 Hello, and welcome to Release Date Rewind. My name is Marc J. Parker, and I am a film lover, filmmaker, film celebrator. And normally this is an audio podcast, wherever you get your podcasts on your favorite apps. But thanks to Portland Media Center, you are about to watch the video component of this show where I celebrate movie anniversaries with my friends. Each month I usually talk about two different movies that I love with different friends, and we talk about the making of the movies, trivia, any fun memories associated with them. So I hope you enjoy, because now it's time to Rewind. I'm so excited to have a friend that hasn't been on the podcast in almost a year. He was last on for Poltergeist last June, oh, and you can hear the honking horns of New Jersey, New York in his background. Everybody, please welcome David Gonzalez back to Release Date Rewind. Hi, Dave. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to talk about this love movie. I'm so glad you reached out. I think I had shared like an article on my stories on Instagram, and Dave, and I think I even said, like, does anyone want to talk about this with me? Because I earlier today was the first time I rewatched Dave in years, I think decades, maybe at least 20 years. Maybe. That was me until last week, because I'm sure you are aware and you mentioned it in our chat. This is impossible to find. Yeah, right? They totally wanted to hide this because the new one has been so popular, right? Which we can talk about that. Did you see the new Super Mario? Yes, yes. Yeah. What did you think? I am very... Film Twitter is a very interesting world to live in. It feels like Super Mario World, like when you're living in the Mushroom Kingdom. Because every now and then, Film Twitter picks a movie to either bash or love. For some reason, it happened to be Super Mario Brothers, and for me, I personally enjoyed it quite a bit. I think it captures what the game captured. I feel we're going to talk in detail about this 93 version in here, and we can talk about the fact that it actually has kind of a through line of a story. The animated film is pretty much, you go from point A, you go from point B, you rescue said person, you finish the story, and people, a lot of people were complaining about the fact that it has no story, and I'm like, have you played the game? I'm like, every single game pretty much is Mario or Luigi rescuing the princess, and you... That's it. You take down Kupa. Essentially the same thing. You're not rescuing the princess in this animated version, you're rescuing Luigi. That's the only turnaround. So interesting. And I pretty like the dynamic of Mario and Peach working together. That's cool. But in terms of what it's accomplishing, it accomplishes what the game does. So it's very much... It's funny because I'm not the type... I could be argumentative, but this is not an argumentative movie to really dive into and get angry over. It's just... I sit back in the weeds and just laugh at people getting angry over Super Mario Brothers. I'm glad it's made so much money because I'm very interested to see the world expand on that. Yeah, I mean, I assume we're absolutely getting at least one sequel, probably a few, right? I mean, it made millions its opening weekend. It kind of surprised me because I had heard, you know, I heard the whole Chris Pratt drama that he was playing Mario and everyone's like, why him? Which I agree. I'm like, why him? But what the heck? That made so much money its opening weekend. I forgot it was even out. I haven't seen it, obviously, but I will. I'm super curious to check it out. Over a billion dollars already. Oh, my God, Dave, that is wild, especially, I mean, wow. You know, when you think about it, when was the... I guess Top Gun Maverick made a ton of money last year. So last year, we had, I believe, two billion dollar movies with Avatar and then Top Gun Maverick. And then before that, we had Spider-Man, No Way Home. And then before that, we didn't have anything until pre-COVID where we had, I think 2019 set the record. I think it's six, five or six, because it had Endgame, The Lion King, Joker. Oh, wow, I forgot about the Lion King, the Joker. I think Toy Story 4. Oh, maybe. Yeah, probably. I know it broke a record. I can't remember the other two off the top of my head, but I know that it was a huge deal. So this is huge. I mean, I think it's on its pacing itself to be in the top five highest grossing animated films of all time, which is pretty. That's amazing. Pretty amazing. And as someone that loves the Oscars the way I do and follows the politics of the Oscars, yes, it has a 59% on RT. It doesn't matter. This movie, I think if it's a week here