Looker

[00:00:04] Welcome to Movie Oubliette, the film review podcast for movies that most people have mercifully forgotten. I'm Dan. And I'm Conrad. And in each episode, we drag a forsaken film out of the Oubliette. Discuss it and judge it to decide whether it should be set free. Or whether it should be thrown back and consigned to oblivion forever.

[00:00:38] Movie Oubliette, the continental connecting podcast with me, Dan, having a lovely holiday, being sick in Melbourne, Australia. And me, Conrad, happy to see Dan well again in Cambridge, UK. Ah, yes. In this podcast, we discuss forgotten genre films, sci-fi, horror and fantasy because I wish I had some sort of stun gun so that I could erase the time that I was sick.

[00:01:12] Oh, welcome back, Dan. You were much missed in the last episode. How are you? You held the fort very well. And with Melinda and Rob. It's a great episode. Loved it. It came out well, despite the fact that we were handicapped by your absence. It's good to see you back again. It sounds like you went through a really bad time, though. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, the nice way of putting it is I got cold sores in my mouth.

[00:01:41] But they're happy. But, yeah, it wasn't great. And I'd never had them before because when I went to the doctor, she did ask, like, have you had them before? And I don't think I had. And so, it was quite severe to the point where it acted like a viral infection. So, I had flu symptoms from cold sores, which is weird.

[00:02:03] So, I was fatigued and I had massive headaches, searing headaches and a fever as well. And also, because of the sores, I couldn't eat anything. So, I had soup for, like, a week and a half. So, yeah, that wasn't so fun. And also, it was a holiday. And also, my wife's brother was here. So, I couldn't participate in any of the fun. And I was just stuck in bed most of the time. Oh, no.

[00:02:34] Why is it always on your holiday? Can you claim your holiday back? Yeah, I would like to. Yeah. It is what it is, you know. Bad timing. But, yeah. It always happens that way. It does. But, you guys did talk about Life Force. We did. And I'm dying to know what you thought of Life Force because you did all the work prepping for the episode and then never got to say a word about it. What did you think? Yeah.

[00:03:04] Well, I think I might agree with you and Melinda about Life Force. And also, I think I did message you in saying that the only thing I remember about the movie is the naked woman. And also, the space stuff. All of the other stuff in the movie, what? I just erased it from my memory.

[00:03:30] But I do have to say, the space stuff and the naked woman vampire sucking Life Force scenes, I think are the best part of the movie. The other stuff just didn't seem to gel. Like, what was that all about? What were the zombies about? Why was London on fire? Like, what? That's a completely other movie. It is. I know. I love that Rob pointed that out.

[00:03:59] That, you know, everything that people remember about the movie happens in the first 30 minutes. And after that, especially after that helicopter scene, the wheels just come off of the movie. Yeah. It's just bonkers. Even the scenes where she possesses another woman and preys upon a guy and has her way with a random stranger. Like, what was that about? I have no idea. It's just too much.

[00:04:29] I just wanted to see a vampire sucking the life out of all these people one by one. And that's the movie I wanted to see. Yeah. Well, you get a lot. There's a lot of things at play in that movie. And I guess it keeps you entertained. But ultimately, I didn't think it held together to create a satisfying whole. Yeah. Yeah. The patrons loved it. So off it went. I mean, I have to say, the special effects were pretty amazing.

[00:04:59] Yeah. Like all that life force sucking stuff and the zombies. I mean, the husk. What do you call them? The shriveled. The walking shriveled. Yeah. Yeah. They were great. They were really great. They were quite uncanny as well. The fact that they moved around and sort of groaned mainly. Didn't really talk. Yeah. Yeah. Love that. Yeah.

[00:05:24] It was enjoyable to do 40 years on after it being such a, it felt like a sort of a dangerous forbidden film from my childhood that my brother watched. And I wasn't allowed to see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just in case I saw some naughty bits. Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, I mean, I guess we should move on to the mailbag for today, Conrad. And what have our listeners been saying?

[00:05:54] Well, Chris Webb got in touch on Instagram on Psycho 2. And he said, we'll always love Perkins' delivery of the word cutlery. Yes. Oh, I love that little, like, stammer. What would you call that? Yeah, I think it is. It's like a pause. Yeah. Just cutlery. It's really weird. It's great. It's great. Yeah, it is good.

[00:06:20] On Arachnophobia, J.P. Bernier of Lematos said, love and also hate that movie so much. Right. So, I don't know if J.P. has a problem with spiders or... I don't know. I think he does. I think he does. Maybe. Speaking of which, Christine Regler got in touch to say, hate this movie and it fuelled so many sleepless nights.

[00:06:50] Remind me to tell you about the huntsman that dropped from the ceiling while I was in the shower at a camp in Australia. Trauma. Yeah. Yeah, we do have a lot of huntsmans. Lots of stories about huntsmans. Yeah. Well, Christine did not have a good time with them, apparently. And, of course, we heard from Serge of Cold Crush Pictures. Hello, Serge. Hello, Serge.

[00:07:14] And he said on Lifeforce, I liked my first viewing of Lifeforce, but only because something completely off the wall kept happening every 20 minutes, which kept it interesting. I'm not sure if it'll hold up to a repeat viewing, though. There's just not much to hang your hat on besides the fun pastiche of genres. The latest episode of Movie Oubliette had me laughing out loud three times this week. They actually do more jokes about British astronauts than nudity.

[00:07:45] Yes. Well, I thought that was the most ridiculous part of the movie, but that's just me. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, thank you, everyone, for getting in touch. We do love hearing from you. Yes, yes, yes. All right, Conrad. What's the movie for today? Well, let me just scamper on over to the Oubliette to find out.

[00:08:12] Oh, I appear to be in some sort of futuristic laboratory. Oh, automatic doors and everything. Yeah. I've got all of these screens playing adverts. And strangely, I want all of the things. All of a sudden, I'm thirsty. It feels like I've been in here for ages. I'll just open this fridge. Oh, everything's suddenly frozen over? Wow. Conrad, you've been in there for a while now.

[00:08:41] I think you need to come back. Yeah. Okay. Oh, I found the movie. Coming back now. Oh, you probably think I'm beautiful, but I'm not. Well, it's been like 10 minutes, Conrad. We've been. Oh, I see. I thought I was only in there for 30 seconds. What's going on? All right. So what's the movie today? Well, today we have the 1981 American science fiction thriller Looker, which is written and

[00:09:08] directed by none other than Michael Crichton, starring Albert Finney, James Coburn, Susan Day, Lee Taylor-Young, and Dorian Harewood. And what happens in this movie? Well, in this movie, an exclusive Beverly Hills plastic surgeon to the rich and powerful, Larry, is perturbed by a recent spate of stunning 20-something models showing up at his clinic

[00:09:35] with dot matrix printed shopping lists of millimeter adjustments they want him to make to their already perfect faces. Oh. He's even more concerned when they all start dying in mysterious circumstances. Fearing for the safety of his latest patient, Cindy, Larry does what any doctor in a Michael Crichton techno-thriller would do. He investigates himself.

