[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to five Minute Film Finder brought to you by Pioneer Library System.
Hello and welcome to another episode of five Minute Film Finder. I'm Ben.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: And I'm Darren.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: We're here for a fun episode today, kind of a stretch of a theme. We like to try and find some sort of however tenuous connection between the two movies we choose. Sometimes we'll do actors, sometimes we'll do genres. Today we picked a theme loosely on their movies about stuntmen.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: The movie, the movie isn't about one of the movies isn't about being a stuntman, but the lead is a stuntman.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: So and the other one is not.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Really about being a stuntman, but maybe.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Wanting to be a stuntman. Yeah, yeah.
So today we are covering Drive and Hot Rod.
Do you have any sort of love for stuntmen?
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Sure. So like as an action movie, like, you know, Guy. Yeah, as ever I can remember, like, you know, I was always impressed by the explosions and the, that guy survived that and the car crashes.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: Oh my gosh, that guy's on fire for real.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Best. Yeah. When I was a kid, I was like, I was like, I will be a stuntman someday. And had a brief tenure in my teenage life jumping off things and doing things that I shouldn't have been doing to test the boundaries. But yeah, stuntman, especially like in the 80s 90s when like everything was practical. It was just like an incredible, like couldn't believe this was happening.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Yeah, they were, it was noticeable, like you felt it when there was, you know, big time stunts in a movie.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: Like, that's dangerous. Yeah, yeah.
So with that being said, well, we'll go ahead and get jumping into our movies of today. And we're gonna start with the lighter of the two.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Much lighter.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Start with.
I'll have Wilhelm start our timer.
Hot rod from 2007. So hot rod is a Andy Samberg Lonely island vehicle. If you aren't familiar with the Lonely island, it is Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaefer and Jorma Taccone who make the digital shorts for snl. Very famous for making musical shorts, rap parodies, all kinds.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: And this would have been like right at their height, like when they first.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Right when they blew up, like the season after Lazy Sunday came out. They were kind of at the height of like their like initial awareness in, in the public.
So Hot Rod, I will jump off with the IMDb description of this movie. It's pretty good.
Self proclaimed stuntman Rod Kimball is preparing for the jump of his Life to clear 15 buses to raise Money for his abusive stepfather Frank's life saving heart operation.
Which I mean.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. That's it.
In a broader sense it's about Hot Rod, his pursuit of wanting to be a real stuntman but really kind of like it's the weirdest movie because it's so absurd because like if you had like a 15 year old playing the lead it would be like a, like a pretty normal movie. But because you have like a late 20s man child, man child guy playing, it just is heightened in such a like hilarious way. And it's first off a very silly.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: Movie and like they don't even really say his age. Like they kind of play into it. It's a whole thing. But like he's very clearly an adult doing things that yeah, a teenager would be doing.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah.
So Stack cast in this movie.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Bill Hader. Oh so good.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: Bill Hader. Isla Fisher who is kind of just like a classic in all these comedies. She just always showing up as a.
Can hold her own weight, comedy person in a romantic comedy situation.
[00:04:29] Speaker B: Relatively straight role for her here.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: She's played roles where she's off the deep end but she was pretty straight in this.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: But just kind of good role for everybody though. I really kind of played well.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Absolutely. So in addition we have Ian McShane playing Frank. So good. So I do disagree with the IMDb description of him being an abusive father. It's that they have a co abusive relationship. Rod wants Frank's respect and the only way that he can earn that is to beat him in a fight.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: Like they, they played up this weird like stepfather, I need my stepfather's respect thing and like Rod's just such a weirdo that like he's taking that into. And Frank plays up to it. So yeah, it's a whole thing where they're, they're fighting and Frank beats the crap out of him.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: Yeah. And then the crux of the movie happens because Frank reveals he has a heart condition and that now he'll never get to beat him in a fight, in a fair fight because he's diminished. So he'll never. His respect.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: He's never going to be a man.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: Yeah, he'll never be a man. Yeah. So that is. It builds him to raise, want to raise the money to save Frank just so he can beat him up.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: The stunts in this movie are so funny cuz like lots of just failed stunts.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: The very beginning of the movie starts off he's like putting on his gloves. Right. Like he's get and he's on his little moped. And when he. When he pedals for the first time, when he's going down the street towards the ramp, it's so good. He pedals.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
Oh, man.
