This Summer's Movies Sucked. Let’s Go Back to 1990.

Summary

Cannonball with Wesley Morris – "This Summer's Movies Sucked. Let’s Go Back to 1990."

The New York Times | Released: August 28, 2025

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Episode Overview

Film critic Wesley Morris and writer Sam Anderson take a nostalgic deep dive into the summer movies of 1990, lamenting the lackluster offerings of 2025 and contrasting them with the vibrant, risky, and star-driven landscape of their youth. With candor and humor, they discuss how formative films like Total Recall and Ghost shaped their identities, moviegoing experiences, and worldview, weaving in personal anecdotes, cultural critique, and reflections on the evolution of the summer blockbuster.

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Main Discussion Themes

1. The Lost Art of the Summer Movie (00:43–04:40)

• Wesley Morris opens with a personal reflection on his teenage years as an avid moviegoer, devouring Premiere magazine’s summer movie preview, and reminisces about how summer movies were once a major American event.
• He notes the shift in 2025 summers, dominated by remakes and brand-driven films (Lilo and Stitch, yet another Jurassic World), calling the current fare "brands like Kraft or Hellman's or Sara Lee in Jurassic World. Rebirth" (03:17).
• Sets up the conceit: revisiting 1990 by discussing the films that defined their adolescence, with each host picking a movie that helped tell them "who we are." (04:25)

2. The Top 10 Summer Movies of 1990: Context and Reactions (04:41–07:50)

• Wesley runs down the 1990 summer top ten, including titles like Pretty Woman, Back to the Future Part III, Dick Tracy, Die Hard 2, Total Recall, and Ghost.
• Both hosts share their surprise and appreciation at the cultural impact and range of genres present in that lineup.

Sam Anderson [06:51]: “Hardest I’ve ever laughed... my father, who’s a very straight-laced Lutheran man... turned to us and said, ‘yippee ki yay, mother, father.’ My mind was blown.”

3. Sam’s Pick: Total Recall and Adolescent Awe (07:51–33:00)

Why Total Recall? (07:51–12:03)

• Sam is adamant this is his movie, describing it as "the American masterpiece" for his adolescent experience.
• The plot is summarized for listeners: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Douglas Quaid is a bored construction worker who becomes embroiled in a mind-bending Martian conspiracy after pursuing a memory-implantation vacation.

Moviegoing in 1990 (12:03–15:07)

• Both recall the culture of the multiplex—Sam with a group of friends in California, Wesley solo in Philadelphia—highlighting how movies were omnipresent summer destinations.
• Sam reflects fondly on the communal thrill: “It’s like asking, why did you choose for the sun to rise... you don’t.” (12:26)

Peak American Action Cinema (13:19–21:28)

• Both agree that the late ‘80s and early ‘90s were the "peak of the American action movie," with Sam declaring that Total Recall delivered a perfect blend of cutting-edge effects, violence, humor, and sci-fi intrigue.
• Sam delights in the spectacle—“their eyes bugging out... so much body horror… Paul Verhoeven just like meat chaos. Kill ‘em all.”—and the adolescent fantasy of “the too muchness” of it.

Iconic Scenes, Lines, and Sexual Politics (16:50–25:47)

• The famous scene where Quaid removes a tracking device through his nose is recounted in vivid, gleeful detail.
• They revel in the film’s over-the-top one-liners:

  Wesley [20:53]: “Consider dat a divorce.”
  Sam [20:53]: “He says [it] cool as a cucumber.”

• Sam and Wesley open up about the movie’s sexual dynamics—the Sharon Stone vs. Rachel Ticotin love triangle, and especially the infamous three-breasted woman:

  Sam [23:28]: “As a 12-year-old boy, [that] was the absolute limit of the human imagination…”
  Discussing embarrassment over adolescent arousal and the film’s unapologetic male gaze: Wesley [24:39]: “It’s an erotic fantasy of being able to choose between two women…”

Changing Views on Violence (25:58–32:27)

• Sam singles out the “human shield” escalator scene as burned into his adolescent brain, but upon rewatching, is horrified by its casual brutality:

  Sam [29:39]: “Public machine gun fire means something very different in 2025 than it did in 1990... the notion that you’d just grab a guy... a real human made irrelevant because he’s tactically useful... pretty disgusting morally.”

• Wesley links this to a consistent Hollywood indifference to “irrelevant” collateral victims in action movies, highlighting broader implications of individualism over community in American storytelling.

How Action Movies Shape Worldview (31:26–32:27)

Sam [31:26]: “For me, as a 12-year-old, I was mainlining American culture and mythology... the action movie is kind of the apotheosis of that worldview..."

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4. Wesley’s Pick: Ghost, Whoopi Goldberg, and the Joy of Audience (35:05–54:11)

Why Ghost?: Personal Resonance (35:05–39:43)

• Wesley shares that, surprisingly, Ghost—which he saw three times—was his touchstone, largely due to Whoopi Goldberg’s performance, not the central love story.

  Wesley [38:11]: “It was Whoopi Goldberg. I’m like, what is this? What is my favorite actor doing?”

Scene Breakdown: Whoopi’s Entrance (41:24–46:45)

• They play and react to the scene of Whoopi as Oda Mae Brown, a psychic scam artist discovering her powers—a pivotal, hilarious, and tonally transformative moment.
• Wesley explains why this resonated, particularly as a Black moviegoer:

  Wesley [46:44]: “I was so fascinated that this white man had gone into this Black woman’s universe and was interested in communicating with her, realized he could. I don’t know... the being seen part really spoke to me.”

Race, Audience, and Movie Magic (46:45–50:44)

• They discuss the racial dynamics at the core of Ghost—how Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze) relies on Oda Mae (Whoopi) to solve his murder and reengage with the world.
• Wesley describes the unique joy of watching the film in a packed theater, noting "the sound of a packed house... cracking up legit, like with Whoopi Goldberg" (49:44).
• Wesley admits to watching the audience as much as the film:

  Wesley [49:56]: "I still turn around and watch people watch the movie.”

Whoopi’s Oscar and Underestimated Impact (50:44–53:02)

• They affirm that Whoopi is the film’s “engine,” noting her historic Oscar win for the role against notably tough competition (51:04).
• Wesley delights in Ghost’s underdog status, recalling that it wasn’t even forecast as a top summer movie by Premiere magazine—“they didn’t even call it” (52:37).

