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Jan 8, 2026 46 min

Anaconda (1997)

from Horror Movie Night Hosted by Geekscape

If you’re even a casual listener, you probably already know the drill: giant killer animal on the loose? It’s a Matt pick. For our first host-chosen movie of the year, we’re lazy rivering down the Amazon with a psychotic Jon Voight doing the worst damn accent you’ve ever heard. It’s ANACONDA (1997) time, baby! There’s also JLo, Ice Cube and Eric Stoltz, but this is really about the love between a crazy white guy and a very hungry 40 foot snake. Don’t yuck his yum, he’s just a dirty old weirdo who wants to get eaten. Join our Patreon Buy Some Merch Join our Facebook Group Follow us on Instagram Check our Letterboxd

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Anaconda (1997)

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You've been looking forward to this. All week, and with Cutwater's cocktails, this... ...took only seconds, because tonight's about catching up, not catching the server. Whether it's our Cutwater line margarita, lime and drop martini, or rum lai tai, they're expertly mixed, and ready before the snacks at the table.

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Love the way. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When you're advertising operations, Fallout of Sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business.

The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Heart.

This week, I'm kicking things off with 1997's Anaconda, where this pick is either going to come out super timely or like a fucking Led Zeppelin here, because we're recording this on December 2nd. On Christmas Day, December 25th, a remake comedy adaptation of Anaconda is being released during Paul Rudd and Jack Black. So I was like, let's re-watch Anaconda. And that movie could be the surprise hit of December into January.

Or it could have tanked so hard that already by January 7th, people were like, why are they doing Anaconda? No, admittedly, I'm nervous. I was excited. And then actually watching this made me nervous.

I was like, I don't know, there's comedies and meta approaches to pre-existing things. This happens in comedy a lot. There's like approaches to pre-... Lonely Island with Michael Bolton, right?

That's huge, and that's very funny. People love that. I don't get it in our care. And I'm like, OK, Anaconda is a movie in property that I'm familiar with, and now they're going to make a whole movie fucking...

And Jumanji is kind of like this too. That's very difficult. I think Jumanji, the first new Jumanji movie, I would literally say is better than the original Robin Williams Jumanji. I just think it's a tiny script.

The jokes hit better. It is funny in a way. But the difference is the plot of the first new Jumanji movie wasn't a bunch of people are trying to remake Jumanji. It's just that it's Jumanji again.

This one, it's like a bunch of super fans are trying to remake the movie Anaconda while they get attacked by Anaconda. And I'm like, that? And I just don't get why that would be the case. Oh my god, this is the case.

Man, talk about a joke only for the five people who pay for the video access. I'm sorry, everybody. Well, if you want to know what that was all about, then you can do it on Patreon. All right, so Kyle, if you want to write down the timestamp of two minutes and forty-five seconds or whatever, you make a promo clip.

Anyway, I'm hoping that it's decent. Like, I like Paul Rudd and Jack Black enough to want it to be good. Yes, right. Yeah, I don't know.

When I wrote it down, I was like, oh, they're making a new Anaconda movie. We should cover the first Anaconda. And then the more I learned about it, the more I was like, that's so weird. Yeah, and so Megan and I were watching, I think we were watching Good Mythical Morning because you went through and it has ads.

And she was like, the Anaconda, like the trailer came on. She's like, is this real? I was like, yeah, it's real, you know? It looks like sketch comedy.

Like it's like a really good one. This is anyway. It was fun to revisit this movie, though, because this is like, you know, we talked about this a little bit with the mask last week. But similarly, like this is at that prime time where we're still finding a happy medium between practical and practical.

And the best place to try to explore that is in 1997 in the water. There's no easier way to try to bring these two worlds together. Practical effects. But you know what?

Like rewatching us again. I'm like, you know what? This practical snake still fucking rules. Practically.

There's a couple, there's a couple mechanical things that they do with the like the spinning of people that they do physically and then apply the CGI upon. I'm like, oh, okay. So I still have to like make a spinning rig and like all this stuff. And I'm like, then that worked.

