Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All-Time, Parts 1-3 (2019-2020): Season 1, Episode 1 - Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All-Time- Vol. 1 Midnight Madness - full transcript

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A cult film to me
is a film of a certain genre

that has a hard-core
following of fans.

The more you see it,
the more you see in it.

It becomes like a friend.

Even the bad parts
of the movie,

they forgive it.

That movie is pretty rocking,

but, God,
nobody knows about it.

My own criteria
is just my own experience.

A movie
that fell through the cracks.

It has to be an accident.



It's a genius,
brilliant movie.

You think it's much,
much better than it is.

We know it when we see it.

That's what makes it interesting.

Everybody's is different.

If people are able
to look at the film

and you hear them say the lines.

It strikes a chord.

I think a cult film
is something

that people think
is something they've discovered

and they like.

It comes at you
in so many different ways.

Usually it's an art film.

Profanity, murder,
bullets, wounds.



It's just funny.

All these films
are really good.

They're just misunderstood.

Some people
would be like, well,

why don't you just let the movie
speak for itself and shut up?

Fuck you.

Every movie is a cult film.

It is the greatest cult film
of all time.

Sexually repressed couple
murders swingers and eats them.

That'll make them go see it.

And then came the "Time Warp."

Why don't we talk about
what's a cult film.

I think in L.A.,
it is a word

I would never say
when I'm trying to get a deal.

Because to Hollywood executives,
"cult film" means

that 20 people that were smarter
than them liked it

and it lost a lot of money.

- That's right.
- That's what a cult movie is.

- Never say that word.
- That's very true,

And I don't think anybody
starts out to make a cult film.

I was thinking
of like cult movies

as you need fellow cultists

to introduce you to something.

Like you need to know
about this.

Someone needs to
turn you on to it.

And with those movies
came out, there was no video.

A cult move...
I guess a midnight movie

that was a hit
was by definition...

that's sort of what
started that in a way.

And then they showed them.

Then it got
a whole new reputation

if it played at midnight.

"Rocky Horror Picture Show"

was obviously a movie
that nobody got,

nobody understood
when it was new.

And then all of a sudden,
it became I guess

probably the most successful
cult film.

- Yes, definitely.
- In terms of midnight shows.

It got the people who were
coming and dressing up

and talking to the screen
and all that kind of stuff,

and that phenomenon
is still going on.

I can't think of another movie
that has audience participation.

Or where you were allowed to,

because before, the ushers
would come, shut up, you know.

And I would complain.

Now there's
audience participation,

people talking on their phone,

which makes me crazy
when I go to movies, right?

But the audience participation
is encouraged,

but when that movie was made,

they didn't know
that was going to happen.

It came out as a regular
Hollywood movie and failed.

And then this started.
Amazingly it caught on.

And their parents
take them to it.

That's the thing. It's safe.

It's a generational thing.

If your kid
is in "Rocky Horror,"

you know where they are.

There with gay people.
It's all right, you know?

It's a safe place to drop off
your kids on Friday night.

Yes, I never knew
what a cult film was

till we became one,
because there wasn't one.

If I had to pick a film,
that's the cult film.

It ran for maybe 20 years
at TLA.

The plot of "The Rocky Horror
Picture Show"

is that a lost
All-American couple

ends up at the doorstep
of a mad scientist.

I wonder if you might help us.

You see, our car broke down
a few miles up the road.

And seek help.

Brad, I'm frightened.

What kind of a place is this?

He embraces them

and lets them watch him
making his perfect man.

And there is
this kind of shock,

especially
when you first see it.

Just this transvestite
with no fear, no shame.

It really is like a rock star.

The reason people think

it's the greatest cult movie
of all time

is because it's their movie.
They own it.

It's as if they make it every
night they go to the theater.

It was the first film
that the audience

started talking back
to the screen.

How very dare they.

And then people
started dressing up.

Because that's what people do,

I mean who were going to the
movies at midnight on Friday.

And remember,
it was 1975 or '76,

so most of them
were chemically altered.

So we have now Patricia Quinn

teaching us how to do
the Time Warp. Right.

It's just a jump to the left

and then a step
to the ri-ah-ah-ah-ah-right

with your hands on your hips.

I say, would you get to it,
give it a good thrust.

"Rocky Horror"
paid our rent all the time.

We would have like 30 people in
for a 9:30 screening,

415 people in
for the midnight screening.

It was something... for years

we could always
count on that money.

It has amazing music.

I mean, there are like
nine songs in "Rocky Horror"

that are all standouts
and catchy

and you want to sing them.

So my parents song
is "Science Fiction"

because my dad used to sing it
to me when I was a baby.

He got me into "Rocky"
when I was three.

If I have one favorite song,
probably "Dammit, Janet."

Jim Sharman, the director,
deserves so much credit.

It was a very difficult shoot.

It was cold, it was wet.

Susan came home with pneumonia.

Look, I'm cold, I'm wet,
and I'm just plain scared.

It seemed to go
very smoothly to me.

There weren't any toilets
on the set.

And that the most wonderful
thing was Tim Curry,

to see him create
that character.

And Tim Curry didn't get it
till the first rehearsal

when he put on the high heels.

And the minute he put on
the shoes, he...

It's hard to imagine anyone

other than Tim Curry
in that role.

Tim appealed sexually
to men and women.

That was a very key detail.

Come up to the lab
and see what's on the slab.

Tim Curry is a friend,

and we went to see it
at the height of all that.

He said, let's go down
to the Waverly.

There was a whole line,

and he said, let's just
go to the box office.

He went to the box office,

and he said, good evening,
I'm Tim Curry.

And she turned and she said,

Morris,
there's another Tim Curry.

She said, nah, he's not.
Ignore him.

So to put his passport...
gave her the passport.

Looks at the passport
and said,

Morris, this one's
got a passport.

So Morris finally
came out from behind the cage

and looked and said,
oh, shit, you're Tim Curry.

And meanwhile, there are
like three Frank-N-Furters

in line behind
going, it's Tim Curry.

So it was pre-selfies,

so, you know,
nobody could do anything.

But we went in
and they let us in for free

to watch the thing.

And he said, well,
so much for my charisma.

With "Rocky Horror
Picture Show,"

they would throw toast
and especially rice

and all kinds of things
in the theater.

And we would not clean
the theater until the morning,

and during that time,

we developed a really bad
mouse infestation

where they would come out

and have a feast
in the middle of the night.

The beginning crowd was a little
older and it was a little gayer,

and people started
just to find the film.

Then it exploded

like no other cult film
has exploded audience wise.

At one point
there was maybe 170 screens

showing the film around
the country at midnight

many times to sold-out houses.

- I adore the fans.
- They've always been marvelous.

And it changed my life.

That was the very first time
in my entire existence

that I felt like, wow,

this is like where
I'm accepted for who I am.

I'm where I'm supposed to be.

And I think that's an experience

that a lot of people get
from it.

That film has helped so many
people through difficult times,

coming to terms
with their sexuality.

That's been a really moving
aspect of the whole thing.

And of course,
that contributes enormously

to the fact that
it is the cult that it is.

This movie gave you permission
to be who you are.

You know,
don't dream it, be it.

People say to me, what about
"Gone With The Wind?"

I say it went.

We're the only film that
never, ever left the cinema.

I think Richard O'Brien
tapped into something

that already existed

and just gave it shape
and gave it form

in a very theatrical way.

I always hope
that Richard O'Brien

realizes the profound effect
that his little musical

has had on so many people
and continues.

And I honestly don't see it
finishing anytime soon.

Shut the fuck up, Donny.

Where's the fucking money,
you little brat?

What the fuck
are you talking about?

What the fuck is with this guy?

Shut the fuck up, Donny.

Leave me the fuck alone!

Shut the fuck up, Donny.

Every "man, dude,"
every "fuck"

is right where it should be,
you know.

And you don't want
to mess with it.

Do you have to use
so many cuss words?

What the fuck
you talking about?

The plot of "The Big Lebowski."

Well, some guy named The Dude
gets his rug peed on.

The Dude minds.
This will not stand, you know.

This aggression
will not stand, man.

And he goes about
trying to find out who did it,

and that leads to all kinds
of adventures for him.