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5. Changing Culture and the Summer Movie’s Evolution (53:02–57:28)

• Sam and Wesley reflect on the evolution—and alleged decline—of the summer movie, connecting Jaws (1975) as the original template and highlighting how each generation laments change.
• Sam shares a recent joyous theater-going experience watching the Minecraft movie, insisting star-driven entertainment and communal viewing still matter:

  Sam [55:23]: “Jack Black is incredible in that film... It’s a big, raucous, fun summer movie experience.”

• Wesley worries that modern blockbusters have become recursive, self-referential "closed loops"—franchises built on brands and nostalgia rather than originality:

  Wesley [56:28]: "It’s not what we’re getting now, which is like a closed loop."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Wesley [03:28]: “A brand like Kraft or Hellman’s or Sara Lee in Jurassic World. Rebirth. …Just. That’s the class of movie that it is.”
• Sam [08:14]: “Your homing signal went right to Total Recall... That’s the film. That’s the American masterpiece.”
• Wesley [17:19]: “I think this is his best performance. Really, I do.” (on Schwarzenegger in Total Recall)
• Wesley [20:53]: “Consider dat a divorce.”
• Wesley [46:44]: “The being seen part really spoke to me...” (on Ghost and Whoopi Goldberg)
• Sam [29:39]: “...public machine gun fire means something very different in 2025 than it did in 1990... that notion that you’d just grab a guy... pretty disgusting morally.”
• Wesley [49:44]: “I just loved hearing people love her [Whoopi]. I would turn around and just look at the house laughing.”

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Key Timestamps

• Top 10 Recap/90s Nostalgia: 04:41–07:50
• Sam’s Total Recall Experience: 12:03–33:00
• Discussion of Sexual & Moral Politics in Total Recall: 21:28–32:27
• Wesley’s Ghost Experience: 35:05–54:11
• Racial & Generational Reflection: 46:44–50:44
• Modern Blockbusters/Evolution of the Summer Movie: 53:02–57:28

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Tone, Style & Takeaways

Wesley and Sam mix personal storytelling, lively cultural criticism, and good-natured teasing with sharp insights about race, spectacle, nostalgia, and the shifting tides of Hollywood. Their memories of 1990’s multiplex culture are affectionate but clear-eyed, contrasting their innocent excitement with a critical view of today's formulaic, brand-driven blockbusters. Central to their discussion is how movies—and auditorium audiences—shaped their sense of self and of America, and how the movies of one’s youth might never stop haunting you.

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Ideal for listeners who wish to revisit the magic—and flaws—of a formative movie era, unpack complicated feelings about nostalgia and culture, or simply enjoy the chemistry of two thoughtful, funny critics reflecting on the power (and powerlessness) of Hollywood’s summertime dreams.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

I'm Wesley Morris, and this is Cannonball. Today we're talking about some old ass movies from 1990. I am a critic at the New York Times, but I used to be a 14 year old boy who loved the summer because I got to go to the movies on like a Tuesday. And if it seems like I've been talking a lot about summer movies, here's the story of why. It is hard to overstate what an event summer movies were back in like 1990 for America, but also for me. My favorite movie news source was Premier magazine. By the way, here we go. This in my hand right here is a Premiere magazine from 1990. This is the summer movie preview of Premier magazine from 1990. And sometime in May or April, that preview would just arrive at my house and I would spend the whole day reading it, just thoroughly mapping out a plan how I was gonna get money to go see these movies. But most of the time, you know how I got the money. I hit those streets. Psych. I'm just kidding, okay? My mother gave me the money. She understood that I had inherited her love of movies and tried to find $20 every couple of weeks to facilitate it. At the time, I didn't really think about this. I didn't give a lot of thought to the sacrifice my mother was certainly making to make sure I got to see at least one movie a week. But I rarely saw just one movie a week like in the summer of 1990. A matinee ticket was about 350 back then, and I stretched that 350 for as far as it could go. You know how megaplexes work. I'd have money for like one movie, then I'd figure out when the next shows were and I'd hide in the bathroom or just loiter in the lobby and wait for the movie to start and then wait for an usher to close the house door and I would sneak in. I was always terrified that somebody was gonna pull me out, but nobody ever did. And I should say that, you know, back then there were so many summer movies, there was never not something to see. To that end, I will spare you a Whole lamentation on the state of the summer movie today. Y' all know what it looks like. But here's what I will say. This summer, the summer of 2025, the top three movies are Lilo and Stitch. A live action remake of a cartoon Superman. A brand. A brand like Craft or Hellman's or Cervalee in Jurassic World. Rebirth. I mean, I don't even know. What do we call these Jurassic park movies now? I'll say a sequel. Just. That's the. That's the class of movie that it is. So today, as summer is drawing to a close, let's just go back to 1990. I just want to kind of think about the glory days of the summer movie for a second. My Time Machine co pilot is my friend Sam Anderson. He's a writer for the New York Times Magazine. And he's also a sensitive soul, not unlike myself and around the same age. So he was watching the same movies that I was around the same time. And we each picked a movie from that summer of 1990 that, as teenagers, helped tell us who we are. And we're just going to talk about why it was so huge for us then and what it's like to watch it now. Sam, welcome to Cannonball. Hi, Sam.

[C]

Hi, Wesley.

[B]

So I. I want to start this exercise by presenting to you the top 10 movies of 1990. Okay, sorry. I'm going to do the top 10 movies that came out in the summer of 1890. We'll be even more specific. All right, so I'm just going to go from the bottom up. Number 10, presumed innocent.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Harrison Ford. Did he kill that lady? Let's find out.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

Burn on the Wire. Romantic comedy. Goldie Hawn and Mel Gibson. But it was different back then. I mean, Mel Gibson was like, not only was he sexy, he was popular.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

And Goldie Hawn is just, you know, like, hall of fame great at being who she is. Another 48 hours. Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte getting back together for less than you got. The first time Pretty Woman, Julia Roberts becomes a movie star. It came out in, like, the spring. It was not officially a summer movie, but it peaked.

[C]

It blew up after Memorial Day.

[B]

Days of Thunder. Oh, Tom Cruise racing around the track and Nicole Kidman trying to stop him from being, quote, out of control. Back to The Future Part 3. This is the only pathetic entry. But if you consider these movies a trilogy, then we're done. Because we were done. Dick Tracy. This is what passed for a comic book movie in 1990. And the gimmick this is Warren Beatty directing himself as Dick Tracy number three, Die Hard 2. Watched it on home video, didn't even bother seeing it. And what a mistake I made, by the way. Yeah, huge mistake. To quote Julia Roberts. Big, huge.

[C]

Were you a fan of Die Hard one?

[B]

I was.

[C]

Me too.

