Corey

You may think Kim Jong-un themed Photoshop battles have been done to death, and you'd be right.

But sometimes you have to revisit a subject over and over again to reach perfect level Photoshops, and when this super smiley headshot was released and declared untouched by North Korea the Reddits got busy retouching.

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They sent the poor little leader to Bikini Bottom, so he could see how it feels to live in a colorful world of creativity instead of being trapped inside a drab gray world of concrete and forced conformity.

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And then the ultimate transformations began, which left the Supreme Leader unrecognizable and yet somehow more powerful and authoritative than before.

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See Kim Jong-un, this is why you should be embracing technology!

See more from North Korea's New Untouched Photo Of Kim-Jong un Photoshop Battle here

-Via MEME BASE

Chefs have been telling us for years that you shouldn’t smash your burger patties in the frying pan because you’ll squeeze all the juices out. So then why do the chains Shake Shack and Smashburger do just that? Because when you do it right, the results are delicious. J. Kenji López-Alt developed a technique called the Food Lab’s Ultra-Smashed Cheeseburgers that I’m going to try out.   

…as Kenji points out in his cookbook opus The Food Lab, if you smash your burger once, decisively, as soon as it hits the hot skillet—while the meat and fat are still cold—there won't be any juices (yet) to lose. You'll maximize the points of contact with the raging hot pan, which is effectively like singeing a layer of caramelization and Maillard reaction goodness onto every last bit of surface area, so it all sears into a salty, beefy crust.

It might take a bit of practice to get it exactly right, but the number of cheeseburgers I have to eat to get there is just the kind of sacrifice I’m willing to make. Check out the recipe at Food52. -via Digg

(Image credit: Mark Weinberg)

In the teaser for the upcoming documentary Dying Laughing, comedians like Kevin Hart, Jerry Seinfeld, Jamie Foxx, Amy Schumer, Jerry Lewis, Steve Coogan, Billy Connolly, Chris Rock and the late Garry Shandling discuss some the sensation of succeeding on stage and even the rush which comes with bombing. The documentary takes a close look at the performers and how they deal with the pressures of stand-up comedy and is an official selection the Los Angeles Film Festival.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Comedians Try To Explain The Sensation Of Success And Failure In Dying Laughing Teaser

Weekend plans

Universal and Legendary Pictures will be bringing the movie monsters King Kong and Godzilla to the big screen together in the summer of 2020, mostly because Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull just wanted to see the movie monsters fight. It’s a simple concept, and it’s an obvious match-up with the new version of Godzilla already unleashed on viewers and a new take on King Kong coming in the form of Kong: Skull Island.

But you don’t have to wait four years to see a new spin of Godzilla and King Kong doing battle, because filmmakers Harry Chaskin, Dan Lippert & Justin Michael have put together a hilarious stop-motion animated short called Monster Island that has total bro versions of the movie monsters getting into quite the tiff. Even though this is a cartoon, it’s slightly NSFW due to language and sexual humor.

Here’s the hilarious Monster Island short film from Vimeo (via io9):

It’s projects like this that make me wish studios would deliver more animated movies geared towards adults. This year we get Sausage Party, but movies like that are few and far between, and that’s just a shame. Something like the once developing Giant Monsters Attack Japan! from Trey Parker and Matt Stone would be cool to see, even if it ended up being more family friendly than their work on South Park. There’s so much potential with animation and it doesn’t need to be relegated to just being entertainment for kids.

If you’d like to see more from these filmmakers, check out their stop-motion animated short Bygone Behemoth about a movie monster looking back on his heyday as a big screen icon now that his career is over. Otherwise, the real Godzilla vs. King Kong arrives on May 29, 2020.

The post VOTD: Godzilla and King Kong Are Total Bros in This Stop-Motion Animated Short appeared first on /Film.

Veep’s Jonah Ryan has a scarily realistic campaign website

In the HBO comedy’s fifth season, the weaselly and widely despised Ryan is running for Congress in his home state of New Hampshire. Although completely satirical, the site is so well put together that it could pass for the real thing. Compare, for instance, the image that welcomes visitors to Ryan’s site:

To the one at Trump’s site:

What’s truly disquieting about the website is that it’s completely passable. Ryan offers nothing but clichés, empty promises, and corny platitudes with no genuine or honest thought behind them. Yet, his site is polished and presentable enough to get him elected to office.

