Hi everybody, this is Producer Peter. You are jumping into an episode that is about the events
of 9-11 and also talking pretty candidly about sexual assault. Just fair warning,
we are going to talk about those subjects. Oh god, oh my god.
So I was like really into TIE Fighter and I spent like 90 minutes trying to get the sound set up
right because it was supposed to be full stereo so you could hear something go I just use my hands
for people who are listening. Yeah. To explain right to left motion. What if it went left to
right? Oh okay. That's how sound waves work. Yeah. We're a science podcast from now on,
I don't want to talk about these movies. Nobody wants to talk about these movies.
Why do you guys let me come to you with terrible, terrible puns and then we turn them into like
ideas? I mean we knew that there were going to be bad weeks. I mean I don't think we anticipated them
falling on the same week. I mean what would you have put the 9-11 movie up against that you would
be like what a good match. I mean just something dog shit that we could rag on you know what for
the sake of our comedy podcast. Yeah. I think it's fine to just get it done with lumps. Yeah,
that's fair. Yeah, agreed. So welcome to a very special episode of Cage Match, colon or roundabout
way of meeting Nicolas Cage. Nick Cage, please don't listen to this episode. Jet fuel cam out
steel beams. Starting strong. Birds aren't real. This podcast is hosted by Nick and myself Sean.
Peter has to keep the audio because it's got both of us. That's true. Yeah. Oh my god is that all
it takes? That's all it takes. I'm just too lazy. So I'm gonna whisper conspiracies throughout this
entire thing. Okay. That's all I've got. Who did 9-11? Oh let's okay we're gonna we're gonna redo
this whole intro thing. Hi Nick, my co-host for this podcast. How are you today? Don't use my
government name. And I was hoping you'd throw it back to me. I'm Sean, the other co-host of the show
and we're transmitting from a secret bunker. And then our producer Peter. Hi Peter. Hello.
This week we're talking about World Trade Center and it goes up against The Frozen Ground,
a movie about sex trafficking, rape and murder. Which one of these romps do we want to discuss
first Nick? Well we've already started talking about Frozen Ground. Yeah that's what I figured.
All right The Frozen Ground. Nick you want to give us a little wrap up of this one? Yeah this is the
true story inspired by the true story story of a cop who finds the Alaska butcher baker serial killer.
End scene. No there's a girl she oh god you kept looking at me I had to continue.
So this sex worker. I'm gonna have to say it again. Do you need me to handle this one? Take the
ranks on this? No. This sex worker escapes from somebody goes to the cop says that she was raped
and the guy was gonna try to kill her and the cops are like I don't you're oh and we don't believe
you then one cop is like I don't know so he escalates it and like secretly sends the stuff
to the Alaska State Patrol and Nicolas Cage the Alaska State Patrolman is like look at this this
is wild let's look into it and then they do and then turns out like he finds the murderer this
guy who's killed like 17 people. Yeah that's pretty much about it. Yeah. So yes in this film. He rapes
a bunch too. Not Nicolas Cage. The murderer. No one rapes Nicolas Cage.
Peter I'm just gonna say boy we can't record we can't use that. Probably not I don't know we'll
see how I'm feeling when I edit. You get kind of I mean depending on how many sparkle buddies you
get kind of saucy. Oh yeah absolutely. All right so this film stars Nicolas Cage as Sergeant Jack
Halcombe. John Cusack plays serial killer we'll just use that as the safe parlance. Robert Hanson
who I'm pretty sure they didn't change the name of in this one. No that is his name. Yes and Vanessa
Hudgens plays Cindy Paulson the young woman who managed to escape her captor and alert the
authorities to Robert Hanson and eventually led to his capture and confession. The proverbial one
who got away. And that's that's probably the best joke you're gonna get this whole episode.
So Nick Cage plays a cop again. Where do we rate him on the good cop bad cop scale?
I think he's a good cop on this one. I mean he was a better cop than some of the other cops for sure.
Yeah this movie starts off with some really shitty cops. In fact the detective who is interrogating
Cindy Paulson straight up says how can you rape a hooker? You know she's describing
where she was the guy. They pretty much have an eyewitness to this individual to John Cusack's
Robert Hanson. She can even describe the murder basement and when the detective comes out of the
interrogation room he's just like yep nope not gonna do anything about it. And the detective or
the cop who brought her in was just like aren't we even gonna interview the guy? And the detective's
responses he doesn't have a record in the computer where within 15 minutes we find out that this guy
has a record that goes back 20 odd years it just hasn't been digitized and that's as much detective
work as that detective wanted to do. Yeah well I mean he talked to the guy's wife also she said he
was good. Oh yeah. And he did have people corroborating his alibi. He had some buddies.