[B]

I mean, perfect movie. Perfect summer movie, too, because it came from nowhere. Nobody thought it was gonna make any money. And Bruce Willis was just some guy from tv and that movie made him a movie star.

[C]

What year was that?

[B]

1988.

[C]

Amazing.

[B]

Perfect movie.

[C]

Hardest I've ever laughed. When I walked out of that theater, my father, who's a very straight laced Lutheran man, very buttoned up. He turned to us and he said he never swore. He turned to us and he said, yippee ki yay, mother, father. My mind was blown. One of the great jokes of my father's lifetime. Oh, yeah, yeah. Anyway, yippee ki yay, mother, father.

[B]

Number two of the summer of 1990. Total recall masterpiece starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a man who thinks one thing is going on, but really something else is happening. Or maybe he already knows.

[C]

Or is it?

[B]

Yeah, exactly. And number one, Ghost.

[C]

Ghost.

[B]

So I. I've given you the top ten movies of the summer of 1990. You picked one of them. And I was kind of shocked.

[C]

Really?

[B]

I was shocked that you picked the movie. You picked really? I did not see Total Recall as the Sam Anderson movie.

[C]

That's interesting. I picked it with my whole being.

[B]

Oh, shit. Okay.

[C]

I was excited when I saw that movie on your list.

[B]

You really were. Yeah, it was instant. It was like a no brainer. Like your homing signal went right to Total Recall.

[C]

Yeah. You kind of tried to talk me out of it multiple times. And I kept coming back to it. You kept acting like the show had to be about something else. And I kept going over your head to the producers and saying, no, wait a second. What happened to Total Recall? That's the film. That's the American masterpiece. I would like to discuss your mind. It is the center of your life. It is everything you hear, everything you see, everything you feel. It is everything you are. How would you know if someone stole your mind?

[B]

We should say what the movie's about.

[C]

Yeah, of course.

[B]

So it starts.

[C]

We should educate the people. Yeah.

[B]

Let them know.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Total Recall is the story of a man named Quaid, Doug Quaid, which is kind of like your first red flag, honestly. Like, what the hell is Arnold Schwarzenegger doing playing a character named Doug Quaid? You know what? It doesn't matter because we're giving ourselves over to whatever this experience is gonna be.

[C]

Absolutely. And they are asking for that from the very beginning. Because from the very beginning.

[B]

So, you know, he's a construction worker. Seems kind of bored living in the year 2084. And he, as part of, you know, some kind of life rejuvenation, decides he's gonna go have. Because it's very expensive to go to the colony of Mars. Cause we've colonized Mars. Premonition alert. We have colonized Mars. And, you know, Doug Quaid's like. I think what I'd actually like is to go do one of these things I've seen advertised on tv, which is, you know, can't afford to go to Mars. I would love to just have a memory or a fantasy of Mars installed in my brain.

[C]

Yeah. So he's kind of a classic bored working man who yearns for something bigger with his life. And he wants to take a trip to Mars. And his wife is always just giving him trouble, saying, you wouldn't like it. You would hate Mars. And so he's yearning for it. Yeah. And he sees an advertisement in the film Futuristic Subway for this company that promises to implant memory experiences in your mind that you will not be able to tell are not real. Allegedly. You will never know the difference. They're actually more vivid and real than.

[B]

Real memories Staycation in your mind. But you've actually gone on the most fabulous trip. You money. Money can a little bit buy credits.

[C]

899 credits, I think it costs. Which sounds pretty good.

[B]

And so old Doug gets to the recall facility. He goes and sits in the chair. But before they can even do anything, all of a sudden, hell breaks loose in the lab.

[C]

Right. Because it turns out Douglas Quaid has got something going on up there in his mind already. About Mars.

[B]

Yes. This guy isn't just some construction worker who is dreaming of a better vacation life for himself.

[C]

He.

[B]

He's a freedom fighter on the colony of Mars.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Trying to liberate the place from these corporate vultures who are bleeding it dry.

[C]

Yeah. He's been involved in some kind of espionage activity up on Mars already and just. And was drawn to this memory place. And they discover this. And that's when, like, the floor falls out from under you as a viewer.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

And you no longer know what's real and what level you're standing on. And neither does he as a character. He plunges into confusion and has to figure this out on the fly while. While he's being kind of hunted down by secret police and the normal trappings of his life are dissolving all around him.

[B]

So I think one thing I'm curious about is what the actual movie going experience was like for you. Who were you in the summer of 1990? I can't. It's like the one thing I was gonna say was like, why did you see it? But that's not how the movies worked back then.

[C]

No.

[B]

Like you just went and you just went to the movies and you're gonna obviously see some with Total Recall.

[C]

Yeah. It' like asking like, why did you choose for the sun to rise at the time it rose in your time zone? You don't.

[B]

I mean, precisely why did you breathe.

[C]

The atmosphere you breathed? Cause that's where I live. Yeah. So summer, June of 1990, I am 12 years old, going on 13. Turning 13 that summer. I remember getting my first baseball mitt that summer. Yeah, I was just a dorky little chubby guy who liked to tell jokes with his friends. Watched Saturday Night Live. Yeah. Loved like screwball comedies, you know, like Airplane and Naked Gun and stuff like that. And loved action movies like every young American boy should. I mean, I think, you know, we're talking about the late 20th century. I feel like the American action movie was like the great cultural product.

[B]

It's at its peak.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, this is the peak of the American action movie.

[C]

Right. Cause when is Terminator?

[B]

Terminator is 1984.

[C]

Die Hard is 1988.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Right. So of course I went to see this film.

[B]

Did you see it alone?

[C]

No.

[B]

What happened?

[C]

I wonder if anyone saw Total Recall alone in an empty theater.

[B]

I saw every summer movie.

[C]

Where were you?

[B]

I was in Philadelphia. I saw most of the movies I saw as a kid by myself. My mother had no interest. My mother loved movies, but no interest in seeing most movies that I wanted to see also. She had to work.

[C]

Okay. There are other options. For instance, I went with Chad, my best friend Chad. Why didn't you go with. Why didn't you go with Chad?

[B]

I see what you're trying to do, Sam. I did have friends, but I also just liked. A friend of mine once told me that they did not like going to the movies with me because I didn't say or do anything. I am a black man from Philadelphia. Do you know what was going on in these movie theaters? I didn't participate in any of that. I was a witness to it. But that was not how I wanted to engage or wanted the movie to engage me. I wanted to be fully committed to it. So I usually went alone. I Didn't want to have to talk about it when it was over. Nothing. So you go with your homie.