[00:10:00] Inevitably, he discovers a conspiracy involving a tech firm so ahead of its time it's basically Instagram with fewer filters and more assassinations, led by a sinister capitalist sociopath, John Reston. His innovation is scanning models into perfect digital replicas to sell products, and possibly

[00:10:23] political candidates in subliminally brainwashing TV ads, and taking out any of the witnesses with homicidally hypnotic Atari light guns. Will Larry rescue Cindy, a model so dead-eyed she's indistinguishable from her digital double? Will he expose the conspiracy during the tech billionaire's PowerPoint presentation? And will he do it all in time for his afternoon Botox appointment?

[00:10:52] Find out after the break. Yes, yes. All right. Welcome back to discuss Looker, Michael Crichton's 1981 sci-fi thriller.

[00:11:20] Dan, had you seen this gem before? No, I have not. I've never heard of it as well. Oh, wow. I mean, I was a pretty big Michael Crichton fan as a sort of teenager, but his books. I did read quite a few of his books. And I didn't realize that he directed movies. Oh. I've only ever seen his other directorial effort, which is Coma, which came out in 1978. Yeah. And Westworld, actually, in 1973.

[00:11:47] I didn't know he directed The Great Train Robbery in 1978. And there's another movie, Runaway, in 1984, and Physical Evidence in 1989. So, yeah, I was quite surprised to watch this movie that I'd never heard of. But it's very ahead of its time. It was, yeah. So this posits a world in which a tech billionaire can digitize people and create fully CGI avatars to sell products, to manipulate the audience.

[00:12:17] The underlying factor is it's not really the model necessarily that does it. It's the fact that there's some sort of hypnotic pulse that's coming through the broadcast. I did want to talk about that, but maybe we'll get into it a bit later. But had you seen Looker before? I had, yeah. So I saw it. I think it was on television. It's not one I rented. I think it was on TV. And I think some of it sort of intrigued me. One of the technologies, which is the stun gun that leaves people in a hypnotic trance so they lose time for a period.

[00:12:47] I think all of that, which drives much of the onscreen physical action of the movie, I found interesting. The central premise of the movie, which is this conspiracy to create artificial images in order to manipulate people, just completely flew over my head as a tween probably. Right. At the time. So, yeah, that didn't interest me at all. Whereas now, I think it's very interesting. Yeah, it's very, very interesting. And this predates just CGI in general, right?

[00:13:16] Well, it's very early days. So I think this one is credited as having the first ever attempt to show a human being or a digitized representation of human skin. But it's only on the monitor as one of the characters is being scanned. But yeah, this is a year before Tron. Really early days. Yeah. I guess there are two aspects. There's like CGI, which is computer generated images that are still generated by a human, right?

[00:13:44] You still have to like put in all the coding and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. But there's also the fact that they go on about scanning it so that they can do pretty much what is available to do now, which is AI generation of a scanned person.

[00:14:01] So that they could tell to sell perfume in an ad or Oates, which is what's happening now, which is, I don't know, it's pretty amazing that Michael Croydon came up with this idea back in 1981. Yeah. So he said at the time that what he was interested in was three emerging trends.

[00:14:22] One was the obsession with achieving physical perfection through plastic surgery, which he felt had really reached an obsessive peak in the late 70s, early 80s. The growth in technology and what it was capable of, particularly around this time, people were very concerned about computers and what impact they were going to have on society. And of course, advertising and the fact that people were spending so much of their time willingly watching television.

[00:14:49] I think the villain Reston comes out with some statistic about, you know, people are watching it for five years of their life or three years of their life watching advertising or something. Yeah. It was like a third of their day watching television or something like that. Yeah. Which, of course, isn't true now. But people are, you know, if you look at your screen time summary, you are staring at screens for a significant proportion of the day. And during that time, you are bombarded with all kinds of advertising.

[00:15:14] And now, increasingly, it's mostly AI slop, which is really scary because it means that 40 years on, we finally got into something that Michael Crichton hinted towards. But at the time, nobody would believe, you know, this was critically savaged and ridiculed when it came out. Really? Yeah. Wow. Because, yeah, there's quite a few concepts in this movie that, yeah, quite ahead of its time.

[00:15:40] So there's the 3D scans, but there's also the, I don't exactly know what the technology is, but the advertising hypnosis that is going on with the eyes going blue. Yeah, they sparkle a bit so you know it's happening. Yeah. So the people in the ads, suddenly their eyes are like blue hypnosis eyes and the viewer is just transfixed by the ad and wants to buy the product immediately. Yeah.

[00:16:10] They don't really explain that technology. It just is just thrust upon us and we just have to accept it, which is fine. You know, it's a sci-fi movie. Yeah. I quite like the way they do it, though. There's a scene where they're in the lab that I was in moments ago. So you've got Larry, the doctor, the man, is reading from the technical manual explaining how all of this works. And meanwhile, you've got Cindy demonstrating how it works because she's become fixated on one of the adverts and she's just sort of mouthing, Yes.

[00:16:40] I want product, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's quite nice. Yeah. I mean, there's also another concept in the movie that's interesting is sort of a formula for ads as well. So there's one scene, I was a bit confused by this one scene where it's at the beach and you've got Cindy being in this ad, but she has to hit her mark exactly as the computer has calculated she needs to be.

[00:17:06] And it's this kind of like secret formula to make ads more convincing or more making people want to buy the product more. It's also they talk about framing where the product should be as well, because they put Larry through some tests where he's looking at the model all the time, but he needs to be looking at the product rather than the model. So there's that idea as well, like this kind of scientific formula for advertising. Yeah, and physical perfection too.

[00:17:35] So all these models are feeling as though they're forced to go to their plastic surgeon with this computer printout of things where the bridge of their nose is a millimeter too wide and all this kind of thing. So there's this idea that they have to shape themselves to be this image of perfection. And then in the ads, they have to move and stand in exactly the right way in order to achieve the computer calculated perfect version of this advertisement for some reason. Yeah.

[00:18:04] And it doesn't come together, does it? There's no explanation for either of those two things. I mean, I guess there is, but they explain it by saying this is how ads, I don't know, like this is the formula for ads. But it's also interesting as well, like all these girls wanting to have this perfect measurements of their faces and bodies, but they end up being exactly the same person really. Yeah.

[00:18:26] They have the same measurements, which is interesting because a lot of models now are doing that exact same thing. So you have all of these women looking like Kim Kardashian. So there's kind of nothing that is unique about them anymore because it's just like, oh, it's just the Kim Kardashian look. Yeah. And that's it. And also this constant undermining of your confidence in your own self-image, your body image. You're constantly presented with this sense that you're not perfect.

[00:18:55] You're not quite right. Even though all of these women are just stunningly beautiful for 1981 standards of physical beauty. Yeah. There's that compelling. I think it's like the opening statement from one of the characters. You probably think I'm very beautiful, but I'm not. Here's a list of all of my thoughts. Yeah. So it's that. It's picking up on that as well, which is something that's also happening particularly to young women on Instagram. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:20] To the point where like everyone's using filters, everyone's hitting the gym to the point where that's their lives. Their lives is making their body perfect, especially if they're an influence because that's what's selling products. They're getting brand endorsements to sell some water or perfume. It's very true. Protein powder or whatever. So their looks are what sells it.