I didn't mind some of the curl up in the water, but there's a lot of things that do not work. One of the most iconic moments from this movie, I believe it was in the trailer, could only have really been done with CGI, which is the guy falling as the snake just like grabs him by the face. Like that is you using CGI the way CGI was meant to be used. Right.

Right. Right. We're going to, this kill has to happen and it needs to happen with the CGI snake or else we can go. Right.

So it's like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, not to like punch down on a movie that everybody already dislikes. That movie's just filled with so many moments where you're like, did we need to do a CGI ant hill? Like, is that like there was no other ways that you could build an ant hill? Like that's where I get out of control.

They have all the money and the time in the world to apply to that thing. Right. It's lazy. It's laziness.

And this movie might not be good, but it's certainly not lazy. So we start with what might be the longest most boring text crawl known to man about the history of the anaconda. Matt, I think you say that every time we do a text crawl and I don't think that this is the worst one we've done on the show. Like I can't remember about the history of anaconda.

No, I don't remember exactly what it was, but I know there was one for some obscure one and you're like, this is the worst text crawl ever. I don't remember what it was. I also hate when it's just a random out of context quote. Sure.

Like it was just like sleep with the children. That sucks. That really sucks. After we get past this text crawl, the movie opens with a mute Danny Trejo deciding he'd rather die by his own hand than face the wrath of some unseen creature that I assume is our title character.

Yes. Well, did you read a text crawl, Matt? No. Elsewhere a film crew is working on a documentary about an indigenous tribe to the Amazon crew is made up of and here's where you're going to learn how much I care about any of these characters names.

Eric Stoltz, Ice Cube, Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson. And Terry were and Terry were coming pretty soon off the the tail of a thinner, right? I guess so. When was the minute?

The thinner's 95. I want to say the 95. What does she do between those? Also, before I have had my IMDB app open on my phone all day because the top cast has obviously Jennifer Lopez as well.

John Voigt is the first one then Jennifer Lopez and Eric Stoltz and Ice Cube. John and Hyde for the non-whip British accent. And then there's Owen Wilson, Terry were the guy who plays Mateo, Danny Trejo. And then there's one other person.

He's Frank Welker. And he plays Anaconda. So he's top-looking building as Anaconda. So Frank Welker.

I'm not sure if you know this. Frank Welker, as of 2024, is the fourth highest-grossing actor of all time because he is just a voice actor who specializes in animal noises. So like, and she's voice like Fred for the Scooby-Doo franchise since 1969. He was the original.

What? Fred Jones. Wow. And it's continued to voice that character into the modern age.

But like if you scroll through his filmography, we've talked about him before on the show. But you scroll through it and it is just like voice of monkey. Like here, Star Trek 3, Spock's Scream. That was one of his credits.

So he made $15 for that? Yeah, like, TerraVision, he was the voice of the monster. He was the voice of the troll in the first troll movie. He was the voice of the cat and the troll in Cat's Eye.

So yeah, he made a killing being able to do animal noises. Dude, he's definitely the last of a dying breed, unfortunately. Like that isn't that there's no going to be another Frank Welker. That's crazy.

Yes. Unfortunately, but I'm sorry to bring down the fucking Anaconda. Thanks a lot. Frank Welker.

Yes, this crew of at the time like B-list celebrities. But after a storm, they find John Voigt, who is a snake hunter, who has stranded in the storm. And he promises to help them find the tribe that they're searching for. But no one trusts him until he saves two different crew members' lives.

One by killing a snake that was attacking them and the other by performing an emergency tracheotomy. He's the craziest jungle crew's skipper I've ever seen. Dude, he's crazy. He's got a whole gimmick.

I gotta say, ever since I was a kid all the way up until now, John Voigt giving Eric Stolts a tracheotomy is still the freakiest part about this entire movie. It's a fool. I'm watching that scene. Yeah.

I think two is in that moment. I realized this movie was PG-13. Yeah. Actually, I have a VHS somewhere.

It has a little holographic at the eyes of Anaconda. I think they did. Like a R-rated series. And R-rated series.

Cut R-rated release. But I don't think it had that much. I really think there's nothing extra in it. I think it was like that someone cursed.

