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Smack My Pitch Up 93 – The Rock: Jared Leto Ripped In Half
Hobbit and Thandi are finally back! They head to Alcatraz Island to remake and reimagine the 1996 Michael Bay action extravaganza, The Rock
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Transcript:
SMPU – THE ROCK
[00:00:00]
Hobbit: [00:01:00] Hello geeks and welcome to a long overdue episode of Smack My Pitch Up, the show that reboots, remakes, reimagine sequels, sidequels and adapts some of your favorite and least favorite properties from film, television, and what have you. And Thandi we’re back.
Thandi: We’re Beck, Winick.
Hobbit: Yay.
Thandi: Ha ha.
Hobbit: Thank you so much to our longtime listeners for being patient with us.
There’s been a lot of moving and shaken going on over at the network
And also figuring out how to get all the stuff we’re doing to fit and so we can be more consistent with our releases.
And so for this episode, this is a slight tweak on our previous format
That’s gonna make this a much tighter show
Which allows us to record more consistently.
So hopefully moving forward, we’re gonna have like weekly releases for you of this
Thandi: that’s a good.
Hobbit: It is a great thing. So
This show previously was around an hour or two, an hour 15.
We are shortening that by one of us each week doing a real take on the remake
[00:02:00] And one of us doing the remix, weirdo outside the box, take on it.
So we’re just, instead of four versions of the same movie, we’re taking it down to two. So it’s a lot more manageable, I think, honestly, it’s gonna be a more fun show to have it a little bit tighter like that.
Thandi: Yeah, because everybody likes it
Hobbit: tight.
Yeah. And speaking of tight
We are going into a tight action
Comedy. I mean
Thandi: Yeah, but only an action comedy in the vein of the idea that all nineties movies fall into this genre.
Hobbit: when Sean Connery goes was it, losers? Think about
Thandi: go home and to fuck the prom queen or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sean Connery is just rubbing his balls all over this movie, just spreading his musk
Hobbit:
No fucks given whatsoever. He’s not doing a bad job, it’s just that he’s clearly not taking this seriously.
Thandi: No, he has exactly the right tone for what that movie is. I would say that As [00:03:00] an understated for him character, it’s Nick Cage that could bring it up a notch and he’s still perfect. The movie for what it is, for the time in which it came out and what it does in cinema, is pretty much perfect.
But yeah, the Nick Cage we know is really understated in the rock.
Hobbit: Definitely and that is the movie. About this week, the Rock, the Michael Bay, 1996, I wanna say film who by the way, pitch smacked on Twitter and Facebook. If you want to interact with us on the social medias tell us what we’re doing wrong or how you like the new format or what we’re doing right.
I would like that as well.
Thandi: Or not you like the silky sound of our voices.
Hobbit: Dulcet tones,
Thandi: Our dulcet tones sweet caramel
Hobbit: Oozing all over Nicholas Cage. Usually the rock. It is a pure example of what Michael Bay is good at, which is just making really dumb, [00:04:00] really straightforward, blow ’em up action adventure movies.
Thandi: Ridiculous nonsense, spectacle. You know, the, the Rock is even though it’s an early Michael Bay movie, it’s super indicative of his style, which is like quick cuts and like no sense of spatial geography, shit’s all over the place. It could be taking place on the ceiling or like, I don’t know, in Hong Kong and then California and then New York.
It could be anywhere, but you don’t care because it’s about the energy of the scene.
Hobbit: and there’s plenty of energy in this while since I’ve seen The Rock. It surprised me how many very well known actors have like very brief roles in this You’ve got the Candy Mane himself, Tony Todd that’s in like two scenes,
Thandi: Yeah. He is one of the, the Marine guys, one of the military.
Hobbit: and he is got just one real scene that he has where he is like talking about how we’re not, this isn’t a threat. We will do this. We will blow up a bunch of people, and that’s his main moment in the. Fucking [00:05:00] Candyman gets maybe 45 seconds of screen time in this movie.
Thandi: Yep. At random Bokeem Woodbine
Hobbit: right. I didn’t even realize he was in this movie until about three quarters of the way through watching it, and then he just pops up randomly.
You’ve got, of course, there’s Michael Bean dying almost immediately as, as he’s wants to
Thandi: Yeah. As soon as they do the incursion, boom, gone David Morse, who I actually knew David Morse from St. Elsewhere, cuz that’s how old I am. David Morse is just, yeah, just in that piece.
Hobbit: And he has a little bit more time on screen, but not still, not much. I mean, he’s not doing a ton. John Spencer as a director of Womack. Is a relatively well-known actor as well and he may have been in there for a day because most of his role was just looking at a screen and going, no
Thandi: Yeah. William Forsyth.
Hobbit: William Forsyth. Yeah. Yeah.
