How One Movie Killed The 1980s

this episode is brought to you by nebula the only place where you can watch our season finale the Patrick H Willams Star Wars holiday special coming December 18th watching the 1990 NASCAR drama Days of Thunder you wouldn't think that this was such an overblown outof control disaster that it killed an entire era of American filmmaking Tom Cruz drives cars good hardly seems like a harbinger of Doom if you look at movies like Heaven's Gate or water world and hear that those Productions were chaotic disasters that went way over budget you get it when you hear that making apocalypse now almost drove Francis Ford Copa insane and you see that movie you get it you look at Fitz coraldo and hear that people died making it and you get it but you look at Days of Thunder and you think yeah sure this is a normal slick formulaic Hollywood movie about car racing but it's not normal see this was a movie whose production was such a train wreck such an exorbitant costly Folly that derailed the careers of the most powerful producers in Hollywood and in the end killed an entire era of movies by the time Cole Trickle crossed the Finish Line in the Daytona 500 the 1980s were truly over in a video from earlier this season we tried to Define what an 80s movie really is if you have a spare 90 minutes or so you should go check it out but in case you don't well we found that' 80s movies were really a combination of certain Aesthetics themes music and cinematic Trends and we determined that the movie that most embodied all of those things the most 8s movie ever made was Rocky 4 but some of the movies that came the closest were ones that came from the team that largely defined what we think of as 80s Cinema the producing team of Don Simpson and Jerry brookheimer Simpson started as an executive at Paramount Pictures where he developed his formula for what he called the high concept movie a formula that would create several of the biggest most influential era-defining movies of the decade their successes made Simpson and brookheimer two of the most powerful people in Hollywood and then at the end of the decade with one movie it all Came Crashing Down excuse me sorry excuse me Emma you just walked through the shot oh I'm sorry I'm trying to get the set ready in time for the holiday special you're building the set it's all Hands-On deck plus it feels like we haven't had many crew members since you got nobbl fired Emma you're the only crew member we've ever had also I didn't get Nobles fired Dave gave him a temporary roll out in the office while they find a new full-time position for him Nobles you're the best in office Barista ever yay y frankly I think his milk steaming is subpar well it's going to be a long day building the Christmas set but we're all really excited to hear you talk about Star Wars your sworn enemy of topics how is that script coming along it's it's uh definitely written yeah I mean like the the outline I think is really strong the has structure to it and I have like a lot more notes in my notes app and so as soon as the Days of Thunder episode is done um I'll polish it up and send it over cool also I hope you don't mind if I occasionally use the circular saw anyway for today's EP oh I'm sorry you weren't rolling now were [Music] [Applause] you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to the last regular episode of the season and this time around I'm very excited to announce that there is no sidekick in sight well I'm kind of your Sidekick Emma you're a full-fledged member of the team so does that mean I can get paid more that is a great topic to discuss in 2024 but anyway here we are at the end of 2023 and since it's the end of the year and the end of the season I wanted to do an episode that tied together thematically some of the things that we've talked about this season a year ago we discussed the idea of the high concept movie pioneered by producer Don Simpson in the 1980s and we've spent the past five months or so discussing things like the decline of modern mainstream American Cinema the conten ification of art the death of original mid-budget movies the death of the movie star you know feel good topics that the whole family enjoys I mean right now the latest Marvel Studios release might end its theatrical run without even reaching a100 million domestic the kind of thing that makes you wonder if we're truly at the end of an era a turning point in modern America American film history and so I wanted to look at another Turning Point from 33 years ago when one movie represented the death of a decade of Cinema what we think of as 880 Cinema really did begin right in 1980 since that was the year that the dark morally Complicated new Hollywood era abruptly ended the Turning Point that's commonly pointed to is Michael Chino's epic 1980 Western Heaven's Gate which went so grossly over budget and bombed so hard that it actually destroyed the studio that financed it United Artists that movie became the scapegoat for a change in Hollywood as the UR driven' 7s gave way to an Era of stricter Studio control as commercial viability came to outweigh artistic expression the go- go romics of the80s came to Hollywood as Francis Ford copela