It's down there somewhere.
Let me take another look.

"The Big Lebowski"
is basically

a satire of Raymond Chandler
gumshoe movies.

I will compensate you
to the tune of 10%.

- 100...
- Thousand, yes.

Bones or clams
or whatever you call them.

They decided to take the least
likely detective figure,

in this case an asshole stoner.

Bummer.

Who bowls
and drinks White Russians,

the least cool drink
in the world,

and is somehow launched

on an odyssey to recover
a kidnapped woman.

Where's Bunny?

Well, I thought
you might know that, man.

He doesn't know
what's going on.

He moves through it in a fog.

You're Bunny.

I'll suck your cock
for $1,000.

"The Big Lebowski" needed to
be seen and re-seen on cable.

It frankly needed to be seen
high to really appreciate it.

Say what you will morally
about marijuana use,

but there are ways in which

they really lend themselves
to cult movies.

Aah! Aah! Oh!

The movie, you know,
when it came out

I think it went over
most people's heads.

I'll fuck you in the ass
next Wednesday instead.

Whoo!

I didn't really get,

you know,
all the nuances initially.

I was a big fan
of the Coen Brothers.

I ran into them many years
before I read the script.

They said, we're writing
something for you.

I said, oh, great.

And then I read this script,

and it wasn't like anything
I'd ever done before.

It seemed like they had,
you know, been spying on me

in my early twenties
or something, you know.

He's the man
for his time and place.

Everyone wants to be
a guy who never grows up.

So the kids see this,

but it's really men who are
25 years older than that,

and they...
especially guys, I think...

you know, relate to that.

It's kind of like
a whole philosophy

and a way of looking at life.

Okay, sir. You're a Lebowski,
I'm a Lebowski.

That's terrific.

Why is it such a cult classic?

It's just a damn good film.

It's so well made.

I'd take "Big Lebowski" over
"Kingpin" any day personally.

No, I really love
"Big Lebowski."

And, you know,
I love "Kingpin," too.

They're different.
They shouldn't be compared

just because
they're about bowling.

Because if you're going
to talk about pure bowling,

we're the better bowling movie.

Talk about a better movie,
they'll win I think.

The kind of acting I admire

looks like
you don't see any effort.

There's just, oh,
it's just spilling out.

And that's what this movie is.

But the spill, each thing

is such a beautiful little
curly cue, you know.

And you just find
more and more cool things

to dig as you watch it.

"The Big Lebowski"
is a cult movie

because it's constantly
surprising you.

There is not a scene
you can predict.

There is not an element

that fits together
with any other element.

You are always being
thrown off track by it

even if you seen it 100 times.

You think I'm fucking around
here? Mark it zero.

And it has some of the most
quotable lines.

You see what happens when
you fuck a stranger in the ass?

It gets funnier as you see it.

And I've seen and people shout.
They know the lines.

Nobody fucks with the Jesus.

And it really hit me

like the third time I saw it
10 years later.

I was like, this is hilarious,
this movie.

I have a bumper sticker
that says...

You know, that's just like
your opinion, man.

I didn't get
"The Big Lebowski."

And then I saw it again
and I got it.

And it's one of those movies
that every time you see it

it makes you laugh and there's
things about it you love

and you repeat
the dialogue lines.

The Dude abides.

The Dude abides, you know.

That's just your opinion, man.
You know what I mean?

It don't matter to Jesus.
You know what I mean?

- I am the walrus.
- I am the walrus, you know.

It goes on and on and on,
and it's really funny.

So favorite scenes, well,

you know, Turturro,
I love watching his stuff.

I have to say,
I've gotten a lot of sex mail

about "The Big Lebowski"
from men and women.

So I don't know what that means.

It must have touched a nerve.

For my own stuff,
I like that scene

with me in the back
of the Big Lebowski's limo.

Hey, careful, man.
There's a beverage here. Hey!

What in God's holy name
are you blathering about?

Well, I'll tell you
what I'm blathering about.

I've got information, man.
New shit has come to light.

New shit has come to light,
you know, that scene.

I like that scene.

My favorite scene
in "The Big Lebowski"

has always been they're
scattering somebody's ashes,

but they didn't check
the forecast that day.

The wind was blowing in,
as they say,

from Wrigley Field.
Got a little messy.

And the... blows on The Dude

and The Dude
gets pissed off at Walter

and Walter hugs him, you know.

There's a warmth.
I almost feel...

like a little tear
will come up, you know.

I get a little ferklempt,
you know, when that happens.

It's a warm feeling, you know.

The movie has so many of those.

Jeffrey.

Maude?

Love me.

That's my robe.

Every once in a while,
I like to invite my family

to come to the set
and see what I've been up to.

And I thought, oh, well,
this will be a good day.

The dream sequence, you know.

It's like a Busby Berkeley
thing, and it'll be fun.

And then when the day came,

I think why the hell did I
invite my wife and my daughters

to see me go through
these girls legs

and look up at their vaginas,
you know?

You know, what was I thinking?

I look up like that
and I see this pubic bush,

these tufts of pubic hair
coming out of this leotard,

and I go, oh, my God.

And the next lady has,
you know, more incredible bush.

And they had gone
to the makeup guy

and gotten crêpe hair and
stuffed it in their leotards,

you know, so it gave everyone
a good laugh except me.

I was kind of horrified.

But I was surprised when
the movie first came out

that it wasn't a big hit,

because it made me laugh,
you know.

I thought it was pretty great,
but it didn't do much.

I think there is something
about turning your friends on

to something that's rare, that
not too many people know about

that's exciting
for both parties, you know.

So I think "Lebowski"
kind of cashes in on that.

Well, I'm always happy to hear
somebody's a big fan of my films

for reasons that
I don't always understand.

But, hey, go for it.

black and stacked.

When Foxy Brown comes to town,
all the brothers gather round.

The assignment was
a black woman revenge movie.

A good revenge story
will always get the audience,

whether it's revenge
in a spaghetti western,

a blaxploitation, biker film,

the good revenge story
always gets the audience hooked.

- What do you want with me?
- My name's Coffin.

Lubelle Coffin's
is my little sister.

Lubelle?

She's a smack addict at 11,

and you gave it to her,
you dirty shake!

Please!

And they coined blaxploitation,

because you get "Boxoffice,"
the exhibitor's magazine

to see what you want to license
for your theater chain.

And so exploitation
means for adult.

It means profanity.

White motherfucker.

- What are you doing?
- Put that down.

You want to spit on me
and make me crawl?

I'm going to piss on your grave tomorrow.

Murder, bullets, wounds, gore,

that's exploitation
of, you know, people.

You're showing that.

And so they turned blaxploitation

to explain that
it's for a black audience.

Marketing said a lot of
black people go to the movies,

and they like to see themselves
in the movies.

And so, of course,
they made movies

about what they thought were
the black people of the time,

and they were all criminals
in dashikis

with huge Afro hairdos.

Now, I don't do
no leather work, man.

No whips, ropes, chains,
and none of those fetish freaks.

Just plain sex.

I think
blaxploitation films

would be seen
very differently by all of us

if no one had ever invented
the term "blaxploitation."

It's really horrible word
when you think about it.

It's kind of racist, and it
really makes those movies

sound like they are
the lowest of the low.

Even within
the black community,

within respectable elements
of the black community,

considered it to be,
you know, demeaning somehow.

Where actually what they were

were pretty interesting
low-budget action films

that were expressing something
brand-new about society.

So you see,
it's this vicious combination

of big business and government

which has kept our sisters prostitutes

and our brothers dope peddlers.

But the interesting thing

was there were
these female heroines,

Cleopatra Jones and Foxy Brown,

and Pam Grier
playing a lot of them,

and obviously they influenced
Quentin Tarantino,

because, you know,
he made movies in that image.

The "we" I see in you and me

got one motherfucking thing
to talk about.

One thing, and that's what
you are willing to do for me.

Those were like
positive depictions.

She was cleaning up
her own neighborhood.

Jesus! You saved
my beautiful black ass.

- You really did.
- Mm-hmm.

How it started was I had done
four films for Roger Corman,

and then did
"Black Mama, White Mama."