[00:19:47] And everyone doesn't look like a human being anymore because of filters and extreme workout regimes and, you know, dietary intake. And I don't know, it's become like, it did remind me of the substance, this movie. Like the fact that it's just like perfection, perfection, perfection in terms of physical looks. And to take it even a step further now, people are digitizing themselves into avatars that they can just feed AI generated scripts into.

[00:20:17] And it animates an AI version of them so they don't have to record the ads anymore. Really? It's just a version of them that has been frozen in time. That's happening. That's happening. It's happening now. I can send you a link to the video I watched this morning that frightened the hell out of me. Yeah. So most of the stuff you're going to be watching on Instagram and Facebook ads now is not humans anymore. That's crazy.

[00:20:42] Because I know that there's been reports of extras getting their likeness scanned. Yeah. In perpetuity, which is insanity. Yeah. Their being is going to be used as an extra forever. Yes. In AI form, which is frightening. But also you're getting big name actors now signing away their likeness, like Bruce Willis. Yes, he did. Yeah. Are there any others that you've heard of?

[00:21:08] The only other one I've heard of is around the Brutalist where the actors, because they had various scenes where they had to speak in Polish, they had their voices cloned. And then the Polish was generated by AI using their voice. Really? And the artist controls the model in perpetuity and it belongs to them. So that Adrian Brody's not going to suddenly hear his voice all over the place. Right. So it was done very, very carefully.

[00:21:36] But this is something that actors are really thinking about. I mean, it was the cause of one of the big sticking points in the last actors strike that hobbled the film industry and the TV industry for quite a long time. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. They really do have to think about this. I mean, I noticed Cindy in this movie is told that she's going to be given $200,000 a year for being scanned. But then they're killing them all.

[00:22:00] And in the movie, the explanation for it is they want to kill her because she's like an intellectual property and they don't want somebody else to use her. They want sort of exclusive rights to her image or something. Or because she knows too much. I don't know what it is. Whereas for me, I would have thought surely the 200 grand a year is reason enough to knock them off. Yeah. Because that's going to rack up, isn't it? I was. I mean, there is a movie that I've seen called The Congress. I'm not sure whether you've seen it. No.

[00:22:27] And in that, they also expand upon the whole scanning actors to be in movies without them being in movies. And so Robin Wright is in The Congress and she plays herself. She gets scanned. And then suddenly she's in all of these action movies that she's never actually acted in. Right. And I'm just like waiting for a Bruce Willis movie to come out. Where Bruce Willis is not in the movie. It's just an AI scan of Bruce Willis that's just doing, you know, yippee-ki-yay motherfucker.

[00:22:57] And like, you know, diehard 20 or something. Like 476. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. It's inevitably. It's going to happen. It's going to be very airy. And especially eventually Bruce Willis is going to die. Are they going to keep releasing Bruce Willis movies? Quite possibly. With him at that age that they scanned him. Or de-age digitally. Yeah. And then we're just going to see Bruce Willis movies in 100 years at the same age. I don't know. I don't know.

[00:23:26] It's kind of strange. Well, they've never convincingly pulled it off so far. I mean, their resurrections of Princess Leia and Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One, for example. Which is a few years ago now. But it's never really come off so far. Was that actually AI though? Or was that just CGI? That was just CGI. Yeah. So that was using an old model. If you used AI on it. I mean, because quite a few people then go back and try to fix those special effects using the AI tools. Yeah.

[00:23:56] And they get what they perceive to be better results with it. So now major studios are starting to combine the two. Yeah. Because I feel like we haven't seen it yet. We've seen resurrected actors in CGI. But not AI form. And I'm waiting for an entire movie of like an AI character. It's going to happen. It's going to get to a point where we're going to watch a movie where nothing is real. None of the actors are real.

[00:24:25] None of the voices are real. Now everything's completely computer generated. The whole workflow. Yeah. Including the script. Yeah. Yeah. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the big companies are desperate to get to that point. Because it will be so low cost. So low cost. Just feed in a bunch of prompts. Yeah. Spit out some garbage. Exactly. There you go. And to be honest mainstream movies aren't far from that already anyway.

[00:24:52] Because any of the summer blockbusters I go and see they're not great. Yeah. I still remain hopeful that there will still be a place for art created by artists. I mean we do. People will crave the real thing. But we're getting to George Orwell level churn out crap for the proles type of stuff. I think for your average popcorn munching theatre goer.

[00:25:16] I think some AI generated mush that looks exactly the same as the last 80 movies they've watched is probably fine. Yeah. Yeah. I know. It's scary. Going back to Looker. Looker. Yes. Your point about the girls getting murdered. I was very confused. Why were they getting murdered?

[00:25:44] Because they had the measurements that the digital matrix owned as their sort of intellectual property. Was that why? There is a lot of confusion in this movie as to what is going on and why. There are a lot of ideas in it. And I think Michael Crichton stumbled on a number of things that we've touched on already that were incredibly prescient. But as a thriller plot it's really ramshackle. Yes.

[00:26:07] Because it's not clear what Reston is trying to do mainly because there's an eight minute scene that's been cut out of the movie that was only shown on TV which we can talk about. Oh. It's not really clear why they're killing the women. Right. It's shocking. I mean all of these murder scenes are really shocking. Yes. But the logic for it is not clear to me. I thought it was just because of the money. That makes sense though. Scan them. You've got their likeness. Yeah. Don't have to pay them. Kill them off. Yeah. But that's not what they say in the movie.

[00:26:36] I don't know. Yeah. I don't think it's articulated at all. Yeah. It is confusing as well because there is a little bit of a plot to get a senator elected as president but they don't really talk about it very much. No you just see I mean there's this underlying thing about how men are starting to get plastic surgery. I think Albert Finney's character Larry talks at the beginning to one of his plastic surgery colleagues. Yeah. That it's not just women anymore.

[00:27:06] It's politicians and admirals who are wanting to be promoted to be chief of staff. So it's people trying to improve themselves in order to further their careers. But Digital Matrix is looking to help people get elected. And there is an eight minute scene that is on the Blu-ray the Warner Archive Blu-ray that was shown on TV that was cut and it comes after Cindy and Larry escape the lab after they know what's going on. All right. They are stunned in the car park.

[00:27:33] They wake up on a bed in Reston's house where he's hosting a dinner party in his conservatory. And Reston explains that the stakes are far higher than consumer manipulation late stage capitalism. It's about government control and the manipulation of democracy. That with this technology they can always make sure that their choice of candidate the tech billionaire's choice of candidate is elected. So that they create an environment that is ideal for them to succeed.

[00:28:02] During this dinner party in the conservatory their candidate is talking about oh there's too much regulation and there's too much taxation of corporations. And it's inhibiting all of our goals and that's what it is. It's about tech billionaires manipulating the world in order to enrich themselves and free them up to exploit people which is what's happening now as well. Why was that cut out? I have no idea why it was cut out and it really pissed off one of the film's stars. Yes. James Coburn. I know.

