Welcome everybody to the polarized podcast.
This is a podcast.
Well, you probably already knew this, but this is what you probably didn't know.
It's always everybody's first time listening to a podcast episode.
So if it's your first time or not, regardless, I'm going to say this.
This podcast is about polarizing movies, polarizing movies in the sense of rotten
tomato scores.
So sometimes critics love it.
Sometimes audiences hate it or vice versa based on the rotten tomato scores.
Those are the movies that we talk about on this podcast today.
We got quite the movie.
It's 1991's The Doors by Oliver Stone, starring Val Kilmer.
The scores for this is a stinky 56 by the critics and a pretty good score by the
audience is 79%.
I am not going to be.
Well, there's going to be actually two Jays.
In this episode, one of the Morrison variety and one of my co-host variety.
I would like to introduce him now.
Mr. James Sency.
Hey, hello.
How are you?
Yeah.
I'm a little James.
Hello.
How are you, brandini?
Today.
I'm a little James.
Hello.
How are you, brandini?
Today.
Ready to talk about an Oliver Stone, Jim Morrison movie.
Another Kyle McLaughlin.
I know we're on a streak.
I was I'm glad you brought that up off the rib because yeah, if anybody hasn't
listened to our podcast before, like I said, it's always everybody's first time.
We just recently did Dune and so we're kind of on a little.
Dune.
We're in a little bit of a kick.
Yeah, there you go.
Okay.
Now we don't we were promised a pretty light on the soundboard.
But yeah, if need be, if need be, they'll be back.
So James.
The doors.
The band, the movie.
Yeah, the objects.
Let's talk about the the the poetic concept by William Blake on to get out of
Huxley. Yes. Okay. If you want to go down, which one we do, which one we do it?
You know what? We can lightly entertain all of it. I mean, we, you know what?
We are the masters of our own destiny on this podcast.
So you know what? Whatever you're feeling, my guy.
Yeah, let's talk music. Let's suck the band a bit.
Let's let's talk tunes. Let's talk tunes, man.
So I'll ask you first and then I'll go second.
What is your relationship with the band?
The doors. The big band, the doors. The doors was, yeah, like a band early on as in
my childhood knew their big songs, but probably didn't really know much beyond
that. And I think it was until like high school that I had a friend.
I believe it was Tomas, my friend Tomas in high school was a big doors fan and
started burning me.
Some CDs. If you guys all know what that is, you tell.
You're listening to us in 3024. CD burning was a thing.
I was trying to, I think you either have like the poster or like a shirt or
something of like the classic photo shoot of Jim Morrison.
That's portrayed in this movie as well.
You're a monkey. Jim dance.
But yeah, the shirtless one.
I think it's a little bit of a, a little bit of a, a little bit of a
dance. You're a monkey. Jim dance. Jim dance. But yeah, the shirtless one.
He had that at his place and it was just like, and had a lot of reverence for
Jim Morrison. And really like the song love me two times.
Wait, can I just stop you real quick?
That is so funny that you made that connection to Austin Powers because
the photographer in the scene you're talking about is the mother of, of
what's her face in the first Austin.
I was thinking a zoo lander, but Austin Powers awesome powers.
Awesome powers. That's a great photo shoot.
Oh God, I'm mixing it up. My bad. My bad.
No, continue. What was, what was the connection?
The connection was the photographer in this that is shooting doing the
photo shoot for that picture that you're talking about being on your shirt
plays the mother of, of what's her face?
The main actress in Austin Powers.
Elizabeth Hurley.
Elizabeth Hurley's mother.
Because she's like, Oh yeah, I had my run ins with Austin in my day as well.
And then he's back back in the nineties.
There's also another person going out with the daughter that I feel like is
in Austin Powers, which was really funny to me because of them being cast kind
of because of thing performances like this or being in movies like this,
where they portray people in these time periods that Austin Powers is like,
that's where he comes from.
But anyways, continue sure with Tomas.
If I were to be like typecast to be like period cast and like the 70s, 60s, 70s,
I would be a happy camper as an actor.
I feel like we're like, Oh cool.
I get just get to be on these fun sets and interesting clothes and hair and
everything.
You know, you get probably get some mutton chops pasted on you every now and
then.
But to continue with my interest in the doors, I think that's where I started
to get more into like them as like an albums and their work together.
And that was also around the time I was really trying to my like trying to get
more and more into playing keyboard and the piano and everything because that
was something that like I want want to play guitar when I first was growing up
and my mom got me keyboard and said like you should learn to play piano first.
And that was a very smart idea, but it took a while for me to like think it was
cool.
I was like, I can't think of any like I was young and stupid.
I didn't know anyone besides a classical music that like was cool piano music or
whatever, you know, and rock and roll music that have like awesome piano and
keyboard and that kind of stuff.
It's starting to get into the doors and hearing Ray Manzor Rick, I think that's
it.
And hearing his organ solos blew my fucking mind in like the long form, not
radio edits of, you know, like my fire and stuff like that and hearing his
solos and all that was just like, wow, you can you can construct a whole rock
pop, even, you know, trippy psychedelic experimental sort of like whatever you
want to do.
And it was all really constructed around that instrument, the organ and on top
of, you know, of course, Jim Morrison's voice and his lyrics, but the those
songwriting and the and the music and the instrumentals was constructed around
that the organ and him playing that.
So that really turned me on a lot as well.
And I think made me nerd out over them even more so and then to see the stage
presence and the poetry of Jim Morrison fueled inspiration for me as well.
Just I think as a young 20 something or even high school, you know, immature
guy trying to become mature.
It was like the perfect it's the perfect time to get into the doors, I feel like
in that kind of stuff.
And I was really trying to like get into the classics before I moved on to
modern music and all that.
And you're trying to understand what came first before you start moving to what
came next.
And I was pretentious little kid as I am now.
So I was, you know, just trying to cover my bases with the knowledge of rock
and roll.
And so a lot of Beatles and the who and Brit, Brit rock and stuff around that
time.
But the doors was something different where it played with the maniacal and
the and the lot of minor and dark stuff.
And a different kind of sonic bass with that organ.
But yeah, stuff stuff that would just like make me laugh and have a good time
like the like the whiskey song, you know, like, well, someone please show me to
the next whiskey bar.
And it's like so maniacal and and jumpy like it's and he's like a ringleader
and some of the some of those songs and all of that's and crooning as well and
the bridge of that that song as well is is something that influenced my musical
taste moving forward.
And I wanted to find more kind of weird stuff like that.
And yeah, it's been something that's been ever present in my life.
But I think that was when that was when it hit me the hardest is that music.
And it's always every now and then I'll go back and be like, oh, I want to listen
to people are strange or or whatever.
And I think my my vocal register sometimes like hits like that.
Some like he sings like three notes and some of some of the songs.
I love it because it's just like the you can do that lower voice register and
sing along and have a have a good time.
And he has some fun lyrics to sing along to.
So that's my long rant about it all big inspiration at a time in my life where
I was trying to find my own identity in music and art and to see someone so free
supported by extra men.
Excellent instrumentation and the layer of free for all sort of stage presence
and beautiful lyrics and it was such such a cool combo.
But yeah, but also while at the same time, like there's other bands that for
sure like I like more than them.
But yeah, of course, of course, like I'm a lot.
But how about you, Brandini?
What's what's your history?
Are there any big hit songs, big hit moments in your life that you're like
when I hear the song, I think of this or anything like that.
Yeah, absolutely.
So the anytime I listen to people are strange.
I think of my dad because he would play it often growing up and was a big door
stand.
And there were many nights driving, you know, back home from the beach.
This is so Cal so Cal kid.
We would go to the beach often in the summers and there were just many
nights driving home that I, you know, he would have people are strange.
He would also quoted to me often in my life.
You know, just it was kind of a mantra of his that people are strange when
you're a stranger.
It just really connected with him that overall band connected with him
outside of Steely Dan.
I would say the doors probably up there as being one of his favorite bands.
And so pretty.
I'm not too familiar with albums because my dad was cracks me up thinking
about it where.
He wasn't really an album guy, which is so weird to think to say because
like he's older.
And so you would assume that playlists and that, you know, kind of freedom
to pick and choose songs and compile them and all of that wasn't really
available in his like peak music like consumption era of his life.
But man, he was just a big playlist guy and he would always just have
a playlist of I would, if I were to think about it, I felt like a hundred
and six songs and it would just for so, so much, you know, so many parts of my
life would be like this.
These hundred and six songs are coming up and.
And you have like a lot of greatest hits CDs to that.
So my parents, yes, on the greatest hits like compilations and Grammy nominees.
Now that's what I call music, you know.
Absolutely.
I remember talking to him about this where I would talk to him about albums
because I'm a big out guy and which is, you know, so weird because of the
opposite, you know, me being my age and I would talk to him about albums
and he would really talk about it like.
Albums have songs he doesn't really like.
So why would I listen to an album when I can just put the songs that I like
on this, you know, in a comp by a compilation.
Put it on his iPod, you know, do something like that.
And I think that was like frustrating at that time to moving, moving into CDs
and eventually MP3s and stuff was like, how worth it is it really to buy this
album?
Like am I, I'm buying this album, am I buying this album for this one song or
is this going to be a full, full album experience?
I think it was a lot of what people would question when they're buying LPs.
But you and me have talked about this.
Cause we're both big record collectors is that the records that we own,
unless gifted to us, like the records that we go out and buy, buy in large
are albums that we like every song on there.
Sure, if you, you could rank them, you know, and be like, obviously these are
better than these on the record, but overall, like I'm, whenever I buy a
record, that is, that is like the criteria.
If I don't like, if I don't generally like every song on this or okay,
I'm saying it, I should say it in reverse.
If there are songs on a record, you're not skipping songs on the record.
You're not going to pick the needle out.
You know, you're not, you don't have your two term tables going back and forth
between, you know, like, okay, no, I won't play this track.
There's some days where you're really just like, oh, I'm going to put this one
song on this record and move on to the next one.
But this, I mean, this is bands that their first album is fucking insane.
The fact that that's their first album and in 1967 at the time it comes out and
how full it is and it has the end at the end and very experimental long song
that establishes them immediately at such a young age because he just, yeah,
it comes out, shoots out like a, like a rocket and joins the 27 club and
unfortunately, which was prevalent at the time, but yeah, I mean, yeah,
it's just, there's a reason why the, their self titled album will live on
and in for me because it is so good and it, it to me, I just listen to it again
today is, it kind of is an outlier a bit in the other really popular records
at the time.
So it just has such a cool uniqueness to it that gives you insight into
probably underrepresented or under recognized, like, taste of the album
taste and trend of that time.
That, you know, is typically what defines albums of this caliber where it is
timeless.
So not only, you know, not only does it have certain sonic characteristics
that are present in that time and that's why it's so, you know, can reach so
many people, but it just has so many aspects of it too that are so different
and also too, it kind of requires a look, it doesn't treat the audience like
it's an, you know, here's just some more, you know, more of what you like.
It kind of challenges you a little bit and.
Yeah, it is tongue tongue cheek.
Yeah.
And it uses, I mean, yeah, I want to like, again, that, you know, Alabama song
whiskey bars, like using a different type of song to imagine, like, I don't know,
and imagine it's a conceptual sort of thing where it's using a different type
of music writing to have fun and do a rag, like a honky tonk sort of drunk
sort of sort of thing and that's that drunkenness starts to not be as funny
in the movie of course.
And I know that he had his demons with it and life and everything, but his mind
and where they he's willing to take the music in the direction of the band is
clear right at the beginning.