put it there was a kind of coup d'a that happened after Heaven's Gate started by Paramount it was a time when the studios were outraged that the cost of movies was going up so rapidly that directors were making such incredible amounts of money and had all the control so they took the control back and one of the executives of this new regime at Paramount was a man named Don Simpson alongside Michael Eisner and Barry Diller he instituted a policy in which the movies they green lit had to have simple Concepts that could easily be sold in a 30-second TV spot they needed to be flashy and quick because remember they were competing for audience attention with the time to make the donuts guy who arguably had more depth and shading than any gritty 7s movie don't even get me started on the where's the beef lady the new Paramount regime was about making directors secondary to the producers pulling new Young directors from the world of TV commercials slick stylist who could make a product look glamorous and who were used to just taking orders from the client and executing their Vision now to be fair it wasn't just Heaven's Gate that killed the 70s era of Hollywood that's the simple narrative a change had already been happening for a few years something that Quenton Tarantino identifies in his book Cinema speculation he writes regular movie goers were becoming weary of modern American movies The Darkness the drug use the embrace of sensation the violence the sex and the sexual violence but even more than that they became weary of the anti- everything cynicism was everything a bummer was everything a drag was every movie about some guy with problems and so in the late 7s when Star Wars and in particular Rocky came along audiences were thrilled to finally get some catharsis to finally win like Rocky doesn't even actually win at the end of the first movie but that's how hungry audiences were just getting close was enough to get them excited and this is what Simpson understood as Linda obst the producer who originally brought the flash Dan script to Simpson said Don invented the high concept formula for the80s announced the big idea in the First Act and resolve it in the next two acts often with a contest all his successes are built on that formula and so you look at Flash Dance and you look at Top Gun and it's clear they are about contests ambitious people trying to be the best and winning these were the perfect movies for the era that would also give us Rocky 4 okay so let's talk about Don Don Simpson who died of a heart attack in 1996 at the age of 52 was one of the most colorful characters in Hollywood history he produced some of the biggest movies of his time while also leading a truly depraved Caligula esque life to put it this way if Don Simpson was a character in a Hellraiser movie he would be well on his way to completing the lament configuration if I were to describe some of the stuff in his biography High concept this video would get demonetized but to give you an idea here is a relatively normal pretty chill Don Simpson story in 1981 while being interviewed by a writer for The Hollywood Reporter when he saw it was 4:00 Simpson said you know what I like to do at 4:00 I like to pour myself a big drink lay out a few lines and abuse a screenwriter take a seat Simpson then drank four fingers of Mallen Scotch snorted six lines of cocaine and called a screenwriter on the phone telling him quote you're the stupidest son of a in Hollywood you you're a talentless piece of no one respects you every one knows you're an idiot you have no future in this business end quote he literally did this while being interviewed I mean say what you will about the guy but you have to respect that dedication to a schedule as Jeff Berg Hollywood agent and friend of Simpson said quote Dawn can be at times functionally psychotic in 1982 after 2 years as president of production at Paramount his behavior such as throwing tantrums and Kicking DSE into people's cars and his escalating drug use leading to him passing out during board meetings LED his boss Michael Eisner to finally fire him I know I'm as shocked as you are Simpson was given a production deal and everyone expected that he would quickly fail but instead he teamed up with upand cominging producer Jerry brookheimer and together they made Flash Dance which became one of the most profitable movies of the decade Simpson was living out the American dream of getting absolutely shitfaced at work and being rewarded for it what's fun about watching all the Simpson brocker movies is seeing how rigidly they adhere to certain rules which were apparently imposed by Simpson every movie starts with an opening title sequence set to an original pop single recorded for the movie What a Feeling in Flash Dance the heat is on in Beverly Hills Cop just imagine in Thief of Hearts Shakedown in Beverly Hills Cop 2 and wait what was the one and Top Gun again right thank you Mr loggin in the First Act there's a big incident with an iconic visual the bucket of water and Flash Dance are the inverted flying and Top Gun then there's the point late in the second act where the hero has a personal crisis often involving the death of someone close to them you know