In addition, Bill Hader, we got Danny McBride, we got Will Arnett, and probably my favorite scene in this movie is the babe. No, babe, wait. No, babe, please, babe. It's got, like, shades of Family Guy, like, stretching out a bit to where you're like, I can't believe they're still doing it. But it was before that had been played to death where you're just so enjoyable still. I can't believe they got Sissy Spacek to play the mom.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Like, such a weird role. Like, even Ian McShane, like, is. He's like, he's a pretty. He has gravitas. He does roles where he's Shakespearean.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Like, there's something about it that works in a serious or a silly space. But Sissy Spacek is just playing a perfect mom.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: Like, yes.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: Like, just a.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: Other than the fact that she's married to some weirdo who beats up her kid.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: Like.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: But. So Ian McShane was going back and forth between the Deadwood set while filming this movie. So for.
For a reference, for time. And this was, like, in the height of Deadwood being on, and he was, like, the most serious, most intense guy in that. Then coming to this silly movie that they're shooting in Canada.
I don't know. What do we say about this favorite scene?
[00:07:36] Speaker B: I. I don't know. It's. It's hard to pick. Yeah, this. The stunt scenes are all hilarious. You know, when he goes into the pool and, like, you know, they build those up in such a way. But, like, you know, the. The stuff where they're. You know, you see the comedy chops of those guys playing it together. You know, the. I mentioned the my name's Rod and I like to party. The scene where everybody likes to party and those guys just playing off of each other.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: It's great to see just the infighting and the perfectly timing who's on first kind of vibe. Yeah, absolutely.
What would my favorite scene be?
You know what it is? The heights of absurdity of this movie are also great.
The scene where they're getting ready to go to the jump and they're, like, marching. And then it becomes like this, like, surreal. Like, everybody's joining them and there's this, like, epic song playing, which I later found out is, like, this crazy Australian pop star from the 80s. And then all of A sudden it breaks into a riot just out of nowhere. Yeah. And. And then they get to the place and they're like, did. Did we. Cause that.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: Did that happen?
[00:08:52] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: Like great music to both of these movies, but yeah, incredible.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, great. So it's very referential. I think we're probably out of time, but very referential of 80s and early 90s action movies. Lots. So I think there's multiple songs from Europe, right? Yeah, yeah.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Those, those stadium anthem, like, you know.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: Big guitars, big synths. Yeah.
And it's just like I very much paying homage to those. But also just like lampooning the Footloose.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: Scene where he's dancing in the woods.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And they actually pull the scene for the song from Footloose and then falls down a hill for a good five minutes. Yeah. Ever I heard a story that like they, they had a stunt guy do the fall, but. But then he had to do like the last bit of it and hurt.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Himself just a little bit where he's rolling into the ditch right before he sees the sign.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: Right?
[00:09:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: So that's Hot Rod. I think we can safely say it's a highly recommend if you like a really silly movie, if you like action movies and kind of like just having fun around those things. That's a lot of heavy hitter actors just having a lot of fun, being very silly. We'll take a quick break and then we're going to shift the mood with our next movie. So we'll be right back.
All right. And we are back. So if Wilhelm could get our timer started, what are we talking about?
[00:10:29] Speaker B: So we're gonna talk about the movie Drive that came out in 2011 as we stated. This is also a movie that has a stuntman in it, but quite different than Hot Rod. This is a thriller, I think at its core, like some people might call, might call it an action movie, but it's. There's not a lot of action in the movie in general. And when it does happen, it's very quick.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: And it's more extremely violent, but it's.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: And it's more measured, right?
[00:10:58] Speaker B: Yeah, like, you know, you get, you get these little bits and it's very impactful, I think.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not, not glorified violence. It is impactful.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: Right. It happens and it's over and you, you, you get the, the end result, but there's no like glorifying or like extended action sequence.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: With, specifically with the physical violence. There's a little bit of like race car stuff, but not a ton of that even for a movie that's called Drive, you get it like at the beginning and some in the middle. But, you know, for a movie called Drive, he doesn't actually drive a whole lot.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Would you like me to read the IMDb? Yeah.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: Yeah, do it.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: Okay, so we have a mysterious Hollywood action film stuntman gets in trouble with gangsters when he tries to help his neighbor's husband rob a pawn shop while serving as his getaway driver. That is a run on sentence.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: His neighbor's husband. Yeah.
Carey Mulligan plays the neighbor. And I think she holds the whole movie together, man.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Anytime she shows up, I'm always just like. You don't get enough props for like the like subtle weight that you like.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: Hold a lot of scenes where like they're just looking at each other.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: I mean, that's most of this movie. There's so little dialogue.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: Specifically, Ryan Gosling's character, the driver, who doesn't have a name, just the driver, says like he has more complete sentences in the voiceover at the beginning of the movie than like the whole rest of the movie. Like, he does not talk, is. He's reacting to these other characters.