Oh yeah the initial one that he was there the whole time. So real Robert Hanson started getting
like a rap sheet back in uh 63 when he held a housewife at gunpoint and tried to rape her and
then also raped uh I think it was a sex worker at the time. But he got a lot of that thrown out
like the rape of the sex worker by agreeing to like a plea bargain or whatever in the use of
a deadly weapon. Yay the American justice system. Yeah and he only served six months by the way.
Gross. Yeah uh some of his other early crimes are pretty interesting. Ha ha interesting or more
disturbing interesting. Yeah just disturbing interesting I mean he's not like a very ha ha
guy it seems like. Yeah this is now a true crime podcast. Yeah I was I mean I was hoping for like
theft of Mylar turtle balloon or something. No only a whack job would do something like that.
We're not going to talk about that one. The statute of limitation of turtle turtle balloon
theft has not reached its limit yet. So Sergeant Jack Helcombe is introduced to this case. It's
brought to his desk uh two weeks before his lovely wife and children and him are supposed to
pick up stakes and move out of Alaska. There's kind of a ticking clock a two weeks till retirement
type feel but clearly Jack isn't thrilled at the idea. He hasn't signed the paperwork or paid the
movers yet. Yeah but they packed up like the food in the kitchen weirdly enough. It's like you don't
understand moving if you put all your food away while you're still there. Like you can have food
that you're just gonna abandon if you're moving states. Fuck it. These Cheerios they belong to
the rats now. Yeah no one's bringing that peanut butter. Yeah not after I'm done with it. So I mean
like all like all good movie and tv cops you know things aren't great at home because the job's just
too too gritty and real. I do want to talk about though so you know Jack's the one who's realized
that women have been going missing for a while. They're showing up out in the wilderness. How
long Nick have like they've been finding bodies and they still claim it's none of them are
associated with each other. They were like three within a year that's when like the press were just
like this seems like a pattern but we do find out that there is a history of specifically young women
17 to 23 ish and they're usually told Cindy and Jack finds out through the sister of another woman
that they were told that they were going to go get photos taken for a modeling maybe a modeling gig.
Photos taken or like some high payout thing so like Cindy was a pro so it was 200 bucks for a blowjob
and it's like yeah okay I'll definitely get in there and take a shot in the mouth for 200. Another
young woman is told she's going to have professional photos taken of her which cute as fuck.
Which Cusack shows up in what I'm gonna refer to as Cusack's creepy camper. Yeah this is like
anytime Paul Dano's in a movie it's like you should be nervous. Yeah like he shows up in a camper
but I don't think we ever see again. No it was a single use camper. Girl gets in and it's off to the
races. I mean he was a pretty prolific serial killer. Well let's talk about let's go back to
being a true crime podcast for a second and let's play some serial killer bingo. Oh okay. Because
dear god did this guy hit every mark. Murder basement. Yeah. Like just trophy hunter heads
everywhere. The most impressive to me though was the walrus skull. Yeah that was pretty neat
actually. I thought it was cool. I wish I had one. In his rumpus room because he has a good christian
wife and a couple kids he's just got a spot to like hang a chain what for chaining up women. A hole
made for a three-eighths lag bolt. Yeah how do you explain that one to your partner? I don't think
his wife's allowed downstairs. It's a proper 70s man cave. Yeah okay you're right. So he's
80s man cave. Everything about this guy screams he harms women for fun. I mean just the number of
times he's been actually charged with rape. Yeah. But he definitely has a target audience.
Speaking of targets. And they're a captive audience too. There we go we got there.
Oh god I'm I feel dirty. Speaking of. I'm gonna make this as hard for you guys as I possibly
can. That's why you're here. Speaking of targets though the way he disposes of his prey. Oh god
this film. I mean you can just say victims. Victims. I was trying to go into the hole. Yeah that's much
better. I was trying to play up the whole hunter aspect of this because he actually flies the women
out in his private prop plane to the middle of nowhere lets them go and as they're running away
shoots them in the back with a hunting rifle. I think it's exciting sorry just to step back a second
that he's allowed to fly that plane because he was denied a pilot's license for being fucking wacky.
Even when they try and stop him later when they like tell the tower don't let that plane take off
he just goes anyway. Yeah. Are there plane cops? There have to be. The FAA? I'm assuming. Do they get guns?
Probably not anti-aircraft. But how are you like what's the deterrent then? Take your plane away?
Take his license the one he doesn't have? No just the airplane that makes it real hard to fly.