like goose and Top Gun and then we have the triumphant ending and very important every one of their movies ends on a freeze frame you know it [Music] Emma the movies themselves often feel like a series of music videos every few minutes there's a gorgeously shot montage set to the various songs from the soundtrack designed for maximum Synergy to boost record sales and in turn have the movie promoted on MTV and look I like most of these movies Flash Dance may be as narratively threadbear as a movie can get but the music rules and it's a fun time I rewatched Beverly Hills Cop the other day as research for this it's still perfect and throughout the80s countless movies from Purple Rain to the karate kid would adhere to the high concept formula and find huge success in a 1985 interview Simpson said we are not of the old school and not of the new school but of our own School the school of film making not producing brookheimer added we are as much a part of the process as the Director in Roger Ebert's review of Days of Thunder he observed that what we now know as the Don Simpson High concept formula had seemingly been adopted by Tom Cruz Ebert writes Days of Thunder is an entertaining example of what we might as well call the Tom Cruz picture since it assembles most of the same elements that worked in Top Gun The Color of Money and cocktail and runs them through the formula once again parts of the plot are beginning to wear out their welcome but the key ingredients are still effective they include number one the cruise character invariably a young and naive but naturally talented kid who could be the best if ever he could tame his rambunctious Spirit number two the mentor an older man who has done it himself and has been there before and knows Talent when he sees it and who has faith in the kid even when the kid screws up because his free spirit has gotten the best of him number three the superior woman usually older taller and more mature than the Cru character who functions as a mentor for his Spirit while the male Mentor supervises his craft Number Four The Craft which the gifted young man must Master number five the arena in which the young man is tested number six the Arcana consisting of the specialized knowledge and L that the movie knows all about and we get to learn number seven the trail a journey to visit the principal places where the masters of the craft test one another number eight the Proto enemy the bad guy in the opening reels of the movie who provides the hero with an opponent to practice on at first the Cru character and the Proto enemy dislike each other but eventually through a baptism of fire they learn to love one another and number nine the eventure ual enemy a real bad guy who turns up in the closing reels to provide the hero with a test of his skill his learning ability his love his craft and his knowledge of the arena and the Arcana my theory is that Cruz who speaks often in interviews about how he spent the 80s trying to learn everything from experienced people in the industry learned this formula from Simpson and adopted it as a smart career choice after Days of Thunder he stopped making these kinds of movies the close he came was probably the first mission impossible but in that one his older Mentor turns out to be the villain and Cruz has to kill him and then in Jerry Maguire he subverts and evolves the high concept premise he's a guy who's cocky and talented who's humbled but instead of proving that yeah he really is the best like in Top Gun or Days of Thunder here he finds fulfillment in his new life and leaves his old one behind yeah you're totally right but anyway that happened years later so don't worry about it for now because right now it is time to talk about Days of [Music] Thunder on February 1st 1990 Paramount Pictures announced an unprecedented partnership with Simpson and brookheimer Paramount promised them a production fund of $300 million over 5 years to make make any five movies they wanted and they made the announcement of this Visionary alliance with full page print ads in Industry papers that read as follows I'm going to read the whole thing because it's nuts from the premise to the premiere from the first draft to the last detail from the first shot to the millionth cassette Don Simpson and Jerry brookheimer are total filmmakers it began with the landmark Blockbuster Flash Dance then came three of the biggest hits of all time Beverly Hills Cop Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop 2 and from these two Academy Awards 10 Academy Award nominations 14 top 10 songs four number one soundtrack albums four number one songs four multiplatinum albums four number one videos Paramount Pictures is pleased and proud to announce a new 5-year alliance with Don Simpson and Jerry brookheimer as they enter a new era of producing and directing at the studio they call home here Simpson and brookheimer clearly brand themselves as the URS The Visionaries and they also seem to imply that they're going to start directing this was the biggest deal any producers had ever had had they had total creative control they didn't even need to submit scripts or budgets for approval they could hire and cast anyone they wanted and