And that is mind blowing as a debut album and it's cool to find bands that
just come out swinging like that and getting really into, yeah, like talking
heads like they're they're fucking that's a whole never thing, but their
opening album, it just was another one that made me think about or like, I
don't know, Manpower Weekend's album, new albums coming out and that's their
I can't stop.
We got to stop just shooting fun bands that we like, but we should probably
pivot over to movie land, right?
Let's talk.
Let's let's get stone.
Let's talk stone for a hot minute before we get talking.
So I would say kind of a blind spot for me, unfortunately for me too as a
director.
I agree.
And the some of the trademarks of his movies are political intrigue and dealing
with big figures in history, controversial moments and figures in
history.
And then he has other more just straight fiction or trying to think of other
other like Wall Street, maybe would be would be something natural born
killers is a good one too.
That's I think that's a good example of of a of a yeah, see, because that's
like a combination of so many things at play where you have the Tarantino
script, but then him on top of that just adds this real weight to everything
and sort of a yeah, it just takes it in a political way where these uses
these characters to try to say something in a in a much more biting satirical
political commentary sort of way, whereas Tarantino might be more nihilistic.
If he were to actually direct his own material and not try to find this
deeper meaning and have it be a little bit more chaotic and my mind in my
mind, Oliver Stone is really trying to tell the audience something.
He really wants to tell you something.
You know, he's really like, he's pretty clear about it.
He's pretty like clear about a lot of a lot of the the messages he's trying
to send in when he's not doesn't want you to understand he's pretty clear
about that too. But quite a legendary filmmaker and just doesn't make
movies that I find I want to watch a lot.
It was my my one thing, but sorry.
Gotcha.
One thing I've noticed with Oliver Stone that like even though natural born
killers is written by Tarantino and goodman is quite an outlier in his
filmography. All of them, all the movies that I've seen of his have a
connective tissue where Oliver Stone is very interested in how society is
changing based off of broad events.
And with natural born killers, it's him focusing on people consuming TV that
now is featuring violence on TV and what violence on TV is doing.
You know how that is affecting the broader culture with platoon.
It's how Vietnam affected, you know, individuals that then influence in
subsequent movies. He'll address how like in JFK how Vietnam affects.
Yeah, like just overall, he's very interested in America and how
America has responded and active and changed based on these events that
have happened and helps write.
I believe he wrote just wrote Scarface as well, which is pretty cool.
Well, I didn't know that, but that's another that still fits into what I'm
saying where it's like that cocaine 80s Wall Street, the same thing.
Very interested in the capitalism stock exchange that site of America.
Money never sleeps, Brandon.
Money never sleeps.
Yep. It doesn't have a bedtime.
No bedtime.
I even saw Savages, which is not that great of a movie for my memory.
But I went I went saw that movie in theaters and just it does this weird
fake out ending is the main thing I remember that movie where it like takes
a lot of time to be like to kill all the characters and spoilers or whatever.
Like light spoilers because I'm being very vague.
But does that whole fake hour?
Everyone dies and then it's like fuck.
And then it just rewinds and it's like, no, that didn't really happen.
But could you imagine if it did?
And you're like, fuck you.
Oh, that doesn't sound good.
It's not.
But to get us.
Eddie, though, he's like, I don't know.
There's like an edginess. There's a grittiness.
There's like a grittiness. Yes.
There's also like a little pessimism.
Yeah.
I know I said maybe Tarantino is more nihilistic, but yeah, there's a real
nihilism like as far as like.
Your your ability to try to change something within the systems that have been presented
and how crushing that can be to these.
Yeah.
And.
These are these are themes and concepts that I'm speaking about from not maybe as
much experience watching a lot of his movies, but even this one alone.
Yeah, it seems like he does like to take a character and almost make a martyr out of
them in an interesting way.
Very much so.
Yeah.
Portune for sure.
And Jim Morrison, the way that he's presented in this movie.
As far as a tortured artist goes is intense and dark and he's insensationalized to say
the least for good for good or worse.
Yeah.
So whatever sort of true sort of issue or or concept or story that he's trying to
accomplish, I do think that he stereotypically sensed sensationalizes a lot of those those
things as well.
But that's what you have to do, I guess to show a historical historical fiction, you
know.
Yeah, because so this movie that we're going to get into in relation to platoon and to
Wall Street.
So to I'll talk about Wall Street real quick because of what you just said is even though
the main characters Charlie Sheen technically in Wall Street, so much more interest is placed
on Michael Douglas's character.
And that character has some similarities, at least in what Oliver Stone as the director
thinks of a person like that as being representative of a broader idea within that's that's being
more prominent in the American culture.
And it is very interesting to see that kind of that connection where it's just like with
Wall Street, he weirdly is obsessive about these people, but then also hates them at
the same time.
And there's this like, given this push and pull that happens in Wall Street and particularly
in this movie that I'll talk about in depth about how this, you know, it's I feel like
Oliver Stone really is critical of the sixties and of the hippie movement and is taking out
his criticisms in this movie by representing the one of the gods, one of the big pillars
of the hippie movement as being destructive, narcissistic, just full of ills where it's
like all about drugs, all about sex, you know, these things that some people would be like,
Oh, well, the hippie movement was really did a lot of wonders for promoting, you know,
sexual equality, mental health, like all of these things that you could in one.
If you were looking at it one way, be like, wow, we like, you know, that really helped
us in a lot of ways.
But he has a tendency to just be like, No, I think this person like, or if you think
Jim Morrison is, if you put him on a pedestal, you're wrong for doing that.
And it's, it's fascinating to me because it goes into this idea that I have of Oliver
Stone as being just such a like stereotypical boomer where he, he looks at change as a loss
of innocence and almost net negative is like, we're like, almost we're getting worse.
That idea that boomers have was like, we like America is getting worse.
It used to be better.
Let's make America great again.
There is an energy that I got from this movie where he is saying, Jim is kind of the fucking
problem to why we're worse off.
And by and large, the hippie movement is kind of did us dirty.
And yeah, it just to me, that's, that's kind of a characteristic of a boomer to think about,
you know, before the hippie movement, things were potentially better.
And the fact that there were people like Jim Morrison that were so popular, that were so
influential that people latched onto what he was saying.
And then it ended up hurting them and potentially hurt America in the broader sense.
And I just, it weirdly, yeah, all in all, what I'm saying is it to me is very clear.
He has a container's relationship with the ideas of this time and of this person.
That shows in this movie.
And of the people, his humanity in his writing and movies does revolve back to the dark side
of humanity in a lot of ways.
And it isn't all bad, but not just in Jim Morrison, but I feel like when he, when you
look at the mass of people at the shows and the concerts and his fans and everything and
the people that are trying to take advantage of him in a lot of ways is his commentary on
certain other institutions, whether it be in this movie or other movies, I think he has
issues with a lot of things and he does play maybe within, you know, like the gray areas
of or puts faces to like Gordon or whatever in Wall Street.
But I think he plays with all of the criticisms for a lot of things because I do agree that
he is very critical of how aimless and not thought out his idea of the hippie movement,
especially through Jim Morrison's eyes and Val Comers as playing him is he doesn't actually
have it all thought out and he has beautiful poetry in lines, but there's the substance
there in my mind, Oliver Stone is saying the substance isn't fully upholding what he's
putting out and when push comes to shove, he can actually enact all those things that
he's talking about and all these great ideals that he's saying the world should live by.
He himself can't even, you know, wake up and get himself dressed and, you know, sing a
song at a certain point in the movie.
And I think there is a real criticism from the filmmaker about Jim Morrison as a person
which goes a little hard and a little far.
I think judging by how I've heard some other band members and people in Jim Morrison's
life have felt about the movie and about the treatment and representation of Jim Morrison
was he was that but also a lot more as well.
And in Oliver Stone seems more interested in that dark sensationalizing the dark side
of humanity, whether it yes, be in Jim Morrison and the hippie movement, but also the institution
of police.
I think he makes them look pretty dumb too.
And capitalism and how that affects the artistic process and how Jim Morrison within this movie
at least he places upon this purity of the art upon the character of Jim Morrison in
this movie.
Whereas by the end of the movie, they're all like they make a commercial of light my fire
or whatever.
And he's like, why didn't sign off on this man?
Like why?
Because if you were too drunk, I wish you were here.
Then we would have had a conversation about it, which was like that kind of was the sinew
of the dynamic between him and the bandmates in this movie, whether that's true in real
life, I don't know.
But like he doesn't like that they're commercializing the music and everything, but also he's too
fucked up to do anything about it.
And they're taking advantage of him in a way was like the dark read of the doors by
Oliver Stone, I feel like.
But whether those things are true and whether it went that far within their lives, I maybe
don't know enough about the doors, but I think they were upset that they portrayed him in
such a negative way as is what they had issues with because he had a lot of positive soft
spoken boyish charm is a lot of all the stuff they said in that he was very gentle, gentlemenly
had very polite Southern charm manners and all that stuff and he would fuck up.
But I forget who is one of the bandmates was saying like he would he would fuck up, but
he would also know when he did and apologize and like feel bad about it and wasn't.
Yeah, you don't see that in this movie.
Like constantly just holding a bottle of fucking Jack and trouncing around.
But hey, that's that's the part of an Oliver Stone movie that you you accept a little bit
or you don't because that's that's a big, big part of this.
This movie is it is a big rock biopic and it is playing into a lot of those stereotypes
of a lot of what these movies have to offer.
But before we get into a little bit more of the plot here, I'm just going to take a quick
bathroom break already and I left my notes in the other room.
So I'm going to go grab those as well.
Be epic.
Hello.
Welcome back.
I am your host, Jim today.
I'm going to be Jimbo.
I'm Jimbo.
I got my notes.
I this movie.
Well, maybe we'll we'll talk about or just mention how about that casting?
Great fucking casting.
I mean, Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison is like how how much more perfect can you get?
Perfect.
Yeah, like you look side by side pictures, hair, voice.
And one of the big things that would like seal the deals, I guess one of the bandmates
heard a recording where they could not tell the difference between Morrison and Val and
when you it's the bandmate that is unable to tell that's when you know, but he also
made like spent like $8,000 or something.
It said this is in like the Wikipedia.
So whatever grand assault, but he spent a lot of time, money and energy, I believe,
to to like make a reel to send to Oliver Stone to convince him that he should be Jim Morrison
and be in the movie.
So he was his own biggest advocate to being cast.
And I think he was 100 percent right to be so confident.
And that kind of confidence is exactly who this person is in my mind to be able to be
such a sage presence.
And that's where this movie shines.
It's his performance.
Oh my God.
Yeah, absolutely.
I was dark and fucked up as it as it gets, you know, the to be able to handle being Jim
Morrison in front of a live audience playing and singing the songs that blew my mind as
far as a concert, like a rock biopic where you you cannot tell any difference of like,
oh, they're not really playing or he's not really singing.
All that shit looks so real and great.
Like the and a lot in some cases, it really is them singing and playing because even Kyle
McLaughlin knew how to play piano and leading into it.
He's like, I learned some of the songs and there's some of them were were really playing
and we ended up being like, you know, a pretty good like tribute doors band.
And it felt really fun to be as he's the best.
He's the best.
He's like, he's like, all rock stars want to be actors.
All actors want to be rock stars.
So it was like really cool to be.
We felt like rock stars for a bit and that and that felt fun.
And you can tell Val Khuramran had just like really gave himself fully to over the performance.
And absolutely.
That is what this movie is, why it's even still remembered.
I feel like otherwise it could just be a hundred percent.
What a yeah, and there's been plenty of crappy ones.
Honestly, the Marley one coming up looks kind of a little iffy, but we'll see.
I don't know.
Maybe it'll be great.
But his performance pushed this movie to the next level along with the direction.
Yeah.
And I think a lot of the cast.
Yes.
