Read a 1992 interview with David Fincher, in which he’s quite candid about “the worst thing that ever happened to me”— that is, the production of Alien³.
View the alternate ending that should have been the theatrical ending to Phase IV on YouTube.
A couple of interesting side notes about the Oscar-winning faux documentary Alex mentioned, The Hellstrom Chronicle: it was conceived and executive produced by David L. Wolper, the TV stalwart who shepherded massively successful television miniseries like Roots and The Thorn Birds, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Additionally, Walon Green, the screenwriter perhaps best known for William Friedkin‘s sleeper masterpiece Sorcerer, co-directed and produced the film.
A quick web search proved that the busty wasp mentioned by Alex isn’t real, except perhaps in our hearts.
Missed part one of our deep dive? Find it here! Wanna see the movie? “Log in” to the “Information Superhighway” and “point” your “browser” to the Internet Archive!
Too young to have purchased the Trainspotting soundtrack on CD? Even if you weren’t, we suggest decompressing from the episode with all 11 minutes of the remastered Born Slippy.
Tim gets the bit (or byte?) between his teeth and rants about the ’90s and the lost promise of the internet, and a little bit about cheapie TV movie Max Knight: Ultra Spy! Jen just tries to hold on as best she can! Oh yeah, and this is part one because we don’t know how to shut up!
You can easily tell how white your hosts are by their lack of knowledge of UPN (not the only tell, if we’re being honest), which provided a home for black shows and showrunners alike. Or at least it did for a while, before a gradual whitewashing leading up to the network’s merger with the WB. The Hollywood Reporter provides a post-mortem.
[Former senior VP of comedy development at Paramount Pictures Television] Rose Catherine Pinkney believes the decision to merge UPN out of existence came down to ad revenue. “Ultimately, you want the most dollars that you can get for your ads,” she says. Though UPN’s Black-led scripted shows (which by the end of UPN’s run included Eve, All of Us, Everybody Hates Chris) were largely popular with audiences, advertisers were evidently less inclined to pay top dollar to support shows targeting Black viewers. Farquhar, co-creator of Moesha and The Parkers, recalls an advertising person saying, “We’re not interested in ‘downscaled demographics.’ ”
According to her own website, writer and actress Julie Brown is currently working on Earth Girls Are Easy…the musical version! Maybe even Tim will deign to see it!
Vanity Fair covered Angelyne in 2022, post-Hollywood Reporter exposé. According to the article, the producers of the Angelyne miniseries paid their subject for her life rights, although she declined a producer credit.
For more Julian Temple, enjoy the longform music video he directed for David Bowie, Jazzin’ For Blue Jean.
Tim and Jen head back to the pre-prestige-TV cable well with a failed spinoff of Tales From the Crypt called Perversions of Science. Throughout, you can really tell that your hosts would rather be watching a certain Canadian/German co-production.
Tim and Jen review a film of great technical genius and great vacuity of story: Natalie Wood’s final film, Brainstorm. But Jen liked at least half of it. Also, please send Tim all of your uneaten candy corn.
There’s a rundown on the Showscan process originally intended for Brainstorm from Douglas Trumbull himself on YouTube. Too bad it’s in 360p. This fine Japanese documentary on Trumbull is in much higher quality, though.
If you’re super into the dialectic and want to go beyond Noguchi’s and Lambert’s account of the death of Natalie Wood, former prosecutor Sam Perroni has written a well-researched look into the case called…Brainstorm!
Information wants to be free, but entertainment is $5/month.
Jen and Tim struggle to understand the newly-minted cult status of a flop from Keanu Reeves’ himbo era, the cyberpunk thriller Johnny Mnemonic. They also put on hazmat suits and delve into the horror that is the comment section on Dina Meyer’s website.
The studio attempted to sell the film as a sci-fi thriller, going by the trailer. See it in 4K over at YouTube. Am I crazy, or is that Richard Kiley narrating for a touch of educational-television believability? Guess they spared no expense!
Jen and Tim jack freely over a rote 1992 sci-fi action thriller, Freejack, starring Emilio Estevez and Mick Jagger. Your hosts kind of forget to talk about Jagger, but Tim does reminisce fondly about Four Loko.
Jen says “Psycho Ninja” when she was actually thinking of Psycho Kickboxer. The latter film is absolutely delightful, by the way.
If you’re curious about the gory details of Denise Richards’ divorce from Charlie Sheen, you can read them here, directly from the court document.