[C]

Oh, I went Chad. Yeah, it was me, Chad, my brother Pat, and Chris Mathias, the biggest troublemaker in the suburban town of Lodi, California. Wow. Okay. And yeah, I remember people being in the theater and then I gotta say, even the credit sequence on this film and the music, these like red sort of dripping credits.

[B]

And the Smith score. Yeah, the score.

[C]

Just even now rewatching it as a 40 something year old man, it just got me so excited. And you know, we start on Mars and then all these, all the most cutting edge special effects. People's faces bugging out in their eyes. There's so much kind of like body horror in this film. Eyes bugging out because of the Martian atmosphere and you know, and then the mayhem starts, as you say, pretty quickly. And it's classic Paul Verhoeven. Just like meat chaos. Right? Kill the ball. And I think we were probably screaming our heads off at just how amazing this spectacle was in every way and how it just fulfilled all our greatest fantasies of what and what life in the future should be. Just like people getting ripped up by bullets in a way that 12 year old me just could not have been more excited. There was all that and then there were just these iconic effects and moments that really use those effects so beautifully. This incredible scene that I think holds up very well where after he's escaped this memory implantation lab and people are after him and he realizes he's a spy and, and he has to remove what he's been told is a tracking device in his skull somewhere.

[B]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[C]

You remember this scene?

[B]

Yes, yes, yes.

[C]

Howdy, stranger. This is Hauser. He's watching a screen. He's been given a suitcase of supplies, very like Bourne Identity, sort of like, here's all the money you need and fake IDs. He's watching a screen of himself, telling himself what to do. Now whatever your name is, get ready for the big surprise. You are not you, you're me. You do see levels to the acting here because he really does play this.

[B]

Yeah, I think this is his best performance. Really, I do. Wow, we can come back to this.

[C]

And he's telling him, you gotta take this little, this little metal gun that I've given you and stick it up your nose until you hear a crunch. And Arnie is pushing so hard and it crunches so loud. And then don't worry, it's self guiding. And these little pincers come out and pull out and you see his face kind of warp in special effects mask mode, but it still looks so great. Yeah. And this giant, throbbing, pulsing red thing comes out of his nostril.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And cracks open and sure enough is this little metal tracking device.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And I mean, just. What could be better? What could be better?

[B]

You were talking to each other during the movie. Were you guys vociferous as the people at the Philadelphia, Chestnut Hill, Sam, Eric, Jammy Jam that I would see my movies at.

[C]

Were. This is very interesting because I think you and I are different people in certain ways and have had different experiences.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

In the United States of America. I grew up all the way on the west coast in a very kind of suburban nowhere place. That's where I lived when I saw this film. Lodi, California. Known for its dairy cows and its vineyards and very white, very Lutheran, very rule following. So we wouldn't have been. It would have been very strange for us to be shouting at the screen. But I think we were at least. We were at least bouncing in our seats. We were at least. Because I don't remember, honestly. I think it's.

[B]

Was it like.

[C]

I think it's the only film I've seen multiple times in the theater. Cause I went back.

[B]

You went multiple times?

[C]

Yeah, multiple times.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

And have no regrets about that. This was the most excited I've ever been at a film.

[B]

Ever.

[C]

Yeah. Wow.

[B]

Can you say more about that? Like, what. What hadn't you been given and what. What was this movie giving you?

[C]

I think it was a kind of perfect blend of truly cutting edge action stuff. So the special effects. There's an incredible scene where Arnold is wearing this giant disguise suit of a woman.

[B]

This is the most famous sequence in the movie, probably.

[C]

And his head kind of comes apart and it comes off. And these things just looked incredible at the time.

[B]

So he pulls the head off of this woman's head off and it kind of like pyramids open, essentially. And he pulls it off and it's Arnold in disguise.

[C]

Lots of amazing effects like that. And that's what my soul was thirsty for when I went to see an action movie. The too muchness of it was exactly what we wanted as adolescent boys. You know, there's all these ridiculous one liners thrown in. This is the plan. Get your ass to Mars. Arnie is just strutting around snuffing people out and saying, see you at the party, Richter. The dumbest kind of like, knockoff James Bond one liner.

[B]

You think this is the real Quaid? It is. This is another thing about the summer movie, right? Like it. No matter what the movie is, it needs a catch line, right? It needs a catchphrase. Something that you as a kid will be quoting for the rest of the summer. I don't know if you had one from Total Recall, but there were definitely. Consider datu divorce was one of those things that I remember saying to other kids just at random, sweetheart, we're married. Consider dat a divorce.

[C]

Consider that a divorce. Consider that a divorce. He says, cool as a cucumber.

[B]

I mean, he was proud of that line. There was a look of utter delight.

[C]

You know, I think, like I loved Die Hard and I loved all these comedies. I think Total Recall kind of brought it all together and the part of my brain that was curious and thoughtful and wanted to think a little bit more sophisticated thoughts, like it was this mind bending sci fi premise that was in there too. So it was kind of everything in one movie.

[B]

I'm also curious about what or whether or not the sexual dimensions were occurring to you.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Because this movie is also. I mean, it's just very. It's sexual, right? Like there's the marriage between Sharon Stone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, which is really a sexual relationship once you find out what's going on there.

[C]

Right.

[B]

He's in love with what I'm gonna describe as a fantasy woman in Rachel Ticketon, who turns out to be real, and then mad at him for fantasizing about Sharon Stone, who is mad at him for fantasizing about Rachel Ticketon. Right. He's got Betty and Veronica, the blonde and the brunette. Both very appealing people played by good actors. Especially Sharon Stone's later scenes in this movie. She's very good in those. Auditioning basically to work with Verhoeven again on Basic Instinct. But I'm like, what was the sex doing for you?

[C]

Oh, my gosh, there's a woman in.

[B]

This movie with three breasts.

[C]

Yeah. I was wondering if we were to bring that up. I mean, this is the most. Right, this. Okay. I mean, certainly that image stuck with me and is very embarrassing to think back on.

[B]

Because why, when I googled.

[C]

Total Recall, one of the, you know, people also asked questions that came up was, what is the most paused moment in Total Recall? And it's this moment. They go to Venusville, the kind of red light district of Mars where there are all these prostitutes. Gambling either. Yeah, exactly. And there is this woman who offers herself to Arnold and opens her shirt and she has three breasts, which I think to me as a 12 year old boy was the absolute limit of the human imagination and what it might be able to offer us someday. Like. Like, just. It's so embarrassing.

[B]

A third breast. But you knew. But is the thing that's embarrassing. Are you embarrassed now or were you embarrassed at 12?

