They're some Yeah.
And with wigs though. Right. And then the guard dies. Right.
And he's coughing and coughing on Gary Sinesis like into his mouth. Yeah, basically. And then people start getting sick or all around. It starts like with the gas station attendants and then it's sort of like, you just you kind of see it spread.
It's not like, I don't know. You see how the contagion from a couple years ago? It does sort of where what's the other one with Dustin Hoffman outbreak. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Like all those outbreak kind of movies where they're just like, all right, this is where it starts with his patient zero and this is how it spreads. Was this like a hot time for when did it was this like a bowl of time?
Like when people first started Ebola, it's got to be right. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah.
I thought it was weird that they made it the flu, but yeah, super flu. That's a real thing. I know. I could actually kill it.
Come on. No, too scary. I know. I was listening to Don't Get Me Started and a few episodes ago, they were talking about super flus.
Somebody was the guest for that. I forget. I'll look it up. Did you get into Don't Get Me Started?
Because when you search our show, it's the first thing that comes up. No, I didn't. I heard it about it on a different podcast and which gave it like some validity. Right.
And I was like, all right, well, I guess I'll fucking check it out. By the way, Don't Get Me Started hosted by Will Hines and Anthony King. It's a really good show. It is a really good show.
I like a lot. Yeah. So, yeah. So it starts spreading.
We meet Gary Sinise and his friends. I think the next person we meet is Larry. Larry Underwood, the singer? Yeah, probably.
No Rob Lowe. Because we see him. Rob Lowe's character is walking down the street and a bunch of adults jump out of the woods, start chasing them. Yeah.
And they beat him up. They beat him real bad and he's like laying in the street and the town doctor happens to roll through. And almost hits him, doesn't, picks him up, goes to might as well complain. We're drinking.
Oh, a little tasty. Yeah, just a nip. Yeah. I say warm in his 90 degree.
Yes. So he gets picked up. We find out when he gets taken back to the police station that he is deaf and mute. Yes.
Not dumb as everyone insists on saying, but M-O-O and that spells problematic. He is deaf and mute and gorgeous. Oh my god. What a beautiful man.
Like he looks, you said it. I was texting you about the movie and you said he looks exactly the same. He does. He does.
Like everybody knows what Rob Lowe looks like. But the the roast of Rob Lowe was just on Comedy Central like a week or two. No, whatever. So you mean the roast of Ann Coulter?
That's right. We're Rob Lowe just attended, I guess. But like red herring. Yeah.
But he's there. And he looks great. And you're like, Rob Lowe, he's a fine looking gentleman. And you watch him in this moon.
You're like, what is he? Was he? Have access to a fucking time machine? What's he doing?
It's incredible. And he like, because he doesn't have any dialogue really, he's mostly just like giving like kind smiles most of the time. It's a lot. It's a lot to try to wrap your head around.
Although when he does have dialogue, he totally fucking drops the ball. Where when he yells? Yeah. In his way.
Because in his dreams, he can talk right. And here. But in his life at one point, he's just like panicking. Because I guess it's like the first day that he's the only person living.
And he just like gives like a horrible like, I wonder, this is probably what a deaf guy would yell like. Right. Oh, it's pretty painful. It's rough.
Yeah. So me and just for context, this is pre grinder still. Yeah, we're not at the grinder. He's not on the grinder yet.
Then it's Larry Underwood, who is a, he's like, I was like a blue eyed soul singer. I guess so. Yeah. Yeah.
But he's like, but he just got, I think a number one hit or he just got his. Do you remember what it was called? It was also his license plate. Oh, no, I didn't touch that.
It's something about is it Baby on Your Man? Oh, man. It might be. It's the song that Randall is singing.
Oh, is it really? Yeah. Okay. It's a pretty tight moment.
I'm a righteous man. Some like, I think the hook is like, Baby on Your Man or something. Yeah. That's his license plate.
It's like that with all the battles taken out. Right. So he's driving back to Queens. He's driving through Queens's hometown.
Yeah. He was just in LA making deals and some other stuff. We find out that he's in pretty deep for some gambling debts. Yeah.
So he's just going to Laylow at his mom's house till things cool off. She is sick of his shit. Yeah. This has clearly happened before.
Yeah. Where he's like, just fucked up. Yeah. And he's just like, but soon ma ma ma.
Yeah. Ma I'm going to be I'm going to be fucking rich. Think of all the sauce you can buy. Yeah.
Ma ma. Oh, and that's good for him. Yeah. Who else is there?
Who gets set up? Molly Ringwald. Oh, yeah. Okay.
So Molly Ringwald is just a nice young girl who seems to be like, is she an adult or a teenager? Because she says she's too old for the teenager. Yeah. What's the same Harold?
Harold. Yeah. So I guess she's an adult, but in the in real life, she's only about 22 or three. Oh, okay.
So maybe that's it. She's like, like just graduated college and her dad is what's his name? I forget. He's their Kelso.
Yeah. He's from the drop just from scruff. I can never remember his name. But it's so there's just like a father and daughter.
They have a great relationship. They help each other in the garden. And Harold, who's like, he's like his nerdy. He's like our the closest thing we get to is Stephen King surrogate.
He's a writer in Maine. Yes. But he also turns evil. Yeah.
Which I felt I felt to come in the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. As soon as Gary Sunnis was like, don't worry, I'm not going to jump in and impregnate your love.
Yeah. I was like, yes, you are. Yes, you are Gary. And no, he's not going to be okay with it.
Yeah. So that's and so Harold likes her a lot. And she's like, you're too, you know, we'll always be friends. Harold emphasis.
Yes. And that's that's like those are Maine Maine characters. Oh, don't forget the part where he writes her a poem. And as soon as he leaves, she and her dad make fun of him for it.
Oh, yeah, that was that was rude. It was. I enjoy it. I do.
I don't know. I always sympathize with these characters that are like, like the heralds of all of these movies that are like, I love you. And they're like, well, do your buddy. Yeah.
Get the fuck out of here. So yeah, so those are people. And then okay, so then the virus is spreading. But really, the first hour of the movie is just setting up these people.
And that's like, I think we pretty much covered the first hour. Yeah, not a whole lot happens in it. So we have our people, virus is spreading. And then like, it's the their time jumps in the movies.
It starts in like early June, I want to say, or May. Yeah, when the initial like outbreak starts. And then we jump ahead a little bit and Gary Sinise and everybody in his gas station mechanics place, they're all taken into quarantine. The whole town is quarantine.
The whole town is quarantine. They're kept in these hospitals where all these guys are like those hazmat suits and stuff. And they're just watching everybody's dying. And they're just like watching them dying being like fascinating.
Yeah. This is quite interesting. And we're guys like, and we're very vomiting up his little cell. Just becoming an inside out boy.