Thandi: Yeah. There, there’s a lot of big names, but like for the John c McGinley.
Hobbit: that’s, he was in like two seconds of it as like the [00:06:00] weird gadget guy, which becomes a trope in a lot of other Michael Bay movies is the guy that makes. Contraptions and shit, but he does one and it doesn’t even really pay off
Thandi: Yeah.
Hobbit: He like
Thandi: But he’s in there,
Hobbit: yeah.
Thandi: just, just nineties guys. It’s, it’s these actors that we’re all like, oh, I, I know this guy so well. It’s because it’s 30 years later and yeah. They’ve had long and storied careers at this point.
Hobbit: As much as this is pretty straight ahead, there’s no. Surprises really in this movie, it’s still an enjoyable ride. You’ve got the cheesy one-liners throughout you’ve got big blow ’em up action, shoot ’em up sequences. Going through the sewers and stuff of Alcatraz, I didn’t realize that Alcatraz was built on a underground mining roller coaster. But I didn’t like I’ll
Thandi: fun nineties movie without a fun underground nineties
Hobbit: rollercoaster
Okay, well this could be mashed up with Temple of Doom if tracks were long enough. You know, what the [00:07:00] fuck? I forgot about that completely. And then that started happening. What were they making the prisoners do on Alcatraz? There’s caverns, there’s
Thandi: why are there random spinning blades of doom? Because there are,
Hobbit: I can just imagine Alcatraz when it was working that there’s people in the mines of Alcatraz.
Thandi: see, I think maybe it was just an amusement park. That’s how they were paying for the prison. They had an amusement park that went underneath the prison.
Hobbit: The most terrifying amusement park you can think of. Come on, get on the ride. Little kid
Thandi: You took a wrong turn to coaster and now you’re getting molested.
Hobbit: This ride’s called the Birdman of Alcatraz, where we just launch you via slingshot into the ocean. Yeah. There, there’s so much nonsense. But the thing is like, you’re not supposed to care. Like you, you’re,
Thandi: No you’re not. Not for Eddie. Michael Bay
Hobbit: No, you cannot examine a Michael Bay movie with any level of seriousness because it’ll just completely fall apart if you do.
Physics don’t really matter. Yeah, like you said, directions don’t matter. You, you would not be able [00:08:00] to map out Alcatraz by this movie by any
Thandi: Yeah, because Michael Bay is selling a feeling. He’s not selling a narrative. He’s selling a feeling. He wants you to feel the energy of the scenes that he’s strung together, seemingly haphazardly, and he’s successful at that.
Hobbit: The one thing that is different in this movie Ver versus a lot of his other films, is there’s like this low, sometimes not so low key like hyper nationalism that really peppers in through a lot of his films. And in this film, it’s highly critical of the American government.
Thandi: how they’ve abandoned their soldiers.
Hobbit: Yeah, and it’s on all ends.
You’ve got the I imprisoned without a trial. British spy. You’ve got the soldiers that are fighting for, you know, for basically benefits for the fallen soldiers. Nobody thinks the government’s doing a good job. And then you’ve got, you know, the, the director Womack, that is a piece of shit, clearly and everybody knows he is a piece of shit like.
Nicholas Cage, who is a straight laced by the rule book guy, by the end of it is just [00:09:00] like, I don’t know, like fuck this guy. He was vaporized just totally down to lie to the government by the end of it.
Thandi: y you know, Nick or Michael Bay’s real thing is just he, he is, his main interest is the guys who do the work. So generally just it’s, it’s not the guys in the chair, it’s the guys who do the work. And that’s his love of soldiers too. Those are the guys out in the field who do the work. So he feels that they deserve the respect.
And that’s, that’s true through all his movies. It’s the guys who actually are out in the field getting their hands dirty. That’s who Michael Bay celebrates.
Hobbit: And that’s definitely the case in this movie. I guess we’re about ready to like dive in. I drew the straw of the real take for this version of the Rock. So I’m
Thandi: Real take.
Hobbit: the real take real take being what we think might actually work. For a remake or reimagining of the rock.
And for this, because it’s so straight ahead, there’s a lot of d different directions you can take this, [00:10:00] but I thought it being a fun action movie. I wanted to kind of continue in that spirit, but maybe add a little bit more social commentary or subtext underneath that classic action like vibe. Is this conversation about the government and how people react to a crooked government.
There are people that fight it like straight up 60 style or, you know, being held without parole and like, you know, trying to fight the system by exposing their secrets kind of thing, which is Sean Connery’s character. Then you’ve got the hyper militarized you know, mercenaries that take over Alcatraz that are gonna do it by any means necessary.
But then you see the infighting on what level they’re willing to take it within those mercenaries. You’ve got Nicholas Cage who ends up being kind of like the soldier that turns to help the common man by the end of it. There’s, there’s a lot of different ways people deal with the, the crookedness of the government in this, in this film.