More at avclub.com

Are you pondering what I’m pondering? No, it has nothing to do with monkeys and dental floss. We’re ranking every single one of Brain’s schemes—both from the Pinky and the Brain series and their shorts on Animaniacs—and thereby take over the internet! (Enh, we’ll figure that part out later.)

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An innovative sponge-filled dressing device recently saved the life of a coalition forces soldier who was shot in the leg. It’s the first documented clinical use of the product, known as XSTAT.

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Watching Fear the Walking Dead, it’s difficult to not think about what’s happening on the other side of the continent. By that we mean Atlanta, the setting of the first Walking Dead show. Fear, of course, is a West Coast prequel set some time beforehand—but they’re both in the same universe.

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mamalaz:

I have a bad feeling about this (the scenes in which it is said)

We were due for a table-setting episode of Game of Thrones. The previous two hours were so full of vital revelations and so jam-packed with action that a little bit of wheel-spinning was inevitable. “The Door” and “Book of the Stranger” were all about pulling off a series of complicated maneuvers that had already been carefully set up. “Blood of My Blood” is all about setting up the dominoes that will come crashing down in the home stretch of season six.

And while nothing huge happened, there’s still a great deal to talk about.

The History of Westeros: Live on Stage!

In last week’s episode, we were offered an extended look a stage play adapting the recent history of Westeros and poor Arya Stark was in for quite a shock. Across the Narrow Sea in Essos, far from King’s Landing, the events we have been witnessing firsthand for six seasons are viewed quite differently. Joffrey was a noble king. Eddard Stark was a traitorous, bumbling fool. The victors write the history books and those history books become fiction and that fiction soon becomes truth in the eyes of the masses. When the smoke clears, it’s anyone’s guess what the common people of Westeros and Essos will think about the Starks and the Lannisters and the Baratheons. It certainly won’t resemble the truth.

“Blood of My Blood” invited us to watch another portion of the play, revealing an alternate take on the Purple Wedding and feeding into the common belief that Tyrion Lannister was the one who murdered his nephew. Although Peter Dinklage sat this episode out, he was there in spirit on that stage, being played as a cackling villain with a hooked nose and zero remorse for his insane actions. While this season has offered a measured look at Tyrion the even-handed politician and skilled negotiator, his actions will never speak louder than his false reputation. His physical appearance has forever doomed him to a lifetime of supposed villainy. Tyron may very well be the most skilled player in the game, but as with his victory at the Battle of the Blackwater, the world will never know the truth. That’s the tragedy at the heart of this entire show. No one will remember Tyrion as a hero, much like how no one will remember Hodor and Yoren and Pyp. History devours all and the details are lost.

Bran and the Infinite Well of Knowledge

So Bran is the Three-Eyed Raven now despite pulling a Luke Skywalker and never finishing his training. With the magical cave of wonders destroyed by the undead and poor Meera Reed struggling to keep him alive in a forest full of murderous skeletons, Bran continues to be trapped in Mystical Vision Land, with his mind transporting him on a fast-paced montage of necessary information. Most of what he sees is stuff we have already seen and stuff that he already knows: the origins of the White Walkers, the terrifying battle at Hardhome, and, most horribly, visions of his father and brother both being murdered.

However, there are tiny snippets of brand new material glimpsed here and their inclusion is very interesting – Game of Thrones doesn’t do anything by accident. For the first time, we see King Aerys Targaryen, better known as “The Mad King,” the final Targaryen ruler whose increasingly insane actions led to Robert’s Rebellion in the first place. We see him on the Iron Throne and we hear him give the command that caused young Jaime Lannister to shove a sword through him: “Burn them all.” We then catch glimpses of green wildfire, previously utilized by Tyrion at the Battle of the Blackwater, but whose wildfire is this? Is this the stores that the Mad King had on hand, the wildfire that he intended to use against his own people and Lannister forces alike? Or is this a flashback to Blackwater? Or is this a glimpse into the future, a look at wildfire that has yet to come into play? After all, if you want to battle an army of zombies who are susceptible to flames, that certainly sounds like the weapon of choice.