I agree.
I know what I just heard the other day is I don't think it's going to be this next one,
but it's going to be the one after I think maybe it is the next one, but they're adding
a new category to the Oscars and it's casting.
Great.
So what's her face is going to win?
What's her name?
That's Allison.
Yeah.
Allison.
Yeah.
Allison.
No, that's not.
It's Allison something.
I feel like he's who's like at the beginning of every like.
Uh-huh.
Especially big comedy, like ensemble comedies and stuff will just be like.
Like Nancy Meyers, you know, I can't remember the name.
Oh my God, whatever.
But but is yeah, isn't that interesting that they're we're going to start getting?
Yeah, cool.
A war for casting.
What about let's get stuntman next.
Totally.
And gets the reels of like, you know, like them doing the best stunts and showing like,
yeah, this is that person doing the stunt in there.
And like that's.
And they agree that would be, oh, that would be awesome.
It's just the problem.
Yeah, it's.
But then you push stunt people to do more and more dangerous things.
Is that the.
Maybe not.
But I know if anything, the problem is, is that they just don't want the recording to
be even longer because there's, you know, being like, we're still wanting people to watch
this and that's an issue, you know, so making this longer.
But I mean, as movie buffs, like that stuff rips, I would love to, you know, get the MTV
movie word for best case.
Come on.
Just throw it into the Oscars too.
I'm going to be sponsored.
That's good.
I would.
I would be way in the surfboard as an award.
Let's get surfboards as rewards again.
You remember that?
Yeah, I do.
And then let's slime them.
Let's get it.
Slime them.
Give them a blimp.
Slime them.
God, I wanted to hold one of those blimp awards too.
Is that the Nickelodeon award or awards or?
Yes, it's a boy's choice.
The blimp.
Cool.
Nickelodeon is fully no longer.
I saw their name in front of the new Avatar show at least.
So they own the IP, but I don't know if the studio is making anything.
Anyways, I don't know.
I don't know.
I do.
But okay.
Is everyone ready?
Are you in?
That's a, that was a cool way to start it.
I was like, the font is all very doors font.
Absolutely.
And it's like an overture almost into the into the film.
Yes.
It's a nice movie.
Start seeing what's on screen.
I'm like, oh, what's what's going on?
Because it's this.
The movie starts with them in a car, a young Jim Morrison in a car driving through the
desert.
Oh, yeah.
And then there's a lot of kind of trippy cloud work stuff going on.
And it shows a, what we are being told by the film as a incredibly important moment
in Jim's life where on a, as the family moves to.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
Arizona or New Mexico, New Mexico, maybe they pass by a car crash and then Jim sees
people dead on the side of the road.
And then his mother consoles him and says something to the effect of like, this is all
a dream.
And which I get it, but then the movie quickly gets out of it and then goes, and now he's
an adult and we're on our way.
And yeah, so it, we sent me off on a weird mood already.
And then, you know, just almost instantly, no, because I really enjoyed the text.
And I am glad that I didn't really need, and maybe there is a movie where there's, there's
an interesting version of it, but like him as a kid, I'm kind of glad that it got right
into like him on the beach in Venice, trying like with a book and like trying to like that's
like, that's like a right on the cusp, right on the cusp of meeting Ray and all that stuff.
Like, but then this, this cold open, as you are saying, does come back in a lot of ways
and doesn't really have like that satisfying of a conclusion.
And it just goes so far as it's almost like the Joker's origin story where it's like,
he just uses that as like a way to tell different stories about his, his own life.
And that's like an inspiration for the stories that he decides to like, methol, he's like
mythologizing his own, his own life based on these things that he's experienced and
using them as fodder for his, his own like life character that he's, he's creating.
And totally, I just, I would argue that the movie would benefit from cutting out a few
scenes in the middle to back half or shortening them.
And if you just got something with his relationship with his parents, just a little something,
just a little like, what's the dad like?
I guess that was like a little bit more about the mother issue with like the, he didn't have
rights to portray them on screen, I believe.
I don't think like they gave him the okay to like, even like show them on screen and
portray them in any sort of way, because they didn't want any, they didn't want any sort
of likeness portrayed of themselves.
And there was also a lot of issues, I think issues with the mother and father of what,
what's her name?
Is it Pam?
Was it Meg Ryan's character?
Yeah.
Yeah, Pam.
The real like, cause she passed a few years, the movie says a few years after Jim does,
and the parents kind of had, or kind of like, back and forth with Oliver Stone with how
they wanted her to be portrayed.
And I think there were some issues and drama between them and they were like refusing to
like give Oliver Stone like some of Jim Morrison's like poetry and stuff, because they weren't
happy with some of the stuff that they were, he was doing, but they were very clear about
like the only way to even have her in the movie was as they were very clear about that
thing.
She had nothing to do with his death.
Was like, there was like their big thing out, obviously, but yeah, that makes sense.
So speaking of Pam, so we, yeah, and then we get to Jim as an adult and he's on Venice
Beach and then he's just completely in a trance by Meg Ryan.
Oh my God.
He's in trance by a woman first.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
And man, it just, yeah, I see you're, you're feeling the same way that I was feeling where
I'm like, this motherfucker, this is not romantic.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is not romantic.
And just, you know, stalking it.
And it's like, I didn't make the note.
Venice canals are cool.
That's a cool area of LA.
It's really, really cool.
I've been really filmed, was awesome role models there.
I feel like it was like, oh, this is a really cool role model.
100%.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
That's such a cool area of LA and the houses are done up a little bit to be more period
appropriate and awesome.
I really loved the setting and I love Meg Ryan.
I think she was perfect casting.
I think she was amazing.
Love her.
I, there's a part of me that I'm like, do I want her to be a little more fleshed out?
Do I want her to be there to be more there in the script for her to do?
But I love her.
I would argue that they do give her more stuff to do, but the movie doesn't handle it well
because we're just fleshed out.
Show a different side of her.
Like they kind of just show like only like very limited sides side of her.
Fair.
Like I want to see.
I don't want to see like a little bit.
Another different side of her.
Yeah.
Cause I was going to say that like later in the movie, when she's going through a drug
addiction stuff there to your point, right?
I agree with you is I think that would have been the time to do a little bit more on where
she's coming from because to again, to caretake the compliment, your point is she is such
a hanger on.
She is such a like whatever Jim does, you know, no real agency.
Yeah.
Kind of an accessory.
I think she literally like calls herself an ornament or something when she's going onto
the plane.
So just to have somebody who's really just on along for the ride a lot of ways and then
gets, you know, it does the jealous girlfriend thing of or whatever, which I just, I wanted
to maybe just like a little bit more one way there, even like if it's at the end, if
it's a little more destructive side or it's the care taken side at the beginning, it just
kind of, she hits as far as the, how that character is written, it just kind of hits
those notes and she ends up being just kind of a, a destructive presence on top of an
already destructive presence.
And there's that codependency and the big blow up at the Turkey, Turkey day fees.
Yeah.
I have a lot to say about it.
Which I did not happen, I think, but there's a lot I'm sure that that didn't.
And yeah, my, my, one of my opening notes was, oh yeah, the, because he goes through
like her balcony and he's like, have you ever heard of the door?
He's like, doors are a waste of time.
Time.
Aldous Huxley, right?
Or you said it earlier, right?
It's, that's a quote from.
Oh, is that one of the quotes?
I just thought, yeah, doors are a waste of time.
The doors of doors of perception and William Blake and all that stuff comes up when he's
talking with Ray and all that stuff, but he stalks her, he stalks her and then he like
climbs through her balcony or like climbs a tree through her balcony and immediately just
starts kissing her.
Yeah, which he's like, she's like, who are you?
You want to be my old man?
He's like, oh my God, there's a man that just crawled through the balcony and just started
smooching.
Right.
And this, but this, the reason for that in my mind is to key you into the vibe of the
time.
Freela where, you know, Meg Ryan is definitely a subscriber to the hippie movement and she
is by and large loving the fact that this person is not inhibited by anything willing
to just say what he feels go after what he wants and it's really attract like it.
Make Ryan does well to show how attracted and into Jim.
She is almost immediately.
Yeah, there's no there is no courting really at all.
Sure.
The next, the next scene we get to with them fucking out in the open.
I was trying to, I was trying to gauge what the like lay out lay of the land was when
that scene was happening where I'm like, are they like, it seems like they're on a roof,
but then they are also seems like they're in a parking lot and then it seems like they're
next to the beach and I was just really like, man, anybody could just which again, that's
you know, to speak to the time of and to Jim as a character.
This is notes later when they're like on top of the roof or whatever and like they're like
on this roof on a couch.
That's like later and then and then it's like nighttime and somehow there's like they do
have lights and they're reading books to each other.
Yeah, man, they're so cool.
And then the big fucking moon, Oliver Stone just puts this huge, huge moon.
Yeah.
I think I'm getting a little ahead of where we should be because I definitely want to
talk about Jim's movie that he made in film class because holy shit, I was I would have
been one of those people where I'm like, this is potentially as glad someone said that though,
because I was a little worried that the movie was like going to glorify him to which it
does in a lot of ways.
But then there and it maybe undercuts him a lot of ways to people would criticize it
for that, but in this moment, I'm glad someone said what I was thinking.
Yeah.
And then it's pretty pretentious, buddy.
Yeah, it really doesn't say much.
And that's a problem that I had, which then we'll get to here soon about the tripping
in the desert scene.
But this starts to go into where I feel like Oliver Stone's coming from where he thinks
Jim is a pretentious douchebag and time and time again, presents him as such and shows
that if you were in the culture, you would be like, God, this is so, you know, this is
so transformative and edgy and, you know, so.
Yeah, like experimental and cool.
But the movie already starts to be like, no, it's actually he's kind of a douche.
He's just a pretentious douche.
Yeah.
And self interested in the way that he at a certain point and like whether it's true
or not like wants to become essentially a cult member is what the movie is like pretending
him to be and wants, you know, it seems seems to be just pushing forward.
This cult of personality, at least.
Personality.
Yeah, like he knows he's a rock star already, and he is going to stop and nothing to be
a God, be a rock star, be some somebody that everybody knows and, you know, a classic rock
and roll lifestyle and that that stuff was.
Yeah, that's where it's played a little stereotypically, but it's also it's hard.
This is a hard one because I come to this movie.
I come to this movie.
Movie.
The church of the movie.
Wanting some of that stuff.
Like this is a rock, rock and roll movie about a big fucking rock and roll star that indulged
a lot.
So there's like a part of me that kind of wants to see if like someone's given all
of this in the world, like what they would they would do with it and all the excess and
everything that would that would destroy them.
But it's also hard because it feels you feel like it's almost like a guilty pleasure watching
or something or you feel kind of dirty like, like, why do I find this entertaining watching
this man just.
Sorry, himself, fucking drink himself to death.
You know, you can have something that's way more hardcore and realistic like leaving Las
Vegas or something where like really fucking like shows you like how dark it can get.
And this movie shies away from it just enough to like enjoy the rock and roll of fun side
of it so you can still record drop, you know, all of those door songs.
So dividing that line was an interesting one for me as as far as like how he felt about
Jim Morrison because I do agree that he is questioning the substance of Jim Morrison and
the follow through on his ideals because he seems to be like, oh, this very idealistic
person, but and that is also a criticism of the hippie movement in general is is I think
you're very much your earlier earlier point.
But this earlier this earlier part of the movie is the beginnings of the band.
You know, this is that portion of the of the rock and roll movie where they're getting
the band together.
They're coming up with ideas there in those early practice sessions, you know, and they're
getting like they're playing they want to play the whiskey and they're getting guys
coming up to him like, oh, I can make you guys millionaires like all the you know, you
check checkmark all the all the stuff that's in in these kind of movies.