Can they take the plane away? They're the fucking government. They'll come in and take anything they
want. Like literally if you get pulled over they can take the money from your wallet and never give
it to you again. Fuck cops. Yeah fuck them. Fuck the government too. This movie does not I mean
outside of like the depiction of the cops who brought this guy in most other cops in this film
are fairly inept and like the DA definitely just doesn't want to pursue this. But we have like the
copiest cop actor Dean Norris the guy from Breaking Bad. Yeah I only watched like most of the season
of that so I don't remember. You've seen him as a cop in like other shit for sure. He only plays a cop.
He only is a cop. Kind of like Wendell Pierce who I can only imagine as being a cop ever.
Oh god. Oh god who played Ben Graham in the Fantastic Four movie? Michael Chickless. Yeah
this guy looks like a you know low rent Michael Chickless. Oh okay who looks like a low rent
Dominic Toretto? Yeah kind of. I just keep talking about who looks like who. Yeah. Oh speaking of
people that look like things this is really the era of Nick Cage looking like a ham sandwich.
Yeah. He's got this whole like pouty lip action. He does. Yeah it was really weird. I couldn't stop
thinking about that. Not quite as bad as uh early 2000s like Falcon hair where his hair just looks
like a bird taking flight from his head. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. So of
course Nick Cage and you know he has a tragic backstory that he uses to connect with Cindy. On
his 21st birthday his sister got killed by a drunk driver and I don't believe the driver was ever
brought to justice so that's what made him want to be a cop. That's that's the extent of that plot
point. Probably my favorite part about this movie because I've been like fascinated by these things.
Since I was 10 there's a moose in this movie. Oh I thought you were going to talk about pimps.
Oh that's next. I will say that I've been fascinated by pimps for a while. All right I was
gonna have some fun talking about a moose but yeah let's talk about pimps. So 50 cents in this movie.
Yeah. He plays the pimp. He's got the sweetest wig ever. Oh man it's so good. He produced this too.
He must feel very passionately about it. Good for him. Well there goes all my material. Thanks
Peter. Yeah you're welcome. I mean my soul material is like hey isn't it weird that 50 cents in this
movie. It is weird. So you want to talk about pimps. Go. Well he was kind of a pimp with a
heart of gold in the end. He saw an opportunity and tried to rob the guy that was gonna kill the
sex worker. Yeah okay so maybe not a heart of gold. So yeah 50 cent. So Hanson gets one of his
buddies to go and rough up this pimp to track down Cindy Paulson. Biddy cent says they're gonna get
out of town grabs the girl drives her out the middle of nowhere to do the trade-off and when
the guy's got a gun on Cindy Biddy cent pulls a gun on the other guy. And we've got a real Mexican
stand-up. Yes. Except Cindy doesn't have a gun. Instead she just drives away. Yes for every reason
it is not actually a Mexican stand-up. Correct thing to do in that instance. Yeah why would you
trust either of them. Yeah and instead of just you know shooting the guy because at this point
you're not not gonna shoot the guy 50 cent. Yeah. He waits for the guy to turn around and shoot him.
Yeah with his spare gun. Yeah you're in Alaska you're in North Texas everyone's got guns. Also
you're on like what appeared to be a huge frozen over lake. Yeah. Like just shoot him. Speaking of
everyone having guns like more guns than they know what to do with Hanson like packs up all of the
evidence takes out in the middle of the forest and gets rid of it except for all the evidence he
didn't pack up which was in a crawl which was in his attic under the floorboards. Yeah I think it's.
Why wouldn't you just put the extra stuff there too if you don't expect that to be found. Well
he doesn't want to keep like okay I'm not gonna try to pretend like I know what goes on in his
mind but it seems logical that you wouldn't keep all of your trophies somewhere so high traffic
like inside of your house like that. Except for the ones he did. But you kept the murder weapons
there. Were those the murder weapons? I mean they talk about them using 223 ammo but it's not just
a hunting rifle and a knife that's what he killed with and they showed like a Thompson and something
else. But he still had the bag of like jewelry and stuff he kept because he'd like to keep those as
trophies. He kept those in like the garage. Yes. Where he was when the cops showed up so he wasn't
able to like go back and get anything else it's like grab these personal effects of the victims.
But the cops didn't just show up they were just staking out his house they hadn't had the warrant
yet. I mean which he wouldn't know but no one's coming to his house. I think he knew because he
was looking out the window and he saw this. Yeah I mean that they just if you're gonna take the time
to grab the stuff that you just keep out in the open why not get the actual stuff out of the house
instead of the stuff that is adjacent. Could have taken more time. He did get rid of the bracelet
though the matching bracelet to one of the murder one of the murder victims sister had a matching
bracelet which is ultimately what Halcombe uses to kind of corner him in interrogation which is
he says they found this bracelet even though it wasn't the original. I mean and ultimately what
gets Hanson at the end is when he's you know feels cornered Cindy pretty much opens the door to the
interrogation room and he sees her and just loses his shit and yells in front of her room of
detectives I should have killed you when I had the chance. Yeah really kind of lost his cool there.