[00:28:32] Who said my part was pretty much on the cutting room floor. They really pissed that film away. They had Albert Finney running around in a security guard uniform. It didn't make any sense. It could have been a good picture. It was about how television controls, how it manipulates people to buy products and politicians. But they cut the film up for television. I don't know why they did that. They spent some bread on that picture too. It was a 12 million production. That's not much today but back then it was a pretty big budget. Yeah.

[00:29:01] That's what Coburn said in 1991. So he was pissed. I would be too. And that, I mean, having that scene in explains so much about the movie. Because, yeah, the whole controlling the government wasn't really talked about very much. I just thought they wanted to sell cars and OTs. Yeah. They really wanted to sell OTs to everyone.

[00:29:29] And it just didn't really make sense why they were murdering people so they could sell OTs. No. I don't know. This just didn't quite match up in terms of, yeah. In terms of risk reward, it's a bit too high, isn't it? Yeah. If you get exposed murdering women just so that you can sell OTs. Yes. I mean, if you take away all the sort of sci-fi elements and the sort of mind control, I guess,

[00:29:58] it's very much like a cop thriller almost. Larry could just be a detective really. Because he's doing a lot of detective work that the police aren't doing. And also that last scene is very much akin to like a cop shootout scene. Like it's something that I would see like Clint Eastwood in. Yeah. Or like, you know, like Mel Gibson in. Like it just felt like, are we watching Lethal Weapon right now? Oh yeah. Or TJ Hooker. It looks quite televisual, I think. It does.

[00:30:28] It's not so, it's not as sort of high action as Lethal Weapon. No, it takes place in a TV studio, an automated TV studio with like a Tron grid on the floor and these different sets. Because even though they can CGI the characters, they still need a real set to film on. So you've got these different fake worlds, sort of like Westworld again, with these CGI characters being inserted. And there's a shootout going on between the good guys and the bad guys, which results

[00:30:58] in the hilarity of corpses and people with guns being inserted live into TV ads, which is hilarious. And Crichton did think it would be a comedy initially. He thought it was going to be a satirical comedy. Yeah. I mean, it is satire. Like it felt on the same level as like They Live. Yeah, yeah. You know, you've got this secret agency trying to control people, mind control.

[00:31:26] But also being kind of like, that's very ahead of its time that that's happening kind of now. Like it feels like it's happening now. So there are elements of comedy because it's just like almost like, that's so ridiculous. They can't be real to that point. And my favourite part of the movie is, I don't know what you call it, the looker gun, the light gun, the stun gun that is used.

[00:31:52] It emits this bright white light flash and they stun the victim. And I guess they just black out. They can't move. They're just still. Yeah. While the person does whatever they want. Which was confusing when you found that out because how did the girls fall off the balconies? Were they pushed off the balconies? Because they were getting stunned.

[00:32:18] Like the first girl, she gets wrapped in the curtain and then she just falls off. Yeah, she does. Like how did that happen? I don't know. Or are they filming it in a way where it looks like nothing is happening? Like it looks like she's wrapping herself in the curtain where in fact the guy, the moustache guy is actually wrapping her and like pushing her off. But because it's from her point of view, she can't see him? Yeah.

[00:32:47] Is that what's happening? I think that's what's happening. It is confusing and it did confuse audiences at the time. So that's Lisa, the first model who opens the film. And it is an arresting sequence because you have no idea what's going on. It's weird. Beautiful woman in her underwear in this Barbie pink apartment. You just keep seeing these flashes and hearing this sound and then there's losses of time. Things move. Things appear in her apartment that weren't there before.

[00:33:15] Her dog appears in the cupboard where it wasn't before. Yeah. The case appears on the bed with some weird gun thing on it. And then she ends up on the balcony. Yeah, it's weird. And then when you find out what the stun gun does, it's like, what? Hang on. What happened in that scene? Yeah. But I did love how the movie depicts it or represents it from the point of view of the victim.

[00:33:44] So instead of seeing what's happening with the mustache guy doing whatever he's doing, you see the flash and then suddenly it's just a jump in time. And you're like very confused because suddenly things have happened, but you don't know what. Yeah. Yeah. Those are my favorite sequences. Albert Finney as Larry has a sequence in his beach house where this happens to him. He just keeps losing like hours.

[00:34:11] And it's because Mustachio Guy, who's like a Reston's Digital Matrix assassin employee, he looks kind of like Magnum P.I. He does. When he puts those big like ski goggles on that protect him from the look of stun Ray. He kind of looks like Giorgio Moroder as well. So it looked like the king of disco was killing people. Anyway. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. That sequence, well, there's a few of them.

[00:34:37] There's one in his apartment where that guy is looking for the pass card so that they can stop him from breaking in. And he just freezes him constantly. But you don't know it. You never see him. You just keep seeing time skip, music changing on the radio. Yeah, that's right. The fridge frosting over because he's left the door open. Yeah. And it's just, it's great to watch the confusion. And then you get the culmination of that, which is the fight in the lab.

[00:35:04] That's just really visually striking and disturbing where he's trying to do battle because he knows what's happening to him. But he's got to try and figure out how to fight back against this person that keeps freezing him and punching him in the guts. Yes. I do have quite a few questions about the stun gun though. Because to avoid it, all you have to do is cover your eyes. Yeah. Which is, it seems like quite, I mean, it comes across on screen as quite ridiculous.

[00:35:29] So you've got a car chase scene where everyone's covering their eyes but trying to drive at the same time. It's insane. But or, or to avoid it, you have to wear the cool as disco glasses. Yeah, of course. Which look ridiculous. Yeah. So, yeah. And also I wanted to ask, like, how much time is lost as well? Is it hours? Is it minutes? It just, it seems to vary depending on the scene.

[00:35:57] It does vary according to the needs of the plot, which is because I think Larry loses like a couple of hours when he's in his beach house. But the other times they only seem to stop for about 10 seconds. So I don't know. It seems very unreliable. And you're not, you don't suddenly snap out of the stun, right? Right. When Larry was punched, he doesn't snap out of it. He's still stunned, just in pain. I think he does snap out of it. Yeah, he does. Or does he snap out of it? Yeah, because he kicks Giorgio Moroder in the balls at one point.

[00:36:27] And he wakes up when he does that because he stuns him. And then he kicks him in the balls. Yeah. So I think you do wake up if you're in pain. Okay. There's also another aspect of the stun gun. It doesn't work with smoke. So at one point they do realize that Larry has one of the guns and they go to his office and it's just smoke. They have this smoke machine that just billows smoke everywhere to stop him using it. But then he doesn't really use it anyway.

[00:36:57] No, he doesn't. And they could have just worn glasses. So why didn't they just wear the glasses when they went in there? Yeah. I don't get it. I don't know. I'm not sure. A lot of things get lost. So you mentioned that this is like a detective drama and it's an investigative piece and a conspiracy like all of these post-Watergate, late 70s, early 80s movies. We've talked about this many times before. Sure. There is a black police lieutenant played by Dorian Harewood.

[00:37:27] Very charismatic guy. He turns up right at the beginning investigating all these models dying. All of them came to the same doctor. So he's a prime suspect. And he just vanishes. I know. For the entire movie. I know. He doesn't do much detective work at all. No. And also they do find items. Yeah. From Larry at crime scenes. Yeah. But they never really talk to him about it. They don't arrest him or anything.