And then they said,
oh, my God, her audience

is just, you know,
packed with people

coming four or five times,
buying a lot of concessions.

Oh, my, she's just...

And I'm like, I just wanted to
do four or five for tuition.

I'm done.

She's sweet brown sugar
with a touch of spice.

If you see a man anywhere,
send him in,

because I do need a man.

So now you've got
a very pro-feminist movie

and you've got a black film.

Okay, it's not just like
Fred Williamson

we're looking at now,
or Isaac Hayes.

We've got
sexy looking Pam Grier.

So it's sort of two-for-one
of those films.

Black exploitation
was a terminology

that I never really understood.

Like, it means that somebody
was being exploited.

Here now you have black actors

finally working
and making a dollar,

a little more
than they made before.

You have a black audience

that now the blacks in the film
are the heroes.

So I never really
quite understood

who was being exploited.

How much time do you have?

About Pam Grier,
I could go on and on and on.

We all flocked to see her

because of the things that
she brought to those movies.

And every one of those things,

whether it's Foxy Brown
or Coffy,

there is a conviction.

And she's carried
that conviction

in everything she does
since then.

I'm told that you are
a dangerous man, Arturo.

I like that.

When the studio first called
me in and talked about this,

they said that the reason they
wanted to shoot the picture

and get it done quickly

was because Warners
was doing a picture called...

"Cleopatra Jones"
starring Tamara Dobson.

Which was a black woman star
doing an action movie.

The producer had originally
brought the project to AIP,

and AIP
has thought it was great.

They wanted to do it,

and then the producer
went behind their back

and got a better deal
with Warner Bros.,

and so AIP said we want to get
our own out fast, you know.

The studio was asking me
about other actresses,

and my position was
I wrote this for Pam Grier.

She has demonstrated
already her capabilities.

She's made about six or seven
pictures already,

and she's the only one

who really can bring
this character to life.

And the very next day
Jack Hill called me

and said I'm doing a picture
in the Philippines.

Want to come?
I said, uh, yeah.

And he told me about
this girl that he found

who was a receptionist
at American International Films,

was absolutely gorgeous,
dynamic, smart, funny.

He went on and on and on.

I said okay, okay,
I get it, I get it.

All right, let's just do this.

Got to the Philippines,
and I met Pam Grier.

And I went, oh, my God,

everything he said
was absolutely true.

I mean, Pam and I
did six films together.

That was kind of unheard of
at the time.

You philandering
fornicating bastard!

You went off with that
skinny honky for two days

and gonna come back here
and call me honey?

And the first director of that
deal was Jack Hill for "Coffy."

And I was surprised, you know,
because it was urban,

and he included me
in the development process.

It wasn't just her personality
and her authority,

but her knowledge.

I said, okay, Jack,
have you been to the 'hood?

If you haven't, you need to go.

You need to see, feel, and hear.

For example, I worked with her
very closely on the script.

Certain ideas like sharpening
a bobby pin as a deadly weapon.

Who'd ever think of that?

Using wire coat hangers

to twist
so that she got all these hooks.

Hey, what the hell
are you doing?

Get away from there you...

Aah!

- And slicing it.
- I'd never think of that.

And the greatest one was putting
razor blades in her hair

so if she gets into a fight
and somebody grabs her hair,

which women
are liable to do...

- Aah!
- Aah!

After all the other stuff,
I mean, using a gun wrap, okay.

Easy. No problem.

Coffy was kind of clever
that Pam Grier did

because she found unique ways
to kill people with.

Kind of unique, you know.

It's not something
you expect, you know.

So that kind of made it work.

But then you;re too busy
looking at Pam.

You don't really care
what Pam does.

My favorite scene

was Pam's great moment
at the end

when Pam's boyfriend, her lover,

is trying to talk her out
of what...

he's just ordered her
to be killed, you know,

and she survived.

And he's trying
to talk her out of it.

Power changed things
for our people.

I want to get all that money

back into the hands
of black people like you and me.

Bullshit.
You're just selling out

to the white gangsters
and businessmen.

You're worse than they are,
and I loved you.

I loved you so much.

People in the audience
are saying, don't listen to him.

Don't listen to him, you know.

So in a sense, what Pam did
with that scene

was so great for her
as an actress

that I really remember that.

However, more than once
women have told me

that like their favorite scene
was when she holds the shotgun.

This is the end
of your rotten life,

you motherfucking dope pusher.

Pam Grier,
that one chick hit squad

who creamed do you as Coffy

is back to do a job on the mob

as Foxy Brown.

Sounds like a public menace.

Sure do.

Aah!

The chick with drive
who don't take no jive.

The studio had such a success
with "Coffy."

When you have to rush out
a sequel

because of a surprise hit,
you know,

you tend to use the ideas that
you rejected for the first one.

"Foxy Brown" is another revenge
story where her boyfriend,

his murder is the result of
a betrayal by her own brother.

Aah!

Now I only got
so much control,

and I'm liable to put one of
these right between your eyes

no matter what mama would say.

And so you have
a real conflict.

And along the way, she has
to pretend to be a hooker

and, you know, the usual things

in order to bring about
what she wants to do.

The younger generations today,

which is like maybe
three generations later,

is still really into it.

And in fact, the other day
I saw on the Internet, eBay,

somebody's doing statuettes
of Coffy and Foxy Brown.

You know, hand-painted and
selling for hundreds of dollars.

You know, who could imagine
such a thing?

Now, of course, you know,

they would probably give her
an Image Award

because of her durability

and the fact that
she has lasted for so long

and because now it's possible

for the generations
who saw those movies

to appreciate
that kind of credibility,

that kind of conviction.

It's just too bad that
she didn't get enough of it

when she was really active
and really doing those movies.

I am among other pioneers.

That for me is...

You know, I don't want to
overuse the word awesome,

awesome sauce,
or anything like that.

It is an honor.

Let me tell you of something

that happened right here
in our own city.

You probably read about it
in the papers.

However I'll give you
the real facts behind the case.

The original "Reefer Madness"
is an agitprop movie.

It was made to warn people off
of smoking marijuana,

which was the devil's weed.

And it's so earnest and so stern
that it's hilarious

because it's almost
the definition of camp.

Failed seriousness.

Isn't it true that you have
acquired a certain harmful habit

through association with
certain undesirable people?

The basic plot of "Reefer
Madness" is a woman and a man.

- Where do you put it?
- You got a hollow leg?

Who are kind of pushing
marijuana on to teenagers.

That's the one
I was telling you about.

Very nice.

It's a propaganda film
put out in the 1930s

to warn parents of the evils
and danger, of peril

of your children
succumbing to the reefer.

Come on, Bill.

It's one of the only movies

that you can see
clear propaganda.

- Rape...
- No, no!

Suicide...

Aah!

Reckless driving...

Attempted murder...

Aah!

So originally the propaganda
came out of a church group

that paid for this film.

Good morning, Miss. We're
from the police department.

So then after that,
a producer purchased the film,

and re-cut it
and then pushed it out

onto the exploitation
film circuit into perpetuity.

Shut up! Shut up!

So that in the mid-seventies,

it sort of reemerged
as a cult classic.

There was
this whole group of people

that would go to midnight movies
and smoke weed in the theater.

Buy me some reefers.

I think "Reefer Madness"
became a cult classic

because it is so funny
and so serious

and because everybody
was smoking dope.

Wow. Like if the church group

that put this film out

knew what the film
was being used for,

they're just rolling over
in their graves.

Do I understand
you wish to plead guilty

to a charge of fostering
moral delinquency

in the case of William Harper?

Yes, yes, I'm guilty.
I am.

If you're going to watch
"Reefer Madness,"

I highly recommend
you getting high.

That's how to watch it.

The next tragedy
may be that of your daughter

or your son

or yours or yours or yours.

"Freaks."
Something I've seen twice.

You don't see that around.

That is a real cult film for me.

It's primal. The fear is,
oh, this could happen to me.

If somebody is going back

and looking through
the history of cult cinema,

one of the earliest ones has
to be Tod Browning's "Freaks."

There are a lot of great
horror movies of the time,

but if you want one
that is still really shocking,

you know, the first cult movie,

that's the one you go with
and it's "Freaks."

To my mind, it's the scariest
movie of all time

because it's made
with real people.