But hey there was a moose in this movie and that made me happy. Yeah yeah talk about that moose a
little more. I have to I kind of like just the illusion of moose. Yeah you're right. Just a hint
of moose. Just a little touch of moose touch of the tooch touch of moose. And that's how we're
going to tie it back to last last episode. My last note is also fuck the police so hey we came full
circle. Fuck those police. Do you have any fun facts about this film or the making of this film Nick?
They were incredibly inconsistent in keeping things in the correct decade throughout the movie
there's stuff like in the opening scene in the airport there's a flat screen tv on the wall.
Yeah. Halcombe's car has 2012 plate registration. There's TripAdvisor stickers on a bunch of windows
and stuff around town. That's awesome. I didn't catch any of that. I also didn't pay that much
attention. Yeah I looked up some of these and kind of got on a roll with it but it's like
it's a huge number of problems. There's a 2005 pickup just driving down the street. Those
crosswalks that have the countdown timer those didn't come into play until 2001 in San Francisco.
2001 interesting. Yeah. Space Odyssey. No because of 9-11. That would have been a great segue but
we're not there yet. No that's true. We can put it anywhere. So except that is the power that I have.
To put it anywhere. Yeah. Peter your power is incredible. So except for uh Cindy Paulson all
the photos they used in the film for the murder board like the victims um all their files they
used the actual photos of the victims and at the end of the film they showed them all said who was
found kind of gave years and information about them and then the last photo is of Vanessa Hudgens
and it then it changes over to an actual photo of the real Cindy Paulson. So we get to know names
of these women and you know the full scope of how awful this human being was. Yeah which in numbers
is 17 known murdered women. Yeah. Another 21 suspected murdered people and 31 rape. So that's
pretty gnarly. It's not you don't want to eat ribs with this guy. Another fun fact. So oh wait I could
I could tie I could I could work this narrative thread. Uh Cusack was tired of being of being
cast in romantic comedies so he he wanted to you know do something more fitting for his acting so
he decided to play two serial killers back to back. The other movie that John Cusack did where he
played a serial killer was the paperboy from 2012. Based on the video game? Yes I'm going to just
assume yes. Yeah gotta be. I mean you killed a lot of people in that game. Yeah but yeah I mean you're
right there's there's sort of this era of people trying to reinvent themselves as actors a little
bit and Cusack was tired of being the nice guy romantic lead so he picked serial killer and like
Vanessa Hudgens had been you know Disney or whatever it was for forever and it's like I'm
gonna play a sex worker. Let's talk I mean let's just talk about the performances they are
powerful. I mean there's some pretty good ones. Yeah they're good I mean Cusack did a great job.
Cusack did a good job. Cage was very I mean it was a good performance it was you know subdued
but it wasn't like uh under performed or anything. No it was a very good performance and actually
this will lead me to my very long extended quote for this episode. You go ahead and do that. I
assume you don't have one for this one. I disagree let's see what you've got. All right so this is
actually I'm gonna pull a uh I'm gonna pull uh what the hell is that on your own time. What was
the worst movie that we've watched so far? Left Behind. I'm gonna pull a Left Behind. I'm gonna
take a quote from an interview he did for this movie. It's a bit long so uh but he was asked
about how he at this point was really known for just being in fantastical action films or like
dumb ass movies and his response was I like fantasy movies. I like kind of charming horror
films not slashers but charming horror films because there's a way of exciting the audience
with a violence that's benign. It's a skull shooting fire or it's a magician shooting
something out of a wand or whatever. It's a ring you know. That's still a safe zone. It's not
promoting violence but when you deal with something that really happened that hurt people the families
and you know there I wanted to approach it more docudrama style and more cinema verte and photo
realist acting because also I've done a lot of larger than life kind of abstract performances
by design and I wanted to remind people that I could also do this. Okay so I have a theory on
this. It's right around this time that he was going through his financial troubles right like
that was 2011 2010 something like that and there's like a run of movies that I'm like
he didn't have to flex all that much on these and it seems like they are just you couldn't have
waited for like one fucking second. I tried I was like I should stop and then it was too late.
Yeah the damage was done. But like okay. The thought was in your head and you're just like I should stop
but I don't have to. I was trying to have moose talk and you guys fucking cut that off. No moose talk.
