The Point Radio: Robert Rodriquez Blood & Headlines
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Transcript
Hello, it's Mike Raub. Welcome to The Point, where all parts of pop culture come together. Machete's got plenty of blood, plenty of action, and a message too. Robert Rodriguez talks about exactly where we find that, and Machete star Danny Trio talks about, well, the blood.
And Image Comics gets their own app at the iTunes store. It's Friday, August 28, 2010. Let's get to The Point right now. This is The Point, The Point radio, get The Point radio. We've been talking about Machete, the film that was actually born out of a fake trailer
in the film, Brine House. Director Robert Rodriguez decided to do an old school exploitation movie here, producing an action film that actually tied right in to current events. The timing of it is pretty amazing. When you make an exploitation film, you always want to have a real issue.
That's how they were always done. This one would just happen to be in reverse. Exploitation films were famous for taking an issue and exploiting it, because they could move much faster than a studio could. So if there was any hot topic, they would run out and make a quick movie, make a buck
on it by changing it around and using it in some way to give some relevance. And that's why they were able to just be right there on the pulse of what was going on. Ours, I just wanted to put a story in that it's always pretty relevant. There's always something like this going on. But just recently it became even more relevant and gave this other layer of entertainment
to it. I wanted to use that as a backdrop to show some actual real corruption that goes on that's just hard to battle. So difficult, in fact. No one really wants to talk about that or touch it.
No, people talk about immigration, but they won't talk about the corruption that actually exists between Mexico and the US. So I wanted a character that was almost superhuman, almost like a Rambo, who's the only one who can kind of make sense of it because in reality, I don't know if anyone's really willing to step up and do it.
So that's why you create superheroes is to take care of problems that can't really be solved another way. And that was the purpose of Machete, you know, this federal agent who's uncorruptible in Mexico and is forced to come live as a day laborer in the States. And it just seemed like the natural progression of story that should happen is to have him
deal with even more corruption on this side than even he was used to over there and seeing that they're all tied together and that he's got a huge job ahead of him that's going to span several movies for him to be able to sort anything out. So I think that the fabric just needed to feel very epic and very big and it needed a lot of twists and turns.
And so it was really more driven by how can you make the most fun story, taking something that is on the surface, you know, real and then jumping into, you know, the level of Superman beyond that. And for the critics who complain about, well, the blood, Robert and Machete star Danny Trio have their own take on that.
I mean, I think you can tell when you watch it. It's done in a huge sense of fun. I mean, it's supposed to certainly make you feel like, wow, some of this isn't that far off the mark, even though as much as I tried to make it as made up as possible, you couldn't escape the fact the reality is stranger to fiction.
A lot of these things I thought were just good subplots and good twists. And then I would find out through research that they were true. So I think it just gives it another layer that makes it really fun. The last time I flew home from Texas, I flew home on the plane with Karl Rove. So that was kind of like, look, when we got off the plane, TMZ attacked me and they asked
me about this. Hey, you're the movie that's dealing with immigration. Not really, but why don't you ask him? It's Karl Rove. I snitched him off and everybody chased him.
I got to get away. You know, with a face, to be honest, it's kind of made for evil. Danny credits his friendship with Robert for helping him move over to the good guys. Me and Robert go back. We're like pals.
I mean, it goes way beyond the director. And I mean, we watch each other's kids grow up. And my son shadowed him on Mocheta, just literally had a college course in how to be a great director. And as far as being the lead, it's, you know, the only difference in being the lead is I
got to kiss Jessica Alba. And you know, it's a little different because usually, you know, you show up, you do your stuff and you leave. And now, you know, you're on the set every day. This is like, you know, you're on the set every day and you have to realize that this
is your movie. So it's not that your attitude is different or that your performance is different. It's that you just, you know, help any way you can. You know, it's I mean, when we were in Austin, we had 70 days over 100 degrees. So you know, everybody was passing out water, whether you were the leader or or just, you
know, a PA. I mean, we had to keep water going because it was it was a hundred degrees. But on the tarmac that we were working on, it was about 120. So it was just a it's a lot of fun. But Robert is the first guy to say, hey, wait a minute.
Let's you've been around long enough. Let's let's, you know, put you on the first team. Needless to say, when you look at the cast list that runs from Robert De Niro to Lindsay Lohan, Machete is a little eclectic in that department. And Robert says he likes doing it that way.
It just, you know, it's needed to be eclectic. I enjoy doing stuff like that, you know, Sin City and those kind of ensemble movies. Once you get some key people involved, you can attract others that will fit the role. And you know, at first when you hear the names, you think, how do these parts fit together? And then you see the movie and you see everyone plays their part really well and is really
right for their part. But but yeah, for the past year, people have wondered what, you know, Seagal and De Niro and Don Johnson and Lindsay Lohan are all doing in the same movie. And then it makes sense when you see it and everyone plays their part. But but no, it was fantastic.
You started with Danny and that tracks a lot in itself because everyone's worked with Danny. Danny's done over 200 movies. Seagal's killed him a few times. De Niro's put a bullet in his head.
And so everyone felt like, oh, Danny's getting a shot. We should be there for Danny. And the script sounded like fun. And people have heard about, you know, the studio heaven Austin that it's a lot of fun. You get to come play a role that you don't usually get to play.
And people like that. So we're able to attract a lot of people also very similar to Sin City. Sin City had shot the opening scene first and then went and show that to actors. And then they jumped aboard because then they could see what they were being a part of. And they could imagine themselves in this movie that was already starting to exist with
this because the trailer had been around for two years. I would just go show the trailer and they could picture themselves being in that movie because it was so entertaining and it was so different in this Mexican superhero and something they had never seen before. And very much like expendable.