And I thought putting a modern lens on it by having those soldiers come [00:11:00] imitating what we’ve seen in real life with the right wingers that took over the. Was it Yellowstone Park or what was the park system that they took over back Oh, the the cattle
The cattle guys having a little bit of that as the aspect, so it’s not just about soldiers.
I think focusing on like va something that a lot of people have more experience with that the veterans affairs in this country are miserable. The soldiers that have have not lost their life, lost limb, or their health, their, their mental. That aren’t getting the support that they need. So having maybe a collection of soldiers that are retired that are dealing with VA stuff and being like, this is, this isn’t, you know, cool.
And following that same kind of path that Ed Harris’s character did Francis Hummel in the, in the original, but it being more about taking care of the soldiers that are still around, you know, it’s be, it’s them and their friends that are, you know, missing limbs and then you can have. A little bit more [00:12:00] empathy for these soldiers.
As you see, they’re all old guys that some of them might have a prosthetic leg or, you know, that these, these are like former soldiers that have been beaten and hurt that are just trying to get what they’re due. And so there’s. They’re the bad guy, quote unquote, but not really, you know?
And I really wanted to embolden that in the story a little bit more. It wasn’t really pushed on too much. Ed Harris ended up being the only good soldier guy at the end because he wasn’t willing to kill 70,000 people. , like that was his line. I thought it’d be a, I think a more complicated win in this movie if this soldiers like you, kind of were rooting for them.
They’re going about things the wrong way for sure. In this case, it’s not gonna be like a rocket full of vaporized, you know aerosol.
Thandi: kill gas or.
Hobbit: yeah, I think something more simple of just like having an arsenal within range of a major city is enough. You don’t have to make it [00:13:00] super sci-fi fancy stuff.
Just,
Thandi: But nineties
Hobbit: the nineties, right? Alcatraz. It’s called the Rock. You have to have it take place on Alcatraz. That’s. But I did want to have that conversation about, you know, when crooked people earlier in charge, they even the most righteous of people, end up be at odds with each other instead of the real enemy because you know of who’s calling the shots.
And that being the tragic underpinning of this story is that everybody’s trying to do the right thing, and because they’re trying to do the right thing, they end up fighting against each other instead of the person that’s really pulling strings. So then the conclusion of getting the microfilm the micro fiche and that being leaked to the press at the end, you know, that’s one thing that they didn’t want Mason or Connery’s character out for.
They didn’t want him out because they didn’t want these secrets. Stanley Nicholas Cage’s character helps get that information out. You know, it ends up like at the [00:14:00] same, at the end of the first Black Panther where it’s not the version that kil monger wanted of domination. But there is, now Wakanda is now part of the world.
There is some truth to what, the bad guy was fighting for veteran affairs gets some of its money. You know, the, the, like, some of it goes through. and and
Thandi: then everybody gets to know who actually killed J.F.K.
Hobbit: The bad guys kind of win, but not really, you know, it, it’s a, it’s just a bittersweet conversation about figuring out that sometimes the enemy isn’t your enemy.
I, I would love that to be kinda the undertone, but that not being, I mean, it, it’s still at the end of the day, a fucking action movie. And and you want big blow ups and you want, you know, everybody knows kung Fu. And everybody shoots guns really good. And I think for this, I really needed to get David Leach in there for it.
It seemed like a no-brainer brainer. He was one of the directors of the first John Wick. He went on to do Atomic Blonde, Deadpool [00:15:00] two, Hobbs and Shaw and Bullet Train most recently. He has that right balance of being able to do great action sequences, but also having time for the characters. Do some yuck yucks in between and have character development and dialogue.
So I thought that that was a really good fit for a remake of The Rock was to
Thandi: I, I think that would work very well actually. Having seen bullet train recently, I think that’s a that’s a fun tone to play with in the modern time in general.
Hobbit: absolutely. And when Bullet Train very much feels like almost a sendup of nineties action to a degree, it has that like silly. Action kind of vibe to it. So if, if that was applied to a remake of the Rock, I think in a modern take, I think it would fit really, really well. And then you get to play with all the people that David Leach has played with in the past that reappear and du cameos and stuff.
So we’ve got like General Francis Hummel Ed Harris’ character. I thought Idris Elba would be [00:16:00] incredible in that role. He was, he was.
Thandi: we’re canceling the
Hobbit: apocalypse.
Yes, the black Superman of Hobbs and Shaw coming out and being just like a, a wounded warrior, a a hardened soldier that wants what’s due to him and his brothers just makes I wanna see that.
I think that would be, and he would probably play it completely straight, like no winks of the camera, overdoing it, which would make all the zaniness around him that much more fun. He is the moral of the story character, you know, so, so him playing it straight, that gives that underpinning some weight while still everybody else is able to yak.