But I do love like them jamming on break on through to the other side and fleshing that
stuff out.
That's stuff that you want to see.
That's what I come to this movie to see some of those staples.
And I think those are those are done in a relatively fun way in this early on Act One
portion.
Yeah.
I so with this again, I'm going to just I'm not even going to say that I feel like a broken
record because I know that I'm going to just do it anyways is so Kyle McGlock on his character
meets him through the through the class and then gravitates towards Jim because he recognizes
that this guy is willing to do something different.
And that goes along with Kyle McGlockman's character's worldview because he is just
immediately tells you that he's well read, has all of these, you know, counterculturist
ideas.
He wants to, you know, change the world, tear it down, all of this stuff.
And he tripped out in the desert and came back a different man and he wants to sing
Ray a song and he sings him a song on the beach.
I like that scene.
Absolutely.
He would hang on the beach and he's just singing and Ray like Kyle's face is just like, fuck
and I was like getting real tenacious deep vibes.
But in those moments that are showing the side of Jim that is a artist worthy of, you
know, the notoriety of the, you know, worthy of the stature that he gets there time and
time again in those moments, they're always like in my mind, I always recognize that they
there was a button on them being like, but then Jim's like, let's go get fucked up.
You know, Kyle McGlockman goes on this whole, you know, diatribe about you got to think
different.
We got to do something big.
And then he's like, Jim's not almost not even really listening.
He's kind of just like you're saying things that sound right to me.
You know what?
Let's go get fucked up and time and time again, because then from there they go into the session
to do like my fire and then in a very seemingly very quickly, Jim's like, we're not getting
to the heart of this.
Let's go get fucked up.
And then it goes in and then immediately goes into the tent.
He's a prick in that scene.
You know, like the break on through the other side like sounds cool.
And then the drummer, I think kind of kind of has Kevin Dylan plays plays him.
Talk about a whole holy, holy shit.
But second working with Oliver Stone, because he's in platoon, he's got some issues like
with like the lyrics or something.
They're like, like that's the big back and forth is like him not liking Jim's lyrics
at the beginning here.
I don't think your lyrics are weird, man, and then Jim's like, well, you fucking write
one then.
And then the guitarist is like, well, you know, I got one of you guys want to hear it.
Be untrue.
Doesn't even say at that moment that he's like, come on, baby, light my fire.
I wrote a song that I think Jim would sing or something to that effect.
Like the guitarist almost is like already trying to fit into this mold that he sees
like what would work with Jim.
Like I have to, you know, I have to appease him or I have to change.
I mean, that's the fun.
I mean, that's that you can already tell he's the front man like that.
Like with a personality like that, I can see like, oh, if we're going to have this guy
in our band, he's not playing an instrument.
He's the front.
He's the singer like and the type of personality he is.
And the song and the lyrics that he writes is so important to me.
Such a head, head case.
Like, we're just, we're just like, it's really important to him the words and he doesn't
sing words.
It doesn't believe in it.
It seems like, cause even when he's starts like the light my fire thing starts, it was
just like very prickly about it.
And then finally they start to like warm up to it and it comes together like pretty well
there.
And then Ray's like, I got to work on this intro and he's like, all right, let's go
get fucked up.
Yeah, let's go get.
Fucked up.
And it just as always, and then that scene is over.
It's like, and then they come back and he's like, I actually have been people have to
work.
Jim just shows up just, you know, like spews a bunch of poetry and then maybe that's not
even the real thing, but that to me, that's kind of how I viewed the band was like Ray
was the one that was like sitting there, technically, technically figuring out the structure of the
song, the how it's going to piece together and work.
And maybe even catering to words that had had already been presented by Jim within certain
stanzas or whatever.
And it seemed and maybe wrong, but it seemed like it was Ray's job to pull that out of
Jim Morrison's head and put it on to paper.
And he's like, yeah, Jim's big ideas guy, you know, and Ray's got to kind of put it,
put it down.
And that's, but I that's can be an excellent way to create music and and our and like one
of my favorite bands, Radiohead, it's like that's their whole thing is just trying to
figure out what the fuck is going on in Tom York's head.
And let's like get it out into, you know, auditory sort of way is like a lot of their
writing processes because it's just like he's got an interesting mind.
And whenever he's involved, you can, it has a certain flavor that's different than any
of their other solo stuff that they do.
And even there's doors albums, two doors albums that exists after Jim's death that,
you know, if you want to get what that feels like without him.
Anyway, so it's you get the dynamic here, you get early, a couple early songs.
There's a lot of doors being played.
There's a there's a some other like kind of this isn't the Velvet Underground area yet,
that there's almost like the turtles or something being played or early the birds are kind of
playing like that kind of like early airy kind of Brit pop almost Boston over.
They mentioned being a big influence as well, which is understandable because a lot of California
bands of Boston over was really huge adult contemporary kind of like an lounge lounge
cocktail, loungey stuff.
I want to talk a little bit about the the desert scene because this scene to me doesn't
work in a lot of ways for me.
And the biggest one is I just don't get the sense that Oliver Stone has ever done drugs
in his life because the way that he thinks about visually how drugs are just doesn't.
It has like this inauthentic feel to it.
It comes off as very kind of stereotypical like, yeah, the sky is going to do this.
And then shamans are going to pop out and stuff like that.
Did you like what you think of that shot of him like talking where it was like all kind
of out of there's like a circle around him like the.
Uh huh.
It's kind of like that was that's cool.
No, no, that's OK.
But the big takeaway of that scene, I was like doing as Jim Morrison sounds like a fucking
nightmare.
Because the way that they presented in the movie is he is just rambling on about.
Oh, yeah.
Fucking God knows what and everybody's tripping out just being like, uh, uh, I don't know
if I can handle this.
And yeah, I would feel the same way.
The little door mouse goes through the room and he says hello to the snake who watches
from afar.
And as I sit wondering, I see a light from above and I know everything's going to be
OK.
Hey, where did everyone go?
Oh, you're bleeding out of your nose.
That was amazing.
But though.
OK, so that is great.
I love that you just said that.
But there's so much of him just casually talking in that scene in the acid head that he's in.
And it was really driving me crazy where it immediately is just like this guy is such
a raging narcissist.
Like he has to just talk about whatever's in his head, even though none of it really
makes sense and then just also impose it on everybody.
Like you need to understand this worldview that I see.
And it just if I was on acid with him, I would be like, Jim, shut the fuck up.
Like dynamic.
It would is kind of unnatural as well where I'm not.
But I think at some point he says, you know, and it does at the end as well, we're like,
he wants to be Dionysus.
And he wants to be this like.
Yeah, this.
But that to me tells me like I want the spotlight constantly.
Like I want to be center stage and everything and that voice in my head is important not
only to me, but to everyone around me, which I don't know.
It's like how it's portrayed in the in the movie is in this character.
I can see why some of the real people who knew Jim are like, I don't like.
There's this interview with Ray where he's just like, I don't like that guy.
Like if I saw that guy in real life, like I would not want to hang out with him and
start a band with him.
That's not the gym I know.
So I see why they're like right upset about how he's portrayed because there it's yeah.
And I don't think this desert trip even fucking occurred either.
And this is like an Oliver Stone thing where it's like, yeah, they need some big fucking
part in the script where they go out and all collectively do the Sergeant Pepper thing.
Like you know where the band like just changes and turns into like a dry like.
And that's in that in a way discredits the the substance of them as people and what you
can play with as far as like who they are and everything and just ascribing it like,
oh, it's the drugs doesn't do that fully.
But how that's played out is where the stereotypical side of these movies is.
Yeah, I agree with you.
It ends up being.
Not fully realized and an unnatural and again makes Jim Morrison come across as like he
does think he's some sort of demigod like Dionysus and when the Lizard King, Lizard King.
But then you're also you're saying you're clocking everyone else's you're trying to
clock everyone else's reactions.
And it's like, yeah, a lot of them I have to be like over this.
But then some of them are like, yes, Jim, tell what happens next.
What happens?
Oh, my God, story about, you know, it's and that's where it loses me where it's like
I there's there's no way I would want to walk away and I'm in the middle of the desert and
the hot sun.
There's no water.
What do we do with guys?
We need water.
We're tripping balls.
Yeah, I would totally walk away as well because I just I wouldn't be able to handle it because
I think what needs to happen is there needs to be a more consistent through line to what
he is trying to say because the way that it comes off in the movie is so nonsensical.
Yeah.
You know, and that is again, my overall thesis of this of the Oliver Stone of it all is Oliver
Stone doesn't get the through line.
He doesn't really understand drugs very well and how that you never done acid and seen a
naked man ride up to you on a horse and lead you into a cave.
No.
Have I?
No, I don't think so.
But yeah, it just it's to me, it just shows a undercurrent and Oliver Stone's ideology
that that is what hippie sound like to him is people talking about like generally, you
know, nothing just philosophizing about everything and none of them making any real sense.
But then this leads into like the result of what this trip does is they they go to the
whiskey and they play the end, I believe is this part where it gets very long and drawn
out and then the go-go dancers stop dancing.
That was that was one of my favorite parts where they're like dancing, they'll stop.
They're like, oh, what is and everyone's just like transfixed.
And that's like that's where like I am trying to reconcile and come to terms where Oliver
Stones, how he feels about it.
And I like that he wants to make it complicated, but it is so black and white and it is so
black and white, but it is just like sensationalize is the best way I can put it where it's like
if he is he is going to be all, you know, Dionysus and all like center stage when he's
doing this trip and everything, and he's going to be pretentious and all that in this film
class and annoying and he's going to have these criticisms.
But once you put him in that stage, once you get him in that situation, we're going to
show you how great he is in his in his prime.
And I'm glad they at least, you know, like you get to see why he is the way that he is
maybe is that he when you put him in on a stage, he thrives under that situation because
he loves the those the attention everything, but that's not tenable and like reality and
he does he has a hard time dealing with reality when outside of that.
But even later on, it's hard time on stage as well.
But I like that scene.
And then that's where he does the whole like edifice shit where it's like kill the father,
but the mother kill the father and then gets, yeah, gets arrested or whatever.
Yeah, I just like some of the rock and roll shit where like, oh, yeah, like it kicked
out and offstage and stuff.
That stuff is entertaining.
Sorry, I'm rambling.
This movie is at its best, in my opinion, the concerts.
Yes, the concerts are incredible.
Yeah, because Oliver Stone's wide angle lens and there's a fuckload of people in these
in these settings and they're all like engaged in what's going on and there's so much great
camera work.
It's like in the cramp.
Yeah, so much great editing.
And to the kind of to what you were saying is I see the A to B here where and listening
to the doors today.
Oh, characteristic of the doors to me is trance.
Yeah.
It puts you in a trance and that is visually represented in the movie, by the way, that
people react to it, what they end up doing, all of the debauchery and all of the stuff
that the crowd and, you know, I like how that's sensational.
Like I'll criticize other stuff, but like how they sensationalize like how powerful
the music is to people where they just like, I must take my clothes.
Yeah, I like that.
Help myself.
You know, it's great.
I can't wrap my mind around the idea of somebody.
Storming a stage to pass off.
Baby goat.
Like give him something.
Touch him like, you know, anything like that.
It's really, I've never understood it as a person who loves music.
It's gone to a fuckload of concerts.
You know, there's never been a compulsion for me to be like, I need to be a part of
this.
I have to.
I have to touch this.
I have to, you know, grab this and like, you know, make it real to me because this is just
so ethereal and so greater than me that it is just calling my name, you know.
And but all of that is in my mind is also criticisms of the hippie movement.
The A to B here is that the doors put people in a trance.