in animation, because right now I feel like it's top heavy with Spider-Man and and there's the makers of Wallace and Gromit are releasing a movie plus Elemental. So I think those three feel like they're even though we're in in May, feels like a sure thing. I could easily see Mario as like a five spot just getting in there with the box office because they love to bring in those popular movies, especially since the low rating. So absolutely. Yeah, especially for animation. I feel like they want some of the bigger ones. But the animation does look beautiful. Like the commercials and trailers I've seen for the film. I mean, it looks so good. So at least visually, I can say, even those that haven't liked it, at least they've praised that it's one of the most beautiful looking animated movies they've ever I've ever seen. It's gorgeous. Wow. Interesting. Well, and then now we're going back 30 years ago to a less gorgeous looking movie. But before we do that, I want everyone to know all the cool stuff you're doing, Dave. So OK, you are the co-founder or I should say the founder, right? The Cinematic Reel, your reviews and review site. How's that going? Tell me everything. It's been so long since I've been on that I've had a complete name change and rebrand the last time I was on. It was real talking. And then I'm in January, I did a little bit of a rebrand, changed the color scheme. Now I'm with the Cinematic Reel. Looks great. I've been going great. Been very, very busy covered Sundance earlier in January. I've been covering all these great are have been dropping. I did you go to Sundance or were you virtually virtually? Ironically, I got an email today that with the Sundance States and kind of encouraging me. They're like, hey, you know, we're pretty much we can. We'd like you to come and I'm like, it's expensive. I'm about to start covering Tribeca in two weeks. OK, yeah. And that's kind of one of my favorite film festivals. But no, yet outside of that, it's it's been really fun. My you can definitely find my work on the CinematicReel.com. And also I'm Ryan Tomatoes. I have all my reviews posted there. That's so amazing. I'm Ryan Tomatoes profile. So love that. We have a film critic in our midst, everyone. And then you have your podcast. You have a real talk still, which you've been doing that now. How many years? So real chronicles as real chronicles as a real chronicles ongoing since 2017, 2017. And then I have chopped off with just started last year because, you know, I adore horror as a whole. But it's specifically 1980s horror. I think 1980s horror is probably, in my personal opinion, the best in terms of entertainment wise, the best decade of horror. Yeah, because of. They were just shooting, throwing shit on the wall. I'm seeing was stuck. And a lot of it just turns out to be some really fun, entertaining horror. Very bold, just like making our nightmares come to life. And maybe it didn't work. Maybe it did. Right. And the lots of great practical effects. And yeah, it makes me actually the more I talk about horror and like with you and different people, like the more I talk to fellow horror fans, I realize I need to make my shorts a little bloodier and gorier. I think gore is like really popular again. You know, when you do it, right? When someone does it right, I think it's so effective. We before we move on to Mario, we got to talk about you're a dad because you weren't a dad last year when you were on the show. Just a tiny change. And how perfect because this episode's about to come out next week. So it'll be by the time Mother's Day rolls around, this will, you know, be out or it will be right after. So happy Mother's Day to Jenny, your wife, and happy almost Father's Day to you. Tell me how was dad life? Um, anything they tell you just throw it out the window. Yeah, it's it's been pretty amazing. It's she was born on Christmas Day. Wow, true blessing. It took a lot to get here. And as you can see behind me, because we're on camera right now, she pretty much lives on lives on our wall. I love it. And you post such awesome pictures with you and her. Harley, Harley Quinn. What a name is Harley Quinn. I'm not surprised with you. No, yes, she it's it's a lot of work. And I you mentioned Mother's Day this week. Like Jenny is a superstar, like absolutely. Like I've I've always had much respect for mothers even before because I have my own mother who's a single mom. So like I have respect for all the all the moms out there. But just seeing it like seeing her give birth and just seeing all the work that she's putting in. It's, you know, I do my best. But, you know, nothing compares to the work that she does. So wow, as a dad, it's it's pretty