It didn't add any kills. John Voigt takes control of the boat now that Eric Stolts is out of commission and forces the crew to join him on a quest to hunt down what he believes to be a record breaking Anaconda that he's been tracking with the hope of capturing it alive. They search the wreckage of Danny Trejo's ship and we see pictures in which Danny Trejo, John Voigt, and Mateo, the skipper of their ship, have all been hunting snakes together. They don't dive deeper into this really, but like you're led to believe that this skipper basically actively, there was a plan in place basically of like, let's get this camera crew to be our bait to catch this fucking snake.

Unfortunately for that skipper, he's eaten by the snake before anybody else. So things don't go well for Mateo. No. John Voigt then convinces Owen Wilson to help him catch the snake by using a dead monkey as bait.

But unfortunately the snake eats Owen Wilson. There's this shot shortly after the sea where the snake swims by with Owen Wilson's body still in its stomach. And that is like one of the things I have never forgotten from this game. I totally forgot about it.

I saw the CGI. Like I saw the snake which is obviously CGI, but it starts and I was like, there is no, I was like, this is bad. Like there's no texture to this. It looks like a rubber.

It looks like a hose. They just never had a texture to it. But then as soon as you see Owen Wilson's body just like shaped in there, I'm like, damn. All right.

That we were really that ruled. Again, though, something where I'm like, you could probably have done a practical of that and it had been even cooler. But put a GI Joe in a garden hose and just run around and then aquarium. Yeah, dude.

I feel like it would have been great. Exactly. But now that Owen Wilson has died, the rest of the crew has had it with John Voigt. So they tie him up and they try to get back to safety, but they get stuck by a waterfall.

And this is when Owen Wilson's girlfriend tries to kill John Voigt for revenge and John Voigt chokes her out with his legs. And then the snake starts to attack everybody. This is where we get the shot I talked about a guy falling out of a tree to get just snaked right in the face. Yeah.

J-Lo shoots that snake in the head, killing it and pissing off John Voigt. But John Voigt captures her and Ice Cube, drenches them with animal blood and uses them as bait for a much bigger anaconda. The snake, unfortunately, instead of going for J-Lo and Ice Cube goes for John Voigt, swallows him whole and then starts to chase down J-Lo and Ice Cube. But we get this iconic moment where the snake then vomits up John Voigt's corpse, who's like half digested, any winged Saturn before you can blast this to the ground.

It's pretty great. That's great. I know it's not a universal release, but man, I would kill for them to redo the water world, like park attraction at Universal Hollywood to be this anaconda. It's just explosions and fires at this point.

It would be incredible. You need a big snake coming up, you need the chimney, you need a few ladders falling, I think it'd be awesome. I don't know what the world is getting anaconda in there. Yeah, I think anaconda was much successful in the water world anyway.

But the day is saved by Ice Cube. The day is saved by Ice Cube when he pins the snake to the ground with the pickaxe and sets it on fire. But the snake escapes to the water, putting himself out and he resurfaces yet again, but then he gets a pickaxe to the skull that kills it for good. Eric Stoltz awakes from his coma, missing all of the chaos just in time for them to see the tribe.

And that's when they start shooting their documentary. Question, after a bunch of your friends were eaten by a giant snake, are you still going to shoot the documentary? You can't go any wild in my opinion. Just know the guard.

That ending should have been like, hey, there's that tribe, let's leave them alone and go home because shit got wild over less 72 hours. Yes, yeah, no, you have to go home. You have bodies to account for. You have people like, what is happening?

The only acceptable reason to go and follow that tribe at this point is if you are aware that you are actually in a prequel to cannibal Holocaust and that things are going to go well for you guys either. Don't like to feed your ass. Stop. Oh, God, all the time.

This has been a movie that I've had on my list for a decade. And every time I watch it, I'm like, I don't know if this is good enough for us to talk about on the show, nor do I think it's bad enough for us to talk about on the show. But like I said, I picked it because of the upcoming movie and I did have fun watching this movie, but like there are times where it feels like the longest 88 minute movie I've ever sat through. Like, yeah.

Yeah. It feels like it's entirely interesting. It's entirely interesting. I see.