All right so you were saying? So I just think it's interesting it's like and I'd love to actually
pick his brain about this. What was the motivation for some of these movies? Was it to get yourself
out of the hole? Was it to satisfy some creative aspect of your life? Because I mean here are the
ones that came around this time. Joe, Rage, Outkast starring Hayden Christensen and Fucking Left
Behind. Those are like his movies in this window. Well and in this film he was originally offered
the role of John Hanson and turned it down. He didn't want to do that. He was more interested in
playing the detective and he thought that was a much more interesting story and actually got to
interview the actual detective and meet him before performing this role and promised the guy that he
was you know gonna make him look good. And he also talked in an interview I watched about this how
he likes playing cops. All right Nick did you have a quote for this one? I did but actually it was
the same one that Sean had so he took my quote. Wow that was a really long quote. Yeah I guess
we're even. I think the only other thing I had to say on this is that it was a really fast filming.
It was just 26 days which you know back before 2001 it was like 90 plus days to make a movie.
It was really fast filming sorry but the director actually timed it so that it would hit during the
changing of the season and it was filmed like semi-chronologically so that way at the end he
wanted the the feeling of like the weather closing in on the story and bringing more tension that way.
He actually postponed the movie five months to do that. Yeah that's cool. This movie was made on an
estimated 27 million dollar budget and made 5 million 617. Yeah not uh not good. And oh all
right that brings us now that that's uh now that that uncomfortableness is out of the way let's
talk about our second film which I'm sure will raise the spirits of this podcast. Oh wait it's
World Trade Center. More government funded lies. Starting strong boys starting strong. So uh this
propaganda movie was brought to you. I actually do want to talk about this um but we will talk
about propaganda or talk about 9-11 propaganda. Talk about this movie as propaganda. Yeah 9-11
was done on a fucking sound stage in LA. Everybody knows that. Same as the moon landing. I actually do
want to talk about that as well. God you're you're fucking you're on it today. Sweet all right uh you
know we're gonna talk about this first. What I found interesting about this and here was one of
my fun facts is the city would not allow them to use ground zero would not allow them to film
anything there. They were only allowed to film one scene of cops driving to ground zero for the film
and anything shot in New York the actors weren't even allowed to look up in the direction of where
the towers would be. There was the city would not allow for any depictions of this happening so they
had to be real creative with it and I was remember thinking watching this I'm like this movie does a
really good job of not like depicting this horrible event and it's not about that and it turns out
that the city was just like no we don't fucking ever want to see this again don't put this in
your movie. So this film was all shot in LA. All shots at ground zero are done in LA because the
city would not allow them to depict that in New York. Well they also already had the set from
five years prior when they filmed it the first time.
And we're cancelled all right let's go get dinner. Now it's a conspiracy podcast. I'm just trying to
get in on some of that Q money man. I'm gonna complain until that first check shows up then
I'm like all right. But no I just I thought that was interesting. Real quickly this film is. Yeah
give us the summary. I'll tell you it's 9-11. Yeah I was gonna say like oh how do I approach
this because it is 9-11 and it's you know that but it's based on the true story of two port
authority cops who were they weren't in the towers they were in building five so something in the
attached area beneath yeah tower too yeah and when one of the towers came down the floor came out
under them they were crushed under a bunch of debris and they survived but it's them being
trapped while waiting for rescue juxtaposed with their families who are trying to get information
and waiting to see what happens and it's a day I think it's what 12 to 20 hours of time. This film
jumps around a lot especially at the end when they finally do get rescued it's like the all is lost
moment and then five minutes later they're getting like dug out and not in a oh we're found it's you
know the all is lost moment someone finds them it's like okay call somebody and then all of a sudden
there's like everybody's there. Yeah I think this movie struggled with pacing a lot in the times when
they're not underneath rocks like in the act one I mean the movie starts basically day in the life
of a cop. The fucking thing happens at like nine in the morning yeah so it's like a couple hours
into his day planes are hitting buildings supposedly and uh then like it's kind of it's kind of like
really quick and everything's just kind of happening you don't know really who anybody is
like Michael Pena who plays uh Jimeno is a rookie okay there's some kind of rapport that he has with
people but you don't really get to know anything about him so just really he has nice boxers yeah
so real quick Nick Cage plays uh John uh McLaughlin who was also at the World Trade Center for the 93
car bombing and Michael Pena plays Willamino Maria Bello plays Donna McLaughlin uh John McLaughlin's
wife Maggie Gyllenhaal is Alison Jimeno the pregnant wife of Michael Pena's character and then
Michael Shannon shows up later for reasons and John Bernthal's in it too as Dave Karnes uh yeah