Oliver Stone feels like the whole hippie movement is in a trance.
It's a reason that they are in a trance is because they are induced on drugs and then
they're these enigmatic figures like Jim Morrison, just encourage it.
You know, the music is in is entrancing and it just never really gets into any sort of
activism that any of these characters are interested in that never like comes up.
That's such a good point.
That is never comes up.
A scathing indictment, if you will.
I love it.
I mean, like, because I think you're bringing this up a lot and it's like, I think that
is very purposeful by Oliver Stone because they go straight, you know, they going to
hate Ashbury, which I think is a fun little montage of like, hey, look at all these fun
hippies hanging out at hate Ashbury.
Woo, hate Ashbury.
No, then just like having a picnic.
But there's no point where like we need to clearly do something with like our voice
and our power as musicians.
I'm not saying they need to, but Jim Morrison himself is like, and the character that's
presented in this movie is like saying a lot of big, deep things and very what would be
the word like, like out there or, you know, if you're like a just high concept sort of
sort of stuff that never gets boiled down to it's like, OK, Jim, well, what should we
do about it?
You know, they're like, you're such a great leader and you're in your passing knowledge
from the mountaintop, but a lot of it is so philosophical and never comes down to like,
hey, maybe we pass around petition or something or something.
Right, something like, I don't know.
I couldn't.
I'm not a lame movie that I'm bringing up or but just I think Oliver Stone definitely
has an issue with the follow through of his ideals and that's we multiple times.
Or the follow or the follow through or is just in have very critical of these movements
that have happened in America and their follow through and he and it's just that's.
Yeah, where is the scene where Jim's at a protest?
Sure, I guess you would argue that his true like the way that he handles the police is
a stance, but like more often than not, it's.
It's kind of I don't side with the police at all.
I was kind of like, especially in the beginning, they both were like really active in like
shutting the performances down.
I love how dumb they make them.
Like I like how they fucking take the piss out of the cops.
Like that's great.
Oh, I love that.
But because I just I couldn't wrap my mind around why, for example, one of the early
concerts, the like owner or whoever is making an edict of like you can't do like a lot.
There's a lot of like either cops or people that work in the industry being like you can't
do this.
You need to stop doing this.
All of this stuff.
And I'm like.
Why?
You know, this is a rock and roll concert.
Like, where is the.
Why do you have cops on stage?
You know, like I and it's because I wasn't part of that era, so I don't know.
But it just seems so crazy to me that cops would be on stage at a rock show because
like I think that was.
I'm trying to remember when that started, but I know that the New Haven show was a big
nice that that was a big one.
And was that the one where we're with the Mace?
Yeah.
And I'm trying to think of the cops were up at that point or not, but I'm pretty sure
that was like a thing at some of his shows was like there would be cops like.
Kind of as just a representation of like, don't storm the stage and like a representation
of like, don't let things like get out of hand of them just being on stage with with
Jim Morrison, because I feel like the amount of there is certain things I feel like Oliver
Stone is worried about in terms of accuracy.
But as prevalent and as often as those cop lineups, I'm not sure, but I know that one
was a big deal.
And I can imagine after he had that big run and maybe they want to establish a police
presence at his shows, moving forward or something.
But that out of control feeling that you have at that New Haven show is definitely a great
example.
And some of the other shows, of course, later too, but he really taps into the chaos of
those live moments with the editing.
Amazing crowd work.
Like I don't know how they get the crowd so jacked up and on the same page.
And I really do think it might just be Val Kilmer, like being up there, like being being
a stage presence as well and doing his best to be a Jim Morrison for the people, the extras
and everything on there.
Because it is like, awesome, man.
Like you feel the if you want to just watch a movie and have a bunch of doors music play,
this movie serves that this movie visually serves the concert element as well.
Some of the biopic stuff and some of the interstitial dialogue, all that stuff is where it kind
of gets a little spotty, you know, the fleshing out of it all.
But showing that he fucking nails it.
He nails those the feeling and the sound and the ratcheting up of chaos in those moments,
which I think comes from a place of maybe even being in protests himself at that time.
Or being in, you know, being around him around the movie and at that time growing up and
feeling that that and ratcheting up of tension in a way.
Yeah.
And that that was done done really well.
Well, I'm carrying him away and all like the little, what do you want to say a little
man?
Great stuff.
I take a look at my notes.
See if there's anything else.
So go to so shifting gears away from the concerts for Tangent is I want to talk about
the Andy Warhol scene.
Oh, Crispin.
Crispin was born to play Andy Warhol.
Holy fuck.
Like he went, which apparently he met Andy Warhol.
I read a trivia thing on IMDB about how he went.
Him was that somebody's birthday and he met him.
So I could imagine he had a little bit of like, I actually kind of know what this guy
was like.
But man, he is the perfect Andy Warhol because he just he everything about Crispin Glover
is I feel like it has so many similarities in my mind to Andy Warhol where it is just
such a he's so much behind like going on in his head.
He's not a commanding presence because he's just so kind of tender framed and a little
I don't know, unassured at times of himself, but then also knows what he's doing is right.
So there's never like a full backing down of it.
And I thought it was such a great moment where Jim just takes Andy's glasses and just puts
it on and then Andy's just like in rapture like, wow, look at this guy just steal my
shit in front of me.
No one's ever done this, you know, and then also in that talking about like doing an art
show with all blank wall like just a blank wall like and that's just like that's like
nailing the the egos of those of those guys at the time.
Right.
Yeah, they said that they would just like the reason that they said that is because they
had an art show and then Jim there was like art on the wall at a show that Jim played
and people were like ruining it.
So they had to remove the art.
And so then that spawn like, well, maybe we just have a show with nothing in it.
But that's like kind of a fucking joke.
That's almost like all of our stone being like, yeah, again, like making fun of them,
you know, being like, yeah, Andy Warhol would make a room full of nothing and be like, this
is the new thing.
This is art, whatever.
And it so much of the ethos of the movies and scenes like the Andy Warhol party in my
mind where all Jim gives a shit.
I think a good like foil definitely to like he's looking at like what's possible a little
bit and what's different as well of what he wants and doesn't want in his own persona.
That's true.
Or just the.
Well said.
Yes.
Because he knows that he needs to be a persona because now he's reached, you know, the upper
echelon.
Now he's, you know, rubbing elbows with all these people like Paul Williams, which I thought
was like such a weird character.
The, do you know who Paul Williams is?
He's the guy with the glasses glasses and he's like Andy Warhol's PR person and he just
says like weird shit all the time.
Yeah.
And he's like, you gotta come meet Andy and just like, it's a bunch of just weirdo shit,
which reminds me of like Bill Hader's character from SNL or something like, oh, you we have
to go to the latest club.
It's down in the basement under an old trampoline and there's people that shine flashlights
on you.
It's called, you know, the club guy that's on week and update.
Oh, no, I know.
I just thought it's just weird that you said Bill Hader because he played Andy Warhol
in Men in Black 3.
Oh, I forgot about that.
Wow.
Yeah, we're making connections.
And then you have Michael Madsen's playing that actor who I'm not super familiar with,
but he was backstered.
Sam Baker, I think something like that.
Baker, you know, he was a he was a doctor who I guess.
Oh, wow.
At one point, not the first, but like at that time, he was a, I believe a doctor who, but
yeah, it was a big friend of his because he was constantly showing up throughout the movie,
which was kind of like Michael Madsen was smiling a lot.
I like a smiley Madsen because a lot of times he's so, so grim and has that he's scowling
and stuff.
And he's just a lot of a lot of smiley and a lot of hair, a lot of hair at this time,
a lot of hair in the.
Oh yeah, a ton of hair.
You know, what's funny too is this is like another Michael Madsen performance where when
I saw him come into the picture, I was like, well, this guy's totally trouble.
Like this guy, you just take one look at him and they're like, well, this guy is going
to be up to no good.
Like you can Jim Morrison's a real trouble in all of this.
Absolutely.
And yeah, so at this point, this gets into the major ascension.
I mean, a lot of the beats through the middle portion of this movie, I don't know.
We necessarily need to talk about feeling good.
I feel like we've, we've, we've been rolling through some Miami concert.
I think that would be a good, like big portion.
I mean, there's the Ed Sullivan thing where like they really embellished the get much
higher thing, which he didn't really do that to like piss people off.
Like, and maybe it's not true, but he later said that he just forgot because he was nervous
and said the real thing because he doesn't, when you see the recording and doesn't like
go up to the camera and he's like, yeah, yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
But I mean, yeah, like the, the, they're hitting the big moments that are memorable of their
career as a band.
I'm just, yeah, I was looking through some of Kathleen, Kathleen Quinlan.
My notes here.
Oh, the witch.
Witchy.
Have you ever drank blood?
Blood.
Oh my God.
And then introduces Jim DeCoak.
Yeah.
He's like, and then what does he say?
He's like another, he says something to the effect of like, oh, another new thing.
Like, yeah.
Add it on.
Oh yeah.
He's just like, oh yeah, we're doing coke now.
Okay.
Whatever.
Let's try it.
Yeah.
What the fuck?
It's just like, cool.
Yeah.
Like, whatever.
I mean, I don't know if she says it, someone says God of Rock and Cock, I think, or maybe
that's the photographer.
That's the photographer.
That was, that was something.
Does life imitate art or does life imitate Andy?
I think that's what the assistant said.
Oh my God.
That's another one where like Oliver Stone is writing bad lines to show how much he kind
of hates certain things.
I feel like, but you see, you get Nico.
That was kind of fun.
You get me.
Billy Idol, too.
But it was such like a technically Billy.
Yeah.
He plays cat, I think.
But that was such like a big, like her walking in spotlight and her being like, I'm Nico.
It's like, okay.
Okay.
You got that.
Yeah.
We got Venus Inferis playing as you're walking in.
And I yeah, we can probably, this was also a moment to me that was really funny because
of Delvin underground was playing and I was like, yeah, Venus Inferis.
Yeah.
I like this more.
The door.
Shiny, shiny.
Well, then they play and then they play heroin later too, which yeah, great, great polls.
And I, but somebody gave me this telephone to talk to God and they just like carry on
the telephone and like someone like passes it off to a homeless.
Yeah, man, it makes me cringe like artistic hippie man.
Damn it.
Oliver Stone, you make them look like real assholes, but I'm sure they were heads up
their own asses a lot of times too.
Elevator blow job and then you get.
Yeah.
There's good and bad, right?
There's good and bad with everything of every every movement.
Yeah.
You know, and it's, but this movie goes to lengths to only show this as a.
It's kind of showing off out of everybody though too.
Yeah.
It's like there's not a lot of, you know, you get, you get like the concerts where
it's like the music is great and everyone's having good time until they don't near the
end.
But yeah, the elevator blow job and then the face where you like Meg Ryan opens or he's
like.
I mean, so you're assuming that he came in a matter of.
Yeah, I think that opening in her face was like the thing that really like, because
there's a point where you like, you can't get it up until really weird shit.
He does weird shit and that's when you can fuck.
So that's like, it's like, oh, I'm getting off now.
This is fucking weird.
It's okay.
It happens to a lot of guys.
I just need to get an elevator blow job and have the door open on my.
Or my current girlfriend drinking blood, epic music.
Okay.
Fuck death away.
Yeah.
That's the big thing in this movie.
I don't really know if I care for how much that's foreshadowed.
His him like, yeah, we know he's going to die very tragically at a young age, but it's
like how the foreshadow is.
Is a little heavy handed.
There's a lot of heavy hand heavy handed shit in the spirit.
He pisses in the bar that was fucked up.
Or he just started like, get this motherfucker out of here.
Yeah, you can't piss in the bar dude.
Come on.
What an asshole.