I couldn't get enough of John Voigt. I love that accent. I thought it was awesome. And he's just a slime ball.

I hated it. I hated it. Well, I didn't hate this watch, but I truly did not enjoy the watch in 1997 and I did not enjoy it now. Yeah.

I'm in the minority of liking him and his accent. I don't know what to understand, but I just want to, as a camp figure, as a campy villain, he's, I think it's a lot of fun. When he blows up that like, damn, and all the baby snakes come on, he goes, oh, the babies, the babies. I mean, I feel like I can't even do the accent.

It's impossible. I don't know what it is. John Voigt there's something charming about John Voigt just going for it on such a bad call. Like he is for the commitment to this bad decision.

But he's such a dickhead in real life that I just can't look at him. He's got to separate the asshole from the bad decisions. And this is like, only John Voigt could commit so much to such a bad call. Yeah, fair.

It almost is like so bad that it turns around into good again because you're just like, you're an academy award nominated actor at one point in your career and this is where, this is what life has brought to you. Did you see what John Voigt got for a Golden Raspberry award for this? I did see that this was nominated six times at the Radzies. What did he get?

Well, I mean, he got worse actor, but the best one is he got worst screen couple with the Anaconda. He does love that. He does love that. He did win.

There's also the Stinkers Awards. He did win worst fake accents. No, the means to the Oscars, like is that the sort of the ratio? Yeah, yeah.

The relationship. Okay. What did he get? Worst fake accent.

Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, it's really bad. Yeah, I fully support their decision to. I wonder what the other nominations were.

The other nominees were. Were there a lot of bad accents in the next seven or is that just like a one off? I don't know. I'll have to check it.

I don't know the Stinkers as well as the Radzies. It was nominated for genuine awards as well. Well, as genuine as the Saturn Awards are. Yeah.

But it was nominated for Best Horror Film but Lost of the Devil's Advocate and was nominated for Best Actress and Lost of Jodie Foster for Contact. Now, the Saturn Awards, I believe, is like more sci-fi dates. Yeah. I would consider this like Saturn Awards.

What was that? I was wondering if they still do the Saturn Awards. I wonder if they still do the Saturn Awards. I guess they still do.

I guess they still do. Alright, cool. Yeah, still still active today. Good for them.

No, Scott. I'm sure you were about to go there for a second. But yes, this almost feels like sci-fi channel has built their entire franchise filmmaking off of Anaconda. Like, this is a major theatrical release of what would become known as a sci-fi original.

Thank you. Thank you so much for understanding my brain. Yeah, but I, and similar to a lot of those sci-fi movies, I think this movie, when I was looking at the critical reaction, there wasn't a lot of hate as much as just general shrugs towards it. I saw like Leonard Walton gave it two out of four stars.

And I was like, doing it four stars is exactly what this deserves. Like this is- This is Roger Ebert, like really like it though. Yeah, which is more than half out of four stars. What a nutcase.

Yeah. I mean, I gave it three and a half on Letterbox, but I know Ebert, dude. Yeah, it's, you know, it's general rotten tomatoes, scores like 41%. I think that that is like right on the money.

Like this is similar to so many of those sci-fi original movies. It's like not bad enough to be so bad it's good watching, but it's also like not good enough to be like anyone's favorite movie. It's just kind of like- Except for Jack Black and Paul Rudd. Yeah, there you go.

Apparently, you know what you saying? It's not somebody's favorite movie is going to get somebody who's like an Anaconda Super fan who's never heard of us, who literally just has like Google alerts for anything Anaconda to come up and give us a one star review for this episode. Okay, so this is a little gap. Like I did not know about- Okay, so there's a ton of sequels to this.

Yeah. Oh, I was just gonna- Okay, yes. Go for it. There's a bunch of sequels.

We've got Anacondas, The Hunt for the Blood Orchid. We've got Anaconda three offspring, Anacondas, The Trail of Blood. Then there's a whole other like Lake Placid versus the Anaconda crossover film. What?

Oh my god. But in 2024, there was a remake made in China. Like I don't know why China waited almost 30 years to remake Anaconda, but they did. And now we have this reboot, which has been in development since January of 2020.