well okay we'll go there there's a lot of people in this film at the beginning also I mean when this
was filmed I don't think John Bernthal was he wasn't the Punisher yet no or Shane from Walking
Dead but either way I'm like oh John Bernthal's in here wait no he's not yeah because he's in two
scenes he's introduced as working he's introduced and he's killed yeah he's introduced it's the
pacing all over again it's like like everything's happening really fast then it happens and
everything happens really fucking slow and then everything just resolves yeah so he's like
he's working down in the buildings when it goes down or in the complex when it goes down and then
but he used to work at the Port Authority with these guys so he's like guys let me come with you
and then it all comes down and he's dead like that was a weird use of screen time I mean I get I
again this is based on real people which I understand but at the same time conservation of story
yeah I mean it shouldn't surprise you that credited writers on this are John McLaughlin John
McLaughlin and his wife and I'm assuming the person who actually kind of tried to clean it all up and
make it a screenplay yeah no so it's not written by somebody who is I don't know educated in
screenplay writing speaking of slowing things down unnecessarily whenever when the buildings
come down in that scene all I could think of is why has this been slowed to 12 frames a second
I don't know it's kind of weird um because I thought that this movie had pretty effective
practical effects I did too and then they do weird things like that kind of camera work and
stuff like that it's like it's not necessary like unless they wanted to like I mean you're
dropping foam blocks yeah and saying they're concrete and they don't fall the same way so
maybe they wanted to speed it up just to like make it more chaotic but about the time this movie
would have made the jackass movie would have been made and they do the same thing and it looks good
yeah but they don't slow it down wait they did 9-eleven the towers yes I was sorry I thought it
was no we're getting into it is Johnny Knoxville don't don't put that in the podcast
don't say it was Johnny Knoxville we love you I do I do generally enjoy Jackass their opening
scenes has like concrete blocks and stuff being like blown up yeah and it's just foam and I'm
sure this movie could have had a bigger budget than the first jackass that's interesting look
that up the estimated budget of 65 million jackass five million dollars okay so they could have only
gotten a cage for jackass one true and no one else and I think that's the only reason why I
think that would have been great you think Nick Cage took a reduced budget or a reduced payout
on this because for half the movie you only see his face I mean just in terms of an acting gig
how awesome would that be to just spend six hours in makeup and then just lay on your side I will
say I think it would be terrible because his mouth is so fucking dry yeah it's gross like there's no
shine on his teeth it's just grit and dirt inside of everything this movie made me real thirsty
though it is a very dry movie yeah heart heart heart I did like just visually as the movie goes
on I want to talk about chemtrails as they're under there more and more turning our frogs gay
the the makeup gets more extreme like the bruising gets more extreme like there was
attention to detail there that as a visual person I appreciated no the makeup effects were great
yeah I actually think it was filmed really well too I mean other than some of the the antiquey
crap that you're talking about with the frame rate like I thought it was lit well and good
cinematography antiquey antiquey antiquey yeah not really a word but no but no because even like the
last scene of this film is so one of the running stories in this is Michael Pena his wife's having
a daughter they couldn't decide what to name it and at the end of the film this goes back to antiquey
crap like when they're having the picnic for the survivors he calls out to his daughter because
they finally got a name for her and it slows down to that 12 frame a second frame rate it's dumb
I watched this on 9-eleven which was not planned it was just like oh wait we're recording and I
still need to watch world trade center did you guys give a shit about any of the side plot with
the families no no I feel like this actually could have been a better like a bottle episode
kind of a style where it's just the two of them having to try and stay awake share stories about
their families like who cares about the actual actors well one of the then you couldn't justify
mclaughlin's or mclaughlin's wife co-writing it good point and she needed to get her money too
because everybody is looking to get paid out for this 9-eleven cover-up you're just muting Nick now
right I probably should but no no this film doesn't as a film care about any of the additional side
bullshit because in the 11th hour of this film like in the third act they decide to just throw
out there that John and his wife are having marital problems it's kind of implied from the get-go I
mean you see gets up to go to work you see her just kind of give a look and then doesn't say
goodbye or anything when he goes to her or in the morning she's asleep I get up at 3 30 every morning
and I wake Josie's ass up jump on the bed yeah it's saturday we can put this in the column of
terrible children because his son JJ is a fucking shithead like I get the kids like worried about
his dad but at the same time like we need to go down there and literally everyone in the family's
like that's not how it works you can't do that it would just be difficult stop it and he's just like
you don't love dad anymore and like runs out and is just a shitty kid yeah I mean he's like 10 the