for the first of their five movies they picked Days of Thunder Days of Thunder started with an idea from Tom Cruz who has the only writing Credit in his entire career on this movie since he developed the original story Simpson brought on his friend Robert town to write the final script town of course being the Oscar winning writer of Chinatown and one of the most successful acclaimed writers in the industry and of course Tony Scott the man who gave us Top Gun and Beverly Hills Cop 2 once again returned to direct the plan was simple the entire team behind Top Gun the biggest movie of 1986 reunites to do it again but this time it's about car racing it's like Ice Cube said in 22 Jump straight it's the same case do the same thing no but they didn't do that this movie went right off the rails Emma what are you doing I was just getting to that I know I just love Days of Thunder remember I suggested we do a video about this earlier in the year yeah that's why we're doing this now okay I'll let you get back to it just had to do it the one week I'm busy so Top Gun had a budget of $19 million which was just slightly above the average cost of Studio movies at the time Days of Thunder started with a budget of $40 million and by the end of production that had ballooned to 70 million now this was not because of complicated cuttingedge visual effects or giant elaborate sets this was not Titanic where they had to build a giant fake boat and shoot in a water tank for a year this was just a pretty normal movie about like people talking in rooms or outside and then some car racing scenes why the hell would this cost more than 3 and 1/2 times as much as Top Gun a movie about Jets doing aerial combat well here's what an article about the production from Spy magazine that summer said theoretically the director directs the writer rewrites as requested and the producers make sure everything runs smoothly but on the set of Days of Thunder Scott couldn't set up a shot without Simpson or brookheimer or Simpson and brookheimer or Simpson brookheimer and town yammering and waving hands and generally meddling so as the weeks ground on there seemed to be four directors arguing with one another the cameras didn't roll and the crew which was getting paid for 20-hour days racked up a vast amount of overtime many crew members said they made so much money that they could afford to take 16 weeks of vacation when the film finally wrapped at the end of May also off topic but this was the cover to that issue of spy Magazine Man 33 years and nothing changes Simpson ensured that the Days of Thunder production was a continuous party he had two assistants instructed to maintain a steady supply of cocaine two meaning should the first cocaine Supply assistant be unable to perform his duties don't worry there's a backup cocaine Supply assistant those assistants would also be assigned to find attractive women at local beaches in Daytona to invite to the private party Simpson would throw at local clubs almost nightly sometimes featuring performances by Tone Lok and bartenders presumably serving up plenty of Funky Cold Medina Simpson also kept a closet in the production office filled with Donna Karen dresses to give to the women that he would sleep with but the funniest part is that Simpson and brookheimer spent a million dollars of the budget building a flashy private gym with a giant neon Days of Thunder sign that was visible from the beach now this gym served two purposes number one attract women and number two for Simpson to stay in shape for his acting role in the movie you see Simpson didn't just want to be viewed as the true Visionary behind the movie he also wanted to be a star as well a couple years earlier he had tried to get cast in the movie Beaches but now that this was his production he could demand a character be written into the script for him to play Simpson is the second character to appear in the movie Just 2 minutes in the Daytona announcer introduces Aldo Benedetti another driver in the race what was originally written and shot as a pretty significant supporting part eventually got reduced to to a single line of dialogue and just a handful of shots I'm glad he's Welling enough to come back and I hope I beat him at the same time according to co-editor Billy Weber it was Cruz who insisted that Simpson's footage get cut showing that even back then Cruz really had a good head for film making in the final race of the movie there's a part that happens so fast you can barely catch it where Simpson's character's car gets hit and his engine immediately explodes causing a big crash as an accidental meta commentary on the production and Simpson's career I got to say this is objectively hilarious hey Patrick can I get a copy of the holiday special script Ben's lawyers want to take a read through Before He'll sign a release uh yeah yeah um I'll have it to you soon good we got a lot of writing on this one hey Dave is your voice okay yeah I was karaoke night last night and they had me and nobl do total eclipse of the heart three times in a row that guy can sing wait wait you did karaoke last night with no y' how's the shoot going in here anyone want a Noble Chino no you Dave I got a special turmeric