207 – The Quick and the Dead

“Is that the twink from Basketball Diaries?”

Jen and Tim mildly disagree on a Sam Raimi film that didn’t quite hit with audiences the first time around, the gender-swapped revenge tale The Quick and the Dead.

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You can watch some deleted scenes from the film, including the love scene between Sharon Stone and Russell Crowe (or “liebesszene,” as it’s described here, because it’s dubbed in German. A couple of the non-sexy scenes are missing audio, probably because those elements were lost after the theatrical edit was finalized.

Jen raised the notion that women are better shots than men, but there’s no real consensus. This study indicates that men and women are equally good at sharpshooting, apart from a slight advantage displayed by men with pistols. Well there goes the whole premise of the movie!!

Yes, Sam Raimi did credit Joss Whedon with helping him on the ending of The Quick and the Dead, but we won’t hold that against him.

166 – Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Russell Crowe aboard the Surprise in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Tim and Jen discuss a beloved epic whose time has come, the Peter Weir masterpiece Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World!

The GQ article mentioned appears to be yet more proof of the widespread affection for this film.

The doctor who pioneered sanitary practices in medicine was Ignatz Semmelweiss, although these ideas didn’t take hold until the time of Joseph Lister. Additionally, other medical men (like Oliver Wendell Holmes, for one) arrived at similar notions independent of Semmelweiss. The latter, in fact, refused to publish anything about hand washing because he believed these practices to be “self-evident.”

If you want to read about Grover Cleveland getting surgery at sea and see some icky-yet-illumunating photos, the New York Academy of Medicine has a good blog post about it. If you want more, the book Jen mentioned is called The President is a Sick Man, and author Matthew Algeo answered questions about it in this C-SPAN presentation.

And finally, if you love Russell Crowe as much as we do, listen to our chat about an early starring role for him, Virtuosity!

161 – Virtuosity

Russell Crowe menaces a hapless TV technician with a gun against a blue background in Virtuosity (1995)

Jen and Tim nineties nineties nineties nineties Denzel Washington nineties nineties virtual reality, nineties Russell Crowe nineties, nineties nineties nineties Virtuosity nineties!

Hear the whole episode over at our Patreon!

Read the AV Club interview with Kelly Lynch where she describes Denzel’s motive for doctoring the script for Virtuosity, as mentioned in the episode.

Per Tim’s recommendation, you could do a search on the World Wide Web, or you can check out an article about Kai’s Power Tools if you’d like to see some screenshots of that bonkers interface! 

Also, if you missed it the first time around, listen to our episode about The Lawnmower Man, another cheesy 90s film from the director of Virtuosity.