[00:37:54] You feel as though this is going to be the external source of pressure is that it's going to continuously look like it's him and he's crazy. But that whole thread's just gone. They just don't pick that up at all. It's really peculiar. It's weird. I think he shows up at the end. But other than that. So that gets completely lost along with the sort of explanation for the conspiracy. There are a lot of times as well when you're used to the classic Hollywood structure of the ending of one scene will tell you what is happening in the next scene.

[00:38:24] Like somebody, a character will say, we need to go and see such and such. And then you'll cut. And they'll either be driving there or they'll be there. Sometimes like the car chase scene, it just comes out of nowhere. It does. He's just driving and then they're shooting at each other with the looker gun. Yeah. Why? Where is he going? What's he trying to do? Yeah. What's Larry's motivation? I have no idea what's happening or why. I do feel like there's like a big chunk maybe in the middle that they're just like cut out. I think you're fine.

[00:38:53] And so there's no connective tissue. Because, yeah, you're right. You go from one day and then the next day he's just driving and being pursued. And it's like, where did they come from? I know. It's utterly confusing. So I think in terms of plot, from a man who is renowned for being such a fantastic writer and such an effective writer of thrillers, techno thrillers particularly. We did Andromeda Strain for episode 80, so we know what he's capable of.

[00:39:23] This is really ramshackle. It's not good. Yeah. And he did write it for screen, right? It's not from any of his novels or anything. This is for this movie. Yeah. Just like Westworld, it's an original script that he's written. Yeah. I mean, I have to say, I'm not a big fan of his directed movies. And I haven't seen many of them. This is only the third one. But I don't know whether he's a great director. He's a great writer.

[00:39:53] I mean, Jurassic Park and Twister and numerous other movies which have been adapted to film are great. But I'm not sure whether he's a great director, in my opinion. I think you're probably right. I mean, Westworld is quite striking and so is Coma. But I think it's because of the ideas that he had that resulted in sort of stunning images like Coma.

[00:40:17] I always remember the scene when Genevieve Bourgeois finally finds where all these patients are going and they're all strung up in this room. And all you can hear is the breathing. I mean, it's disturbing and amazing to look at. But yeah, I think you're right. I think as a writer, director of films from scratch, maybe not his forte. Yeah. I mean, I personally don't think Westworld or Coma are great films. I think they're really interesting premises.

[00:40:46] But as films, I don't think they really work. I'm not sure. But that's just my opinion. I did find in Looker as well, the final scene, although I loved the whole sort of AI generation into the scene, what the people were watching downstairs on TV and having the corpses and people wandering around these sets while in an Oti's ad. That was really great. And also the moving sets was really interesting.

[00:41:16] But the looker gun was not used. I mean, it was used once, I think. And come on, it's the best part of the movie. Yeah. Use it. Yeah. And it was just deeply disappointing where most of it was just sneaking around and people getting shot by accident. Yeah. Like, I want the looker gun to be used. What's going on? I know. It's such a fabulous part of your movie. And to not use it, it's just, yeah, so it's a major missed opportunity. It is.

[00:41:45] Maybe they thought they'd played it out at that point. And he was so focused on the satire of inserting corpses in the breakfast nook that that's what they went for. So, yeah, it's more violent. It's brains being blown out, which is quite shocking for the end of the movie. Yeah, because you could have had a really interesting shootout scene with, like, people getting stunned left, right and center. Or having to, like, I don't know.

[00:42:13] It could have been used in really interesting ways, like using mirrors or, like, maybe smoke was used at one point or something to avoid it. Or, I don't know. There's so much they could have done with that piece of technology. Yeah. In that last scene. I agree. I think the finale is a bit of a letdown. And, yeah, then the hero just walks away arm in arm. Yeah. With Cindy. Yeah. I always like to see the ages, the age differences.

[00:42:42] So, Albert Finney was 44, 45, and Susan Day was 28, 29. So, it's quite an age difference. It's not, like, uncomfortable. Like, she's not, like, 18 or anything. Yeah. But still, yeah, there's still a significant age gap. In our previous episode, it did make me pause for thought when Melinda said, yeah, it's a great movie if you want to see a teenager naked.

[00:43:10] And I thought, oh, actually, oh, that's really not great. I know. Yeah. She's 18. She's 18. And she only, I think she only just turned 18 when they started filming as well. Yeah. So, she is barely legal. I know. Oh, I don't know. It's terrible. It's not great. Yeah. At least Susan Day, who is naked for a portion of the movie, although it's tastefully shot. It is. It is. Yeah. Apparently, it took three days. Yeah. Did it need to take three days?

[00:43:42] Probably not. I mean, she gets lowered and spins around a little bit. And that's about it. I don't know if it needed to take three days. I think it would have been a bit of a shock to people to see Susan Day naked because she was from the Partridge family, which was like a much beloved family sitcom. Not something I've ever seen and not something I'm familiar with in terms of its cultural impact. I've seen. I know it was beloved. Yeah. I've seen some of it. It's not. It's too wholesome. Right. I didn't. That type of TV was not.

[00:44:12] I didn't like the Brady Bunch. I thought that was too wholesome. Right. There was a lot of 70s, some 80s, like American commercial TV that was, I don't know. I don't know why people like it. It's just too wholesome. But yes. Yes. She is from Partridge family. It's like if you had, yeah, one of the Brady Bunch girls just getting topless. Yeah. It's a bit of a shocker. But she has nothing to do in the movie.

[00:44:38] She basically is a model who just gets to be concerned and then a damsel at the end. And then lots of exposition happens around her while she asks questions. But she's not really an active participant in what's going on. No, no. It's Larry saving the day. It is. Yeah. What do you think of Albert Finney as a leading man? I mean, I. In a techno thriller. I don't think I. I haven't really seen him in much, to be honest.

[00:45:05] Like, basically, I've seen him in Wolfen. Yeah. Was the movie that I've really seen him most. I mean, I think he's on Big Fish and Skyfall. But I don't remember him. But I don't know. He's fine. He's not very charismatic, to be honest. No. He's no Tom Cruise. But he does come across as a plastic surgeon. Yeah. Like, that's convincing to me. Yeah. He's believable.

[00:45:32] Whereas some buffed up 20-year-old would probably not be terribly convincing. No. As a plastic surgeon in Birmingham. No. So, that's good. Yeah. I mostly remember him from Erin Brockovich. Oh. Which, I think he was very good in that. Right. Yes. Yes. I don't know. He was fine. For me, it felt like, oh, this is the type of casting that used to happen. Like, I feel like pre-80s. Well, I mean, this is 81. So, it's barely 80s. Pre-80s, the leading men were always older than they really should be. Yeah.

[00:46:01] It was just normal. And they were always with some 20-something. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, you've got James Coburn as John Reston as well. Which was confusing as well because you didn't even really know he was the villain until kind of the end. Yeah. He wasn't really a villain. No. Which was kind of confusing. No, it wasn't made. I think he had one scene where he was with the character played by Lee Taylor Young, Jennifer Long.