The authenticity that's there

is at once fascinating,
repulsive, exciting.

It's a dangerous film

where you as the audience
don't quite know what to feel.

It was a film that touched me,
you know,

because you saw something that
was a little bit disturbing.

And then you saw beyond
the disturbing figure

and you saw a person
that was a human being.

I thought "Freaks"
was a spectacular film.

"Freaks" is about a circus,
sort of a PT Barnum-esque circus

of people who have deformities
and maladies.

It was made
in the early thirties,

so it became shocking
and salacious

and it was kind of buried.

People didn't want to go see it.

A tragic love triangle

between a little couple
and this larger woman.

She's the most beautiful
big woman I have ever seen.

Who comes in, breaks up the
couple to get the man's money.

Oh, it's so good to be rubbed.

A fortune,
and I have him like that.

And everything goes wrong.

To me you're a man,

but to her you're only
something to laugh at.

- Let them laugh.
- They're swine.

The other freaks
welcome her in

because, hey, you're nice
to us. Thank you.

We'll make her one of us.

There's the marriage scene

where all of the people
of the circus

are sitting around
the wedding table.

They are welcoming this
normal woman to their table

and saying
you're now one of us.

We accept her, one of us.

Gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble.

And they start chanting
"one of us."

One of us. One of us.

Gooble-gobble, gooble-gobble.

One of us, one of us.

We accept you, one of us.

- One of us.
- One of us.

And I think that must be how
it feels to be in the audience

watching a cult film
with a bunch of other weirdos.

It's one of us.
You have joined our club.

- Freaks! Freaks!
- Get out of here!

Then they find out the plot,

and then they take their
disgusting revenge on her

and make her a freak
just like them,

and it's really upsetting.

My father had told me
about "Freaks" when I was a kid,

and then one day
it was playing at the Elgin.

And so I went to see it,
and having certain expectations

because my father
was like scared of it,

it freaked him out.

But when I saw it, I really
identified with the freaks

and I liked them.

And I love the pinheads.

They were just like
sweet children.

It just felt like
what a great community.

And the fact that those
horrible, horrible

what we're
supposed to identify with

is the like regular
human beings, you know,

the sexy woman
and the strong man, you know,

I thought
they got what they deserved.

It was like, yeah, get her.

Tod Browning was the director
of this movie,

and he was coming off "Dracula,"

which was an enormous hit.

And so he sort of could kind of
do whatever he wanted.

Browning was no slouch.

It is a genuinely terrifying,
wonderfully made picture.

We're aghast because these
nice people are turning deadly

because somebody
has wronged them.

Believe it or not,
there she is.

They take their revenge
and make her one of them.

Tod Browning really is
invested in his characters

and what their lives are like.

He's not inviting you
to laugh at them.

Part of what's fascinating
about "Freaks"

is the way he's like,

and here they are
hanging up their laundry.

And here they are
falling in love.

It's fascinating to me

how we've come this far
since 1932,

and we still don't have movies

that treat people with,
you know,

severe physical disabilities

with that same level of respect
that you see in "Freaks."

- Come on, Venus.
- The bigger lady's baby's born.

I mean, it's almost shocking

that this movie
is still shocking.

"Freaks" ended up being

one of the first cult movies
of all time

mostly through notoriety
I believe.

Like individual censors of
different counties and cities

didn't want to show it,

and so that just drove interest
up through the roof.

And so people would go
and seek it out.

And there would be kind of,
you know, midnight screenings.

Midnight movies
weren't a thing back then.

It's a movie that could
have very easily become lost

or, you know, been destroyed.

It took the actual resiliency
of people who liked the movie

and thought
it was worth preserving

that it has continued
the way it has today.

Aah!

Well, now you're talking
my language, David Lynch land.

I visited it and it's something.

I mean, this did not look like
anything you've ever seen,

and I've seen surrealistic
movies all my life,

so it's like, oh, my God.

This is really
from another place.

David Lynch
has a cult following.

There's no doubt.

He might be the cultiest
director for a lot of reasons.

There are people that will
see anything that he does.

It's a very nightmarish movie,

and it definitely is one
of the ultimate cult movies.

It's the kind of movie that you
see with an audience at midnight

in a grind house
or even an art house,

because a lot of critics,
mainstream critics,

embraced the film
because of its strangeness.

"Eraserhead" is about a man

who cannot come to terms
with marriage and a child.

Period. End of story.

Now, how that is framed

is enough to send you
to the mental ward.

How to describe "Eraserhead?"

Well, what does David Lynch
tell us?

He tells us it's a dream
of dark and disturbing things,

and I think that's good enough.

You know, Hollywood with the
whole idea of stars and things,

I sure wasn't into,
you know.

I didn't want big names.

I wanted people
that were obscure

because if you're going
into the netherworld,

you don't want to go in
with Chuck Heston.

"Eraserhead" is about
a guy courting a girl,

and her family's kind of weird.

- We've got chicken tonight.
- Strangest damn things.

They're man-made.
Little damn things.

Smaller than my fist,
and they're new.

And they have this baby
that's deformed.

And there's this pretty lady
living at the end of the hall

that this guy
would rather be with

than his wife and the sick baby.

But it's kind of creepier
than that,

and some people really see
deeper things in "Eraserhead,"

which will make it
a cult movie forever.

Anything goes, you know.

Like if somebody sees it

and wants to make
a political film out of it,

you know, they can do that,
you know.

It's fine with me because
it's not fair for me to say,

oh, you didn't get it, you know.

Because the film is so abstract.

I was in the middle of it

and I asked the kid
working for me,

I said, you get David
on the phone.

I want this film.

And he looked at me
and said, you're crazy.

The cultural significance
of "Eraserhead"

is it introduced this genius
filmmaker to the world.

He was soon embraced
by Hollywood

and producers
like Dino de Laurentiis,

who gave him a shot
at "Dune" and "Blue Velvet"

and of course Mel Brooks,

who gave him the keys
to "The Elephant Man,"

which has a lot of "Eraserhead"
in it, you know.

"Eraserhead" and "The Elephant Man"

are very good companion movies
in some ways.

And in some ways,

"Eraserhead" is the last
I think true cult film,

because I don't think
David Lynch made it

trying to like
cash into this audience

or this midnight movie circuit.

I think he made it
as an expression of things

that were very important to him
as an author

and as something
he'd want to see.

It's got special effects.

I mean, the most amazing thing
in "Eraserhead"

is the creation
of that little monster baby,

which really was
sort of as extraordinary

as the one in "Alien."

We came very close to a future

where "Eraserhead" didn't exist.

He premieres it
at a film festival here in L.A.

24 people show up,
and that's it.

It could have died, you know.

The next night,
25 people show up. Okay.

And then from there,

a local theater is convinced
just put it on at midnight,

and it ran for a year.

"Eraserhead" played
seven nights a week.

By the way, most
of the other midnight movies

only played Friday
and Saturday at midnight.

Weirdly I live
in Philadelphia,

and David Lynch
went to art school here

at the Pennsylvania Academy
of Fine Arts,

and he used to live in North
Philadelphia near the morgue.

And that neighborhood
where he lived

is now called the Eraserhood.

So it's 40 years
after "Eraserhead"

there's a neighborhood
named after it.

Henry and Mary
got caught in the past,

and there's not a whole lot
happening that is normal.

Mary?

Mother.

There's this
strange combination

that David Lynch does

of the most bizarre images
and situations

with like regular reactions,

like this like baby thing
that's like suffering.

And he goes, oh, you are sick.

Oh, you are sick.

That's what you would say

if your kid started coughing
and complaining,

and you'd go, stop it.

But it's this monster.

I actually think it's
one of the only cult movies

that really feels like
a work of art.

It's so beautifully crafted.

It really is like a dream.

And then that lady singing
in heaven, everything is fine,

and you just go, what
am I watching and where am I?

I think we would
appreciate "Eraserhead"

as an organic masterpiece,

as something
that seems to have come

directly from the churning mind
of a unique individual

who somehow has a pipeline
from his id to the screen.

"Eraserhead" is this strange combination

of art house and universal
and its emotions.

I think that's the combination

that's made it linger
for so long

is there is something in there.