But they finally made it in 2024. And the very quick summary on Wikipedia is that in August of 2024, Variety reported that Jack Black and Paul Rudd were in early talks to start a film, which is to focus on a group of friends who seek to remake the original 1997 film. I don't really know any of these people. Like Brad Fuller, what is this- Brad Fuller is from Hannibal.

Oh. Like he did the whole- Oh, he was the Flying Dunes guy. I was the Flying Dunes guy. I was the Flying Dunes guy.

I was the Flying Dunes. Brad Fuller is Flying Dunes. Yeah, so he co-wrote the script. Okay.

Sorry, he does not belong well. He does not belong well. The winner is Hush. So the writer of this movie is Kevin Eaton.

Kevin Eaton got his start as the writer of the late show with David Letterman before he became a television script writer where he wrote scripts for Reaper, Workaholics, and Scrubs. Okay. Well, I loved Reaper. So, you know, maybe he'll win me over.

I mean, I'm not seen in theaters, but when it gets deeper free, I will. All right. So this will give us a rough idea of everything because he also wrote and produced the unbearable weight of massive talent. Oh, okay.

Which was that page, Brad. That's the Nick Cage page, Pedro Pascal movie. Oh, yes. Okay.

Which, that sounds similar to what we're getting with Anaconda. Like very tongue and cheek meta movie. And I didn't like it that much. So I don't know what to think.

Yeah. I really can't wait to see Matt. What a great time line, dude. Yeah.

I mean, who was it that was back in a normal universe? Like this is this is this is not right. That's only 99 minutes. So that's something, right?

It felt long. And it was made. No, no, no, no, this was 99 minutes. Oh, okay.

Because 99 minutes. They're like, we need 11 more minutes to really justify getting Paul Rudd and Jack Black on set and Steve's on. Man, I'm like, Steve's on. He better up and I remember when I posted the trailer, I was really happy about him being a bad motherfucker.

I do the rules. Yeah, this movie's going to probably be dog shit actually. But whatever. I own these skies and it too.

Damn. What? I think she was even working anymore. She came out of retirement for this one, I guess.

Oh my God. The Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite Plus card gives me 15% cash back for the first three months up to $300. With cash like that, I can stream out free. Because I've got enough distractions, conditions apply.

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That could be anyone. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker. I'm just a neighbor. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing.

That's my responsibility. Talk to better? I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand new gay.

In theaters July 31st. You've been lost in the woods for hours now, stumbling around in the dark. You come around the bend and see two people roasting marshmallows over a roaring fire. They see you coming into the clearing and jester over to pull up a log.

Welcome to Campfire Ashes. I'm Paul. And I'm Jess. Join us as we tell each other our originally written spooky stories around the campfire and then dive into the lore and legends that inspire you to enjoy it.

So whether you're snacking, sharing, or just treating yourself, nothing else is Reese's. You've been lost in the woods for hours now stumbling around in the dark. You come around the bend and see two people roasting marshmallows over a roaring fire. You can find us on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, or right here on the Keepscape network.

All right. Well, double features. I'm going to go with an easy one. This is a matte Kelly double feature if there ever was one.

This movie follows a lot of the plot beats of the Creature of the Black Lagoon. So I'm going to double feature this with the original Black and White Creature for the Black Lagoon. Wow. I'm fair.

I think that's fair. I'm okay with that. Scott, what do you got? I feel, well, you know what?

I was going to say I feel like this is being unfair. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm sure. Well, you know what? I was going to say I feel like this is being unfair and taking a really good double feature, but I actually don't think that you've seen this one because you were not on the show yet, and I don't think that we have talked to you yet, but curse to the bite.

It's just going to really hurt. You want to watch that. Yeah. Just say it for when we do a re-rentals because it is so good and so gooey.

Yeah. Basically, imagine that little fake snake hand puppet that you had at the beginning of the episode that you can only see if you pay for our Patreon, but it's that and the amount of KY goo that's John Voigt when he gets regurgitated by the Queen Anaconda, at the end of this, but it's also like the fly. Oh hell yeah, okay. I mean, you're gonna love it.