[C]

All of it.

[B]

Okay, so what's embarrassing?

[C]

I will be embarrassed in the future.

[B]

When it's 2084 and you're on Mars.

[C]

Before you brought it up.

[B]

This breast is going to haunt you.

[C]

Yes, but.

[B]

But can I just ask, like, what is embarrassing about it now? Did you find it. Did you find it arousing? Was it attractive? Yeah. Okay.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Okay. And what's embarrassing? I mean, do I have to explain what's embarrassing about that?

[B]

Yeah, maybe a little bit to me.

[C]

Did you find it arousing? Well, I don't think we can talk about this on the podcast.

[B]

Well, it's kind of the wrong audience.

[C]

I know, but still.

[B]

But I mean, I actually do find that the movie does have, like, a lot of the movies during this period, an eroticism. Right. Like an erotic fantasy of being able to choose between two women, Being able to choose the type of woman you want to spend the rest of your life with. What qualities would you like this creature to have?

[C]

It's a very sexist movie, I think it's fair to say. Yeah.

[B]

Well, is that part of what's embarrassing for you, though?

[C]

Yeah, for sure. For sure. I mean, the women are not. The movie is not interested in the. In the women.

[B]

Yes and no. I mean, it's not about the women at all. I'm not under no assumptions. Like, the women are sidekicks. They are turncoats.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

They are, you know, almost literal castrators.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

But they're not uninteresting at the same time.

[C]

To me, a third breast is very interesting.

[B]

She's not her.

[C]

Well, my. I watched it a couple days ago with my son, who's 17. Okay. And said this was my favorite movie on earth when I was 12 years old. And one of his comments afterwards was, the woman with the extra boob, she got a lot more screen time than I expected. I thought when she came on screen, that was pretty much going to be it. But no, she comes back several times and there are kind of sight gags and one liners and then she gets machine gunned in the back.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, everybody just dies a horrible death either because they're deprived of oxygen or, you know, they're gunned down in a. In a bar room fight.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So. All right. This movie is full of hard to forget imagery. I am Curious if there is a sequence or image or moment from this movie that is just lodged in your brain and living there forever. Either as 13 year old you, or like you went back and watched it and remembered something that you'd forgotten meant something to 13 year old.

[C]

Mm. For sure. It was this moment where Arnold is being chased through the subway up an escalator and the machine gun fire is just, I mean it's like people must be breathing machine gun bullets because that's just filling the air. And.

[B]

God bless you. Go on.

[C]

And Arnold, to protect himself, grabs hold of a man who's just been shot next to him on the escalator and uses him as a human shield.

[B]

Can we just watch it? I think we should just watch. This scene is crazy. We should just subject ourselves to it or just like revel in it a little bit. Yeah, here we go. He's running. There's Michael Ironside, one of the great figures in 80s 90s B level action, maybe even D level action.

[C]

Cut rate Jack Nicholson.

[B]

He's cut eight Jack. Yes, yes, exactly.

[C]

Off brand Jack Nicholson.

[B]

Off off brand Jack Nicholson. So Arnold's headed up the longest escalators in the history of movies. And he's got his gun out and these get, these goons are chasing.

[C]

And he got machine gun fire from above and coming from below.

[B]

Yes. And he's grabbed this poor now corpse and is using him to stop himself from being shot. And this guy must be made of Kevlar himself.

[C]

And he is ground beef at this point.

[B]

And the hamburger just took a sail down the escalator.

[C]

Verhoeven makes such a meal of that moment, like maybe a human shield had been used in a film shootout before. I don't remember that. But for me, like this was one of the central like mind blowing moments in the film too. Just that kind of fighting strategy to just use a guy to save yourself and the guy. It goes on for a long time and that body is just getting ripped.

[B]

Up, turned into hamburger. As you say.

[C]

It's a very chunky kind of violence.

[B]

What is this man made of, by the way?

[C]

And then he swings it. Yeah, to block fire coming from the other way. And then he throws it as a projectile. And it's like that blew my mind and I could not have loved it more. And I remembered it for decades. And then I sat down the other night to rewatch this as a responsible grown up man with two children. And I was pretty horrified by, I mean, just the casualness of this violence. Public machine gun fire means something very Different, I think, in 2025 than it did in 1990. After wave after wave after wave of mass shootings, it's hard to be delighted at anything that's going on there. And then the notion that you would just grab a guy who was a real human man standing next to you, who's now just dead, and it doesn't really bother you because he's tactically useful to you at that moment. This notion that like other human beings are NPCs or sort of non player characters to be used in your adventure story is pretty disgusting morally.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

So I wasn't really down with the human shield scene so much like that.

[B]

To me, what you've identified as this moral disjunction has always troubled me about the Hollywood approach to action movies. Because, you know, to this day, in so many movies, there is a sequence in a movie purportedly about saving humanity from some terribly destructive force, be they terrorists or, you know, some corporation that wants your memories back. There's an indifference to who matters in the scheme of the moral arc of the movie.

[C]

Right.

[B]

And this poor, you know, hunk of meat.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

Is irrelevant. And whether it's, you know, a chase sequence that destroys a market in, you know, Morocco, just so like Will Smith and Martin Lawrence can get away with whatever it is, you know, can catch the bad guys or Vin Diesel in the Rock can catch the bad guys.

[C]

Right.

[B]

I've always found that troubling. Okay, like, what happens when these guys leave town, when they're just. When they're onto the next scene that we are watching in the movie? What happens to that basket seller?

[C]

I think that speaks very well of you. That speaks very well of you and your mother. Oh, wow. Because I didn't notice. I didn't notice. And I wouldn't have understood it in those terms until I was pretty old. And to me, I think the summer movie in general, the action movie in general, Total Recall in particular, is a way for, like, for me as a 12 year old, I was just kind of mainlining American culture and mythology.

[B]

Me too.

[C]

And what it was feeding me, I can see now, is pretty troubling that we are this special society of individuals, the first society on earth ever made of pure individuals. And, and we're not that worried about this collective because that smacks of communism or whatever. So there's this tension between, you know, the community and the individual. And in an action movie, you have kind of the apotheosis, you have kind of the. The pinnacle of that worldview, as if it is real. When it's so ridiculously unreal. I mean, the social dynamics. Like, I would love to watch a movie actually about that man on the escalator who turns into the human shield leading his life his whole day. Just like a character study.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

No, start like, what was he born in? Like 20? I want just a coming of age story about this man and the job he got and the incredible day he was about to have and gets ripped up and thrown.

[B]

This is me in the Moroccan basketball.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

I just, I think about them all the time. Okay, so wait, did you see this.