It's not just cold
and inaccessible.

There's a heart in there
that you can feel.

"Pink Flamingos"
was definitely a midnight hit.

It played for 10 years in some
theaters, the biggest ones.

But how that was marketed
is completely different.

It never opened at once.

It took three years
to open around the country.

We go to the city, we'd start,
we do the press.

It would be one week, and
then it would go to two weeks,

three weeks, four weeks.

And then we moved
to the next city.

I saw "Pink Flamingos"

when it was at the height
of his popularity at midnight

when the whole audience
is roaring,

and then I'd see it in court

when I was charged
with obscenity

at 10 A.M. with 12 jurors.

It was obscene.

It was obscene then
at 10:00 in the morning.

It was like, oh, my God.
I'm going to jail forever.

And I never won the case.

Even after the Museum
of Modern Art bought a print,

I thought, well,
here's proof we're art.

Uh-huh. We were guilty
every single time.

So I just paid the fine.
It was cheaper than the lawyer.

Because in a courtroom
at 10 A.M., it is obscene.

"Pink Flamingos"
is an object of modern art.

It transcends cinema.

It is cinema as object,
as statue, as painting.

There are no other films
like "Pink Flamingos."

Kill everyone now.

Condone first-degree murder.

Advocate cannibalism.
Eat shit.

Filth are my politics.
Filth is my life.

I mean, "Pink Flamingos"

has probably soared
to the top of the cult list

because how many movies

have a fat drag queen
eating poodle turds?

Well, I first saw
"Pink Flamingos" when I was 15,

and it just scared
the shit out of me.

And the next packet
you bring me

is getting shoved
right up your little ass.

Can you comprehend that?

It's then kind of rediscovered

in the day when
there was a whole network

of repertory cinemas that
they would program these films.

And there they would find
a totally different audience

that appreciated the film many
times on a very different level

than what
was originally intended.

With "Pink Flamingos,"
you had a crowd coming in,

and they've been warned
about it, they watch it,

and many times it's the only
time they watch the film.

There grossed out, they leave,

they tell more people,
those people come in.

Well, the plot
of "Pink Flamingos"

is that there's two families
in Baltimore

that are vying for the prize

of the filthiest people
in the world.

And they go
to different extremes.

You have the Connie
and Raymond Marble crowd

that kidnaps women,

impregnates them
with their butler.

How would you like
to fuck my chauffeur?

He's got a real horse dick
on him.

Fucking ball of shit!

- I said shut up!
- Just shut up.

I'm talking
when I come down here.

And then sells the babies off
to lesbian couples.

But they're almost
like a one-hit wonder.

They don't have much else
in the way of filth.

Where Divine and her family,

they have all kinds
of depravities

and a whole group of sickos.

And of course they win

by not only capturing and
executing Raymond and Connie,

but they also at the end
prove without a doubt

at the last scene that they are
the filthiest people.

At least Divine is the filthiest
person in the world.

When I got to know Divine,
I asked him how he did it.

And he said, well,
we fed the poodle prime steak

all week
before we shot the scene.

So I guess it got to the point

where I thought anything that
comes out of that dog is prime.

So it's the only way
I could face it.

I think "Pink Flamingos"

is considered one of the great
cult films of all time

because it continually
tops itself.

It starts out
pretty bat shit crazy

with people you don't see
every day, especially in 1971.

They were not dying
their pubic hair red in 1971.

And you have
this sort of carnival,

and it's just, it's hypnotic.

In other words,
we want to know

how we can play her the most.

How we can make her life
as miserable as possible.

It's really her mother
Edie the Egg Lady

that's probably
the craziest one,

her in a pigpen craving eggs
from her beloved Egg Man.

I'm in here.
I hear The Egg Man.

In here.
In here, Mr. Egg Man.

Eggs! Eggs!
Oh, help! God! God!

He was using people like Edie
and, you know, Mink Stole,

and Mary Vivian Pearce
was so exotic.

Does murder make you happy?

Murder merely relieves
tension, Mr. Curzan.

For murder to bring happiness
one must already be happy.

What's not to like?

Well, I think John Waters

was definitely making movies
for a cult audience,

and he knew it.

But there was nothing calculated
about it.

I mean, I literally watch
this movie not even as a comedy.

I couldn't believe
I shared a planet

with the people in this movie.

Oh, my God.
What a horrible photograph.

My first wanted poster
and I have to look just awful.

And here you have a couple
intersecting cults.

You have the cult
of John Waters,

who is this brilliant
comic satiric visionary,

and then you have the cult
of Divine.

Why, I haven't fallen in love
for three whole days.

I'm just itching
to find somebody

with a little imagination.

John Waters is this weirdo kid

who wants to be a filmmaker,
is passionate about it,

and gets
all of his friends involved.

It becomes
their neighborhood project.

He was making movies
really for himself.

I mean, they expressed
who he was, his vision.

He befriends a kid
named Glenn,

who is going to grow up
to become Divine.

And he sees in Glenn what Glenn
doesn't even see it himself yet.

John Waters is able
to elevate his friend,

this quiet guy that nobody knew,
into a superstar.

I had no idea that Divine
was really a man.

I just got caught up
in the illusion of it,

and I thought it was kind of
a horror movie, but mesmerizing.

So of course I had to go back
and see it again and again.

To me, like, my foundational
memory of "Pink Flamingos"

is dragging
a bunch of my friends

to go see it
in the movie theater

when I was in high school.

And when we left,
they turned to me and they said,

you never get
to pick the movie again.

The one scene
that sticks out for me,

when they start licking
the furniture and the staircase

of Connie and Raymond
Marble's house.

That's to kind of put their
filth into the house there,

and I was like,
what the hell is this?

And you have these situations

which are
increasingly ridiculous,

but logical into its own world.

So it's really a masterpiece
of satiric writing.

He really made them feel
like documentaries.

It's an encounter
with the absurd.

And, of course, like all
of John Waters movies,

it's people who think they're
living in a Hollywood fantasy

and who are really living
in a tract house in Baltimore.

That is what I think
gives it its appeal

is the people realizing

they're trying to make
a great big Hollywood epic,

but they're doing it
for a dollar and a half.

It's a little bit of
a different kind of cult film

because it wasn't
a midnight cult film,

it was a mainstream cult film.

Harold was born with
a silver spoon in his mouth.

He lives in the lap of luxury,

has a mother who is completely
obsessed with status.

I had them take away
that monstrous thing of yours

and send this one round instead.

He hates that.
He's depressive.

And in an attempt to piss
her off and get her attention,

he stages
these elaborate phony suicides.

Harold, please!

That never quite
piss her off enough.

I suppose you think
that's very funny, Harold.

So he keeps doing them.

I can't stand
much more of this.

And he goes
to other people's funerals

just to be around death.

Yeah, it's a delightful movie

about the unlikely story

of an older lady
and a younger fella.

Ah-choo!

And of course
it appealed to me,

yes, that alienated,
you know, kid

and, you know, feeling he had
to find his own authentic way

outside of his family's
bourgeois identity.

That's kind of up my alley
a little bit.

It is time you settled down

and stopped flitting away
your talents

on these little
amateur theatrics,

these little divertissements.

no matter how psychologically
purging they may be.

I mean, him trying
to kill himself,

and then he meets
this free spirit, you know,

who happens to be,
you know, much older,

and like she helps him
come into his own.

Like some licorice?

No, thank you.

Three reasons
that "Harold and Maude"

Ruth Gordon, Ruth Gordon,
Ruth Gordon.

You have in this film
a character,

an actor so perfect
you want to hang out with her.

You might want to date her.

Definitely Maude is
the coolest person you've met.

I always get the sense

that she could maybe see
where, you know,

where his life would go
if he doesn't have this kind of,

you know, friendship
or relationship

where he's able
to express himself.

One of the most interesting
things about his performance

is the way if you watch him
reacting to Ruth Gordon,

there's such a kind of
fascination he shows

just with his, you know, kind of
silent reactions with her

that it really
sells the relationship.

That he's genuinely really
beguiled by this woman

and that she's really
breaking through to him

in a way
that other people haven't.

We were one of the few people
to leave the theater

because the theater
was completely empty.