That move is similar to me that I was just kind of a gas dad where he rolls up to somebody's
house and he just like parts in the middle of the street.
Just kids out.
The world's my toilet.
I'm just fucking.
It's like, wow, what a monster this guy is.
He doesn't even park his car.
He just stops whenever he wants to get out.
Yeah.
And then he fucking just blew my mind that this was in the movie and I I saw online.
I pretty I'm almost positive it didn't happen.
But when he fucking locks Meg Ryan in a closet and lights it on fire and runs out of the
house and runs into it and then drives and crashes into a cop.
I'm like, what is going on?
And like that and like that.
That was just and she was so fucking high.
I think she was on smack or whatever and he's pissed about it.
But that was real hypocrite.
Fuck you, dude.
That's like irredeemable.
Yeah.
That's something that's not even that didn't even really happen.
That is so specific is like where I almost start to get a little bit like you're playing
with fire.
So you know what I mean?
To this point, so the Cisco and Ebert review of this movie, Ebert gave it a thumbs down
two and a half out of four.
I have a snippet for review section later.
I can bring it up.
So I can just read it now if you want.
No, no, it's OK.
I can just like.
His it was so interesting to hear his just succinct opinion of it because he went.
I love the performance of Val Kilmer.
I love the concerts.
I bought the soundtrack.
It teleported me back into the time, which I enjoyed.
Boo, don't like this movie because of all of everything else.
Just especially how the way that he said it is, is that this movie is I wanted to run
away from it at a point.
This movie was so unenjoyable that I don't I can't recommend it to people.
Yeah, that's then the Cisco being like, wait a minute, you just said it looked great.
It was acted well and you like the music.
Wait a minute.
You don't like this movie.
And then he's like, yeah, I just, you know, I can't get behind how, you know, how terrible
of a person he seemed to be at the end of it.
And you're like, whoa, OK.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know.
It's like I'm kind of OK with it if it is real, but there's something that felt kind
of off as far as like how sensationalism is.
I worked so many times, but like how how big it felt by the end of it.
I was like, I'm just curious, like this is a real person, a well-known person.
There's a lot of people that have had their experiences with them.
Let's see what they have to say.
A lot of them are like, say that it was portrayed way too like mean and the substance abuse
was on a whole other level and there are so many other wonderful sides of him as a person
that didn't get their time on the screen.
And that to me tells me that, yeah, yeah, maybe you're interested in more than a negative
dark side, but maybe the audience wants to have the full full picture in a different
way.
But yeah, totally.
Yeah, that's I guess what happens when you give it to a director and he works within
those means.
And that's I'm curious what it would be like in different hands, but there's other things
that you would lose like that of Alcomer performance in the in the concerts.
So you knew how to pull off and we get into I was just going to wrap up here with a little
bit of the ending of like, and yeah, and it's just they lay into like every senior belly
lately, it's like, geez, lay out like be nice to the guy.
Like I don't know.
People get all you'd like thinking a little bit of a belly.
I know he's going through substance abuse and everything too, but just how much they
lay into him and everything was just like very.
He's burned all the bridges though, James.
Like shadowing.
And so at least in the context of the movie, like why would anybody cut him a fucking break?
Like he we've just only seen him as somebody who literally playing into things that are
like.
I just mythologize from an outsider's perspective of Jim Morrison as a character.
And yeah, like he got a little chubbier by the end as did as did Elvis and a lot of other
rock stars and all this stuff.
But just that kind of thing and the foreshadowing of death was something that was playing into
very basic things that we all know about Jim Morrison in such an obvious sort of way within
the dialogue that wasn't subtle.
And there's a lot about this movie that isn't fucking subtle.
And it's like, and it could have done ways of calling out his being a little overweight
in different ways really.
Hey, Jim, you're getting fat.
Look at that belly.
You know, I don't know.
It's just, it's just the writing is not very subtle in some of these parts.
Line that was said by the guitarist on one of the last performances that I wish rang more
true throughout more of the movie, arguably, like, or at least like, I don't know, like
honed in better to this idea as the guitarist was like something.
It was somebody who talks about pain being a good thing.
You're constantly running away from it.
And I just when that line came out because amidst all of the kind of bullshit in the
in the writing, when that came in, it was like, whoa.
Yeah, man.
Like.
That is that's exactly what's happening.
And it was a real kind of shining light moment where, yeah, I thought that was good that somebody
fucking brought it up, you know, that this guy again, it's but in the context of the
movie, right?
Like he has been shown as being such a huge hypocrite and somebody is calling him out for
it.
But in a way that was actually really tender and came from a place of compassion, you know,
like the Robbie Krieger, Craig or whatever.
I loved that guy.
I love the like what he kind of stood for in the movie.
I love the actor that played him is just like what we said in the beginning about him recognizing
what Jim's vibe is and then trying to fit the music to that because, you know, that's
how it would be successful to accomplish the music or to make the music like work the best.
He just always had these moments are the movie where he would do drugs with Jim, but he would
provide a little bit of like honest feedback about it.
And yeah, I wanted to call that out because it really stood out.
Yeah, I like that that concert where he took he popped something to and was kind of chuckling
at everything that was happening.
He's just like he's going to laugh the whole time.
The chaos of it all.
And that was kind of the humanity came in because there was someone else that was on
Jim's level that Jim's whole mind and everything about him seems so like unattainable by anybody
else around that to have that connection could use maybe a little bit more of that and even
more with him and Ray, you know, which very quickly moved into contentious from them being
like buddies.
It moved right past that very quickly, unfortunately.
And then also Kevin Dylan's character.
Oh, no, I was going to give you another beautiful line.
You gave such a beautiful line that I wanted to give another another good line spoken by
Val Kilmer when he's they're having a hard time in the recording session, I think during
a come on, come on now, touch me, babe.
And when he's storming out of the recording session, he says to the producer, why don't
you suck a fart of my fart out of my asshole, you slave driving fascist.
That was to Paul Rothschild, right?
That's the love that actor.
He's in the account of money.
So that's the yeah, he is.
Uh-huh.
Oh, my god.
His voice that ducks like a David Graham.
Yeah, like a like a fire fire steam.
What's Harvey Fierstein?
I mean, yeah, I mean, I can't do it.
Hey, Jim, it's me, Harvey Fierstein.
Yeah, you have an incredible heart.
And James had to step away for a second.
I've heard you want to talk about the doors.
Oh, holy shit.
This is wow.
Steen is on fire.
Okay.
It is.
I gotta go.
James actually left and Harvey Fierstein was here.
Yeah, but I gotta go.
I got things to do.
Okay.
By RV.
Yeah, I'll see you later.
What I miss.
Hey, oh, you missed Harvey Fierstein.
You know, he's not really in this movie, but he heard that we were talking about a Michael
Windcaw performance and just had to, you know, show face because, you know, people with the
same vocal, you know, characteristics, the, you know, the lines on the podcast sometimes.
Yeah, maybe we'll, yeah, we some occasional we'll get someone just, it's not a call,
but it's a it's a drop in somehow with these faulty wires.
So we'll try to work on them.
They watch a TV in the studio with the volume all the way on.
I thought that was interesting.
Like, why is this TV in a studio and the volume's on?
Shouldn't they be worried about?
The studio?
Yes, but muted.
Well, I guess muting.
They're watching.
They're like what they're like in the middle of like in between a recording session, they're
like, Hey, it's a commercial for a light my fire that just happens to play.
It is just such like a coincidence.
Perfect.
Yeah.
And Meg Ryan like comes into it like, Oh, that was, that was the most painful, dramatic
moment that did not work at all was like they're having this big fight with the band.
And Meg Ryan very like, unnaturally just pushes herself in the situation.
It was like, you got to pull yourself together, Jim.
This isn't working.
And like, what, where'd you come from?
Where do you do it here?
Like, part of the scene, she walks in and makes a big grand statement.
It was so out of place and, and it's unfortunate because she needed that moment, but it was
like a part of another moment that was already happening.
That was, that was strange.
There's a Wilhelm scream at one point.
I think that might have been at the Miami concert.
I didn't notice that.
Yeah.
That was really hard.
Um, yeah.
Like there's this whole final really fucking cool.
Yeah.
We should talk about that.
That was amazing.
That was like a moment where I was so glued to the screen.
I mentioned ratcheting and attention.
Like there's a portion right before it gets really crazy where he like is singing the
song with the different lyrics.
I forget what he changes the lyrics to, but it's, it's pretty funny.
And then he just was like, no, it's fucking stop.
And he cuts it off and he cuts the song off and starts screaming some more.
And it was like, what are you going to fucking do?
Like, what are you going to do?
You're all fucking slaves.
Like it was so good, man.
Like it, it made me feel in a way like I was there and the editing and the chaos was very
well handled.
I don't know how there's a bonfire of that being in the middle of a concert, but it was
so cool for the setting.
Absolutely.
And then a part of, part of that that I love is there is this moment where Jim is a magic
man, imagining himself in there and you can see both of them at one point where there's
the gym that's by the fire dancing around and then the gym that's on stage.
And it just gives you such a great perspective of in the crowd, like what's happening in
there.
And it is so cool.
It's so yeah.
Like.
Yeah.
I'm at a loss for words a little bit because I just I, I too was glued.
Yeah.
It's like you get the best version of understanding what a crazy genius kind of has the full come
up in some of him as a person of what that's led to the substance abuse and and using the
stage as a drug as well and how that has been distorted and now he is using them as a way
to work through his own shit and in a in a way where it's sad.
Interesting to watch and also has music, historical qualities that is something that I think both
of us are are interested and curious about of being in shows that don't go well as well
as we've been in shows where fire marshals come in and shut the shit down, you know,
and it's fucking kind of a weird feeling where riot police is coming in and shuffling you
out of a show.
We've had situations like that.
And yeah, because it's so chaotic, like it's there's such little communication in the
moments that we've experienced together when that's happened, like it could have gone better
if there was more clear direction or updates about what was going on.
But there's none of that.
Things just stop and everybody just sits around speculating and creating their own narratives
in their head.
And a majority of people who paid money to go there is like, well, I'm not leaving until
you force me out of here and it just it would serve so much better in those situations if
organizers would be more vocal about what these updates are.
So then people could adapt to that.
And then Miami show looked like a nightmare that stage crashing.
When you think of like Travis Scott, you know, that kind of shit.
Travis.
Yeah, I'm fucking scared.
You don't know how a mob of people can react and but this one was more so just so well done
with the perspective of Jim Morrison and then incorporating some of the Native American sort
of stuff that's been pushed through the movie up to this point and him running through the
crowd and the woman standing by the fire gets into.
Yeah, you feel the hallucinatory sort of effects just by watching it.
And I think that's where it comes across of whether it's put on by drugs or not.
It's a collective hallucinatory hallucinatory experience.
And I almost felt like just whether you're taking anything or not, just having his mind
and his words and music could just have that effect itself.
And then it gets into this, I don't know, this final scene with the band didn't work
for me because and I I understand why, but it felt like they were really like knew he
was going to die right at Thanksgiving.
No, when they're like saying goodbye when he's about to move to France, I guess we
didn't talk about Thanksgiving too much, but you know, I'm near the end here.
Like he is saying bye to all of them before they moved to France and they are just like
devastated as if they're talking to him on his deathbed and their life.
And I get that he's not in a great place.
He's using a lot of subs and maybe he's not going to be around.
You know, who knows if if, but they are treating it like it's they're saying goodbye forever.
And it's the play well.
I like, and that's the kind of stuff that it's overly foreshadowed, overly sentimental,
overly dramatic and playing into these things that haven't happened yet.
And the foreshadowing hits too hard where it's like, just it doesn't.