Can he smack do around him?
Thandi: Oh, definitely. And most importantly, as Hummel, he has gravity.
Hobbit: Yeah,
Thandi: So if you’re doing a serious Hummel, Idris Elba has gravity,
Hobbit: and I think, yeah, if we can get him to say, cancel the apocalypse at some point like that, that would be gr I’d be super down for that. I’m wondering how often that gets asked on set of something and it was like, you know, we are not for filming, but just for us, can you just say canceling the [00:17:00] apocalypse?
He was
Thandi: your pocalypse,
Hobbit: like, okay, cool. For wire season three, you know, what’s, what’s happening 20 years later, let’s cancel the apocalypse.
Thandi: but, but can you do it in like your British accent? Not the wire accent, but like your British one. Just break into it.
Hobbit: Yeah. The joys of fame is that everybody has that one line that people want them to say. So yeah, we’ve got Edris Alba as Francis hum. The FBI director Womack. I thought it would be fun. She is in Hobbs and Shaw, but is also she has that she could play like hard line in power person.
Really. Well get Helen Miron to come in and play, play Womack. I mean, I don’t feel like I even need to explain that she, I mean I had to actually double check and make sure she did a proper American accent before, cuz I
Thandi: does she? Has she done a proper American accent in something?
Hobbit: actually in the, the Yellowstone series or the, the prequel series that they have out with like a, a like old, like Dutch, Midwestern kind of accent.
But [00:18:00] she’s also been in a couple other roles within American accent and Sounds American. Sounds fine. So I just, I, I couldn’t see the FBI director having a British accent. I felt like that was maybe a bridge too far.
Thandi: Well, they’re actors. They’re, they’re prof, they’re professional actors. British actors are trained to take on those voices so they can really do just about anything.
Hobbit: and British actors classically are pretty good at doing the American accent, so I wasn’t that worried, but I just, I couldn’t remember her having to do an American accent before, so I just had to check. But yeah, no, she’s, she’s fine. She’s good with that. Then we’ve got Stanley good speed.
I went through a couple. Choices for this one because it’s Nicholas fucking cage. Like there is no way they can do Nicholas Cage. So didn’t want somebody to do a version of him, but I wanted to do proper justice to the character who, he’s a lab geek that gets put out in the world to like, on, on, to deal with this situation.
So he is awkward. He doesn’t come off as a badass at all. He’s kind of [00:19:00] gawky. But I also needed an actor that would be able to do some of the action sequence stuff while still seeming gawky. And I thought that Andrew Garfield would be really fun in that role as the really nerdy lab guy that really likes toxins and stuff and,
Thandi: You know, he works really well. Like when, when I originally, cuz behind the scenes, we actually planned the show a while ago. It didn’t come together and now it’s coming together again. So when I planned my series pitch, I had Nicholas Holt as an idea
Hobbit: I thought about him as well. Yeah,
Thandi: and LA Keith Stanfield, which we use all the
Hobbit: all the, well, cuz he’s so good.
Thandi: Yeah. But yeah, Andrew Garfield is a great choice. And it, and it, I just, it never came to me that, that would. , but yeah, that’s a great choice.
Hobbit: And what’s funny is I’m now seeing like the, the trajectory between like Nicholas Holt, LA Keith Stanfield and Andrew Garfield as like a certain type of archetype character. You know, like you, you’d just taking it out of the Hot Wheels play set and putting , putting [00:20:00] it in. But yeah, Andrew Garfield, I think he would have a lot of fun in that role.
He’d be able to ad lib a little bit put. Charm, like goofy charm to the character that I think would play off of our mason character. John, John Patrick Mason. Played by Sean Connery relatively well. I wanna see this buddy team up. Is you get and I checked ages and this actor is only like five or six years younger than Sean Connery was when he played this role in the rock.
Get Keanu Reeves to be John Patrick Mason. You just let him get a little bit more grizzled, you know, let that pepper and that beard really kind of shine a little bit more. And then you’ve got Andrew Garfield and Keanu Reeves, like kicking ass on Alcatraz.
Thandi: does this version of Mason rub his balls on everything? Because that’s not usually Keanu’s Mo is, is he a, like a, a different kind of Mason?
Hobbit: Yeah. He’s not gonna be quite as like, fuck this, fuck that kinda attitude so much as more a little more stoic with his, but as. [00:21:00] Time goes on. He has almost like a maybe older brother kind of energy that he starts developing for Andrew Garfield, where like, he, he realizes that Andrew Garfield isn’t the enemy.
You know, he may work for the government, but he’s just a lab geek that that was where he had to go for his lab geekery. You know, he’s, he’s not, he’s not the guy that’s, you know, greedy and trying to take over the world kind of energy. He’s just a genuinely good. So he becomes protective of him and kind of lets down his, his emotional guard a little bit more around Andrew Garfield specifically.