[00:46:30] Who's like his henchman in the office, so to speak, stroke executive assistant. I'm not sure what she was. But they have a discussion that makes it fairly plain that they're trying to cover something up and stitch Larry up for it. That's right. But other than that, it's not clear what they're trying to do or why. No. No, not at all. No. I did also notice that because James Coburn, I don't really know as well, but he was in Hudson Hawk that we did. Yes.

[00:46:58] As any, I think he was a villain in that or one of the villains. There were many villains. Yeah. But we did that as a Minnesota. Patreon bonus. Yeah. Check that out. Yeah. But I don't know. I think the biggest villain for me was the moustached man. Yes. Which barely has any lines. No. He's just a moustache man. He is. Yeah. Tim Rossovich or Rossovich. I'm not quite sure how to pronounce it. I think he was sometimes an actor, sometimes a football player. Ah, right.

[00:47:27] And I mostly know him, oddly enough, for his brother, Rick Rossovich. Oh, okay. Who was in The Terminator and Navy Seals and Roxanne. And yeah, he was in quite a few films. Okay. This is completely off topic. But the perfume at the start of the movie, they suggest you put it between your toes and behind the knees. I've never done that before.

[00:47:56] And I don't know why you would. Unless you're Quentin Tarantino. So, yeah. Between the toes seems like an odd one. I'm not quite sure why you would do that. I mean, I know that wrists and underneath your neck, I think that's supposed to be places where it gets activated the most. Because, I don't know, you're sweating from there. I don't know. Mm. Sure. But your toes? I don't think so.

[00:48:24] Now it's time for Random Trivia. Okay, Conrad, what trivia did you conjure up in this 3D scan today? So, one piece of trivia I discovered listening to the commentary track with Michael Crichton is that Looker was not the film that he wanted to make in the early 80s. Oh. He'd just published his novel, Congo, which he had pre-sold.

[00:48:51] They'd pre-sold the film rights before he'd even written the book. Wow. Which must have been incredibly stressful. Apparently, he found it so stressful he got writer's block and he could only get his way through it by immersing himself in those tanks that we saw in altered states. Oh, right. The sensory deprivation tanks. Right. Yeah. To try and break his writer's block. Anyway, he did write the novel and published it and it was a big hit.

[00:49:20] He wanted to do a sort of Alan Quatermain sort of adventure, jungle adventure movie. Yeah. So, he wanted to do Congo and he was preparing for that, but then he discovered that these damn conservationists would not let you work with apes. Right. Which he thought was really irritating. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. But Congo did get made in the 90s, right? It did. Yes.

[00:49:49] By Frank Marshall, who just directed Arachnophobia. Oh. Which we just covered. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In 1995 starring Laura Linney, Dylan Walsh, Ernie Hudson and Joe Don Baker and Tim Curry. And we should look at that at some point. Yeah. It's got a lovely Jerry Goldsmith score. Ah, yes. Are there gorillas in that CGI? I can't even remember. There's a man in a suit and a whole load of CGI. Yeah. I remember there were lasers in that movie.

[00:50:18] Yeah, there were lots of monkeys being cut in half with lasers. That's right. Yeah, we should do that. All I remember is a gorilla called Amy that does sign language. And other than that, I don't remember. Yeah, right. There's lots of sign language and a robotic voice translating her thoughts or something saying, Amy, sad, Amy, sad. Oh, that's right. That's all I remember. I remember that, yes. And that's our trivia.

[00:50:52] So looker, it's got a few meanings, like a person being described as a looker, as an attractive person. But looker is the technology for the gun or the hypnotizing ads. Yeah, it's one of the two. Right, yeah. And it is an initialization. It's a light ocular oriented kinetic emotive response. Yeah. Which sounds like a bit of a stretch.

[00:51:20] I don't think any of those words really mean much together. But they do spell looker. They do. I think the other thing, of course, is the voyeurism. Right. That's right. You know, who is the looker? Who is the viewer? That kind of thing is going on in there. Because there was a lot of concern about people being glued to their television screens. There's that wonderful scene where Susan Day's character, Cindy, goes home to her parents and they are so engrossed in the television show they're watching.

[00:51:48] They pay no attention to her at all. And the scene that you alluded to where Larry's eyes attract while he's watching the advert. That's right. Not surprisingly, he was staring at the model's tits all the way through and they're saying, oh, that's not what we want. We want you to be looking at the product. And then you think, well, then why are you putting attractive women in your adverts and affecting them? And it doesn't make any sense. But yeah. So I think there's a lot of voyeurism in there as well. Yeah.

[00:52:17] I mean, talking about, I guess, eyes or like we are looking. I did notice quite a lot of mirrors used in this movie and a lot of the scenes, I guess. Metaphor for like always looking at yourself because the models are always, you know, trying to perfect their bodies. And also us looking at them being models and advertising. And it just continues the metaphor, I guess. It does. Yeah.

[00:52:45] It was a real problem in the first lady, Lisa's apartment. When they arrived on set, they couldn't put the camera anywhere. Yeah. It's a lot of mirrors. It's a lot. It's just far too many. I know she was vain, but they could not put the camera anywhere without you being able to see it. So they had to take some of them out and put things in the way. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I guess we should talk about the music. The score was very synthy. Yeah.

[00:53:15] Did remind me of cop thrillers, to be honest. Did it? Oh. Yeah. I don't know. Like it had that sort of repeated sort of ostinato patterns. Like it felt very 80s. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It feels very 80s. I felt as though it was a little bit John Carpenter-y. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Sure. With the repeating arpeggiated figures and so on to create tension. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With the held line over the top. But yeah, you're right. It does also feel a bit Harold Faltemeyer, Beverly Hills Cop in a few places.

[00:53:45] Yeah. Yeah. It just felt like a lot of 80s action movies were trying to use synthesizers and sort of more modern instruments. So it's Barry DeVorzon, who is at time of recording still with us. He is 90 years old. And I'm not sure we've covered anything that he has done in the past. Yeah. I've never heard of him. We've mentioned one of his films, Xanadu.

[00:54:15] And he did the score for The Exorcist 3, which we haven't covered. Right. I don't know. I don't get a strong sense of who he is or what his style is necessarily from the pieces I've heard. Yeah. I mean, I actually enjoyed the score. I thought it was a nice change from what I wouldn't normally expect. It wasn't that really abrasive 80s type score either. Like it didn't sound metallic. I don't know. It's quite pleasing, I thought. Yeah.

[00:54:43] I thought it was very effective, especially in the suspense scenes. And more effective than the songs. I really didn't like the songs. Oh, yes. We should. Talk about the looker song. The theme song. Title song. It is atrocious. Who wrote these lyrics? It's really bad. I think it was Barry DeVorzon. Or possibly the vocalist.

[00:55:11] Sue Sad of Sue Sad and The Next. An American new wave band from LA that was big in the early 80s. Apparently the only other film credit that we might know is Radioactive Dreams, which she worked on with Albert Pune of The Sword and the Sorcerer. Right, right. Yeah. I think it stinks. Yeah. It makes it laughable. It makes a movie feel like a parody of itself. Yeah. I don't know.