[C]

Movie in the theater? You saw it alone in a theater?

[B]

I did.

[C]

And what was your. Quickly, what was your response?

[B]

I was really looking forward to spending more time with Sharon Stone. Honestly, I just. As a moviegoer.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't really do it for me. And I think that my mediocre experience at Total Recall made me not interested in any other action movie that was coming out that summer.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

All right, I will take a break. We'll come back. I will tell you what I was truly interested in. If you're curious to know what my Total Recall was. The summer of 1990. The movie I saw three times.

[C]

So excited.

[A]

This episode is supported by Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Hosted by Katie Milkman, an award winning behavioral scientist and author of the best selling book how to Change. Choiceology is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. Hear true stories from Nobel laureates, historians, authors, athletes and everyday people about why we do the things we do. Listen to [e-mail] podcast or wherever you listen.

[D]

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[C]

And we're back.

[B]

I promised you that I would tell you what my total recall of the summer of 1990 was, and here it is. I mentioned it earlier, but it was Ghost.

[C]

I can't believe it was Ghost.

[B]

I did. I saw that movie three times. I'm not lying.

[C]

Three times.

[B]

I did. I saw it three times.

[C]

Did you see it three times on the same day?

[B]

No.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

No. One of the pleasures of the summer movie going experience for me was. I mean, I was sneaking into these movies and so I never really. I had a plan, but sometimes I'd get greedy and I would go into other movies that I'd already seen because I just missed them. And Ghost was one of those movies I just really enjoyed.

[C]

Who was Wesley Morris in the summer of 1990?

[B]

I mean, I would have been not working home from school, really, really excited to just be able to go out in the city. And I'm from Philadelphia. I lived in Philadelphia, and I was permitted to leave the house and do my business.

[C]

And you would. You would go. Would. Would you wander far and wide or were you. You were going to the theater and you were spending hours there.

[B]

No, no. I was basically a like preteen teenage flaneur. Like, I would just roam the streets of Philadelphia, just walking. I mean, mostly downtown, but I walked around my neighborhood. I loved walking around the mall. I loved watching people. I loved studying how people behaved, what they wore.

[C]

Okay. So you're walking around Philadelphia just inhaling the universe into your consciousness, and then you go into the theater and sit in the dark and inhale this kind of the cinematic universe that 1990 is making available to you.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

And Ghost is the film that leaps out and really touches you. What was your experience of seeing Ghost?

[B]

I should say it wasn't like, because I'm a preview person. Right. Like, I got my Premiere magazine summer preview of 1990 and I didn't think about Ghost. I wanted to see like about 10 other movies.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

But once I got wind of the fact that Ghost was coming. Cause Ghosts had a really sexy poster.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And the poster, if memory serves, is Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze in a kind of over lit embrace.

[C]

Right. Okay. So you see a movie poster with these two actors bathed in a heavenly light about to embrace.

[B]

But that's not what it was for me, Sam.

[C]

No, no.

[B]

It was Whoopi Goldberg. I'm like, what is this? What is my favorite actor doing?

[C]

Your favorite actor?

[B]

Oh, yeah. She was definitely by 80. By 1990, she would have been in the Color Purple, a Wesley Morris sleeper called Burglar, Jumping Jack Flash, and a movie nobody saw called the Telephone. I think it went straight to vhs. And Fatal Beauty. She didn't have a big hit between the Color Purple and Ghost, but she worked a lot as the star of a bunch of movies.

[C]

And she, interestingly, is not on the poster.

[B]

Definitely not on the poster.

[C]

But that's. Whoopi is your main.

[B]

I am going to see Whoopi Goldberg perform.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Demi Moore is interesting to me. She's a cable movie person or a cable TV person. To me, I just know her from movies on cable. And Swayze, Dirty Dancing, very attracted. Let's go. I'll do it. And so I go on the opening Saturday, and it's the first movie I see. And I'm automatically in when you get this trick of the opening tracking shot around, like what looks like a dusty basement.

[C]

Yep. Spooky. It's a spooky opening.

[B]

Yeah. So you think movie called Ghost. There must. There must be something. There must be a ghost in this. In this basement area or like there's some light. So I don't know how it registered to me, but definitely a scary space. And you're getting the credits and the screen is black. And then all of a sudden the ceiling is broken and light comes through and you're watching Demi Moore, Tony Goldwyn and Patrick Swayze discover that this property they bought has a whole other floor or something. I don't know what the real estate deal is here.

[C]

We could do a whole separate episode on the real estate in this film.

[B]

This is really deep. Anyway, I just. I really. What I was responding to in this movie, I thought at first was this love story between this man and this woman. He gets murdered and she is left to pick up the pieces. But he has a moment where he. It looks like heaven is coming to him. And then all of a sudden it's like, nevermind, we'll come for you later.

[C]

Right. There's a shaft of light with little twinkling fireflies fluttering down. The special effects in this movie suck. They look so bad today. But Total Recall looks amazing still. And these look.

[B]

But do you know why?

[C]

Awful.

[B]

Because the Total Recall effects are done in Came.

[C]

Right, right, right.

[B]

They're not doing a lot of post production work on the effects in Total Recall, all the effects in this movie. Because everybody's. He's like, you Know the effects here. Can Patrick Swayze walk through this door? Can. Can this, like, hospital attendant push this. This gurney through? Patrick Swayze. You gotta do that. You gotta fake that.

[C]

Right, right, right.

[B]

Anyway, yes, you're right. This.

[C]

So he does. He does not accept the shaft of heavenly light. He turns back and stays in the world with the rest of the living. But he's a ghost.

[B]

And he comes to understand that something weird might be happening with his death. He doesn't know exactly what it is, but there's something fishy going on. And he is wandering the streets kind of miserable that maybe Molly, the Demi Moore character, is moving on without him. And one day he's in Brooklyn and what he hears is gospel music on the street. And he is somehow as this ghost responding to gospel music. There is a black woman singing, and he's like, yes, I am gonna catch the spirit. And he goes in to what turns out to be a storefront psychic shop.

[C]

Right.

[B]

The psychic is Whoopi Goldberg. And she makes a great entrance at the 39th minute.

[C]

Yes. The entire movie changes when she comes in. The tone of it, the pace of it, everything about the film changes.

[B]

And she comes out and she's wearing this great lame muumu. And her hair, she's been given this big blown out wig, so her hair is straight and huge. And she sits down and she starts to practice her storefront psychic, you know, fraudulence.

[C]

Right. She's a scam artist.

[B]

Exactly. And I want to just play this scene because it's.