So it was like a throwback to this old school action movies that are just visceral, straight up cathartic experience for an audience. The kind of movies that they first fell in love with when they went to see movies as kids. And that's what really I think tapped into what people wanted to come be in part of.
Machete makes the round of some film festivals early in the fall and then will hit DVD shelves and maybe a few theaters in the latter part of this year. It's Friday, August 27, 2010. Here's what's going on in pop culture. Image Comics and Comixology have now launched a dedicated Image Comics app which is available
of course at the iTunes store for downloading for the iPhone, the iPad and the iPod touch. Image titles have been available through the regular Comixology Comics app for some time. But now, Image has their own app joining the ranks of people like Marvel, DC and Boom Studios. Best of all, it's free and it acts as an online catalog too for Image releases so you don't
have to miss anything that's out there. It includes titles from Top Cow, Robert Kirkman, Skybound, Imprint, Shadow Line and all a lot more. You'll get Chew, Elephant Band, The Walking Dead, Young Blood, Wanted, Savage Dragon, Spawn, Haunt and so much more as well.
Check it out available right now. There are about 30 issues that are available for free too to go along with it, again in the iTunes store. The Baltimore Comic Con the past weekend was the spot where the hero initiative got a massive donation of $5,000 from the Ford Motor Company.
The donation was part of Ford's overall participation at the event over the weekend including a display at the con. A raffle selected two winners of the first issue of Ex Machina signed by Brian K. Vaughan of course opportunities to drive three different Ford cars that were on display at the convention over the weekend.
The Iron Fist movie is back on the development table. Marvel has put it there according to Deadline Hollywood. Fresh Wilkes who wrote XXX for Vin Diesel is writing the script as well. Iron Fist was in development well a few years back, originally as a vehicle for Ray Park back about the days when Marvel was doing those Punisher movies and it just seemed to slip
through the cracks somehow. Next step in development would be to choose a director. Wes Craven is continuing to work on Scream 4, of course the original cast all on board including Nev Campbell, Kourty Cox and David Arquette. And a lot of cool cameos, most recently announced Anna Paquin and Kristen Bell to be in the
picture. Scream 4 due to be released mid April of next year. AMC has slated the premiere date for The Walking Dead and it's October 31st which seems appropriate. 10pm Eastern Time it will premiere the series of course based on the comic from Robert Kirkman. It's a 90 minute episode with a one hour episode to follow airing on Sunday night which seems
to be the part of the cable week that AMC has carved out for itself. If you frequent AMC then you also know that pretty much every Halloween they do their annual fear fest with a ton of great thriller and horror films. They've been doing it for 14 years and of course the premiere of The Walking Dead falls right in the middle of that as well.
If you still haven't seen the trailer, well one easy place for you to grab that this week is at our website GetThePointRadio.com. The main writer on the classic children's series The Howdy Duty Show, Edward Keene died on the 13th of August. Keene wrote the theme of course that everyone remembers, it's Howdy Duty time.
He created the word Cowabunga for the show and did a lot more Howdy Duty aired on television from 1947 through 1960. One interesting trio of names is set to bring a popular indie comic to television. Steven Spielberg is working alongside Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orsi to bring Locke and Key to television.
It's a comic series written by Joe Hill who is by the way the son of Stephen King. The ongoing comic, if it makes it to television, will be part of the 20th century Fox family. It tells the story of a group of children as they recover following their father's murder. The kids and their existing family relocate to an island off Maine where the youngest child finds a doorway with supernatural qualities.
A familiar part of the great comedy series SC TV Andrea Martin is joining the Sci-Fi Channel pilot Three Inches as a series regular. This is the story about the young boy who can move anything three inches with his mind. Andrea Martin will play the boy's mother as well in the series. There's a 90 minute pilot being put together right now for the Sci-Fi Channel.
The boy's baby young. I'm drunk and stupid. There's no way to go through life, sir. It seems inside the gold mine. I can't help it. I'm a greedy swab. It's my hobby. This is my gold. Did you ever go parachute jumping?
How about tying a bungee cord around you and leaping off a bridge? See how they fly like Lucy in the sky, see how they run. I did both those things. The parachute jumps from when I was around 20. The bungee drop was when I was in my mid 30s. It was fun and was at least as safe as driving around Connecticut and probably a lot safer.
But I thought such activities were, you know, the folly of youth. Now I'm 16, I'm thinking it's time to do something equally stupid once again. Please don't tell my daughter. It'll freak her out. If I'd be down till quarter to three, would you lock the door? Will you still need me? Will you still feed me when I'm 60?
It's not midlife crisis. I've already had at least a few of those. Maybe I think I'm simply running out of time to do something remarkably fun and silly. Maybe after 60 years I feel I've done everything else, so what the hell? I don't know what it is. My professional lifestyle has always been a lot more risky than my behavior. And since I have no intention of voluntarily retiring from whatever the hell it is I've been doing,
it's time to do something really wacky once again. I'll let you know what it is. And keep an eye on the papers. This is my gold mumbling about himself again on the pop culture channel GetThePointRadio.com. That puts our cap on our week. We're back here on Monday though. It's a new TV season not that far away. We begin our looks at some of the shows that are coming
and a few that are leaving that have been with us all summer long, especially one of the hottest ones on the USA network. In the meantime, catch it all 24 hours a day. Pop culture you need when you need it at GetThePointRadio.com. Listen live anytime you want to. A couple of clicks is all it takes on a computer or any mobile device at GetThePointRadio.com. This podcast is produced twice every week and heard on great websites like ComicMix.com and MichaelDavisWorld.com and on iNetRadio.com as well. Or the iTunes Store under the point radio and you can get in touch with us and listen at GetThePointRadio.com.
Have a great weekend at the end of the summer and we'll see you right back here on Monday. You