So you have this like, balance of them having private moments where they share stuff about their lives and about like, can or about Mason’s, you know, daughter that he wants to spend more time with. And then he goes out and just breaks fucking bad, super hard as only Kiana Reeves can. And I wanna see that, that shift in energy I think would be really.
Then we’ve got, I, I only did five castings, cuz you’ve got like the, you’ve got the daughter, but she’s in [00:22:00] one scene. It doesn’t really matter. You’ve got a couple of the other soldiers that I could have cast. But, but I just figured stick to the main main ones. Carla Pelosi Stanley’s, I guess fiance at this point is played additionally by Vanessa Marce.
I wanted somebody that was like traditionally stunning, but had a little bit of that, alt hotness to her as well for,
Thandi: she from?
Hobbit: oh, Vanessa Marci, the original actress that played, played the role. She was in the original of The Rock. Yeah Carla Pelosi is the character I wanted for somebody to, to pair with Andrew Garfield.
I wanted to have kind of like somebody with kind of like an alternative edge to. , but still a classically just a, a beautiful, you know, woman. So one of my probably top five crushes zzz, he beats in there. I think would be really fun. It’s just like the take no shit fiance. No, I’m coming to San Francisco anyway.
Fuck you like kind [00:23:00] of energy
Thandi: Yeah, she’s great. And you’re right, she is she’s a beautiful woman, but she does have kind of an alt energy. Yeah, that works.
Hobbit: So, yeah, and I think I, for some reason, I could see her kind of being into the, like lanky, gawky, Andrew Garfield type, you know, person like Andrew Garfield’s, not a bad looking dude, but he does have the like classic big Adams, apple, long limb kind of thing going for him. So,
Thandi: the, the, the body that Mace girls say, ah, I bet he’s got a big dick
Hobbit: So that’s my casting. I think. Yeah, David Leach would have a ball doing a version of the Rock. Where, the government ends up being the loser at the end of the day, but only kind of, they’re still in charge. This isn’t one of those movies I feel like is beholden, like everybody loves it, but it’s not untouchable.
Thandi: So I think for what the Rock is and if you love The Rock, so I don’t have any Michael Bay movies that I hold as sacred, but I think that The Rock is a really solid, almost perfect example of a [00:24:00] nineties movie. So there are people, I can understand why there are people that are like, the rock is untouchable, cuz there are people out there that are like, yeah, the Rock is untouchable
Hobbit: I don’t know. I feel that if you’re looking at Michael Bay movies, that would be untouchable. First you’d have to go with ones that you know are original concepts. So a very small number of movies there. I’d say Bad Boys before the Rock.
Thandi: really.
Hobbit: Yeah. I mean, I feel like there’s probably more people that are like beholden to bad boys. You can’t do a bad boys with anybody, but Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, there would be a lot more pushback for I think bad boys than there would be for the Rock.
Thandi: Yeah. Yeah, I guess I don’t like the trajectory of the bad boys films. I don’t like what that feel like. They did Martin Lawrence dirty over the course of time, kind of don’t like the bad boys
Hobbit: I loved the first one. Second one was so, so, although I hear a lot of people say they like the second one better, but I never bothered with bad boys for life. It looked like garbage from the trailer. I didn’t want to Sully.
Thandi: It was the last one I saw in the air of Covid, [00:25:00] so it was the last time I went to the movies for like a year and a half or something.
Oh no.
Yeah.
ending strong. Yeah.
Yeah, it sucked. People love that movie. People really enjoy that movie, but it sucked.
Oh yeah, no, I didn’t have any interest, but luckily Michael Bay does not have his hands all over this next version of the Rock that we are gonna be delivering to us. Unless he did, unless you want to give him another shot. But I’m intrigued. This can go so many ways, so I’m, I’m intrigued to see where he went with this.
So my swing for the fences take is something that I actually, I had mentioned before, which is the rock. Starring The Rock
Hobbit: Yeah. Yep. Has to.
Thandi: And what I’m going for with this take is a it’s also a dark action comedy cuz that’s kind of what’s popular, but also it, it, you know, it’s entertaining. It’s like generally entertaining in the [00:26:00] modern time.
People like action, but they’re a little bit depressed, so they’re a little bit yeah, they, they, they just like that take on things, not so straightforward, dark action comedy. And I’m going for something indicative of J C V D. I don’t know if you remember that movie
Hobbit: I loved that movie.
Thandi: or like, it’s a deconstruction of John Claude Van Damme.
It’s not a comedy at all. It’s very serious cuz and this character’s depressed through the whole thing. But yeah, it’s, it’s a, it’s kind of a deconstruction of the rock starring the.