And we were thinking
right away,

oh, we've got to tell people
about this movie.

This is a completely
disarming film,

and there's nothing like it.

Did no business, and then
sometime in the seventies,

people started playing it.

This is even before like video,
I think.

Like I remember I was at college

and they played
"Harold and Maude."

And it was like
a two, three year old movie

and just a little masterpiece.

But at the time, I mean,

it had a devoted following
of people.

But also its repeatability.

They would come to the film
and they'd see it many times.

No interaction.
They just loved the film.

It's interesting
that "The Graduate"

came out a few years before
and did very well.

It was a huge hit.

But you can see some connection
between the two.

This is the sickest,
most perverted thing

that ever happened to me.

And you do what you want,
but I'm getting the hell out.

It's not as much
of a generational statement

as "The Graduate,"

so it kind of got lost
for a little while

before, you know, it's
audience eventually found it.

And what's his name plays
the song at the end, you know.

The music of Cat Stevens

I think had a lot to do
with it also.

Cat Stevens is the third star
of "Harold and Maude."

I love the whole movie,
but my favorite scene

is a moment that's so subtle

I didn't even notice it
the first time I saw the movie.

So Harold and Maude
just had a long fun day,

and Harold says to Maude,
you're beautiful.

And she says, oh, you make me
feel like a schoolgirl.

And he takes her hand, and while
she's talking, he looks down.

And for a second, he sees a
tattoo of a number on her arm.

And in that moment, you realize

that she's been through
something horrible

and that she's seen death
and that she's experienced loss.

And this is why she now
lives her life for love

and for experience
and for the things that matter.

And I find it very moving.
A very moving moment.

That's one of the movies

people will say
I've seen 20, 30 times.

And if you see it 30 times,
you bring 30 new people with it.

The cult movie that set
the dial at 11, "Spinal Tap."

I've never been on a movie set

that people don't know
a lot of lines from "Spinal Tap"

or met a musician who couldn't
recite the whole movie.

I remember Steve Tyler,

the first time we were
face-to-face with Steve Tyler,

he went, oh, too close,
too close.

We are Spinal Tap from the UK.
You must be the USA.

This movie was the first
of its kind, a mockumentary.

You put a greased naked woman
on all fours

with a dog collar
around her neck and a leash

and a man's arm extended out up
to here holding on to the leash

and pushing a black glove
in her face to sniff it.

You don't find that offensive?

No. You should've seen
the cover they wanted to do.

I think I was on a date
when I saw it,

and I think the date
at the end of the movie

said, so is that a real...
are they a real group?

She didn't get
the mock of the mentary.

People came up to me afterwards,

and they said,
why would you make a movie

about a band
that nobody's ever heard of

and a band that's so bad?

Why wouldn't you make a movie

about the Rolling Stones
or the Beatles or something?

And I tried to explain it
to them.

Yeah, you ever watch
"Saturday Night Live?"

They do takeoffs.

And satire's strange.

It's one of those things
where it takes a while

for people to really understand
what's going on.

I understand, Nigel,
you and David

originally started the band
back in... when was it? 1964?

- So we became The Originals,
- Right.

And we had to change
our name, actually.

Well, there was another
group in the East End

called The Originals.

I think that people who love
the film loved it right away.

And I've had a lot of people
tell me stories

about going to see it

in a half empty
or completely empty theater.

It has to be the audience
finding the film

rather than the film
finding the audience.

Nobody even heard
of that before.

This movie defined it.

It, you know, it started
a whole stream of this style.

We want the parody

not just to be of the world
that we're satirizing,

but we wanted to do a parody
of the style,

of the handheld style.

And the best way to do that
would be to improvise it.

The Boston gig
has been canceled.

What?
Yeah.

I wouldn't worry about it, though.

It's not a big college town.

So the script wasn't a script.

It was actually an outline.

And we actually tried
to write the screenplay.

We spent about half a day.

We did shoot it
like a documentary.

And documentaries,
as you'll find out

as you put this together,
you know,

90% of everything I'm saying
is going to go away.

Who's in here?
No one.

And then in here,
there's a little guy. Look.

So it's a complete catastrophe.
No, you're right.

The best thing
obviously is it goes to 11.

Who's ever going to...
We use that.

It's in our vernacular now.
It's ridiculous.

So it's very, very special

because if you can see...
Yeah.

The numbers all go to 11.

What we do is if we need
that extra push over the cliff,

you know what we do?

Put it up to 11.
11. Exactly.

One louder.

Why don't you
just make 10 louder

and make 10
to be the top number

and make that a little louder?

These go to 11.

I'm at this fundraiser
and Elon Musk comes.

This is years and years ago.

And he's got this new car
that he shows me.

He says, look at this car.
It was the Tesla.

It was the first Tesla ever.

He says, look at this.

I said, oh, that's
a really cool looking car.

He says,
let me show you something.

He takes me in the car

and the volume on the radio
goes to 11 in the Tesla.

And the air-conditioning
goes to 11.

He says, I love "Spinal Tap."
I just put that in there.

That was like
the biggest kick of all.

There's something so potent

about the fantasy
of wanting to be in a rock band,

wanting to be a rock star,
wanting to command arenas,

that even this group
of chuckleheads

with their petty rivalries

and their ridiculous
star mannerisms,

somehow or other we find them
so compelling as human beings,

we want to stay with them.

We don't want that Odyssey
to end.

You had in director Rob Reiner
someone who loved actors,

who loved performers, who
wanted them to make him laugh,

who let them go on and on
and find the characters

and the conflicts
in front of your eyes.

I was casting
for "Princess Bride."

You know, Sting
came in to meet with me.

He says, I've seen "Spinal Tap"
like 50 times.

He says, and every time
I watch it,

I don't know whether
to laugh or cry.

It's genius.
I mean, it really is.

That is the most accurate
music film ever made.

People said they wore out
the, you know, the videotape

when they watched it
on tour buses and stuff.

We got a lot
of that kind of stuff.

Because we were
close to the bone.

Even the ridiculous parts
are exactly true life.

This is to me the epitome
of why "Spinal Tap" is good.

Stonehenge.

Best production values
we've ever had on stage.

But we haven't got
the equipment.

So we had this idea
for Stonehenge,

and were going to do
the theme of it

and he writes it on the napkin

and it says 18 inches,
it's supposed to be 18 feet.

And the little thing
comes down from the ceiling

and the dwarf stands around it,
duh, duh, duh.

And then Black Sabbath,
they come out with a tour

and they have
a Stonehenge theme.

And our movie comes out
about a week or two later

after they start the tour.

And they get furious at us

like we stole the idea
of Stonehenge from them.

I mean, it's moronic.

It took us three years
to make this movie.

I mean, what do they think,
we shot the movie, edited it,

put it together, and got it in
the theater like in a minute?

I mean, that's the epitome
of how dumb those people are,

and that's why I think

we were successful
in capturing their true nature.

It's such a fine line
between stupid and...

- And clever.
- Yeah.

It's just
that little turnabout.

My favorite scene, the one
that makes me laugh consistently

is Nigel's solo stuff.

There's about a nine minute
version of just that,

which is all funny, by the way.

They just kind of
grabbed the middle of it.

The Fred Willard stuff
at the Air Force Base kills me

because, you know, none of us
knew what he was going to say.

Now let me explain a bit
about what's going on.

This is our monthly
At Ease weekend.

It gives us a chance
to kind of let down our hair,

although I see you all
have a head start on us.

These haircuts wouldn't pass
military muster, believe me.

Although I shouldn't talk.

My hair is getting
a little shaggy, too.

Better not get too close to you.

They'll think
I'm part of the band.

It was a great experience.

I mean, it was just
five weeks shooting,

but it was 2 1/2 years
getting the script together

and writing the backstory

so that we'd be improvising
from the same bank of memories.

And then another year and a half
cutting the film.

So it wasn't like working with
some other director, you know,

and it wasn't like
working with Rob

in any other film I don't think.

We were all the first
generation of rock 'n roll,

all of us.

We were about all
around the same age.

And so we love rock 'n' roll,

but we're also satirists
and we can also make fun of it.