Why would Game of Thrones show all of this to us? Why remind us of the Mad King and wildfire and Jaime executing his own king and forever damning his reputation? It certainly feels like Bran is on the cusp of something enormous. He has so much power that he can only process it in montage. If he can slow it down, we might find something vital to the history of this entire world.

The Return of Benjen Stark

The last time we say Benjen Stark, the head ranger of the Night’s Watch set out beyond the Wall and never returned. That was in episode three of season one. He’s been presumed dead for over five years. However, Ned Stark’s younger brother made a triumphant return in “Blood of My Blood,” revealing himself to be a hardened zombie-fighter who was rescued by the Children of the Forest and put to work battling the undead menace after narrowly escaping death at the hands of a White Walker. It’s the kind of payoff that can only function in longterm, serialized storytelling – it took Game of Thrones fifty-three episodes to bring Bran’s lost uncle back into play, a setup and payoff that is almost as impressive as Hodor’s shocking and tragic origin story.

We never really got the chance to know Benjen back in the day, but his mere presence speaks volumes. After season after season of House Stark being broken down, season six has been building Westeros’ resident punching bags back up in a big way. No one is bringing Ned and Robb back, but there are more of their family members alive than previously thought…and they’re all starting to find one another.

Continue Reading Blood of My Blood Recap >>

The post ‘Game of Thrones’ – The 10 Most Important Moments in “Blood of My Blood” appeared first on /Film.

Even though Saturday Night Live is done until the new television season starts in the fall, this week we’re getting a big dose of comedy from some of the sketch show’s veteran performers and writers. The Lonely Island is bringing their music industry mockumentary Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping to theaters on June 3, and Universal Pictures is putting out everything they can to spread awareness.

Following the music video for “The Finest Girl” that was released during the season finale of Saturday Night Live, a new video featuring Andy Samberg as faux rapper Conner4Real has the artist doing a little freestyle song about just how weird he is. The weird things he does include using a banana as a phone and taking the middle seat on a plane. Watch the new Popstar music video after the jump.

As someone who loved Popstar, I can tell you that this video isn’t the best representation of what you’ll find in the movie. Sure, there are some insane, silly rap songs from The Lonely Island used as the songs that launched the career of Conner4Real, but they’re much funnier than this.

However, what’s impressive about this video is that Samberg is actually rapping here as opposed to just lip syncing. Plus, this is a single take video with perfect timing from the crew around him, so kudos to whoever shot this amusing little promotional music video. It’s not as good as something like “Jack Sparrow” or “I’m on a Boat,” but it’s not bad.

Popstar isn’t a movie that’s going to top the box office, but if you’re looking for some huge laughs, this is the movie to see this coming weekend. Aside from The Lonely Island delivering a non-stop laugh riot, there’s plenty of fun to be had just from the endless array of celebrity cameos alone. Give this one a chance on June 3.

The post Watch Andy Samberg Get Weird with a Freestyle Music Video for ‘Popstar’ appeared first on /Film.

Filed under: News, UFC, Videos

Cody Garbrandt is a power striker. If Thomas Almeida didn’t realize that heading into their fight, he knows it after being stopped in the first round of their UFC Fight Night 88 fight.

The bantamweight bout headlined the UFC Fight Night 88 event at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. It aired on FOX Sports 1 following prelims on the same channel and UFC Fight Pass.

Related:

UFC Fight Night 88 results: Cody Garbrandt lays waste to Thomas Almeida for first-round KO

From the opening bell, it was clear that Garbrandt’s power was likely going to be the deciding factor in the bout.

Garbrandt (9-0 MMA, 4-0 UFC) repeatedly hurt Almeida (20-1 MMA, 4-1 UFC) with very fast, heavy combinations. After having his legs buckled multiple times, Almeida was caught by a heavy right hand and crashed face first to the canvas.

Check out the video highlights above.

Also see:

• UFC Fight Night 88: Jeremy Stephens vs. Renan Barao video highlights

For more on UFC Fight Night 88, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

Rick Story got the win, but he’s going to have a painful reminder of his UFC Fight Night 88 clash with Tarec Saffiedine for at least a few days.