I found a DVD copy of it out in the wilds. Did you know about it? But it was an out of print one and they won like 30 bucks. Oh, that's ridiculous.

No, it's not worth 30 bucks. You can get a Blu-ray with all the fixins for 30 bucks, you know? Yeah, yeah, so I think I'm gonna see if that one of our screen factories still has that imprint. But anyway, I'm gonna go with a very Kyle Pick, which is something that we watched earlier this year.

Crocodile. Nice. They feel like siblings because of the boys and the houseboat. I was like, great, in the houseboat.

There's a lot of more partying, a little less work, but a little less jungle, a little more like, Dio, where they found where they are. No, but that is a good, that is a good double feature. You know, I love to hear what other people's double features are if they find us on our socials, HMM podcast on everything, including Letterbox. Or go to our Patreon, patreon.com backslash, HMM podcast, where even if you just donate a dollar, you can become part of our Slack channel and you can tell us in the Slack chat what your double feature for the films were.

Man, let's make it a point. In 2026, after every episode comes out, that one of us is to go in the Slack and prompt, what would you double feature with this week's movie? Go and buy some merch from us, whether it's a hat, a t-shirt, a cell phone case. Let us know if you ever get a hard movie night, cell phone case.

Yeah, I know. I'm just on down the screen. Listen, I'm saying right here, the first person that lets us know with a picture that they got a horror movie night cell phone case, I'll buy you a second cell phone case. We'll send you a box of crap from Kyle's house that he doesn't want me.

And also just visit our website. A couple of those boxes just around my feet right now, one for actually a listener who lives near bike, which is a bunch of BHS tapes. One is for Goodwill, and then the other one's all the free blockbuster stuff, which sits upon a tote of Mary and Nat puppets. I don't know what's going on in this piece.

Wow, it's crazy. You're always such a horror movie. Mary and Nat puppets are mine though. I'm not sending those out to any listeners.

Sorry, you can't make me. You can't make me. Anyway, go to our website at hmenpuckus.com to see our entire pack catalog. And guys, the last part of our show, what did you watch, listen to, whatever.

I finished a book that I've been hearing about for decades. And I really liked it. It's not a book that I would normally read, but I was really enthralled by it. It was Bill Carter's The Late Shift, The War of Letterman Leno and The Late Night Royalty.

And it's kind of, it's literally like reading a 300 page newspaper article detailing every moment that happened behind the scenes. But I think you hear the story of Johnny Carson left, Jay Leno got it, it should've gone to David Letterman and Jay Leno's an asshole. And I still think that that's mostly accurate, but diving into this and the nuances and kind of all of the things that happen, the biggest asshole was NBC, who just fumbled the ball the entire time. So like the very basic gist is like, Johnny Carson had hand selected David Letterman to be his successor one day, which is why David Letterman had a show immediately after Johnny Carson's.

But when Johnny Carson was getting older, they had Jay Leno as what they called a permanent guest host. So anytime that Johnny Carson couldn't host the show, Jay Leno would fill in, and that really made Jay Leno more popular and CBS wanted to give Jay Leno his own show. So without consulting Johnny Carson, NBC signed Jay Leno to a contract guaranteeing that he would get the tonight show whenever Johnny Carson retired. So like you had two people given different promises to have that show at the same time without the other one knowing about the other deals that had happened and then it just became just chaos from that point on.

The highlight of the story being at one point, Jay Leno to get leverage hid in a closet when he knew that a bunch of executives were gonna have the meeting to make the decision of what to do next and took notes of direct quotes and then started quoting them back at themselves so that they would think that there was a leak within NBC. Wow. Like the level of mind games like this is crazy. And I did find out that I guess they had produced a TV movie about it for HBO that I saw was on HBO Max.

I think I'm gonna try to watch that later on. But yeah, this is fascinating. Yeah, was that movie recent? No, this was the back of the book came out in 94 and they made the movie in 96.

Oh wow, okay. Oh, I fuck with that even more. I'd rather watch a version of that from the 90s. Well, the crazy thing, let me see if I can pull it up so I don't get the guy's name wrong, is the actor who they, because I was like, I don't recognize the name of this actor who's playing Jay Leno.