[00:55:41] I think movies should not have theme songs unless they're comedies or Disney movies. Like it just doesn't work in this movie. Maybe James Bond because it's kind of written into the fabric of the thing. Yeah. But not hair metal, but it's verging on that. Like it's quite cheesy. It's very early 80s new wave rock. Yeah. I don't like it very much. No.

[00:56:13] But the other music I actually did enjoy. And it really worked for all those kind of stun gun scenes. Like I thought it added to the kind of weirdness because it was synths. Yeah. And there's some strings in there as well. That's right. Just sort of underlying the ominous nature of it all. Yeah. I liked those. I thought that stuff. That's the stuff that I think works really well. The conspiracy, not so much. No, not so much.

[00:56:41] Coming to you live from the Movie Oubli at Theatre, it's the prestigious Moobli Award. It's the Moobli Awards. It's time to nominate our favourite naked body scanned parts of the film in a number of hypnotising categories. Best quote. My favourite quote comes from the villain John Reston, who says, Television is the American ideal.

[00:57:10] Persuasion without coercion. Mm. Yes. Very profound. Yeah. That's when he's monologuing as villains do. Of course. My favourite quote comes from Cindy. She's asking Larry whether he has a gun and he's kind of confused. And she says, you know, bang, bang. That's great. You know, a gun, bang, bang. Amazing. Yes.

[00:57:38] How are you going to protect me, Larry? She's rather annoyed in that scene, which is where one of my other favourite quotes comes from, where she shouts, I have a right to know if someone is trying to kill me. Yes. Best hair or costume. The easiest pick would be Moustache Man with his Macta P.I. stash and his 80s mirror, you know, disco glasses. Like, he looks amazing.

[00:58:09] He does, yeah. He's probably the most snazzy assassin I've ever seen. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. Yeah. I like it. I like it. I think chutzpah for costume should go to Lisa, the model who opens the film, who has the habit of answering the daughter, presumably she's expecting a date or something, in a black bra, black panties and stilettos. And that's it.

[00:58:38] Yes. I know. She has like a silk dressing gown at one point. But, I mean, why the high heels? It's like, why are you walking around your own apartment in high heels? It's ridiculous. I don't know. Most 80s movement. Most 80s for me is the green neon Tron grid on the studio floor. Ah, yeah. A year before Tron, it has to be pointed out.

[00:59:04] But even the holodecks in Star Trek The Next Generation, which showed up a little bit later in the 80s, have these grid floors as like the default look before a world is created inside them. So there's just this sense that, you know, the default for any digital landscape is a neon grid. Yeah. Most 80s for me, I would have to say like supermodels in advertising.

[00:59:30] And in 80s, supermodels had a very distinctive look, which you don't, you just don't get anymore. Like, I feel like a lot of advertising, especially a perfume or anything like that, it's just actors now. Like, you're just seeing like Zendaya and like Johnny Depp and, you know, Anne Hathaway. You're not seeing supermodels anymore. No, it's very true. I wear Timothee Chalamet. Right. Yeah. Favourite scene.

[01:00:00] My favourite scene is this sort of look-a-gun scene in Larry's beach house. It's so surreal. Because he goes to the fridge and he reaches for a beer and then suddenly it's, you know, half an hour is gone or an hour is gone and everything's frosted over. It's, yeah, it's such a weird scene because he goes to do things and then suddenly everything's moved and time has passed. It's, yeah, it's amazing to watch.

[01:00:28] Yeah, it's really disturbing as well. Yeah, it is. I love the way that that's shot. Yeah. Like, whoever's idea it was, I guess Michael Crowder, to film those scenes from the point of view of the stunned person. That's brilliant. It's brilliant. Yeah. It is good. Yeah, I do like that. Well, my favourite is a similar scene.

[01:00:49] It's the fight in the lab because I think that really achieves the potential of that as an idea where he's fighting with somebody and he knows it's happening to him but he can't stop it. Yeah. There's some really great effects like on the audio you get these distorted advertising jingles playing in the background to add this sense of unease and give you a feeling for how disoriented he is. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. Most cliché moment.

[01:01:19] Biggest cliché for me is swapping into a security guard's outfit to infiltrate the villain's face. It's such an action cliché though, isn't it? It is. It's like a cop thriller. You would see, you know, this happened in a cop thriller. You need to sneak into some event. You just, yeah, bash a guy on the head and swap his uniform. And it always fits. Yeah, of course it always fits.

[01:01:48] It's like, that wouldn't work if you have your arms too short, belly popping out. That would be ridiculous. It crops up so often though. I made a note of some obvious ones. I mean, obviously in Star Wars you have Han and Luke in Stormtrooper outfits to sneak around the Death Star. It happens in Rogue One as well. Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones punches out a guy just to get hold of his Nazi uniform to infiltrate the base at the end.

[01:02:18] And Frodo and Sam in Lord of the Rings, they wear orc uniforms to get into Mordor. Right. Yeah. It's a staple. It's a classic in every genre. It is. It is. Best special effect. My favourite special effect is during the Looker Lab fight. And it's just this astonishing shot after Albert Finney gets punched by a guy through the television screen. I'm not sure why that happens. Yeah.

[01:02:44] But you just get this one shot of Albert Finney flying backwards in slow motion as the camera follows him and he goes backwards through a window and it shatters around him. And it's actually Albert Finney and it's such a weird shot. I love it. It's amazing because he flies for quite a while. It feels like he's actually flying across the room in one slow motion shot through a window. Yeah. And do you know how they did it?

[01:03:14] Oh, how? They put Albert Finney on a rail. Oh, okay. Right. So he and the camera are on a dolly track going backwards. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It works really well. It does. It's fantastic. You can't see it. It's great. Wow. My favorite special fact, I'm not sure whether it's actually a special fact or more a stunt. Tina's death.

[01:03:39] So she falls from a balcony onto a car and it looks real. Like it doesn't look like a dummy. And it's quite clumsy as well because she falls on her back slash ass and her legs whip backwards and like flash her underwear. And it just looks like a real person. Like it doesn't look like a dummy at all. And then she kind of slumps off the car. And the glass flies everywhere.

[01:04:07] And the car's flattened. It's quite astonishing to watch. Yeah. It's brutal and shocking. Yeah, it's a stunt. Michael Crichton talks about it on the commentary track. That stunt lady just threw herself onto a car from a great height in lingerie. And yeah, it's nasty. Yeah. Favorite sound effect. It's got to be the looker device, hasn't it? Yeah. It's great. It's a really distinctive sound that you just don't expect it.

[01:04:36] Because it's kind of like a backwards like zzzp sound and then followed by a echoey like do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Sound after it. It's great. Yeah, you get this sort of aftershock like a ruler being twanged on a desk. I'm not quite sure why. But yeah, it's just like a white noise backwards explosion followed by a-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Yeah. And it's not cheesy at all. It's not, no.

[01:05:00] Combined with the sort of fractal pattern that flashes up on the screen that really gives you the sense that you've been zapped as a viewer. It's great. It really helps to give you the sense of what's happened. There is also a flash of like inverted colours as well or inverted exposure, I guess. Like it's like black and white but inverted. Yeah. The whole combination of sound and visuals does make it quite unique. Yeah.