During Sunday’s event at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Story (19-8 MMA, 12-6 UFC) returned from a 20-month layoff with a hard-fought unanimous-decision victory over former Strikeforce titleholder Saffiedine (16-5 MMA, 2-2 UFC).

After the main-card bout, which aired on FOX Sports 1, Story called for a fight with fellow tough guy Matt Brown. Perhaps he’s just a glutton for punishment; after all, look at the aftermath of the Saffiedine fight (via Twitter):

Saffiedine, who punished Story with leg kicks in a losing but commendable performance, was equally classy (via Twitter):

For more on UFC Fight Night 88, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

Bug repellents aren’t all created equal—some are more effective than others. Last year, Consumer Reports named the top three repellents from their tests but kept the full rankings under wraps for subscribers. Now, to help people who need to fend off Zika , they’ve released the rest for free.

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O captain! My captain! Last night Saturday Night Live brought its 41st season to a close with a finale hosted by former cast member Fred Armisen. The episode ended the season on a high note, but we’ll get to our full review of that a little later today.

However, we couldn’t help but share what was undoubtedly the best sketch of the night. Normally the best sketch of the night doesn’t warrant a post by itself, but since this particular sketch is an amazing spoof of an iconic scene from the film Dead Poets Society starring the late Robin Williams, it demands to be highlighted on its own.

Watch the Saturday Night Live Dead Poets Society sketch after the jump.

Here’s the sketch entitled “Farewell Mr. Bunting” from the SNL YouTube channel:

What makes this sketch so brilliant is how straight everything is played right up until the big joke hits. Even the reading about the awfulness of poetry is delivered with some serious conviction that it fits right in with the style of the scene being parodied. Before the end gag, the only remnant of pure silliness is Jay Pharoah putting on the book pages as a hat. But that little gag in itself is also very funny because it makes me wonder just what kind of teacher Mr. Bunting really was, especially since he has that little stuffed doll and a colorful maraca in his box of personal items.

This is undoubtedly one of the best sketches of the season, and it’s a testament to just how brilliant Saturday Night Live can be. More often than not I think the recorded sketches outshine the live sketches, which is a bit disappointing for a show that’s famous for being put together in a week and done live on the air. That makes some people question why the show even has a live component at anymore. But there are still great sketches that thrive on being done live, whether it’s because of the energy of the audience or a cast member breaking character, and that’s why the show stays a live program. Plus, there were always recorded sketches part of the show since its inception, so it’s fair game.

Saturday Night Live is all done for this season, but we’ll be back in the fall when the 42nd season debuts on NBC

The post LOL: ‘SNL’ Spoofs ‘Dead Poets Society’ in One of the Best Sketches of the Season appeared first on /Film.

One of the staples of comedy releases on home video is a special feature that contains a reel of alternate jokes and lines from various scenes. They’re called “line-o-ramas” on home video releases for movies from the likes of Judd Apatow, Adam McKay, and Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg, but we usually don’t get to see this same practice from television shows. That changes today though.

On HBO’s comedy Silicon Valley, series regular T.J. Miller is known for delivering some pretty brutal insults by way of his character Erlich Bachman. The arrogant partial owner of Pied Piper recently dished out a perfect string of age-based insults when meeting his new boss, “Action” Jack Barker, played by friend of the site Stephen Tobolowsky. But what we saw in the final cut was only a small fraction of what Miller threw out there while they were shooting. Thankfully, a slew of alternate takes has been made available online for you to watch right now.

Here’s the Silicon Valley alternate takes from the season premiere a few weeks ago:

T.J. Miller has been a stand-up comedian for years, getting his start in Chicago before he started taking roles in major motion pictures like Cloverfield, She’s Out of My League and this year’s runaway hit Deadpool. He’s a skilled improviser, a quick wit, and once he turns it on, there’s no stopping him. My personal favorite is “unlimited breadsticks or similar valued deals.”

Even more impressive than the string of insults themselves is how T.J. Miller and Stephen Tobolowsky are able to keep straight faces throughout many of these alternate lines. However, that appears to just be the editing of this particular video, because Miller notes that both he and Tobolowsky broke character and laughed a few times. But the latter is very professional on set and rarely broke while he was on camera.