But I immediately recognized the actor who was playing David Letterman. David Letterman is played by John Michael Higgins, who's like, for those of you who don't know, like one of the actors in all of the mockumentaries that Christopher Gess makes. Oh wow. That's great.

That's great. Okay, that's. And it's also starring Kathy Bates. So like it's got a pretty, Jack Williams is in there.

Man. We love a treat. Ed Begley Jr. This has got a really stack.

Wow. Oh, he's actually. Holy crap. Watch the shit out of this later on.

Yeah. That sounds great. Sounds great. Oh, Scott, you go.

All right. I wanted to talk about, good boy. I, I'm so, you know, what you said. I loved it.

Yes. I heard, you know, it got, so it was so funny because it got such rave reviews from like the festival circuit. And, and then I started to see people dog in it for lack of a better journey. You know, they were, they were really, they were saying woof.

And, and they were barking up the wrong tree with you. Exactly. And I think that, and it's even funnier because like the shutter comments, like the shutter reviews were like, if you want to watch a dog be a dog for 80 minutes, here's the movie for you. Yeah, no shit.

I want to watch a dog be a dog for 80 minutes. Like, I live with dogs. I can't get it. Yeah, exactly.

And so, indeed, the dog of titular good boy of the movie, he's not an acting dog. That's what makes it so endearing in my mind is that he's the director's dog. And I love that you don't see anybody's face through, you don't see any human's face except for, there's one part kind of like in a dating one moment near the very end where you get to see somebody's face. And it makes sense from like the screenwriting perspective.

And I thought that it was just a really great movie. It's probably top three for 2025 for me, along with companion and probably bring her back. Although I would definitely rewatch companioner, the boy before I watch bring her back ever again, because that movie is just grueling. But man, it just was such a delight.

I loved every minute of it. And I thought that I understand that it won't be for everyone, right? But like, it really worked for me. So if you, as a listener, can empathize with a dog, I think you'll really feel for, you'll feel a lot of things when you watch the movie.

There's like, just like, you actually feel dread, you feel tension, you feel sadness. It's not like a happy movie. It's a horror movie. And the way that it was presented is like, it's a haunted house movie, but then the survivor or like the, you know, the survivor, but the protagonist is the dog, it kind of sells it short, because yeah, there are supernatural things that happen, but it isn't like a bump in the night kind of, it doesn't feel like a bump in the night kind of story.

And I really liked that. I was kind of worried. It was like, not worried, but I was like, are they going to sort of like skin a morink it where it really is so low? It does feel like that.

It could feel like a skin a morink for someone who does, okay, I can see it getting the comparisons, right? Because of the scrappiness of it, the kind of the pacing, sometimes all the pacing of skin a morink is so much more grueling. I think that for someone who does not like dogs, it will feel like skin a morink. But it has better pacing.

It has a lot more going on. The skin a morink is so much more like here, sit with his dread for 80 minutes, you know, and you listen to sounds. Whereas this is like the very sound, it's very much a sound happy movie, because there's like, there is exposition verbally by the humans that are in it, but you really get the bulk of the story from inferring the dog's body language and wimpers and barks and like head tilts. And I just, I really love that Indy is like a bad dog, because you know, like his dad, the director, had gone on interviews and he was like, he was impossible to direct.

He like bit me, you know, he's real. And I love that. So it's a 10 out of 10 for me, definitely, or a 9.5. I mean, it's not a perfect movie, but it really hit a spot for me.

I love that. Love that. I was very eager to hear what you had to say about it. I've got to see it, but interested in what you thought.

I haven't given you all a Disney update. Oh, well, all right. I think the last thing I told you was that I watched Frank and Ali, and I really liked it. So we, but that was even pretty Halloween.

So I didn't really watch anything in October, November and December. We watched a little bit more while also still mixing in some holiday favorites. But as of right now, we did, we got the Toy Story was next, and we a 30 minute ruled Toy Story only because we had watched it really recently. Sure.

It's a great movie, perfect movie. We moved on. Tom and Huck was after that. We did not get through Tom and Huck.