It's not natural and then it ends up not having the prescribed feeling that you want to have.
But I did like the final text and seeing the Gravestone cemetery.
That was I really liked that.
That was good.
I visited that gravestone in real life.
Was it all kind of like graffiti and stuff to Jim Morrison's part?
A little bit.
Yeah.
A lot of big people there.
A lot of big people and they show them, which was I was like, what are we doing here?
You know, it's like kind of like to, I don't know, just.
Yeah.
None of these people necessarily have.
Oscar Wilde.
That is so those are the big ones.
So when I went, it was Oscar Wilde.
It was Jim Morrison.
And then there's also.
All the years.
Not Bach, but one of those guys was there.
But it's cool to see that again, because his grave is very small and like tucked away,
you know, because like this graveyard has been there for God knows how long, you know,
I'm going to just throw out a number that maybe I'm wrong, but like easily to like a
hundred years, I would probably put it at.
I mean, at least I'm sure.
At least.
Yeah.
Probably more.
I'm sorry.
All the way a lot more.
Yeah.
Probably hundreds of years.
But yeah.
So his grave is like really small and like really tucked away.
And it is such a chilling experience to confront that where in your mind, you go, well, this
person, especially at our age, you go like, well, the doors are one of the biggest bands
ever.
And so you kind of assume that when you go, it would be like.
It would be more of a thing, right?
But just like, you know, I mean, it's very poetic.
You know, even though he was such a massive star in death, you know, it's like.
We're all the same.
Great equalizer.
The same.
Yeah.
There's just this little, little thing in this place.
And I think maybe there was a part of that too, where it was showing these big names,
but everyone, yeah, so has their little plot, you know, some bigger than others.
But it's like, yeah, we're all in this movie does foreshadow the death part a lot.
And his actual death, I don't know if that really worked for me either.
You know, Meg Ryan walking in and just like knowing that it happened and then being like,
I hope it was everything that you wanted just didn't really hit for me.
How she was telling and talking to him like that and like her reaction.
I don't know.
That didn't play for me in the way that I feel like the movie wanted it to, but it
wasn't bad.
It just wasn't great.
I feel good about wrapping up on the plot here.
I would love to move into some critics and audiences feelings on it after a brief bathroom
break.
That's good.
We shall return.
Oh, welcome back, everybody to the show, to the program.
Are we in?
Is everyone ready for some critic reviews and some audience reviews of polarizing rotten
tomato scores?
We got a 56% from the critics.
We got a 79% from audiences here from critic reviews of a polarizing doors movie.
Let's start with that Roger Ebert blurb.
Two and a half out of four.
He gave it.
Watching the movie is like being stuck in a bar with an obnoxious drunk when you're
not drinking.
It's kind of what Jim Morrison is in this.
Hal Henson Washington Post.
The film is an absurdity muddled self serious alienating a stone drag.
Peter Travers loved it by the way.
He gave it a four out of four, but that's not what we're here for.
Just wanted to drop that Travers been in there.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago reader.
The movie does a pretty good job of period ambience, but it's a long haul waiting for
the hero to keel over.
You just was upset.
I mean, you just not going to like a doors movie then Jonathan Rosenbaum because I'm
yeah, well, fortunately, yeah, but.
Probably going to die at the end and maybe you do a movie where he does.
Right.
What I would say just to that is I that's interesting to think about how somebody could
go into this movie and expecting more of a like celebration of him.
Right.
Like obviously everybody knows that he died, but it's more of a it comes at it from a perspective
of like celebrating that artist.
And this is possible.
I I mean, maybe I know and this is a documentary, but that fucking David Bowie documentary is
so fucking good.
And I would highly recommend that to to anybody.
Moon Age Daydream fuck.
What was it called?
Oh, yes.
Moon Age Daydream.
Yes.
Moon Age Daydream.
Yes.
So good.
Highly recommend it.
And it's so different than any other documentary.
It doesn't do like David Bowie.
David Bowie as it was born and blah, blah, blah, and was raised.
Father was a dad and his mother was a bleh.
And you know, it took art classes and had a very was a very smart young boy.
It just like is fucking badass editing, weird trip, like loud, cool music with weird, awesome
visuals and it's just a feel piece and it doesn't like there's no chronological of anything.
It's just like throwing awesome shit at you constantly and like a long, really long, cool
music video.
Almost.
It's so fucking awesome.
Love it.
Like put put it on really loud and check it out.
Highly recommend.
And the same guy that did montage of heck, which is the Kurt Cobain documentary was good
as well.
The director Dave Kerr.
No, it's to Terrence Rafferty, the New Yorker for a while.
The obviousness and flat out vulgarity are sort of entertaining and it might be possible
to enjoy the movie as a camp classic.
If you could ignore the mean spiritedness that keeps breaking through.
Yeah.
Jay Boyer, Orlando Sentinel.
After the first hour or so, the doors, the only door I wanted to see was the one marked
exit.
Oh, wow.
Boom.
It's been a body bag.
But it a body.
And maybe you shouldn't be living here.
All right, let's move on to audience reviews.
89% from the audience from RS slash TRS five stars titled absolutely brilliant performance
by Val Kilmer.
I will never understand why Val Kilmer was not at the very least nominated for an Oscar
after his beyond brilliant portrayal of Jim Morrison.
I know it was not an altogether truthful account of Morrison's life.
But with that, what with what he had to work with, I can't imagine anyone surpassing his
performance, particularly since Val sang all the songs and sounds exactly like Jim.
Let's listen to them both sing break on through and you can tell you can't tell who's who.
I saw the doors at RPI in New York when I was 18 and they blew me away.
But Val brought something of himself to this role that made it come alive in a very deep
way without sacrificing his commitment to Jim's memory.
He's an amazing actor and this was a tour de force.
I get chills just thinking about it.
Let's do another audience review.
Do you want to know who was nominated for Best Actor?
Yes.
So for these Oscars, it was Anthony Hopkins, the Silence of the Lambs.
Wow.
Did he win?
He won.
Yeah, he won for that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he's on the on screen for like 20, 30 minutes.
I know.
Right.
That's great.
Take that.
Robert DeNiro keeps fear.
Nick Multy, the Prince of Tides, Robin Williams, the Fisher King and Warren Beatty in Bugsy.
All right.
Some classic classic run of actors there at the time.
But yeah, I could see.
I could see him slotted in there somewhere.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
I wouldn't mind.
Let's do a review from Katie Levin's a five star Val Kilmer sees to exist when those cameras
started rolling.
He bodied this shit as someone who has done a lot of extensive research on Jim Morrison
in their free time and as a massive doors fan.
It's almost scary how on it Val is in this is every movement word and singing singing
voice are on point.
He also looks quite a bit like Jim, which is doubly wild.
I truly think this movie is the best example of a well done, accurate and proper homage
to the subject being portrayed in a biopic.
The rest of the cast is also great.
But yeah, Val went off in this.
Go off case.
Body that shit from OK five stars.
A door beyond measure.
I'm afraid of cess with the manipulation of the image here.
The music lives within the frame.
One does shit here that has only been since paralleled by the likes of Lerman and probably
no one else.
Boss that is Morrison descending into the crowd.
Body absent mind.
Rhythm without rationale.
Perfect mythical movie making.
That's interesting to think about this in relation to boss Lerman's movies because, you know,
he just did all this, right?
I think that's this is a review, I believe from 2024.
Yeah, 2024 on Letterbox.
So this is someone that's like, I saw Elvis recently.
And this is in this.
I hold this in the same regard.
Which Elvis is very different.
Elvis is like, let's all look at how great Elvis is.
Do we all love Elvis?
And mean old man that tried to fuck with them.
But we all love Elvis.
He can't do any wrong.
And this indoors is like.
Jim Morrison's kind of a pretentious idiot, isn't he?
Mm hmm.
Did you see Priscilla?
So I'm seeing that I need to see that one.
That's the opposite.
Yeah, I'm interested.
I'm very interested in that take.
Let's see a review from comrade U.E.
I see a lot of hate for this on here.
And my quixotic response is this, you won't understand this film unless you know that
you're living in the eon of Horus.
If you don't got the awareness man, the awareness of the scared become a moon worshiper, be a
beast of back.
That's what that's what I tell you.
Kick that fascist out of your reptilian brainstem.
He's a landlord demanding rent and has an unclog your bathtub in 23 years.
Look man, I don't know.
William Blake didn't die for this shit.
Give us a goddess who's not afraid to cry.
Rock is dead.
What a cute gravestone.
Well, oh man.
Yeah, man.
Yeah.
Good job.
Just like this man.
I actually encapsulated this movie very well because I don't really know what the fuck
that was about.
I'll do one more and then we'll be done.
This one's a little longer, but bear with me.
Andy Summers, five stars.
It seems like only yesterday that I ventured into the Olympia shopping center in East
Kilbride to watch Oliver Stone's biopic on the doors.
It was actually 1991 and I was a 21 year old on the cusp of becoming a huge doors fan.
During my childhood, I'd been brought up listening to bands that were all far too grown
up for me.
Looking back a 10 year old listening to Fleetwood Max, Skinnerd, Credence, and Led Zeppelin
seemed odd to most of my peers.
I got ridiculed by older kids who were into Adam and the fucking ants and Blondie and
throughout my teenage years I always liked different bands from people my age.
I almost always went back in time when it came to discovering music.
Getting into Hendrix 20 years after he was dead, much just like with Morrison in the
doors.
Because it just takes a spark to ignite an interest that goes deeper.
Stone's film is often maligned for not focusing the story more on the other three members
of the band.
Marginalized in favor of Jim Morrison's own story, the birth of the band is documented
fairly well and live performances are thrilling to watch.
Val Kilmer's performance as Morrison is incredible, immersive, and totally convincing.
Almost chameleon-like as he goes from an aspiring filmmaker to rock god within a couple trippy
scenes.
The counterculture movement is captured beautifully, the fashion is authentic, and above all the
music is hypnotic, psychedelic, and full of tunes that time will never forget.
I love the film.
Sure there was plenty of iffy moments here and there, Meg Ryan's casting was amusing,
and at times the script resembles something written by someone on the same drugs as Morrison.
As musical biopics go, this is much better than most.
Walk the Line is the only biopic that captures quite the same spirit of the players involved,
but Soansville manages to keep the vibrancy of the music live nearly 50 years after Morrison.
Manzarek Krieger and Denz Moore wrote it.
Okay.
I need some nice little like, I was a 21 year old on the cusp of being a man and I went
and saw us and nobody gets me.
There was a lot of like, everyone listens to modern music, but not me man, I listened
to the classics.
And now that Blondie is a classic.
Yes.
So I don't know.
At this point, Blondie is as old as probably Morrison was at at a 91.
So polarization, accounting of that, I think the critics had a hard time with the portrayal
of Morrison.
And how intensely dark that was and how I think some of the characters felt a certain
way about Morrison, like the guy in the film class calling him pretentious is Ebert calling
Oliver Stone pretentious like Ebert's in that film class watching Oliver Stone's movie
on the doors and being like a little pretentious there, Oliver is essentially is kind of how
I'm looking at it.
Like I think in many ways, Oliver Stone represents what, you know, he thinks Jim Morrison isn't
in some ways too.
But that's as far as the critics are concerned.
And then the audience is like, I totally get it.
It's a it's a movie about the doors in which the doors is playing like a lot of the time.
And you get a great performance by Val Kilmer.
You get you get the drama and you get some great concert scenes that plays great on like
national television like TNT or something, your VH one or something we're thrown on the
doors and you tune in and they're playing the concert from, you know, New Haven, and
you're like, oh, this is a good part right here.
Let's watch this part.
And I feel like this that's kind of been this movie for me.