As you can see in the video, the editors of the show had 75 different options to work with, and that might not even be all of them. According to Entertainment Weekly, it got to the point that the producers had to stop them from shooting any more material, despite how funny it was. This consistently happens on Judd Apatow’s movies, which can be difficult because he likes to shoot on film, making the time spent shooting all the more expensive. But at least we get to see that kind of material now so we can share in the laughs too.

The post LOL: Watch T.J. Miller’s Alternate Stephen Tobolowsky Insults from ‘Silicon Valley’ appeared first on /Film.

No movie series in history inspires tabloid-y reports and rumors and mass pop culture hysteria quite like the James Bond films and that hysteria always reaches peak levels of crazy when it’s time to recruit a new actor to slip on that tuxedo. Right now, the future of 007 is awash in rumor and mystery – it’s almost impossible to tell what is true, what is false, and what resides in that gray line separating them.

But the rumor mill has been busy. First, it claimed that Tom Hiddleston was being eyed by the Bond producers to take over the role. Then, it claimed Daniel Craig turned down $100 million to return for his fifth (and presumably final) Bond movie. Now, we’ve come full circle with an intriguing report that says Hiddleston isn’t just on a wish list – he’s in “advanced negotiations” to play the most famous action hero of all time.

The Tom Hiddleston James Bond rumor comes to us from Birth Movies Death, who received this tip from “sources close to Tom Hiddleston.” While you should take this with the necessary grain of salt until we hear something more concrete, know that Birth Movies Death isn’t the kind of site to make up fake stories. Even when they’e been wrong, they’ve been wrong from a completely honest place.

If this is true, it certainly sounds like it means one of two things. It could mean that Eon Productions and producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson are simply done trying to court Craig, who transformed the Spectre press tour into an ongoing explanation on how these movies make him so very miserable.

Hiddleston has not been shy about actually wanting to play James Bond and he’d be the kind of friendly, enthusiastic face the series needs after Craig departs. This is actually an uncanny mirroring of when the grumpy, fame-hating Sean Connery departed the series after Diamonds Are Forever, allowing the far more publicly agreeable Roger Moore to step up to the plate. To this day, Moore remains a champion of the Bond movie and Connery doesn’t have many nice things to say at all.

However, as Birth Movies Death points out, this could be a classic Hollywood negotiating ploy. When the guy you actually want for the part says no, you take it to someone else and you let it be known that another well-liked actor is ready and willing to take over. Only then will Craig’s true feelings on the matter surface. Talks with Hiddleston could be a nasty ruse to get Craig to accept that hefty paycheck and begrudgingly return for one final tango with 007.

If Hiddleston is in advanced negotiations, if Eon does want him for the role, we’ll be staring down the barrel of a very different Bond. Craig’s 007 was a rough-and-tumble bruiser, a physically imposing, emotionally broken brawler. That’s not a natural mode for Hiddleston, who is charming, suave, debonair, and perfectly capable playing men who use that composed exterior to mask a monster. Millions of people saw him pull that off in the Thor movies, but he also showcased a darker side in the delightfully deranged High-Rise. And then there’s his critically acclaimed turn in the miniseries The Night Manager, which many viewers and critics have seen as a trial run for Bond. Although Hiddleston is far from the only good choice for the role, he’s different enough that he won’t invite direct comparisons with Craig – he’d be able to make Bond his own.

Then again, this could all be nonsense. Let’s just play the waiting game and see what happens.

The post Report: Tom Hiddleston Actually in Talks to Play James Bond, For Real appeared first on /Film.

Tacocat covers Katy Perry’s “Roar”

Choosing Katy Perry’s “Roar” from the A.V. Undercover list probably wasn’t much of a choice at all for Tacocat. After all, a minor corner of the internet blew up when Perry’s Super Bowl halftime show used a now-famous shark as a backup dancer—a shark that was strikingly similar to one Tacocat used in a video for their song “Crimson Wave.” But the members of Tacocat weren’t mad—they just wanted Perry to come over and hang out.