Standard. The husband of Carey Mulligan's player, played by Oscar Isaac. Oscar Isaac says a hundred times more words in his few scenes. He's very, you know, he's very vocal, very talky.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Oh, and that was like prime era where Oscar Isaac still had like a little bit of like grit on him. A little bit scary.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: Yeah. He wasn' he not nearly known at this point. You know, this 15 years ago almost now when they would have filmed this. And he was, it was. He was good, like really good in his small role. Lots of small roles. But Bryan Cranston was amazing. Yes.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: Another stack cast in this.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: His. His role as the.
The. The crippled garage owner who, you know, kind of runs the. The driver's.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Which it has been implied that he. He was hobbled by the other characters. Yeah, by the other characters. As a punishment for falling short on his dues.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So like it's. It's an interesting world. It's created. I think the. The director does a great job. Nicholas Winding Riff Riffin, who was actually handpicked by Ryan Gosling. I was reading about this. They talked about how Ryan Gosling was offered. The producers offered him the part and basically said, hey, you get to pick your director.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: Interesting. So that. So height of his powers brought him.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: To America kind of thing.
And it was an interesting choice. I think they do some really interesting things with lights and Shadows in this movie.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: Just so many scenes where the rear view mirror is casting light just across Ryan Gosling's eyes. That's so evocative and just hits you so hard, and you're like, oh, they worked really hard to make this angle and different things.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: The scene where they're first in Carey Mulligan's apartment and they're talking about he's. They're showing him shadowed in a mirror with Oscar Isaac standard and the kid in a little picture in that mirror, and it's focused on Carey Mulligan's character, and all you see is just the shadowed Ryan Gosling in the mirror. It's just such a good scene. I really like the way they put some of that stuff together.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: It's so. Yeah. So well constructed. Like a big movie where you could. You could accuse it of being just vibes, but it has the story to back it up as well.
Like the colors, the. Like. There's just an ambiance of this whole movie that him not talking also, I think, just leads to that ambiance because you're just. You're following all the action because that's most of where you're getting your story from.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: Yep. Yep.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: The music.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: Music's great.
[00:15:05] Speaker A: You got. You got to mention the music. I feel like this probably came out right before, a couple of years before Stranger Things, right? Yep. And I feel like this was the kickoff of the throwback to 80s synth music stuff.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: Where they're just like this vibe for film and. And TV Night Call is the first big needle drop by the artist Kavinsky. And just like is such, like, sets a tone. It's kind of menacing, kind of cool. Like, balances between, like, kind of scary, but also, like. Like a cool vibe. And there's our.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: Got us already.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
But, yeah, the other song that really, they bring back a couple times, a Real Hero by the artist College featuring Electric Youth. Also Just a Bitch, which is a.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: Song about Sully Sullenberger, if you didn't know. Crashing his Plane is that. Yes, that's absolutely. What. If you look at the lyrics, that's what the song is about. It's about Sully.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: Oh, I love that.
One last thing I wanted to mention is Ryan Gosling went on to make another movie about a stuntman.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: Completely different movie, though. Like, not even close.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Fall Guy. And I feel like there's got to be, like, some hidden references in there to driver or to drive, rather. But, like, it's crazy to see what a decade will.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Right. Like, and you know he, he talks a lot more in the Fall Guy. Right. But you know, some, some similar, like where he, the, the scenes where he's doing his action stuff is, you know, you can kind of see a progression. Ryan Gosling, you know, kind of going from one thing to the other and. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, it's good movie though.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
So again, I think we highly recommend both these movies.
Drive, if you're looking for like a Moody, beautifully shot, beautifully acted, intense, very violent violence. Intense.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: When it happens, the violence is intense.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Yeah. If you can handle. Oh, I didn't even mention Albert Brooks. What a crazy choice. So creepy and good and weird character and like did such a good job.
Ron Perlman, always a guy and interesting.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: Because like the, the, the, the Jewish thing with the, the mafia.
And I was reading, apparently he took that role specifically because that's what he wanted to do that like. Yeah, he wants to be a Jewish guy that owns a pizzeria. Like it was, it's just interesting character thing from him.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: Yeah, it was good.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, thank you for going on this weird journey with me.
We will hopefully be back soon with another crazy pairing.
Thanks for listening and if you have any thoughts, concerns, ideas, questions, you can email
[email protected] Otherwise, this has been five minute film finder.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for coming. Catch these movies on hoopla and Kanopy. Yep.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: Bye.