actor's definitely not but the character was 10 so so you know he's shitty yeah I mean what do you
think about uh Michael Pena and Nick Cage just vibing off each other I think he'd be hard pressed
not to have a good rapport with Michael Pena yeah I think he's just way too charismatic on stage and
probably off or screen yeah well probably on stage too on stage or on screen Michael Pena gets my
three thumbs up yeah oh and they're also there with the body of uh Dominic Pizzullo played by
Jay Hernandez yeah this whole time he's another character who's introduced to immediately be
killed do you think they just put like a mannequin like half a mannequin up there that looked like
him I hope well I mean most of the shots we get of Pena and Cage once it's just them it's usually
just this one one angle tight on their face yeah because you could probably only see them from one
angle one thing I found shocking and Nick you'll have a witty retort to this I'm sure is just the
audience disagrees how little people like at ground zero at the time how little people knew
like they were debating whether or not there was a second plane like while driving over there yeah
well I mean that wasn't like hardcore internet age people didn't have it in their pockets
information didn't move as fast and people weren't able to like live stream it as it happened
things like that I mean I was also on the west coast when it happened I woke up to it so it's not
like just but being there and they're debating whether or not the second building had been hit
or if that was just a smoke cloud from the first building I just thought that was interesting
and something I'd never considered because I've never had to consider being at an event like that
because it's terrifying yeah cool we're gonna draw the line there yeah shitty things like that
I mean not not necessarily manufactured to that scale but shitty things do happen around my life
like I mean things get dropped off of cranes and stuff on construction sites not like every day or
anything but you hear about it I mean just a couple of years ago in Seattle we had a crane drop
up on mercer off of a google building and it fucking fucked shit up killed a guy I do want
to talk about how Jesus is an aquafina man Jesus shows up with a bottle of water well in Pizzullo's
mind not Pizzullo I know I can't say that he isn't I mean I feel like he probably would have
shown up with that in army of one I'm not gonna lie I don't think that was Jesus because I didn't
see Russell Brand in the credits anywhere a very good point all right we got where I wanted with
that bitch um but speaking of credits so Michael Shannon first of all like every time I see him I
just think that he's like a melted Michael C. Hall what what do you guys think of him oh he would
play a great serial killer I don't know who Michael Shannon is he is the marine and there's a guy who
comes up and he's like hey you got a name marine and he goes staff sergeant carns he's like
got something a little shorter staff sergeant Michael Shannon blaze staff sergeant Dave carns
who heard of them and was the one who was like who found them or found where they were so did
get them saved so I understand why he's a part of this movie but at the same time he's just there to
be there he's got that dumb line where it's like don't you understand we're at war now yeah oh
yeah god fucking get over it honestly it tracks with every interaction I've ever had with a marine
this is this is clearly a different time in the world I do like how Allison's dad is very
concerned about her losing the baby but is not concerned at all with smoking like a fucking
chimney in the house yeah I mean I talked about this with Josie when we were watching it because
she had the same statement and I was like they hadn't even banned it in like smoking in bars
and restaurants at this point it's just it's hindsight yeah hindsight great yeah I don't know
you got any fun facts for this 9-eleven movie Nick that's a that's a loaded question I should not
have asked that yeah facts in a pretty heavy quote uh tell me about lizard people so in uh the summer
before my junior year of high school whatever that was graduated in 03 help me out in the math
drop it down in the comments later how old am I what am I doing here I went to New York with a
fact-finding group just to try to figure all this out and get the information to the people and uh
while we were standing there at this you know supposed site of a tragedy so my tour guide just
turns around looks at me he's like want to hear a joke and then he throws up for a high five and then
drops his hand real quick and goes who's gay and I'm just sitting there at 9-eleven with my hand up
after a tour guide is like who's gay true story fucking wild yeah cut cut that that needs to be
cut I'm not standing it didn't it didn't age well but it is pretty accurate for 2001 that's true
and it's just outrageous that a New Yorker in New York at night at ground zero yeah he was
probably from Jersey that's probably true fuck Jersey yeah those motherfuckers bet they did it
no it was carried out too well hey uh don't don't sue us New Jersey oh my god all right um okay
we got it do you have a quote Nick yeah we're gonna wrap this shit up real quick yeah I got
I got a quote yeah actually before we do quotes just like what did you think of his performance
in this because I know it's really weird he was sideways the whole time I didn't like his accent
it was no it was a little overdone but he was also inconsistent yeah but he was also supposed
supposed to be crushed I don't know I didn't I mean even when he wasn't crushed it was inconsistent
Michael Pena stole the show like Michael Pena is the star of this film like he's the one who keeps