and honey latte with your name on it should do wonders for your sore throat oh wow that is really good and it's already working novels you are the king of Baristas that should be the show that's what we should do a scripted comedy about everyone's favorite content gobler working at a coffee shop just like that other famous show Cheers scripted content on nebula starring me wait wait wait nobl gets his own CH okay anyway where was I Days of Thunder in many ways adheres rigidly to the high concept formula specifically the structure of Top Gun Cruz plays another talented but cocky guy who operates powerful Vehicles who gets brought up to the big leagues and faces off against a skilled rival who eventually becomes his friend in the middle of the movie there's an accident that shakes his confidence and ability to drive and finally in the third act he gets past this and proves that he is the best and he wins but it deviates from the formula in some odd ways Top Gun is narratively not a very elegant movie but the setup is extremely clean in the first scene it establishes Maverick as a skilled but cocky pilot when another guy has an accident Maverick takes his place place at the naval fighter weapons school where he then tries to be the best in comparison the setup for Days of Thunder is oddly convoluted after the racing season has already begun the head of One racing team just decides to get another car so he goes to a retired car builder played by Robert Duval and convinces him to build another car Duval had quit a year earlier to avoid being investigated when a driver he worked with died but that is immediately glossed over and then they hire this skilled but arrogant driver Cruz who has never driven stock cars before and soon reveals that he doesn't actually know anything about cars while so much of Top Gun is about The Love Story between Tom Cruz and Kelly McGillis with scene after scene of them growing closer as berlins Take My Breath Away plays over and over until they finally kiss the romance in Days of Thunder is almost an afterthought it's not introduced until 45 minutes in and then the characters get together after two scenes one of which is Cruz confusing Nicole Kidman for a prostitute it's only really interesting because it's Nicole Kidman and this is where she and Cruz met and began their decade long real life romance and this is a good place to mention that Tom Cruz's character in this movie is named Cole Trickle a name that sounds almost like a venial disease and as crazy as that name is it actually seems a lot less crazy when you consider that the inspiration for the name is real life NASCAR driver Dick Trickle which definitely sounds like a venial disease the biggest thing that Days of Thunder discards From The Simpson brookheimer High concept Playbook is actually the soundtrack now to be clear there is a killer score by Han [Applause] Zimmer amazing score see there can be no argument the score is an absolute banger but the movie is not loaded wall to--all with original pop needle drops like all their other movies like Top Gun it does open with a sunset Montage of the place where the action happens but here it's set to the film score not an original song There are barely any montages and you don't leave the movie remembering any of the songs there's no Kenny Loggins or if there is I didn't catch it it feels like they wanted to simultaneously recreate topgun exactly but they also wanted it to be taken more seriously and so they discarded the music video like montages that powered their other movies during the production Tony Scott said everybody has been trying to stamp it top car but what we've all tried to make clear is that this is a character oriented movie where Top Gun was a concept oriented picture the differences will become fairly clear when you see the movie okay that's all well and good but when you think of Top Gun or Flash Dance what parts come to mind first the volleyball scene set to playing with the boys the dance scene set to Maniac the other dance scene set to what feeling the opening Montage set to Danger Zone Cruz riding his motorcycle and making out with McGillis as Take My Breath Away plays it's these moments where the narrative doesn't really matter just the catchy song driving powerful sexy visuals Days of Thunder stays focused on the narrative which it turns out is a lot less interesting than just watching hot people dance and kiss and play volleyball but folks don't worry because it absolutely does end on a freeze frame actually it ends on one of the goofiest best Freeze Frame endings of all time I mean just look at this look at their expressions look at how dval is running it's so silly I love it Simpson and brookheimer wanted this to be another perfect piece of hyper capitalist Cinema that would become as popular as Top Gun it is more loaded with product placement than a Michael Bay Transformers movie but they also wanted it to be taken more seriously as a piece of art Now with an Oscar winning writer a newly Oscar nominated star and no more MTV style montages and Simpson also wanted it to make him a movie star and they wanted it to score them lots of tricks and give them the satisfaction of beating their Rivals