More at avclub.com

Hey Arnold! creator forced by internet to deny there was anilingus in his cartoon

Earlier this week, a Vine started going around showing what was supposedly a very NSFW scene from Hey Arnold! in which a couple seen through a window behind Helga and Arnold appear to be, as one Twitter user put it, “eatin ass” in a very vigorous fashion

And yet, unsurprisingly, that’s totally not what’s going on in the scene, according to Hey Arnold! creator Craig Bartlett. In an e-mail exchange with The A.V. Club, Bartlett said he became aware of the scandalous clip earlier this week.

Most importantly, there’s nothing sexual or nefarious going on in the clip, at least according to Bartlett. “The scene is from ‘Arnold’s Thanksgiving,’” Barlett says, “and the kids are leaving Mr. Simmons’ apartment, where his family is arguing at the table. That’s Uncle Chuck eating a turkey with his hands. I assure you it was never intended to be what the guy tweeted it was.” That’s it. Case closed. Despite what your dirty mind may have seen, there’s not sexual imagery buried in every children’s cartoon.

More at avclub.com

From Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein to Spaceballs and The Producers, legendary filmmaker Mel Brooks has been responsible for some of the most beloved movies ever made. And unsurprisingly, at various points in his career, he has discussed the making of almost all his films. Except for one—the lone dud in his canon—a film so bad The New York Times declared it “an embarrassment,” and which Brooks has never publicly discussed: Solarbabies. Well, at least not until now. Because last week, on behalf of the How Did This Get Made? podcast, I spoke with Brooks at length to try and figure out how (the hell) did this get made?

Going into the interview, I expected to hear tales of unforeseen calamity and production run amok. But what I didn’t expect—and what became the prevailing thread of our conversation—was the enormous personal toll that Solarbabies had on Brooks.

How Did This Get Made is a companion to the podcast How Did This Get Made with Paul Scheer, Jason Mantzoukas and June Diane Raphael which focuses on movies This regular feature is written by Blake J. Harris, who you might know as the writer of the book Console Wars, soon to be a motion picture produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. You can listen to the Mel Brooks edition of the HDTGM podcast here. 

How bad did things actually get? And what, exactly, went wrong?

To find out what Mel Brooks had to say about Solarbabies, you can download our special episode of How Did This Get Made? or read the transcript below.

Mel Brooks: Hello, hello, hello!

Blake Harris: Hey, Mr. Brooks! How are you?

Mel Brooks: Hello, is this Blake Harris?

Blake Harris: It is. How’s it going?

Mel Brooks: Okay. What do you want to know? What are you doing? Explain where Solarbabies fits into your plan.

Blake Harris: Sure. So there is a podcast called How Did This Get Made. It’s very popular, where they talk about movies—typically unsuccessful movies—and one of them was Solarbabies.

Mel Brooks: I like that. I like that! Typically unsuccessful movies. I’ve got so many I could throw your way.

Blake Harris: [laughter]

Mel Brooks: Blake, listen. I’m going to tell you an incredible story. I’ll give you everything, but first I’d like to tell you the whole arc. It’s a great story and you’re lucky that you called me because you’ll never hear a story like this again in the history of cinema.

Blake Harris: I feel lucky already.

Mel Brooks: You ready?

Blake Harris: Yeah…

Mel Brooks: A woman worked for me in publicity for Brooksfilms. Her name was Irene Walzer. And she had a lot of energy and she was very smart, but she wanted to produce. So together with another guy called Jack Frost—you won’t believe it—they brought me a project. Now the project was actually brought to them by a guy by the name of Jonathan Sanger.

Blake Harris: Okay.

Mel Brooks: Jonathan Sanger had done a lot of stuff with me, for me, basically he produced The Elephant Man for Brooksfilms, so he really had a lot of wonderful credits…so I trusted Jonathan, I trusted his taste. There were a couple of guys who wrote the script, one was Walon Green and the other was Douglas Anthony Metrov. They came up with a very good, really interesting script. This all happened in 1986, okay? So Irene Walzer and Jack Frost, they did their homework and said they thought they could make this; and Frost had done other movies, so I trusted him, even though Irene Walzer was a newcomer to producing, I figured with her energy, and her brains, between the two of them it could be a wonderful movie. And I okayed the cast of Solarbabies, which was wonderful. It was, in the lead, this young guy, unknown, Jason Patric. I believed in him, he later became a star. Jami Gertz, she became a star. Richard Jordan, who was wonderful. Lukas Haas, who became a star. James Le Gros, Adrian Pasdar and the great award-winning Charlie Durning. So I said this is a great cast, and I said to them [Walzer and Frost], “You’re going to make this movie for five million bucks? All in?” And they said, “Yes, it can be done. If we can do it in Spain.”