Hobbit: I remember J C V D, it was a great movie. Very much enjoyed it. And then there’s this moment. That is unnecessarily artistic in a, in a good way when he floats up to the ceiling and then back down, he’s talking about how the trajectory of his career got sullied with women and drugs and it’s being pretty clearly serious about Jean Claude Van Dam in that moment.
And I was just not ready for that. I was just a fun kind of play on his life and then all of a sudden there’s this [00:27:00] really real moment in it that just took me off guard. It was great. I, I.
Thandi: And the idea of he is not so self serious that he can actually do a movie like this. You’d never see Steven Sagal doing anything like that.
Hobbit: No. . No. Never, never.
Thandi: in a million years. But the Rock starring the rock takes place on a movie set, which happens to be Alcatraz. They are filming Stanley. Good speed. Stanley the Rock.
Good speed. Cuz that’s the, the actor that is, that the Rock is playing as himself. Being himself is filming actually a historical movie on Alcatraz Island that is about the Native American occupation of the 1960. Where people just took over the island for 19 months and said, this is our homeland, or whatever, and it went really badly.
But that’s what the movie’s about. And he’s filming this movie with his opposite in the movie is Jared Leto. is ? Who’s playing [00:28:00] actor? Frank Hummel, actor Frank Hummel is also a cult leader actor. Frank Hummel’s cult has decided to take over the island. It was all planned from the beginning before they start filming the movie
Hobbit: Oh my God.
Thandi: Yeah. Nice little touch there. Is that Frank Hummel is in a band called where did I put that? Oh mercurial Skid is the name of the band he leads. You get, you can see a little retrospective of his, of their careers before the the movie starts. And so he takes over the island. There are families on the island because not normally, but today some of the cast and crew are able to bring their families to the filming. So it becomes a dangerous situation. What happens is that there are arms on the island because they are doing a dramatic recreation of that occupation.
So they’re using these guns, but there were not supposed to be any live round. What Jared Leto’s character did was have his people bring in live rounds [00:29:00] so they could use those guns to take over the island. And so now there’s a dangerous situation and they’re playing basically mouse maze through the Alcatraz prison itself as they try to both Dodge Leto and catch up to Leto and the,
Hobbit: This is already a better, this is already a better movie than the Rock, like this is already, I’ve already sold at this point. This is fantastic.
Thandi: So the Sean Connery character is actually one of the consultants that’s working the movie. He used to be an SAS guy, and he’s, he’s gruff and he’s kind of Like, I wanna call him evil. He’s not evil, but he’s got like a sadistic kind of sensibility where he’s having fun during this thing cuz he is ready to fuck some people up.
And basically he’s paired up with the rock in this situation and the movie’s about the rock, trying to maintain his image through this entire situation and not going like full the [00:30:00] movie rock in real life. He’s, he doesn’t wanna hurt. Not because he doesn’t wanna hurt anybody. He doesn’t want to damage his brand by hurting people.
And so throughout the movie, Daniel Craig becomes the devil on the rock shoulder trying to like coax him more and more and to get in his hands dirty. And so you’ve got the rock kind of fucking up people like more and more throughout the movie. And Daniel Craig is actually shooting people, but he’s trying to get the rock to his level basically, as the movie moves on. There are actors who are playing, the actors that are in the movie, who are part of JaredLeto’s cult who represent like the Marines in the original movie. So we have miles Teller as the David Morse character Tom Baxter. And then for the other followers that are in this movie, we have John Boyega and Zach Efron.
Bokeem Woodbine. Cuz I always like to bring somebody.
Hobbit: Yeah. Yeah. Absolut.
Thandi: Anthony Ramos who people might know from [00:31:00] what’s the the president the guy who rap sings Hamilton.
Hobbit: Lin Manuel Miranda, like,
Thandi: So Anthony Ramos was in Hamilton
Hobbit: Okay.
Thandi: and he was also in the other musical from last year Dancing musical about the neighborhood
Hobbit: Oh in the
Thandi: Heights
Something Heights. In The Heights.
Hobbit: Yes.
Thandi: That’s Anthony
Hobbit: Oh, Anthony, I know exactly who you’re talking about now. Yeah, absolutely.
Thandi: I first encountered him in and she’s Gotta Have It, which was a remake of Spike Lee’s movie as a TV show on like Netflix And then I wanted to add, since this is not actually a prison and it’s a movie, I wanted to add a female follower, so Leslie Jones,
Hobbit: Oh.
Thandi: but as it’s a violent action comedy, this Leslie Jones is not just doing her Leslie Jones thing. She’s actually mean. She’s actually fucking up people.
Hobbit: was about to say, you have to have her being one of the most violent, like most aggressive.