Michael Eisner and Jeffrey kenberg at the box office and unsurprisingly it turned out that doing all those things was basically impossible most of all beating kenberg I mean he created quibby the man doesn't miss there's a hilarious irony that this movie is about as Nicole Kidman's character diagnoses them infantile egomaniacs driving their powerful outof control machines with one of them having a crash so bad that it ends his career that is kind of a perfect metaphor for the making of the movie itself but okay let's talk about Tony Scott for a minute Simpson and brookheimer did their best to Brand themselves as the main aour of the movie with Tony Scott as just a Hired Gun there to make it look real good but this movie actually crystallized what would come to Define Tony Scott movies in the decades ahead Days of Thunder is the first pure example of the main recurring theme of his work mentors and students while Top Gun was focused on the romance between Cruz's Maverick and Kelly mullis's Charlie and the Rivalry between Maverick and Iceman the main story in Days of Thunder is the relationship between Cole Trickle and Harry hog played by Robert Duval who teaches him about cars and becomes a father figure Tony came to the film industry following in the footsteps of his older brother Ridley saying Ridley is a father figure he's always coaxed and guided me through trials and tribulations in my life and I've always looked to him and as Robert Arnett identified in his essay understanding Tony Scott this relationship became the key to Tony's authorial identity this Mentor student relationship would recur in Enemy of the State Spy game Man on Fire Domino and ultimately Unstoppable his final film and just like Unstoppable in Days of Thunder this main relationship people from different Generations happens around and through powerful Machinery Scott's final collaboration with Simpson would be Crimson Tide a movie about two men from different Generations fighting for control of a nuclear submarine now I'm sure this was totally unintentional but that is a great metaphor for the making of Days of Thunder even though Scott seems to have had little to say with this movie it started as Cruz's idea then was driven by Simpson and brookheimer and written by the biggest writer in Hollywood would you can draw a straight line from Days of Thunder through nearly every movie he made for the rest of his career Days of Thunder started production with a release date set but no finished script it would be written and Rewritten throughout the entire production as the release date got pushed back three times now you'd think this would be a cautionary tale but instead it's still how countless modern Blockbusters get made it's like jumping out of an airplane without packing your parachutes but people keep insisting it's fine I can pack it during freef fall guys just pack it beforeand now look plenty of movies have gone over budget and over schedule and had extremely difficult Productions but sometimes that movie turns out to be Titanic and so it all seems worth it this was not Titanic but more significantly it was not Top Gun it cost three and 1 half times more than Top Gun and made less than half as much Paramount didn't come close to making back what they spent on it and by the end of the year it would be trashed at the box office by smaller movies like home alone or ghost which some would argue are better movies but I think that's like comparing apples and oranges if those oranges cost $70 million and were grown by a farmer with two cocaine assistants 5 months after Days of Thunder was released Paramount announced that it was terminating its exclusive production agreement with Simpson and brookheimer saying the environment for motion picture production has changed a polite way of saying that was a disaster and we don't ever want to do it again Days of Thunder was the peak of hyper capitalist 80s Cinema chalk full of product placement and brand Partnerships it's visually Ultra glamorous and engineered to be simultaneously crowd-pleasing and inspiring it is a deeply cynical movie it's only reasons for existing were to let Cru drive a race car help Simpson become a movie star and money and yet watching it here at the tail end of 2023 compared to our modern understanding of hyper capitalist Cinema it almost feels like a unique and beautiful work of art compare this to something like Uncharted or a Disney liveaction remake look at how gorgeous and Powerful every frame that Tony Scott and cinematographer Ward Russell create are the racing scenes have incredible visual energy an upgrade from the Top Gun Flight scenes because they can do more with the camera here since the scenes are on the ground and just look at the way that Nicole Kidman's giant hair catches that backlight look at the cast you got John C Riley and Michael Rooker hanging out with Robert Duval Randy Quaid is there Carrie El perfectly cast as Cruz's new rival the movie is fascinatingly strange like literally the first moment that Tom Cruz and Nicole Kidman share on screen ever is him thinking she's a sex worker and putting her hand on his crotch and you get the extra meta context of this being the movie where the two of them