And I think one of the things
that kind of worked...

and somebody was saying,
you know,

there are heavy metal bands
that watch it

that, you know,
they're being made fun of,

but they still enjoy it,
you know.

Because there's a reverence
to the music

at the same time
that we're making fun of it.

I think that, plus the fact
that it's just funny.

One thing cult movies can be
is truly subversive.

That's probably part of the
appeal of a lot of cult movies.

I mean, you knew Russ Meyer.

I knew Russ, but I have to say
about "Faster, Pussycat,"

which is probably the biggest
cult movie that he ever made,

when that movie came out,
it was a bomb.

It did not work at all.

He had made all these
other movies before

that were huge hits.

He started the nudie cutie,
you know,

and then this one, there
wasn't any really nudity in it

and it was about three lesbians.

So it was not a hit.

Ahead of its time.

But when I saw it
at the drive-in, I went insane.

And we went and watched it
every single night.

And the fact that
in "Female Trouble"

Divine yells every line,
that's because of Tura Santana.

And then later, I wrote about it
in my book "Shock Value,"

and I said, not only is it
the best film ever made,

it's the best film
that will be made in the future.

Now, that's a good blurb, right?
So he used it.

And I did help
make that one a success

because it was not a hit
when it first came out.

And today you watch that movie,

it is a brilliant,
brilliant movie.

The dialogue,
written by Jack Moran,

who wrote Russ's best movies,

it's so good, it's so good.

And that opening line when
they're watching the go-go girls

and that man's going,
go, baby, go! Go! Go!

There's nothing better.

Go, baby, go!

- Come on, let's go!
- Go, baby!

Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to violence.

I can put
into basically one word

why "Faster, Pussycat,
Kill! Kill!"

anarchy.

See Russ Meyer's
"Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!"

There's three exclamation
marks in different places

in just the title.

faster.

pussycat.

Kill! Kill!

It's the sort of perfect title
for an exploitation movie.

I can watch like
the first half hour

of "Faster, Pussycat"
over and over again.

It was probably the first
women's kick ass movie.

But the fight,
the way he directed it,

wasn't the least bit choreographed.

But you've got to be real.

But I don't want you
to hurt each other.

You're not stunt women.

It's just weird.

It's a movie about
these Amazon women,

and it's-it's-it's...

It's about three
sexed up, violent women.

As they ride their hot rods
around the desert

looking for ways to quench
their insatiable lust for kicks.

And their adventures

as they run into this
sort of defective family

out in the desert.

What's with
the strong-armed bit,

or couldn't you tell
I was a girl?

Ain't no doubt
about your gender, girly.

They let 'em vote, smoke,
and drive.

Even put 'em in pants.

You can't even tell
brother from sister

unless you meet 'em head-on.

The movie, I think of it as
a first run "Thelma & Louise."

Go get her.

So I got to get wet because
Lady Godiva wants to swim?

It started to become popular
on college campuses.

Around the same time, 1983,

a punk rock band
called The Cramps

covered the main title song,

and that introduced the movie
to yet a whole new audience.

It's such a strange
little film

with such mean women in it.

- Yes, ma'am?
- What can I do for you today?

- Just your job, squirrel.
- Fill it up.

You know,
that's what I believe in.

Seeing America first.

You won't find it
down there, Columbus.

First of all, I made a picture
called "Motorpsycho!"

and it had three bad boys.

It was successful.
It was a drive-in type picture.

And then I said, well, why don't
we do it with three girls?

And so Tura Santana
was the only girl

who could possibly play Varla.

And not only possessing,
you know, a capacious bosom,

she knew karate and judo.

You couldn't double this girl
anyway with her figure.

Her mother was a Cherokee Indian

and her father
was a Japanese chef in Chicago.

It's probably the closest thing
that I've come

to doing a horror film,
you know.

She's like the evil
horrific person.

You know she's going to die.

A lot of the directors
of today

cite that film as a great
inspiration for their careers.

Russ Meyer, Federico Fellini,

they created their own genres
and were their own genres.

It's weird to compare Fellini
and Russ Meyer,

but in a way somehow
I feel it makes sense.

I don't think
I'm going out on a limb

when I tell you that Russ Meyer

had an obsession
with big breasts.

Now's where you cut to a montage

of all the Russ Meyer films
that show big breasts.

But merely
to write Russ Meyer off

as merely a common
exploitation filmmaker

is to do his legacy

and his contribution
to the world of cinema

a dramatic disservice.

Because when you watch
his movies,

they're just colorful and fun
and pop and comic book,

and they're just great.

You know, serious filmmakers
started to figure out

that Russ Meyer

was not just your average
exploitation filmmaker.

There was something much
more artful going on here.

Russ Meyer is the only filmmaker
who wrote, directed, cast,

shot, edited,
and distributed his own films.

So his singular voice
is what you get

when you watch
a Russ Meyer film.

- Easy, baby.
- You're almost a fire hazard.

Give your hips a rest.

My motor
never runs down, baby.

"Faster, Pussycat! Kill!
Kill!" is another one

that I remember seeing
in the early days

of like right when I moved
to New York City

because that's where
you could see everything.

And I went to see it

and it was just phenomenal.

For a film like that

on that budget, $45,000?

You can't shoot my cat
for $45,000.

But again,
it's a director, Russ Meyer,

with intense vision
that nobody else has.

And I think Russ Meyer,
you know,

takes these very sort of extreme
sexualized violence images

and he does them
in a really slick way,

and I think that's,
you know, alluring

and it's almost like a drug.

You just want more
because you're so stimulated.

Me Jane, you Tarzan.

Now why don't you drop
that tree you're holding

and let's grab a vine
and swing a little, huh?

Because it's not just because
it's chicks with big boobs.

Yeah, that's like everything.
Who cares?

The cinematography
is phenomenal.

I mean, the beautiful
stark black and white imagery,

it looks as beautiful
as any John Ford western.

Some of the dialogue, which
isn't what you'd call elegant,

but when one of them says
"like a velvet fist

wrapped in iron,"
or something like that...

In California, they're called
accessories to the crime.

Oh, you're cute.

Like a velvet glove cast in iron

and like the gas chamber,
Varla, a real fun gal.

I've never heard that
anywhere else.

I've never read that
anywhere else.

And I'm seeing it
in a movie like this?

These women are villains,

but because they're so sexy,

it confuses the brain.

And the thing that Russ Meyer

was bringing
into the world of cinema

really for the first time,

which is this, you know,
not just feminism,

but this all out female fury

that just couldn't be contained.

That was way ahead of its time.

Are you trying
to say something?

- I never try anything.
- I just do it.

I am tied to this chair
for life.

Better you
should be nailed to it.

They all had this...

these personal idiosyncrasies.

Of directors I've worked with,

Russ would be way up at the top

because of his no-nonsense,
his speed.

He was quick.

You had to pick up quick.

That title
and that movie combined

is just cult movie gold.

It's better to be part of
something than to be left out.

What Martin Scorsese did for
The Band in "The Last Waltz"

is what Penelope Spheeris does

for X and Black Flag
in those bands.

I always say I was born a punk
and I'll die a punk.

1, 2, 3, 4!

A cult film is a film

that is profoundly special
and informative

in a way that normal,
mainstream, stupid,

common denominator idiots
can't understand.

Can a documentary
be a cult film? Absolutely.

Because the Penelope Spheeris
movies were about cult music.

And we got arrested
the other night at Blackie's

for playing punk rock music.

Well, I think what made
"The Decline"

become such a lasting cult film
is just the fact

that it was one of the very few
documents of that era.

You know, everybody's
got an iPhone today

and everybody
can shoot everything,

so there ain't going to be
nothing special about it,

you know what I mean?

Each teenage generation
needs an identity.

They want to be different than
the generations before them.

They need to carve out something
that is special for them,

and punk rock did that for
that generation of young people.

We were trying
to change something.

The music industry,
the way we live, you know,

to be accepted
any way we want to, you know.

I think Penelope
had an agenda,

and I understand it
at this point.

At that point, seeing it,
I didn't understand it.

The punk rock scene in L.A.
was splitting,

and there was all this,
you know, violent...

recent violent influx.

It was hurtful because we had

a pretty eclectic,
cool scene going

for three years prior to that,
from '77 to '80.