[C]

It's amazing.

[B]

It's incredible.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, in the scheme of this movie and as a reorientation of its priorities.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

As a storyline, it's too difficult. So it's Oda Mae Brown as Whoopi Goldberg's character. She's there with her two sisters on either side of her. Did he know someone by the name of Anna Consuelo?

[C]

She's got a crystal ball on the table.

[B]

Yes. Yes. She's not using it. Josefina. Linda.

[C]

Maria.

[B]

She is Maria. Yes. Praise God. I knew he was with his mama.

[C]

Oh, my God.

[B]

So she hears that her eyes start to do. Whoopi's doing a lot of eye work in this movie. It's too difficult. It's two of them. I'm not sure I can do that. It's so trying. I pay more. How much? She's like, I can't. You can't. I can't take your money.

[C]

A way to go. Milk her for every penny.

[B]

So she's looking around like, what did you guys hear that? And the sisters don't hear anything.

[C]

Right. They think she's losing her mind.

[B]

And so the cash has been accepted for this new attempt to get a name. And the sisters are confused because Whoopi is looking around like, where is this voice coming from? I believe we can start again.

[C]

And her golden outfit is glowing.

[B]

Yes, yes. So she starts again. This music is also fantastic. This new age and Patrick's ways. He's shaking his head. She's convulsing.

[C]

Swayze is just scoffing. He says.

[B]

Now this is a little problematic image here. Her eyes have rolled to the back of her head. This is a classic black movie image. He laughs at what? She's welcome, Santiago. You are fortunate today. The spirits are churning. My husband, have mercy.

[C]

Oh, yeah. Where?

[B]

Just.

[C]

Yeah. Her eye works fantastic.

[B]

Yes. Feel his vibration. I see him. This actress also playing the client. Her belief is so touching. Handsome. This is Santiago. In our Father's kingdom, we are all handsome. Holy Ola. He's really enjoying this. Patrick, he's coming. He's there. I just remember finding this so funny. Yeah, he's dressed. I sat there and laughed at this black suit. Oh, wait, sorry. Can we keep going? Because Be below.

[C]

What a crock of shit.

[B]

Who is that? Here we go. Julio, where are you? Julio. Julio. Did you hear it? So Patrick Swayze's now the one in disbelief that she can hear him. Julio. Julio. So they're having this mutual shock. Don't you hear him? I don't believe this. But it's repelling each other. It's repelling. Can you hear me, Sam?

[C]

Her.

[B]

From him.

[C]

And the shot here, the camera.

[B]

The camera is spinning around as they're chasing each other around the table. Say something, Sam Wheat. Okay, that. I mean, I remember being a kid and finding it so moving that this woman, who she clearly doesn't believe, she has this power, right. Suddenly realizes once this man shows up that she does have it. And I found the. I can only use grown up language to describe what I felt as a kid.

[C]

Sure.

[B]

But I was so fascinated that this white man had gone into this black woman's universe and was interested in communicating with her, realized he could. And she realizes that he can. I don't know that really, the being seen part really spoke to me. And the movie has an awareness of the race dynamics. So she finally. He finally explains to her what's going on. She's very annoyed. She's. Are you white?

[C]

That's an amazing scene when she's. I mean. Cause she can't see him. She can just hear him.

[B]

All she can hear is.

[C]

And so she's constantly saying, where are you? And he's like, I'm right. I'm across the table or whatever. And at a certain point she's like, are you white?

[B]

Yeah. He doesn't answer, by the way, does he not? He does not say, yes, I am. He just is like, oh, God, what is going on here?

[C]

And then she's like, why me?

[B]

Why?

[C]

Yes. No. There's a very interesting racial dynamic. And then you get this kind of. I mean, this white man who needs her for something and needs her body, needs her whole self, needs her body. He doesn't have one. And he needs her body to go around the city and solve this mystery for him. And they become this kind of odd couple of detectives.

[B]

Now, listen, I need to be 14 here. I don't want to be this age.

[C]

Okay?

[B]

I only kind of want to talk about this movie.

[C]

Well, that's not how this works. I had to do Total Recall as.

[B]

A grown up man, but okay. I think the racial truth of this movie is the third breast of Ghost for me.

[C]

Yeah, I agree. I love nothing more than thinking about young Wesley in 1990. And so you're sitting here, you're on the edge of your seat, and you're watching this film, and you watch it and you're processing all these complicated things, and then you decide you have to go back. And then you decide you have to go back again. What? Why? What was it about this? Do you think this is a great film?

[B]

No.

[C]

So what was it that drew you in?

[B]

I think it's been clear so far that the greatness of the movie doesn't matter. With summer movies, it's not important.

[C]

Right.

[B]

But the answer is, like, immediately, no, it's not a great movie. It's like sort of a good movie, but its goodness is in how satisfying a moviegoing experience it is. Right, Right. I will tell you that the third time I saw it, I really wanted to hear people respond to the Whoopi Goldberg parts.

[C]

That's amazing.

[B]

I just loved hearing people love her.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

I loved that it was just the sound of a packed house or pretty packed house. Like cracking up legit. Like with Whoopi Goldberg.

[C]

Right.

[B]

I would turn around and just look at the house laughing. What? Cause I already knew what was coming I wasn't gonna miss. And you would think terms. Do you think? Oh, yeah, I'd still do that. I still look at people watching.

[C]

You watch the people watching the movie even.

[B]

Yeah. Even today. I still turn around and watch people watch the movie.

[C]

Whoa.

[B]

Every once in a while. Yeah.

[C]

Really?

[B]

I love that. The point is, I just really. My heart was so full at the appreciation that America had. This was America's. This was the number one movie of 1990. Not the summer of 1990, but the whole year. And my heart was full as a 14 year old at the fact that I knew, and I could see it watching it today. You know, as an adult. I knew at 14 that the only reason that movie was working was because Whoopi was making it work.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

She's the movie.

[C]

She is.

[B]

I mean, she won an Academy Award, we should say. I've buried a very major lead here. Whoopi Goldberg won an Oscar for playing this part.

[C]

I didn't remember that. And I'm glad she.

[B]

Crazy people. Lorraine Bracco and Goodfellas. Annette Bening in the Grifters. Diane Ladd in Wild at Heart. Like, she beat some great people for that Oscar.

[C]

Deservedly so, because I wasn't loving this movie until she came into it. She is so alive.

[B]

She's the movie star.

[C]

Yeah. Whoopi just is on a different level.