Nearly any because after that, not because, but then after that was Muppet Treasure Island, which we gave the full walk through of. Oh, yes. And I haven't seen it since I was a kid on Clamfield VHS and oh my god, it really is great. I do think I like Muppet Christopher Scarl a little bit more still, but Treasure Island is fantastic.

But what I really want to get to is that we skipped over Homeward Bound 2 because I cannot stand listening to Michael J. Fox talk as a dog. It's fucking horrendous. The concept of the world of the better without the voices.

Without the voices. Without the voices. If they would have done the incredible journey or the good way, yeah, right. They have just done it that way.

Like I can't and he's just incessant. So we shut that one off pretty quick. I'm just watching time each week. We actually just watched earlier this year.

So we moved on to Hunchback and Notre Dame and I've never watched a Disney movie with the commentary. We chose to watch it with the commentary because it's one of Carly's favorites and we've watched it plenty. It was one of my favorites growing up and I've watched a plenty never actually sat and watched a Disney commentary. And it was really cool to like listen to particularly at this point in time Disney animation how they're combining different approaches and how they're layering both the hand drawn and hand paintings but then the computer generated visual effects to make these pretty incredible sequences.

Like when they're talking about it and I'm actually like looking at the breakdown of some of these sequences I'm like damn like they are really they there's a lot happening in that era of Disney animation incorporating all the aspects before they would lose some of them. Like before they lose some of what that hand painting or the hand drawing is before they move more into CGI and other visual effects. But Hunchback's a great movie. Hunchback.

Hunchback rules. That was when I came watch as a kid and then a couple of years ago I was like I want to watch every like theatrically released Disney cartoon. And I was floored by how gorgeous I ended up finding that movie. Like I was like oh this is really good.

It's really good. It's really beautiful. The music's good. Like Island Mankins in there and there's some great songs.

They're not so like earwormy as some of the other Disney animated classics from that era. But you know Hunchback's great. Hunchback's worth a revisit if you're. I have never seen the whole thing and you kind of talk me into.

I think I'm gonna have to keep it. I mean it is definitely not a perfect adaptation of what's material like you imagine. But it is the only song that has it is the only Disney cartoon that I can think of that has a villain song in which it pre-stalks about how badly he wants to fuck a prostitute. Yeah.

And that's worth the price of mission alone. And it's a great song. Hellfire right. Hellfire's great.

Yeah. Topsy Turvy's great song. The other one I always remember is there's the song up there which is like the you know every Disney movie has an I want song as with like most Broadway musicals and up there is Quasi Moto's I want song. But it's also in the beginning when you find that the villain basically is the reason why Quasi Moto stays hidden.

And there's this call and response where he's like you are ugly and then he repeats like I am ugly. He's like you are disgusting. He's like I am disgusting. And years ago Brian sent me that clip and sent me in the mirror every day.

That's not all I can think of anytime that I hear that's. I feel like that's so on brand for Brian Kelly to just be like hey you know that thing that you love as a kid there I ruined it. Yeah there it's done anyway. Can we love you for Brian?

Oh yeah I know criticism there. Yeah. Well that's that's a mostly solid collection of watches. Yeah.

So I'm not sure I like to call out. There's a meme that I saw a long time ago but it is very accurate where I was like Muppet Christmas Carol Michael K decided he was going to make a movie with a bunch of Muppets and play it deadly serious Muppet treasure island Tim Curry decided he was going to make a movie with a bunch of Muppets NBA Muppet himself. Yeah. Yeah.

Very much so. And like he is he is giving a more outlandish performance in that movie than half of the Muppets in that actual movie. I know. I mean like current as the quote unquote straight man which we know like but like even more so in this is in Fuzzy having little to no business in this fucking movie and Tim Curry just really carries it like he's great.

Really great. It is a good one and that has an anniversary this year and I think we're going to do something great with that. So stay tuned for that everybody and stay tuned by subscribing on all of your favorite podcasting apps to make sure you don't miss the next episode of Har movie night. You're listening to the Geek Steve Network.

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This episode is 46 minutes long.

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This episode was published on January 8, 2026.

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