them both motivated and which will go into my quote yeah he's he's likable too likeable and just
yeah it's just a Nick Kages soul whole performance and it's just like I gotta stay alive because you
die I die well more those pouty pouty lips how about that mustache though oh yeah cop stash
cop stash all the way good cop stash did we did we talk good cop bad cop uh not on this one good
cop bad cop fine cop he doesn't do much cop work he gets insane by telling him to go to the
elevator shaft because it's the strongest part of the building yeah that's about all we get from him
but that's not even like cop knowledge that's just I don't know engineering yeah it's just structural
knowledge yeah all right what's your quote nick so this happens over two scenes but originally like
Jimeno and McLaughlin are talking about you know their wives and stuff and Nicholas Cage is just
agreeing with Michael Binger and that like Michael Binger is like oh my wife she's Italian she can
don't get her mad she's a wild one and McLaughlin comes back with Donna can get mad too she wants a
new kitchen I'm an okay carpenter so I'm building her a new one there's no cabinets right now she's
pissed so I gotta get out of here I married the right one so he's just like you know dudes kind of
yeah going around talking about how uh shitty quote unquote their relationships are it's like
oh don't get her mad oh my my wife she my bowling chain yeah but also you know at the same time
being like oh she's a she's a right proper lady and then uh in a dream later he's having a
conversation with his wife Donna and Donna's just like honey the kitchen's not even finished yet
she's trying to motivate him to get out of this hole and go back so she's like the kitchen's not
even finished yet and he's like okay would you get off the kitchen is this necessary I'm stuck
and I like that because you know that is actually I think the best bit of script in this movie too
well that was okay that second one was my first quote my second one uh I went for just copycat
full Nick Cage quote it's Jimeno and McLaughlin when they're first just starting to talk they you
know it's like the second scene of them underground and they're just going back and forth and Jimeno's
like you're not a big talker talker are you no well gee you gotta give me something cuz
I can't because my knees are crushed again that's why I can't fucking talk
which was the most cage scene out of both these films yeah I could definitely see like a person's
patience just being worn thin by somebody just yammering at them like and I know they gotta talk
to like keep themselves occupied and focused but if like you're fucking crushed under all of that
concrete and like bones are broken you're bleeding internally and you know you're dying and some
assholes just like talking to you about space frogs and shit I don't know you never talked
about space frogs no but oh my god so oh we still have to decide which one of these wins
yeah I think we're at that point I don't really have any other it's not World Trade Center I don't
want to watch this again yeah World Trade Center in my opinion is a bad movie it's not a good it's
not good I agree I mean it's not fine to watch people shouldn't watch it no it's all a lie and
it's just well it is it's big American propaganda and it's a big rah rah let's all go to war has uh
the weirdest but I will say the weirdest part of this film for me is when it cuts to the rest of
the world watching this and everyone's like America and everyone's like freaking out and you see like
every other country and it's like old news footage from everything else including this one scene they
have in Japan where they're what Japan's watching it live it would have been nighttime in Japan and
the footage they showed was during the day so it wasn't live so it is a fucking lie yeah it's all
a conspiracy it's I hesitate to say it's a conspiracy it's a fucking cover-up though what
was in those buildings that the government didn't want us to see I bet it was hunter biden's laptop
all right that joke out there uh so yes that was World Trade Center in the frozen ground the frozen
ground goes forward it had better acting had a more compelling script it's a more watchable
movie it's a more watchable movie um so yeah next week we've got a palette cleanser the last of our
eight and nine seeds national treasure book of secrets against the sorcerer's apprentice
and also we will have our first guest on the podcast so good good good I mean are we gonna
are we gonna broadcast that uh forehand if he doesn't show we just rag on him for five
minutes yeah we make fun of that and then we move on okay you hear that perfect you hear that if you
don't come on our show we're gonna make fun of you yeah yeah you gotta come good night everybody
yeah so uh please god thank you for making it through this episode like share and subscribe
yeah tell your friends we need some word of mouth uh we're not desperate or anything but we'd like
word of mouth tell me what theories you've got down in the comments in the comments I want to
hear yeah someday actually somebody drop down in the comments and tell me where to find the
comments because I don't know where I'm looking that seems like a conspiracy in and of itself
yeah are people talking about this huh who fucking knows
all songs are weirdly horny if you know you listen to them the right way I think in particular this
dave one I mean all dave songs are super horny yeah that's probably true keeps going with the
I'll come into you yeah and it's like like okay a little heavy-handed are those the actual lines
yeah dear god crash into me and I'll come into you I thought that was about the time he like
you let all his poop out in the uh yeah yeah yeah what a classic classic dmv move