amazing to see her grow. That's amazing. It's she I love feeding her. It's it's it's the things that I didn't think that I would just love are the smallest moments. Like, I just love feeding her like I was talking to you before we jumped on the fact that like I was able to feed her before her last feeding of the day because she was you know, she's going to go to take a bath now. But it's just seeing that and she smiles so much. She has the most precious smile and she has teeth growing in now. She already has two teeth and she's only what she so Christmas day. OK, so she's not only five months old. OK, yeah. Wow. She's she's pretty long. She's almost she's over two feet already. OK, good segue to this movie. I feel like it's important for her to see some of these things, especially this. Oh, I love when you do, please, like, tell me what she thinks, because I was actually thinking because I am part of the big brothers, big sisters program and rewatching this. I was like, man, I wonder what my little Aiden would think of this because kids today are like he is so critical. My God, he is so critical. So I feel like he'd be like this actually like came out in theaters. And I mean, as a kid, let's see, 1993, I think I was I was six when this came out. So I don't think I saw it in theaters, but I know we rented it. I watched it repeatedly. I was obsessed with this movie, Dave. But it's just funny, because I think kids now would be like, what the hell? Where are we? I got a feeling we're not in Brooklyn no more. I actually saw this in theaters. Did you see it in theaters? Wow. Who'd you go with? Do you remember? My mom took me because I grew up and I to this day, I have an NES and SNES at home. OK, because I love playing the same way I love old movies. I love playing retro games. So I'm a big when I'm growing up, I love Nintendo and Super Nintendo. I was like, I'm right behind me. I have my Nintendo and Super Nintendo, but I need to set them up. I need to figure out how to like set it up without an old school TV. So you got to do the best way to do it. Oh, yeah, I could definitely let you know that. But like I was big into I had a Sega had a Nintendo and SNES, but I was always drawn to like the Mario game that I just found like they were the most fun like Super Mario World for SNES is probably up there. That in the last of us are probably my two favorite games I've ever played. Oh, yeah, that's cool. So I was like when that when I saw I saw it in a was Nintendo Power that they were. Oh, OK, old magazine. Yeah, they were talking about the movie. I pretty much beg my mother to take me because I was like, that's awesome. Then I saw the movie and even as a even as a little kid, I was like. What is going on here? Wow. So you knew. See, I didn't even as a kid. I was like, oh, I was into it. Dave, I forgot I loved the song that that they finish this movie very abruptly. It's just like she comes in and then we're cutting to black and that song starts almost almost unreal. I think is the song from Rockset. I think. Yes. Oh, my God. I forgot how much I love that song as a kid. I would sing that on the credits and then rewind and watch it all over again. So I was not as savvy as you. I did not realize that this movie was a no, no, no. So here's the thing. I didn't think it was a mess. I wouldn't know. I just thought even like obviously you don't remember a lot of memories as a kid because a long time ago, but there are a few things that even as a kid, I still remember now and I actually wrote them down on my notes. Oh, yeah. So why is there a narration to the dinosaur age in the beginning of the movie? I just even as a kid, I'm like, are we in a right theater? Right. And it's not even there. You would think it would be Mario or Luigi or both of them, but it's like some random random guy. Yeah. And then the other two things, I know a couple of things I notice is like, why is Koopa in a military suit? Right. Why is he a germaphobe? Yeah. And, you know, it's funny because I rewatching it, I remembered things like like it was yesterday, like, oh, yeah, he gets sprayed on his hands and but that never really comes into play later. The whole germaphobe. It doesn't. It doesn't lead anywhere. And I think my biggest, I guess, disappointment as a kid was Yoshi because I was I really like the character of Yoshi in the game. And I didn't think this as a kid as a seven year old, but I thought thinking rewatch now, I'm like, it feels like Spielberg had leftover props from Jurassic World. And he's like, there you go. Yes, it's funny. It looks nothing like Yoshi, the Yoshi we know from the games, but it does look cool. And I do love like the little friendship between Daisy and Yoshi. But