[B]

By the way, one of the things about Premiere magazine that I love, I'm holding it right here. This is the summer movie issue of Premiere magazine for 1990. And this is Arnold Schwarzenegger on the COVID What does it say?

[C]

The headline is worth the wet. He's in a pool under the water, and he's wearing a shirt that says Premieres Summer Movie Preview.

[B]

Like, think about, like, just the power.

[C]

That was a different world that a.

[B]

Magazine had to get the biggest movie star in the world, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to put on their magazine shirt and hang out in a water tank.

[C]

Look how big this object is that you're holding. Look how big it is.

[B]

I mean, that's. That is. That is a relic. That magazine weighs about six pounds. But the reason I'm pulling this out, Sam, is you opened up the. Opened the page. They would rank the top. They were ranked. They were predicting what the top 20 movies at the box office were gonna be.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[B]

They didn't know. Cause this is May. This issue comes out in May. So they're ranking their predictions of the top 20 movies. Guess what's not on that list? As you.

[C]

Their Total recall is. Total Recall is Days of Thunder. Ghost isn't on the list.

[B]

Ghost isn't one of the 20 movies.

[C]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Ghost is in the back in some other section. Like, is like things that could be good or things that could be bad. They didn't even call it. So that to me is just like a demonstration of how deep the bench was for summer movies back then.

[C]

I have never been a declinist, really. So I always think, you know, the summer movie has changed for sure.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Very different. And there is a whole economic kind of superstructure behind that and cultural differences.

[B]

That's a whole other conversation.

[C]

Huge forces. Right.

[B]

But important ones that have direct bearing on the nature of the movies we get now versus the ones we got. Like the summer movie, we should say, is a development of. In the last 50 years of moviegoing.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Summer movie begins. The idea of a summer Movie begins in 75. 1975. With jaws. With Jaws. Did I really nail that, you dingy? Ding, ding, ding.

[C]

I just pulled it. Right?

[B]

Yes. Jaws. Jaws starts. Jaws is 50 years old this year.

[C]

So the summer movie is a historical thing. People no doubt were saying from 1975 on, certainly in 1990, looking at the slate of summer movies coming out that year and saying, this is garbage and humanity is dying. And the people watch, the young kids in Philadelphia and Lodi, California, watching this slop are being spiritually diminished in a way they will have no idea about. Right. I mean, people have always said these.

[B]

Things, but there are these shifts generationally in terms of the way these movies have been received. Right. Jaws, the biggest movie of 75. Right. Like a world conquering, paradigm shifting Entertainment idea in 75. Setting aside like the actual brilliance of Steven Spielberg's filmmaking in the movie itself, just what it signified for the industry was received as a death knell.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Because it then meant that these studios were then gonna be programming movies to play in the summer and it was gonna bastardize a whole zone of ideas and ideas making. Right.

[C]

Show me the lie.

[B]

Right, Right.

[C]

I mean, we've always been in a free fall from something and we've always been produc at whatever moment we're in. And I think we still are in certain ways. I saw the Minecraft movie. I saw it with my son and I enjoyed it. You know why?

[B]

Because.

[C]

Because there's a movie star in it.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Jack Black is incredible in that film. People are throwing popcorn at the screen and they're screaming and they're singing. My son's friends were there from high school and they were shouting and singing along and like. And it's a big, raucous, fun summer movie experience. And it really felt like that. And I don't care about the Minecraft ness of it in the same way, I don't care about twirling, twinkling lights of heaven and ghost. It's Whoopi Goldberg and it's Jack Black. And like, that's good.

[B]

I have two thoughts about that.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Thought number one is I just want to be clear. This is a spring movie.

[C]

That's true.

[B]

Minecraft is officially not a summer movie.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

That's A. Huh. B, I mean, Minecraft is a very interesting property to think about a 14 year old version of me seeing if I were of the Minecraft generation. This is a movie based on a video game. Right. So there's a way in which there's a snake eating its tail aspect of the Minecraft success.

[C]

Sure.

[B]

And that's disturbing to me because in 1990 I was not being given anything that I'd previously had before, except maybe some movie stars and some genres. I mean, I don't know. You're gonna now say something very sophisticated.

[C]

I absolutely am.

[B]

But it is on its face different.

[C]

I think you are a little bit old man shouting at Cloud.

[B]

I'm not.

[C]

I think in 90 we were getting, you know, you were going to see Whoopi Goldberg, I was going to see Arnold Schwarzenegger and I was going to see some Star wars like spectacle of violence and chasing and whatever.

[B]

But it wasn't Star Wars.

[C]

Movies have always been snakes eating their own tails. That's all the movies is. Look at Buster Keaton making movies about movies.

[B]

No, they're, they're like at best. Right? Like at their best, it's skin shedding.

[C]

Right.

[B]

It's snakes eating other animals. Right?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It's not what we're getting now, which is like a closed loop.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

So I don't know, it just feels like, like I'm just grateful for this experience because I don't think we're sitting here talking to each other. If I have a different one.

[C]

Yeah. I am very glad that you loved Ghost as much as you did back in the summer of 1990 and that I got to hear you talk about it.

[B]

I feel the same way. Okay. Sam, thank you for coming to talk to me.

[C]

Thanks for having me. I got so excited when you sent me that list of 1990 movies.

[B]

You. You responded immediately.

[C]

Yeah, that usually doesn't happen, but I saw Total Recall on that list and then I forced you to talk about it.

[B]

Thanks.

[C]

Thanks for having me on.

[B]

Of course.

[C]

Yeah. Consider that a divorce.

[B]

I don't want a divorce.

[C]

I'll see you at the party.

[B]

I'll see you at the party. It's your headline to unpack.

[C]

It's your one story to follow week by week.

[B]

It's your wordle to work through. It's your team to track. It's your 36 hours to explore. It's your marinade to master. It's your opinion to figure out.

[A]

It's your mattress to upgrade.

[B]

It's your day to know what else you need to know today. The New York Times it's your world to understand. Find out [e-mail] yourworld this episode of Cannonball was produced by John White, Elissa Dudley, Janelle Anderson and Austin Mitchell. It was edited by Lisa Tobin. This episode was engineered by Daniel. It was recorded by Matty Masiello, Kyle Grandillo and Nick Pittman. It features original music by Dan Powell and Diane Wong. Our theme music, as always, is by Justin Ellington. Our video team is Brooke Minters and Felice Leon. This episode was filmed by Alfredo Chiarapa. It was edited by Jeremy Rocklin, Amy Marino and Jamie Heffitz. Thanks to them, you can also watch this show on YouTube. Check that out. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Talk to you soon. Bye.

[C]

Sa.