Blake Harris: Why was Spain a cheaper alternative?

Mel Brooks: Because you didn’t have to worry about unions…

Blake Harris: Okay, okay.

Mel Brooks: Jack Frost said we could buy all the transport, we could buy the trucks, sell them back and actually make a profit. It was a real great bill of goods that I was sold, okay?

Blake Harris: [laughing]

Mel Brooks: Five million? I said, “Okay.” I said I don’t have to go to a bank for this. I’ll just get a couple of partners. You know, I’ll just ask a couple of guys I know who invest in movies and blah, blah, blah. We’ll all put in money and together we can do it. So that’s what I did. And I friend of mine that I trusted, who actually directed To Be or Not to Be—a wonderful movie—and actually directed Springtime for Hitler, did all the choreography for that movie. He was a choreographer/director, his name was Alan Johnson. A very talented guy and a good friend. And I figured what the hell. He loved the story and the casting, so I said this is going to be good. It’s going to be good. Last, final words…you never heard from me again [that] this is going to be good. So they go to Spain and I give them a half a million dollars. To start, you know, looking around finding places to shoot, hiring a Spanish cameraman and whatever. And then they needed another half a million. Okay. So before anything happened, there goes the first million. Boom. Alright, they’ve got four million left to shoot a lovely sci-fi movie, with good characters and with very little (I thought) post-production…so I said fine. Fine. They start shooting and it starts raining. It never rained in Spain before. The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plains? No, they don’t. They fall only in that place in Spain that they picked for their location.

Blake Harris: Oh my gosh.

Mel Brooks: Alright, so the movie cost another million. So now they’re up to roughly two-and-a-half million out of the five, and we have no real footage yet. Okay. Maybe it’s gonna cost six. Okay, I’ll raise the extra money, no problem. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  Okay, a couple of weeks go by and they need another million because I don’t know. It’s transportation, it’s the film, it’s printing, it’s editing, ugh. I said, “Okay.” So before we had maybe a thousand feet of film—which, you know, boils down to, like, maybe twenty feet out of a thousand is ever good for a movie—they’ve used up the $5 million.

Blake Harris: Oh my god.

Mel Brooks: So the choice was, I said, okay this has been a disaster. Why don’t I just call everybody back home? Thank you. So I called my partners and they said look, they liked the hundred feet of film. They’re ready to put in a little bit more money. Okay. So we all put in a little more money and they start filming. Some of the stuff is really interesting and good; some of it’s just terrible, it’s dreadful. It’s just dopey. So I call Alan and Alan says, “There’s a little bit of a, I don’t know, a little bit of revolution here. They’re against some of the things that I’ve said.” So I go over there, I fly over to Spain…

Blake Harris: Oh man, oh man…

Mel Brooks: Yeah, I scream at them. I say, “LISTEN TO THE DIRECTOR OR ELSE YOU’RE ALL FIRED, WE’LL GET ANOTHER CAST.” I really lay down the law and they all promise to listen. Alan calls me later and he says, “Okay, they’re listening.”  [after a thoughtful pause] Maybe they shouldn’t have listened, I don’t know.

Blake Harris: [laughter]

Mel Brooks: I’m not sure whether they should have listened. So here we are, we’re up to $8 million, those guys are broke. I’m not going to stick my hand in my pocket anymore. So I go to Morgan—it’s a bank, Morgan Guaranty. I show them some of the footage, and they know some of the movies I’ve made—Young Frankenstein, I’ve made Blazing Saddles personally—so they know I’ve done very well. So they loan me $5 million just on, you know…and the $5 million is used up in the next 10 days. In bad shooting, in mistakes, the wrong film, discoloration. So I go back to Morgan, and now we’re into $13 million. This is a $5 million movie! This is a great comedy, you know? This mis-film in Spain.

Blake Harris: It is.

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