I thought the same thing because Jurassic Park came out just a few weeks after this. So kind of a crazy time for dinosaur movies. But yeah, poor Yoshi. Like that felt like a whole different movie. A lot of this felt like a whole different movie. You know what I mean? Like the. And then you mentioned the abruptus of the end. I don't know if this is accurate or not, but it reminds me of Back to the Future. Oh, yeah, totally. Well, you know, the music. Oh, Alice of Estuary. Yes, he did Back to the Future movies, right? Yeah. And it's funny because he did Death Becomes, or which definitely I could hear little hints of that. And I also feel like I'm like this sounds either this theme sounds exactly like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, or I just remember this theme song so well. And I forgot I remembered it. But I feel like they lifted. He was lifting things from like other movies of this time, it feels like or everything just sounded like this. You know, he had he had something that worked. And I think he just it's really good. It's so fun, like that's the kind of music that would be playing in a theme park if this movie was more successful. I agree. You know, another sequence that I really enjoyed as a kid that I wish in my head. I'm like, this should be a this should be in Universal Studios or something was the when they rescued like all the women and they go down that ice thing. One of my favorite scenes, Dave. Oh, my God. Yeah. Tell me. Oh, you know, I was just like, why is this not in a theme park? I know. We can just wear a mario hat. Let's rock out with this is really, really fun. And then you just have the goombas behind you on their mattress. And it's like, oh, my God, go fast. Right. It seems like a no brainer, like a cold tube. And they can just blast like cold air at you as you go. I can ask, what did you think? I mean, now on your rewatch and then back then, what did you think of the whole mario Luigi dynamic as, you know, like, yeah, at first, I'm like, when I first saw it, I'm like, they're brothers for once Puerto Rican and the other Italian. What's going on here? But as an adult, I'm like, but wait, is he a stepfather? Like, what's going on here? Right. Because as again, as a kid, I like kind of missed that. And you don't even like my first watch. I know I wasn't caring about race or ethnicity, anything like that. Right. But yeah, so interesting. And you I love that you have also played the games because I loved, you know, Mario Brothers and Mario Kart, all that stuff. But I don't know the game, you know, mythology too well in the game. They are brothers. They're not like weird half brothers, stepbrothers or foster. Right. But the movie Luigi says when Luigi and Daisy are, you know, kind of falling for each other early in the film. Right. We know Daisy has no parents. Her mom left her at the church. Oh, my God, Dave, I wanted that that metal egg with the rock so badly. I would like create that out of like cardboard and carry it around. Oh, so we know her story. And then Luigi says at that Italian place when she's talking about her parents, he says, yeah, I'm like, you, I don't know who my parents are. Mario basically like found me and raised me. So I was like, oh, OK, that is something I definitely forgot. You know, I totally forgot. Right. And my assumption is that is the filmmakers saying, yeah, we know Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo are two totally different races. Right. So they're going to just add this line in and don't get me wrong. I feel like with a movie as fun and wild as this and with Mario, I don't know. And I want to hear your thoughts, too. Definitely. I don't know if like race is so important because it's it's all this crazy bubblegum fantasy thing. And John Leguizamo is so charming, especially back then, 30 years ago. He is so much fun. Bob Hoskins is is so in character. Like so the two of them feel like really good fits to me. Casting wise, would you agree? One thousand percent agree, right? Even even though they didn't want to be there, I have some. I don't know if you have this. Yeah, I saw that. You have some stuff for later. Um, I feel like despite the fact they didn't want to be there, their chemistry is pretty on brand. I really I really like everything they do together. And like you said, I mean, Leguizamo in 93 was like chef's kiss. He had this and he had Carlitos way that in 93 as well. So pretty much broke him out. I I you nailed it with the idea of like this movie so out there for the era that race wasn't really, especially as a kid. That's not even what we're thinking at the time. How much cocaine was taken on the set of this movie? Oh, my God, I feel