Thandi: Yeah. She’s a monster. And then I wanted a kid [00:32:00] in danger. And I could not find a kid actor who was born before or after like 2011. So I settled on Cade Woodward, who was the kid who died in a quiet place, but the kid’s like 15 years old or something. It’s, it’s so hard, like, it’s so hard unless you watch a lot of TV to identify actual child actors.
Hobbit: tell you the little bit of the inside baseball of this show is there’s some movies that we have not done because there’s too many kids in it. Like finding kid actors that are
identifiable where it’s actually fun to talk about is really hard.
Thandi: Because that’s not where the Zeit guy stands for movies now. It has been in the past, but it’s not there right now.
Hobbit: And also us as men in our forties probably shouldn’t have a Rolodex of information about young children, actors. It’s not, not really our it’s not our specialty that, that it’s not our career path. So we should probably
Thandi: Yeah, and I don’t, I don’t think that like Teen Disney and [00:33:00] Nickelodeon are doing like tween sitcoms anymore either. I don’t think that’s like a, a farming ground for that kind of stuff anymore. So it’s just hard to know these people.
Hobbit: So now
Thandi: yeah, there’s a little kid in there.
Hobbit: things are all the stranger things, kids are all in their
Thandi: They’re all like 20
Hobbit: So,
Thandi: But yeah, there’s a little kid in there who the rock meets early in the movie, Hey, you’re here with your parents. Hi. It’s great. I wanna be just like you, Stanley, the rock could speed or whatever. And then that kid is in danger at the end of the movie, which is the apotheosis. Where we have at, this is ridiculous on the face of it, but basically we established early on that Jared Leto’s character is a martial arts master, as like an ultimate badass.
He’s like kicking people’s ass throughout the movie or whatever. But by the end of the movie, the apotheosis is basically the rock’s. Like, all right, I gotta save this kid. Fuck it. And there’s no big fight. It’s the Rock decides that he’s going to save this kid. And he kills Jared Leno. [00:34:00] He breaks him like Bain immediately.
Hobbit: like right off.
Thandi: Yeah, he just immediately breaks him. Daniel Craig, his character actually takes the rap for it cuz he is just happy that he got the Rock to do this crazy thing.
Hobbit: Sure.
Thandi: And
Hobbit: I can see this too, of there being some long diatribe that Jared Leno’s doing is he pulling his white robe off and exposing like 18 abs.
Thandi: his his his skinny guy muscles,
Hobbit: And he’s, walking, like looking away from the rock as he is delivering like all this, you know, the power that I have from within and all this shit.
And he turned around and then just screams that like high pitched girl scream as he just gets ripped in half.
Thandi: and half. That’s what I want to see.
Hobbit: Yes please. You know how cathartic that’s gonna be for some people to just see Jared Leto ripped in half.
Thandi: Oh, so many people would
Hobbit: so many people would go to the movie just for that. I think.
Thandi: because at this point, the the, the zeitgeist is such that regular people just don’t like Jared Leto. They don’t know why. They just know that people don’t like Jared Leto and they don’t like him either. But I have a few more actors.
Hobbit: Okay.
Thandi: David Harbor is [00:35:00] the FBI Director
Hobbit: Nice. Okay.
Thandi: Sophia Vigara is Carla.
Hobbit: Nice.
Thandi: And John Cho is the FBI special agent in charge. We do get a cameo from the president. It’s not a big enough situation that it needs to like cut back to the president over and over again or whatever, but Sam Jackson is the president.
Hobbit: Nice. Hell yeah. I was thinking
Thandi: love Sam Jackson
Hobbit: I was thinking about cameos and I just didn’t know where to play with some, but clearly with David Leach there’d be a Ryan Reynolds appearance somewhere, some just minor role maybe Bokeem Woodbine’s character who’s in it for like four seconds with the entire.
Thandi: then done,
Hobbit: just done. Yeah. Or Brad Pitt like he did in a Deadpool
yes, absolutely. That’d be incredible. Yeah. I am so sad. This is in a real movie. That sounds incredible. I would, I would go to the theater in a heartbeat to watch that version.
Thandi: Yeah, just a good time.
Hobbit: yeah, that sounds so big, dumb, fun, self-aware kind of.
Thandi: the, and the rock. Like, you know, the rock is a good natured guy and his presence [00:36:00] as far as his brand is, is really good. But like that self-awareness that yeah, you just come off like your promotion machine at this point, dude,
Hobbit: Yeah.
Thandi: we all like you, but you, you like, you’re like, you’re always on selling something or whatever.
Dude, it’s it’s a lot.
Hobbit: And I would love to see this hesitance where, yeah, he is a beast. He probably could mutilate you. Like, no, I don’t actually hurt people. That’s not in my character. I’m
Thandi: I sell tequila. What do you want from
Hobbit: Right. . Look dude, I got a kid. I don’t wanna go to jail. I’m into it. That’s fucking fantastic.