I don't think I'd seen it all the way through before this this most recent watching.
I feel like the middle portion was very familiar to me, but the book endings was something
I wasn't as familiar with.
So that was a nice trip to go through the whole thing.
I'll do you have any comments on the polarization stuff?
Yeah, I just like, you know, I'm aligned with you by and large on why this is polarizing
because I think critics are tuned into the ethos of this movie and have an issue with
it.
But audience members are going to have by and large a good time because if they're watching
a movie about the doors, there's a lot of doors music in it.
And the performance of Val Kilmer is very good and seems like Jim Morrison.
So you would, you know, somebody that's grew up in this time or is really into the doors
would be like, well, this is the best version of Jim Morrison.
I'm going to see on screen maybe and just be totally enthralled with that.
And then yeah, kind of maybe even turn your brain off, you know, at times when it gets
into the other stuff.
And that stuff doesn't last that long.
It gets back into it relatively, you know, consistently.
And so for that, yeah, I mean, and also to it's really, yeah, it really goes a long way
for audience members.
I'm sure that this movie captures well the energy of those concerts because people wanting
to get an Astaljan to feel that again.
It probably fired off a lot of things in their brain.
And so they would, you know, come out of this being like, well, yeah, hey, that was, you
know, that was cool.
Wow, the doors, the doors are awesome.
I still love the doors.
Yeah.
I mean, the, the really, really dark stuff kind of in his death and everything is so
sudden.
It comes at the end that you can, you can go through a lot of it and accept that he's
going to be an asshole rock star is going to be the kind of the persona that he's eventually
getting to or kind of already is and, and still enjoy the debauchery.
I think the debauchery, especially at the time the movie, this movie was made was something
that people were interested in rock stars as well, which is a commentary from the nineties
sort of version of, of rock and roll music, I think plays into the ethos of this movie
and how, how it's represented.
So that accuracy may be off a bit because it has those some, some of those sensibilities
that don't quite fit what's going on here.
But as far as my feelings for it and any sort of final thoughts.
I overall liked this movie.
I know we've been going into a lot of criticisms of the portrayal of Jim Morrison and the overall
kind of feelings about the person making the movie towards the, it's his own material and
towards the thing that he's making a movie about Oliver Stone.
But the Oliver Stone is such a, he's a good filmmaker and he doesn't always make a great
film.
There's some that, you know, aren't, aren't the best, but this is not one of them.
I think this is, I think this is a good movie.
And unfortunately it's, it is shrouded by a narrative that puts Jim Morrison, a real
person into the position of being way more of a character and way more of this caricature
of, of Jim Morrison.
And I can see the criticisms from people that actually knew him.
And with that knowledge, I think I can compartmentalize it enough to still enjoy the movie and
understand that this is a heightened, very heightened version of events and whether they
occurred or didn't.
I do like Meg Ryan as an actress.
I don't think she gets the narrative in the script, give her enough to do where she's
fleshed out as a character.
I like that it was more focused on Jim Morrison.
And then I know maybe the bandmates are just like, I wanted it to be like a door, like
more about the doors.
I'm like, I like that.
They really put the spotlight on Jim and Val Kilmer for that matter.
That is a more interesting movie for me.
I haven't even seen Bohemian Rhapsody, but I know that was, that was the thing going
into that movie.
It's like, whether it's going to be more, you should be about fucking Freddie Mercury.
Like make the movie more about frame.
I haven't even seen that one, but if there's certain bands, it's just that's that.
You know why people are going.
Yeah.
You know why.
And he is a legend.
It's a legendary performance by a legendary actor.
Somebody himself that has his own, that has probably similar issues to Jim Morrison in
terms of fame.
I would, I would imagine in some, some way shape performer in terms of like wanting the
spotlight.
I even read like there was this memo that went out during like the film filming of the
movie that wasn't, I guess, supposed to go to everyone.
I'll read this year.
Controversy arose during filming when a memo linked to Kilmer circulated among cast and
crew members, listing rules of how the actor was to be treated for the duration of principal
photography.
These provisions forbade people to approach him on set without good reason, address him
by his own name while he was in character or stare at him on set.
In upset stone, contacted Kilmer's agent and the actor claimed it was all a huge misunderstanding
and that the memo was for his own people and not the film crew.
So even if he's even a word true, that is how he treats his own people.
Yeah.
But that, that like whatever, I think that works.
All these things that maybe could have a destructive force or make the film not as good.
Some of them actually make it even better.
And I think Val Kilmer being that kind of guy desperate for the part and really desperate
for a big part and the big spotlight at that moment is exactly what the movie needed.
Oliver Stone being brash with editing and how he shoots crowd work in the concerts is
definitely the best part of the movie.
The criticism I'd give everything in between that is overly dramatic and sensationalized
and not coming from a place of naturalism and, and, and in reality and plays into some
stereotypes of rock biopics.
But in a way, I was almost kind of comforted by some of that stuff because I was like,
Oh, we're going to go, we're going through this song and dance, you know, we're going
through like, Oh, he's going to hit his big crescendo and then, you know, burnout on drugs
and alcohol and like that I've seen that this movie playing at times.
The thing is that this is a director that adds style to it, that makes it fun and adds
a lot of door songs in ways that don't seem like overdone.
Like there's constantly playing doors music and for me, I just like the music so much
that I'm just jamming along to it and it never really gets to be too much.
We just watched vanilla sky recently.
That's a fucking record drops are just like giving me headaches by the end of that movie
because it's so out of place and not an uncalled for, but this one has an energy and, and I
overall am happy I watched it.
I can see myself watching it again.
I think the yeah, about commerce performance will go down as, you know, as a tough thing
to accomplish if they are going to do any sort of Jim Morrison doors and again will be
tough to beat his performance.
I'm going to give this one 81.
Oh, give him an 81.
I love that.
Oh, I love that, man.
I'm going to get some love.
I think I overall.
Yeah, yeah, it was like better than I even expected and I can look past some of the stuff
that I criticize it for and I'm aware it's there.
I have the ability to kind of look past it as how much I kind of enjoy it.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Um, where do I begin?
I begin from the beginning.
Um, no, what I will say about this movie is it is something that people daily beloved
we are gathered here today.
Um, people should watch this movie.
I'm in that camp.
People should watch this movie.
I it's weird how much this movie has elicited me thinking about this particular idea where
it.
It like sensationalizes but then also shows how wrong that is.
And there's a dichotomy at work throughout this movie where it shows how passionate and
how, you know, how big of a deal and important a person like this is, but it comes at it
from a perspective where.
It doesn't.
It's contankerous.
It has a contankerous relationship with the material and.
That makes for an interesting movie.
I this movie made me think a lot about things, you know, just about narcissism about fame
about relationships and pursuits and whatnot.
Um, man, yeah, I like this movie too, man.
I did, um, can I make one other comparison that I was kind of thinking about when I was
watching it started to interrupt, but it was almost making me think of social network.
Yeah, sure.
At least totally.
And a lot of people's what you would think of people, some people's issues with that
movie might be different figure, not like everyone's idolizing Mark Zuckerberg or anything
before that movie comes out when maybe you are whatever.
But they, I feel like Dave Fincher, that movie didn't care as much about some of the accuracy
of some other of like, of like how exact everything went.
And he was getting more into the, yeah, this, this sort of feeling based thing of how who
he was as a person and ascribed importance to other things in his life that maybe he
didn't himself have, but it made it, yeah, made it a more interesting movie.
And maybe it's not all accurate, but it made it made it more interesting and palatable
as a, as a film, but maybe I don't know if that's a good comp.
I would, my comp would be that this movie to me shares a lot of similarities to Wolf
of Wall Street.
Oh yeah, that's a good one.
Where people who idolize Wolf of Wall Street are missing the point.
I see.
Yeah.
So much online these days, there are memes and people like this, particularly men's
identity is wrapped up in, you know, this who Jordan Belford was.
And this movie does something very similar where if you look at this movie and go, man,
wouldn't I love to do a lot of drugs, have sex with a lot of beautiful women?
Yada, yada, wouldn't that be so cool?
But it does go to lengths, maybe at times way overcorrects and goes, no, this is a terrible
like this is a shitty person that treats people like dirt.
And you should, if you're watching this movie and going, I want to be Jim Morrison, then
you miss the point.
That's a radio headline.
Okay, cool.
Anyone can play guitar.
I want, I want to be Jim Morrison.
Okay.
I guess I think by and large, my issues with the movie is that pessimism about the about
people about the generation that, like I've said already, I there could be more compassion
towards the main character, towards the surrounding cast, towards the time, you know, to really
fill out, like be more well rounded in your perspective of what's going on during then
and what it all means.
And it was just lacking.
And so I would like to give this movie more a higher score, but I just there's a part
of me that just doesn't love the place, the idea or the ethos of this movie.
But people should go fucking see it.
It's got so many cool things that you think that we've talked about it.
And it's worth seeing.
So where do I sit?
I want to do a, I don't know, maybe he would hate that I'm going to say this, but maybe
not.
I'm going to give it a 69 percent.
A very fair score.
I want to get your list of 69 movies.
That's another list on Letterbox that you got to, that you got to figure out because
I know Spring Breakers is on that list.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
One of our early entries.
Another example of glorifying sex and drug culture and escapism, but then also being
very critical about it.
Yeah.
Look at my shit.
Well, that's been a truly wonderful trip of a podcast that I just went on.
I tell you what, what a wonderful conversation I have had a great time.
I am kind of wanting to listen to some doors a little bit more too.
I don't know.
We'll see if that, if that lasts, but I also want to watch a more Oliver Stone movie.
So I guess it kind of did its job.
But for us here, we're going to put this one aside and move on to our next film, which
is from 1989, starring a little certain somebody, a little Patty Swayze in a big, big role of
his.
The movie is Roadhouse.
Ladies and gentlemen is Roadhouse.
We are going to be discussing next time on this program in preparation for, I'm sure
it will be a wonderful remake as well.
Oh yeah.
I'm sure who knows if we'll even watch it, but we're going to be watching the original
for sure.
Maybe the new one will be polarizing too.
I'm surprised this one's even polarizing, but it is a cult classic at this point.
Just a classic is a 41% by the critics, a 41% poopy doopie snoopy by the critics.
It is a 67% by the audience.
I wonder I should pull up a synopsis here.
Let's see.
Movie info on Rotten Tomatoes says, the double deuce is the meanest, loudest and rowdiest
bar south of the Mason Dixon line and Dalton Patrick Swayze has been hired to clean it
up.
He might not look like much, but the PhD educated bouncer proves he's more than capable, busting
the heads of troublemakers and turning the Roadhouse into a jumping hot spot.
But Dalton's romance with the gorgeous Dr. Clay Kelly Lynch puts him on the bad side
of cutthroat local big shot Brad Wesley, Ben Ghazara, produced by Joel Silver, director
Rowdy Harrington.
The director's name is Rowdy.
We will see you next time for Roadhouse.
Thank you so much for joining us for the doors.
We are streaming this live, twitch.tv slash PolarizePod.
If you want to join us ever for a live recording, otherwise, please rate, review, subscribe on
Apple Podcasts.
That would help us a lot.
We have a YouTube channel.
If that makes it easier to watch on there.
If you want to send a line, Gmail is PolarizeThePod at gmail.com.
If you want to send any movie ideas, segment ideas, fan mail, hate mail.
Yeah, whichever.
Any sort of Jim Morrison fun facts.
We're here for it.
And I've not forgotten anything, Brandini.
We'll send them on their way.
Yeah.
Yeah, send them on.
Excellent.
Well, we bid you adieu and enjoy your future podcast travels.
And we'll see you next time.
Goodbye.
Bye bye.