met thanks to Days of Thunder we would get Eyes Wide Shut one of the best movies ever made as well as this one of the best photos ever taken also it has Robert Duval talking poetically to cars and again that last freeze frame is Days of Thunder a great movie no it's not but I think it's better now than it was at the time and it did what it really needed to do it killed the da Simpson era right when it had reached its peak and was getting to be a bit much and arguably more importantly it would go on to inspire great works of art like The Simpsons episode Saturdays of Thunder as well as one of Christopher Nolan's favorite movies Talladega kns in a 199 3 LA Times interview Simpson said I could make another Beverly Hills Cop right now but I've gotten politicized in my 40s I'm trying to make a movie about something among other things he's exploring hard-edged and controversial themes about smart women and the sexual politics of the 9s I'm just going to say it's probably for the best that uh he didn't make a movie about those things considering that a few years earlier a former secretary had already filed an emotional distress suit against him alleging that he verbally abused her ordered her to clean up his leftover traces of cocaine and arrange his appointments with sex workers but Simpson said I'm trying I'm trying to grow up like all quasi human beings we change when Simpson and brookheimer got back up and running in the mid99s and reted with Tony Scott they stopped trying to backseat drive and actually let him direct Crimson Tire which is probably the best movie of his career that same year brookheimer finally decided he' had enough and it was time to part ways with Simpson 6 months later Simpson was dead Days of Thunder marked the end of what we know as the80s movie the ultra slick producer-driven music video like story of a hyper individualistic protagonist proving they're the best around and that nothing's ever going to bring them down the blockbusters of the 9s were more about regular people and the collective Humanity movies like Jurassic Park the fugitive Independence Day Forest Gump or Titanic and that even goes for the movies that brookheimer would produce after Simpson's death like Armageddon about blue collar people saving the world while things didn't quite return to the director driven '70s a new wave of Indio tours would break through to the mainstream like the Cohen Brothers Quenton Tarantino Gus Van Sant or John Singleton by the time Days of Thunder opened the Berlin Wall had fallen and the cold war was basically Over America had thoroughly won and no longer needed to win vicariously through its movies later in 1990 Rocky 5 opened and flopped making a fraction of what Rocky 4 had made and probably the biggest change of all actually began the year before Days of Thunder with the release of bad Batman this flashy prestigious packaging of a famous IP that would in the early 2000s become the dominant formula for Blockbuster movies and basically create the modern cinematic landscape so now as I reflect back on Days of Thunder I have to make my favorite analogy in the world in the 9s there is a wave of bands in the UK guitar-driven rock groups that made some very catchy tunes that defined an eror of music that became known as Brit pop among the most popular bands were blur pulp and the most successful of them all Oasis oasis's second album watch the story morning and Glory was released in 1995 and basically dominated the world after all it had wonder wall and then fueled by Massive Egos and even more massive amounts of cocaine Oasis made a third album which spun wildly out of control the recordings were disaster they got kicked out of multiple Studios for their terrible Behavior and the final result was an album of astonishing excess where nearly every track was at least 7 minutes long with 50 layers of guitar overdubs that drowned out the entire orchestras that they also had on there the music videos featured fleets of military helicopters it was called be here now and when it was released in August 1997 it became the fastest selling album in UK history and then very quickly everyone kind of went hm yeah this is a bit much I I think we're done here and the Brit pop era abruptly ended Oasis went away for 3 years and two members quit the band blur and Pulp changed their whole sounds and went in a less mainstream Direction The Verve broke up be here now effectively killed that crazy era of excess so what I'm saying here is Days of Thunder is the be here now of movies and I I honestly kind of like them both the80s began with Heaven's Gate a disastrous production that spun out of control and killed the era of UR driven movies and in its wake Don Simpson alongside other Paramount Executives stepped in and began a new era of Studio control and exactly 10 years later Simpson now as an independent producer had his very own Heaven's Gate and killed the era he helped begin Patrick what are you still doing here we have to clear out the studio so they can build a holiday set oh yeah yeah I'm I'm just finishing up now actually hey Dave can you believe it's been a whole year of me shooting videos here in the studio so many memories yeah maybe Save The Nostalgia