I, this, these are these moments on smack my pitch up that are painful when it’s something that won’t happen. You know, we come, it’s a really good concept and it’s just, it, it’s like, great. Now this is a thing that I never get to have. So so thank
Thandi: you.
know, can, can you hold a rainbow in your hand?
Hobbit: And a rainbow is the rock ripping Jared Leto in a half? Yeah. Yeah. I think that might be The name of this episode is ripping Jared Leto in a half. Alright, we are at the [00:37:00] tail end of this episode of Smack.
My pitch up. One mashup that I thought would be kind of fun is that you just replaced the giant. Coup on Alcatraz with fight Club with just like the Project Mayhem dudes. Just trying to, so the Seeds of Chaos would be kind of fun.
Thandi: Oh, that’d be big fun. I, I could see that. The longest yard. The rock with the longest yard, they’re playing the football game and then like military incursion breaks out.
Hobbit: Oh, Jesus
Thandi: Adam Sandler. Save us all
Hobbit: Oh, God. Doomed. Doomed. All right, we got one last little bit of stuff to do here. We’re talking about our trailers, so I’m gonna do my David Leach action project, and then if you wanna follow up with your version here
Here we go.
From the director that brought you John Wick, atomic [00:38:00] Blonde, and Hobbes and Shaw gives you a new vision of action Insanity. Alcatraz Island off the San Francisco Bay. A place for prisoners or a place for terror this summer. Stanley, good speed. Regular lab schmo teams up with John Patrick, Patrick Mason, an escape artist to save the world from the deranged intent of General Francis Hummel.
Join Iris Elba, Helen Mirren. Andrew Garfield, Keanu Reeves, and featuring Zazie Beetz who’s the winner? Who’s the loser? Who’s the enemy? The rock.
Thandi: The rock is all the [00:39:00] things.
Hobbit: The rock is different to every person. Okay? It’s not one thing to one person. My Lord and Savior. And he just may be a comfort to
you
Yeah. Some people I think, do look at the Rock as their Lord and Savior, honestly, so you’re not too far off.
Thandi: Hm.
Hobbit: All right, so we’ve got your your, I think, perfect film that we’ve got next, moving forward.
Thandi: too kind
Hobbit: And did, who’s directing this? Your, your version,
Thandi: Oh, oh yeah. You know what? That is funny. John Chu, John m Chu who directed step Up to GI Joe Retaliation Jim and the Holograms. Actually, yeah crazy Rich Asians in The Heights, which I can’t believe I couldn’t come up with that movie cuz he directed in the Heights. I was going for somebody who does like, pretty shots and bright colors like, like the children of Michael Bay, but not one of the children of Michael Bay as far as the directorial style.
Hobbit: Okay. Cool. Cool, cool. All right, so we, we are John [00:40:00] Shu. Definitely re-imagining of the rock. So here we go.
Thandi: What’s harder than The Rock? The Rock. Stanley. The rock. Good. Speed. In another movie this time on the island of Alcatraz. But what happens when things get out of crazy ass Jared Leto takes over the island with his cult? Yes. In this version of the Rock, we have Jared Leto as Frank Hummel, we have Daniel Craig, as John Patrick Mason, a shady guy with an SAS Pass that Special forces from Great Britain.
Who’s on the rock shoulder saying, do it. Do it. Yeah. The rock’s gonna go hard if he can get past his brand identity, come on and let’s see how hard it gets on the rock.[00:41:00]
Hobbit: I’m fucking here for it. That is incredible. Yes. All right. So thank you so much to my co-host Andy, for bringing, bringing it hard on this long overdue episode of Smack My Pitch Up.
Thandi: We’re back, baby
Hobbit: and we’ll hopefully be releasing. The plan is to be releasing weekly from here on out. So please tell us what you wanna hear.
Take a look at what we haven’t covered, some of your favorite TV shows or movies or what have you. Throw it at us and we just might do it on an episode. You can hit us
Thandi: some input from
Hobbit: 100%, especially with the new format. Let us know how you. We are available through email at geeks under the influence gmail.com.
Just put smack my pitch up in the subject line you can is up on pitch smacked both on Facebook and Twitter or hit up the GUI hotline at 8 0 4 5 0 5 4 4 8 4. Let us know what you think. Take voicemails and texts on that number. So It hit up our new account on key.
Yeah, you are begging for us to have a [00:42:00] key party account.
That’s for, that’s pre our first live event. We’ll get a key party account going. yay, . All right. Until next time. I’m Mike the Hobbit
Thandi: and I’m Thandi
Hobbit: and you just got pitch smacked
Thandi: in the face.
Hobbit: the face in the rock, in the rocks.
Thandi: Oh my stones.