[01:05:30] It's really striking and disturbing. So kudos to the sound designer for that. I thought it was great. Yeah. Most funniest moment. My funniest moment is something silly that is not meant to be funny. It just tickled me. There is a scene at the dinner party. It's like a fundraiser for a charity or something. Yes.

[01:05:49] And there's a botched bit of editing because Albert Finney walks into the party with Cindy on his left arm holding a champagne glass on his right and he walks past the camera and goes in. And then when you cut to inside the party he walks out again holding a glass of champagne with James Coburn on his arm. Oh. And it looks like Cindy's transformed into James Coburn. Oh no.

[01:06:18] I had fits and rewound it because I thought I'd had like a look a blackout moment. Right. But no. There's this really weird bit of continuity where Cindy turns into John Reston. I have no idea why. Okay. Wow. I have to watch that scene again. Yeah. The funniest moment for me was the car chase scene. I mean it's ridiculous that they're driving with their hands covering their faces trying not to look at the guns.

[01:06:45] But eventually Larry's looking through the rear view mirror and the guys behind him shoot the gun and then just suddenly he's in the middle of a water fountain with water just splashing on the windscreen. And it's great as well because the radio suddenly changes song as well. So it's just a magically funny scene. Like surely they were going for funny because it's so good. Oh yeah.

[01:07:15] Oh definitely yeah. And I love that when he looks back there's just this sort of trail of carnage behind him. Yeah yeah yeah. Tire tracks through this pristine park and all these confused people staring at him like what are you doing? Yeah. It's great. It's such a good scene. It's such a good scene. All right. That's our movies. I'm Mary Jo Peel and you are listening to Movie Oubliette.

[01:07:47] Okay. Final verdict time. Should Michael Crichton's looker be liberated to hypnotize and sell millions of bottles of ravish perfume to all its adoring fans? Or should I be stunned with a looker gun? Drive through a water fountain and hurt all unbeknownst. Back into the Oubliette never seen again. Conrad, does looker hold up for you?

[01:08:11] It's a shame again because I think there are a lot of interesting ideas in this and there are a lot of things that are conceptually fascinating. Particularly the looker gun and the scenes where they're using the looker gun and you're experiencing the victim's point of view. Yeah yeah yeah. And there's a fight with the looker gun. That works really well.

[01:08:30] But unfortunately as prescient as it is, as fascinating as it is, how it looked forward to the landscape that we're staring down the barrel of which is AI generated human beings manipulating people to believe things that aren't true and it destroying civilization which is happening now. Yeah. As wonderful as all of that is to talk about, as a film, I think it's a horrible mess and I don't think it's very successful.

[01:08:58] As much as I love parts of it, I don't think it works and I think it's been forgotten for a very good reason because I had seen it and I didn't remember anything apart from models being frozen in space and pitched off balconies. So I think it's got to go back. I think it's going to be stunned and thrown back, I'm afraid.

[01:09:18] I would agree entirely about everything you've said, but I think all of the prescient stuff and the AI stuff, I think that's amazing that this came up in a movie from 1981. I think it's very shocking to me that Michael Crichton could come up with all of these things that are happening right now back at 1981. It's incredible. Yes, the movie's a bit of a mess.

[01:09:48] It comes across as a little bit silly as well. Like some of the, maybe the looker gun, not the actual effects of the looker gun, but the device itself and some of the high-tech technology in this movie does come across as quite goofy now. You know, the security doors are just like so, it takes so long to actually open the door.

[01:10:14] And yeah, some of the sort of sci-fi elements do come across as goofy. But yes, I think the premise and the concepts surpass the mess of the movie itself. And I think people should watch this movie just for those ideas alone. And I think this movie would be great as a remake. I would love to see a remake of this movie. Yeah, you could definitely do something with these ideas now. For sure.

[01:10:44] Yeah. Hmm, interesting. Okay, so we are at a dead heat again. So we'll have to find out what our patrons think. Over to our own AI. Hello, Gary. Good afternoon. Could we have the patrons vote, please? I've searched the web and I found these facts on why pigeons float. No patrons vote. They've decided to throw it back. Oh, they agree with you, Conrad.

[01:11:16] They do, yes. So, but not entirely. It was 60-40, so it was split. Okay. But on my side, Jasmine. Hooray for Jasmine. Even though some of the concepts predicted the AI we face today, many other aspects of this film aged so much that it could use a cosmetic surgeon of its own to make it look good. Crichton's writing and directing are just terrible. The final film's lack of explanation as to why the models are being killed is puzzling.

[01:11:45] Then again, having seen the deleted scene containing the ridiculous explanation, it wouldn't have made things any better. To zap it with the Atari light gun and chuck the paralysed movie back. I mean, I kind of have to agree with you, Jasmine. Yeah. On a lot of those points. Whereas on the other side of the fence, you have Chazilla, who's been watching this one regularly since the HBO days.

[01:12:13] Love Crichton as a writer-director. His subjects are so varied. The effect for the looker gun rocked. The textured flash, the sound effect really sold it. It had depth, lots of bottom end. And combine that with the superimposed negative images, and I thought I was being zapped. Lots of tension and humour in the final shootout and the analogue holodeck. Sets moving around. Cameras filming the fake actors. The bad guys plugging their own.

[01:12:41] The synth music in the background made it even more 80s. Let it out of the oubliette. If there are any dissenting opinions, look over here. Flash. Yes, yes. Yeah. So it wasn't a slam dunk, but overall people felt it didn't quite reach the potential of its concept. All right. Okay, looker. Look over here. Over the balcony you go.

[01:13:10] Oh no, I'm tackling curtains. Hey! Oh. Oh. Satisfying. Haven't done that for a while. All right. All right. What's up next on Movie Oubliate? What's in the next episode? Well, we thought we'd switch over to horror for our next episode, because we've had a lot of sci-fi lately. And switch decades too.

[01:13:32] So we'll be looking at the 2012 Canadian French mystery horror film, The Tall Man. Hmm. Yes. Yeah. This is actually one of my choices. I have seen this movie. I know it's a flawed movie, but I think it's going to be interesting to talk about. Yeah. So budget of 18 million and box office of five. Yes. Yikes. Yeah. Yeah. It did not do well. It did not do well.

[01:14:01] I have not seen it. Jessica Beal. I shall look forward to it. Hmm. Yes. Yes. So listeners, if you want to look forward to our future episodes, you can follow us on Movie Oubliate everywhere. Or you can email us at movie.oubliet at gmail.com. And if you want to support the show, why not tell a friend or head on over to Patreon and support us monetarily.

[01:14:26] And in reward, you will get extra bonus features, extra content and voting rights too. Yes, exactly. And we have merchandise on Redbubble and a YouTube channel. And if you haven't already, give us a rating and review to spread the word of Movie Oubliate. Indeed. Okay. It's great to be back, Conrad. Can't wait for the next episode. Yeah. It was weird without you. All right, listeners.

[01:14:56] Until then. Goodbye. Goodbye. Come with us on another movie Oubliate. Vivaldi? On a Friday?