for the special well look I I think I've been doing a pretty solid job all things considered right I would say you've chipped away at a tiny corner of the Mountain of debt left by your evil doppelganger and made brand new friends along the way no one was talking to you nobl look I'm just saying that considering all of the quality hard work that I've been putting in maybe maybe I should also have a scripted show on nebula you know it could be it could be the next Frasier yeah the TV Revival that critics and audiences can't stop raving about look just finish the special and then we'll [Music] talk happy holidays [Music] Patrick [Music] hey Patrick how'd the shoot go finally done with the last episode of the season oh can you grab me one of those ah thank you can you believe we've lived here a whole year and we're not even a quarter of the way through Matt's fancy wine I can't believe it's been a whole year and we still have to stay at Matt torp's spare apartment it feels like all of 2023 we've just been scrambling like barely keeping our heads above water but I mean I don't know how's your Musical coming along it's emotional it turns out writing an epic culmination of your entire life through song dance and spoken vers is very difficult but we've been laying some good groundwork haven't we you know what yeah yeah we have so we keep at it and and maybe this is the year that things start going our way yes yes like maybe your musical has a successful off BR by run which turns into a successful on Brad run which turns into a major motion picture that you then distance yourself from because of creative differences and maybe your channel blows up you get out of debt you finally buy a desk and people on the subway stop asking where do I know that guy from because they know what they know you from yes yes and then Vanity Fair profiles where they let us keep the expensive clothes from the photo shoot or maybe our endeavors are complete disasters and our careers are ruined and we're left to live in financial destitution anyway at least your holiday special should be good oh I still have to write [Music] that hello I'm sitting in the same place I was in the last scene anyway I'm here to say in case you missed our announcement in the last episode that our season finale coming Monday December 18th is the Patrick H Willams Star Wars holiday special we have been working on this for months and I am so excited about this truly insane thing that we've made it's half 1960 Style TV Christmas special with musical numbers and special guests and half video essay about Star Wars the thing that I swore years ago to never do again but hey I guess it turned out that I had new things to say this holiday special is available exclusively on nebula my streaming platform where you can also watch my movie Night of the coconut or all of our bonus companion episodes like the recent one where I sample the Liquors owned by The Rock and Ryan Reynolds the goal of nebula is to be the place where creators are able to make the big ambitious projects that we couldn't make on our own or that wouldn't work on YouTube so like this holiday special would not exist without nebula since they gave us the budget and support necessary to like build our whole big set if you've been thinking about joining nebula I would say now is the perfect time if you want to join just for a month to watch the holiday special that's totally cool you'll get your money's worth I promise the best value is actually the annual plan which comes out to only 250 per month or for the month of December we have lifetime plans available for those of you who can justify financially and really want to support what we're doing because money from the lifetime plans especially if you use my link down in the description goes directly toward funding future original projects and I have some stuff that is already green lit that I am really excited about hey are the ad reads Canon uh no no they're not so anyway the Patrick H Willams Star Wars holiday special is coming Monday December 18th to nebula I am so excited about this thing and I really hope you check it out roll the [Music] trailer see Patrick we think that your holiday special has the potential to hearken back to those classic holiday specials of the 1960s and the 1970s and we think that you are just the man to bring that kind of holiday magic into the homes of people around the world 30 seconds until Showtime everyone hello and welcome to the Patrick H Willams holiday special ah yes nothing like building a fire with your own two hands why it's Emma you shouldn't speak ill of Star Wars around life day you might invoke the curse of George Lucas sounds like a lot of superstitious Tom Foolery if you ask me this is all about supernatural forces complaining about Star Wars is a time-honored tradition did some body say holiday razzled Dazzle Chloe mom Dave are you kidding [Music] me wait did you say destroyed more like [Music] eviscerated [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Patrick (H) Willems

Views: 615,754

Keywords: patrick willems, patrickhwillems, patrick h willems

Id: NM0VsX1mdL8

Length: 53min 0sec (3180 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 18 2023