like every drug and every drink known to man was had to be on this set because, yeah, real quick, let's go to what you were going to say. I was reading and you might have more info for sure that Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo would drink not only before working, so I guess they would just wake up and start drinking, but they would drink between takes. Did you see that? I think they were so miserable. Apparently the directors were not great people, kept throwing new scenes in. And that's why the tone is a little all over the place. Right. I know there's like a director's cut that has 20 more minutes that is online. I do want to watch it because I'm so curious. I'm curious to a lot was cut. But yeah, I know it was not easy to make this. I think Dennis Hopper said he was only supposed to be there five weeks, which also is a lot for a movie. Five weeks, especially a lot of days, this type of movie. Right. But he ended up being there for 17 weeks and he just was miserable. Yeah, actually, like the Dennis Hopper and the Bob Hoskins. But Hoskins didn't even know he was making a movie based on a video game until his son asked him what he was working on. And Hoskins mentioned the title of the movie and his son immediately recognized and showed Hoskins the game on his NES. So that's how little connection there was between director. I know they really wanted Bob. Like they kept rewriting it. Lots of rewrites, a lot of different writers. Those three writers that are credited in the film, the finished film, Parker Bennett, Terry Runty and Ed Solomon. There were like three times that many writers and they apparently kept sending Bob each like rewrite, each new draft until finally, I guess he just said, sure. Yeah, fine. Did you see I had a I took down a list of like front runners for the roles before they landed on Sir. Yeah, tell us. So for King, for Koopa, like some of these would have been interesting, but there's one I'm going to leave for last because that would just be bad shit. So our monosante who ended up going, he ended up playing Gotti in HBO 96 movie, Kevin Costner. It feels like this feels like some of these names feel like we sent it to his agent and we're going to call that we offered him, right? The part like, come on now. No, I cannot imagine Kevin Costner anywhere near this movie, right? William Defoe, that one feels like he take a look at least take a look. Oh, yeah. He would be a pretty sick Koopa or something. Yeah, I agree. Michael Douglas. No, absolutely not. Jeremy Irons, Tommy Lee Jones. I mean, he was a great two face. I do like him. He was. But he would not know what Arnold Schwarzenegger. I did see Arnold in the mix. Yeah, Christopher Walken. And then the last two are Michael Keaton. OK, I figured like that was probably a no shatter because he had just done Batman. Right. I think that was. And then what I would have loved because I mentioned this man before was Al Pacino. I cannot imagine Al Pacino anywhere near this movie. Just because like it's by 93, it's not Pacino in The Godfather. It's Pacino in heat. So like we get like this Pacino is like, you got to get those plumbers. That was good. Oh, my God. Yes, like that Pacino in here. I kind of would have been like curious to see how that works. I mean, it would work. It would totally work. But I just feel like, oh, my God, can you imagine this movie would be probably even more embarrassing if Pacino was in it? I do know what I mean. Yeah. But that was a great Pacino impression. You're right. This was definitely his shouting era. This was his heat. His devil's advocate was a few years after this, like just nonstop screaming. I'm Pacino is my favorite actor of all time. And I love heat. I love everything. Oh, I love heat. Oh, I love it. It's in my top, like 12 favorite movies of all time. If you talk about heat or if I talk about heat, I feel like I will be. Please bring me on for that. I'm obsessed with heat. I think it's a perfect movie. But him and you mentioned devil's advocate, Pacino devil's advocate has become one of the best unintentionally hilarious performances like I've ever seen. Yeah. Him when he's like to Keanu, he's like, I'm a fan. It's it's so hilarious. But yes, you're right. Pacino would have, I don't know what the hell he would have done here. Oh, God, because Dennis Hopper choose the scenery. I mean, he is he is, you know, shouting. And he is I mean, he he's committed. But Pacino would really just just explode. And this movie I realized by the end of it, I'm like, wow, this is the movie of like 1000 crashes. There's so many car crashes. There's people crashing into each other. There's people crashing into glass. I mean, it's funny because the budget was only around 48 million. But back then 30 years ago, that was that was a nice chunk of money, right? But to our mind now, it's like, oh, that's not all that much. It's substantial. But for all this stuff. But man, they were going for every explosion and crash that they could. So imagine all that and the Pacino shouting over it. Wow, that that would be amazing. And it lost money, but it didn't lose this much. I wasn't doing like box office. Reacher, yeah, it lost money, but it didn't lose as much money as I expected because you mentioned the budget was about 40 to 48 million and it grossed 38.9. So yeah, of course it lost money, but it wasn't as bad as it was that I expected. Yeah, it wasn't a massive flop. But I'm sure they spent a pretty penny on marketing, you know, something like this. You know, it's funny. I didn't realize, Dave, and maybe you saw this too. This was the first movie based on a video game as it was pretty amazing. I mean, that's also why, listen, it's a mess, but I do love it and rewatching it today. I still love it. I love how wacky it is. I love the henchmen Iggy and Spike and how funny to see Iggy on succession. You watched the session. I was about to the fact that shout out to he wanted to be on state Jack. Oh, yeah. So he was on last night. He's like, you better mention Fisher Stevens. This is the end of life. I can't believe that's the same guy. I love Fisher Stevens. And what's the other actor's name who plays Spike? Let me see. I don't even remember. They are so good and I remembered them so well. Like as a kid, I loved those guys. Those are the roles that I would have wanted to have played. Let me see real quick. We have Fisher Stevens and Richard Edson. OK, they were great. I mean, let's talk about the cast. I know everybody we we rewound already. Usually I say, let's rewind to 1993. We are deep in May 28th, 1993, when this movie came out. So here are the stars. Obviously Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper. We've talked about them. Samantha Mathis, who I had a bit of a little she was she was hot in this moment. She did this. The next year was little women. She was in that movie with Sandra Bullock, I think. I can't remember what it is now. I don't remember, but she was also in Broken Arrow with John. She was in Broken Arrow a couple years later. That was big. Like, yeah. And then she was in American Psycho. She really kind of faded. But she was in American Psycho. She was in American Psycho in a smaller role. She's the one that's like always on pills. She's she's cheating with Christian Bale. Yeah, she's she's definitely a more supporting character. But yeah, after that, she kind of faded. But so those are our leads. But yeah, Fisher Stevens, Richard Edson as Iggy and Spike. Such a fun duo. We have Fiona Shaw, who many people know her now in that show, Killing Eve. But Fiona Shaw as Lena. Wow. What a role. I remember I was very like intrigued by her. She's in the the crazy red hair and like the the skin tight, slinky outfits and she's very snake like, right? She was great in this. And then also we have Francesca P. Roberts, who I have to shout out. She plays Bertha and I remembered Bertha so well. I love Bertha, the red. So I don't know if this is accurate. Do you know who she's supposed to be in the game? No, do you? I don't know how accurate this is. This is just I feel like this was very loosely based on the game. Oh, there. The right, you know, Mark, the Internet never lies. So I'm sure what I'm about to tell you is 100 percent true. Apparently she's supposed to be the fish, the red and white fish. Oh, OK. I don't believe that. But I was like, let me throw it out there because I read it. I love her. I love like that little sequence with her and Mary with her dancing. Oh, my God, it's so funny. I was going to say, Dave, that is one of my favorite scenes. That and the the sliding on the mattress. But yeah, the way they're dancing and he's he's trying to bite the the meteorite and he's trying to, you know, get it so funny. I love it. And then I love how she randomly, instead of being angry at him for stealing it, she's like, OK, I respect your theft game and now I'm going to kiss you and I'm going to help you. I'm like, OK, doesn't really make sense. But thanks, Bertha, right? Yeah, sure. They're brothers, they're plumbers. Oh, no. They're on the trail of a kidnapped princess and a mystical meteorite. It's incredible. That gives anyone who possesses it the power to rule the universe. Get me the rock. He'll get it, Liz and Brett. Oh, my God. Thanks so much for watching. Next week will be part two of this discussion. And in the meantime, please follow release date rewind on Instagram.