So seeing it
just as this weird, violent,

dark, nihilistic scene
is true at that point,

but it dismisses everything
that came before it.

Not only music
but, you know, clothing trends

and culture and morals
and everything else.

And the timing of it
is so crucial.

I mean,
the punk scene almost died

by the time the movie
came out, you know.

Darby Crash, one of her stars,
literally died that same year.

And what she wound up filming
was this time capsule

that showed people
what was happening,

the madness that was happening.

The homemade tattoos

and the people
moshing in the pits

and beating each other up.

It's almost like
capturing a butterfly

and just imprisoning it
in film

so we can all see
what that was like.

When I go to concerts,
it's like my friends

get beat up by my friends,
you know.

Then it's like, fuck, you know.

Because like they're not
beating up the right people.

They're not beating up
the fucking posers.

They're beating up
just like just my friends.

It's fucked, you know.

At the core of it,
it was questioning everything.

And it started with music,
yeah, okay,

no more guitar solos,
no more love songs, you know.

No more being nice,

no more like
posing for the camera. No.

It was all fuck the camera,
you know.

I like making
a spectacle of myself.

I'm a total rebel.

I rebel against everything.

I guess I'm an alcoholic.

It was so liberating
for women back then

because all of a sudden
you didn't have to be, you know,

a Barbie doll, you know.

Matter of fact, kind of
the uglier and fatter

and bigger
your combat boots were,

the better and cooler you were.

And then I would go
to punk rock shows,

and I would go, you know what?

I'm going to document this,

because something feels
important about this.

I didn't know that its effect
would be as heavy as it is

and it would last this long,

but I did feel instinctively
it was important.

It wasn't that difficult to get
the first "Decline" financed

because my friend said
he knew a guy

that wanted to do a porno movie,

and I said, well, I'm not
going to do a porno movie,

but how about punk rock?

And so I took him
to a Germs concert

and I told him it would be
$12,000 on Super 8.

And it ended up costing
10 times that on 16.

Penelope's Spheeris's
style of filmmaking,

you get the sense
that she's just in the room.

She's making a documentary as
punk as the people themselves.

In that film,
we were presenting ourselves

as who we were,
which were Bohemians.

Well, we're not rich.

We got enough money
to pay our rent

and, you know,

we bought the ink and the pins.

We weren't wondering, is this
going to be good for my image?

A lot of people do assume

that a lot of the bands
might not have been happy

with their performance
or their portrayal.

Too bad.
Show me in the contract

where it says
that the band member

has the right to tell me
how I can cut the movie.

So we were all high
and, you know, doing tattoos,

and we just thought it would be,
you know, a weird environment,

but not completely
out of the ordinary.

I might have brought over
some beer,

but I not did bring over
the heroin, okay?

So anybody that accuses me
of getting 'em loaded

so I could film them and they
would look stupid can fuck off.

Because, yeah, I brought
a sixpack, I'll cop to that.

We could not get a theater
to screen the film in

because the theater owners

said no one would come
to the screening

because nobody cared
about punk rock.

And so I actually
was able to talk the guy

that ran the Hollywood Theater
on Hollywood Boulevard

into letting us have
just one midnight screening.

Yeah, it was
a 1,200 seat theater

and 3,000 people showed up.

And honestly, it was
almost 300 motorcycle cops

had been sent out,

and Chief Daryl Gates
wrote us a letter

and said don't show this movie
in Los Angeles again.

And almost the film itself

becomes like this punk totem,
you know.

It was hard to see.

People are passing around
VHS tapes from one to another.

You had to be cool
and underground

to be able to see the film
in the first place.

Even Dave Grohl said he
was like handed "The Decline,"

the first "Decline"
like contraband by his cousin.

It was like, don't tell our
parents, but here, look at this.

I don't really see a movement
that's happened since then

that has had such an impact

and made such a difference,
you know.

Yeah, once you take a picture,
the picture's there.

I didn't know
when I made "The Decline"

that it was going to have
such a lasting effect.

And I didn't set out
to make history.

I didn't set out
to have the film be inducted

into the Library of Congress
National Film Registry,

which it was last year.

These kids identified with it,
and it made them who they were,

and for that,
they were grateful.

And for that, I'm grateful,
you know, that I could help.

Precinct 13.

Cut off. Isolated
in the middle of the city

as a human wave
of street killers

turns the night
into a nightmare.

The movie is about
a young police officer

who has a desk job
at the precinct.

And suddenly he's thrown out
to the wolves.

Basically a modern
cowboys and Indians movie.

It's a siege film in which
a precinct is under attack

by a bunch of gang members.

He has to deal
with the bad guys.

He has to shoot and kill people.

He doesn't know
who he's killing.

He is being threatened.
Maybe he's going to be killed.

If "Assault on Precinct 13" is
considered a great cult movie,

it's because
it delivers the goods.

A lot of movies promise things

from the trailer
or from the poster.

I think the tagline in it

was "a white-hot night of hate"
in the movie,

and this really delivers.

John Carpenter talked openly

about it being "Rio Bravo"
as an inspiration.

"Assault on Precinct 13"
is one of the great cult movies

because it still remains
pretty shocking.

With that little girl,
Kim Richards,

gets blown away
eating her ice cream cone...

I wanted vanilla twist.

And it was a real shot
to the solar plexus.

When we submitted it
to the MPAA,

we thought it would get
a PG rating.

There was no PG-13 at the time.

We were very surprised
if not outright shocked

to hear it had gotten
an X rating.

Basically, the MPAA
demanded that scene be cut.

There was no coverage
on that scene

in case there was a problem.

We had not anticipated this.

It was just shot the one way.

There was no way
to cut around it.

What we did
is we took one of the prints

and we cut about
two little pieces of film

which added up to about
a second and a half of footage,

and resubmitted that
to the MPAA

and got the R rating on it.

Roger Corman
does this all the time.

He takes the movie that
the MPAA has demanded cuts

and it just puts it out the way
it was originally edited.

The experience
making this movie

was one that I hope
I would have every time I work.

It's a goddamn siege.

When I got cast in that movie,

I knew nothing about
who John Carpenter was.

He didn't know who I was.
I didn't know who he was.

But we hit it off immediately.

I was not surprised

that John Carpenter
would become successful.

I think what convinced
the investors

was that he had sold a script
to Barbra Streisand.

That's not a small thing
for a guy just out of USC to do.

The toughest challenge for me

was the fact that my character
was not really a soldier.

He was working in an office,
a clerk wearing a uniform.

And now you're faced with
a gang that's coming at you

with 19 guys with God knows
what coming to kill you.

I got three shots.
That's enough.

Can't argue
with a confident man.

The precise calibration
of comedy,

this very dry kind of comedy...

- You're not a psychopath.
- You're not stupid.

I am an asshole.

And the suspense make
for something that over time

appealed to audiences
more and more,

and they really got it
more and more as time went on.

It cost about $285,000.

It took a very long time
to make money.

It just played around
in grind houses,

and it did get into this
one big theater in Los Angeles.

The first week

it played with Jack Hill's
"Switchblade Sisters."

That's a great double feature,
isn't it?

That's a terrific
double feature.

So apparently it was
gaining kind of momentum

with the home video,

and in the Los Angeles area,
it played on Z Channel.

There was like a cinema tech

on the TV station
that was phenomenal.

There's never been anything
like it before or since.

It was treated as like
a cult classic at that time.

You cannot intend
to make a cult movie.

"Assault on Precinct 13."

We got a war going on
down here,

and we can't find
the damn thing.

Anybody trying to
intentionally make a cult movie

is bound to fail.

It feels like it's kind of
turned a corner to me,

that it's not just a cult film,

but it's really become like
a classic film in some sense.

After 40 years,
I am still so amazed

at this new generation of fans
from everywhere

coming to see this movie
and appreciating what I did.

That is something, I mean,

I can't tell you how much,
how deeply I appreciate that.

I could never live it down.

I feel like I've done something
that could never be repeated.

One of the cult directors
that I knew personally

was Sam Fuller, who was quite
a character, an ex-newspaperman.

He had a style
that was a little primitive,

but he was a great filmmaker

and he had a great nose
for tabloid stories.

The cult of his movies

is based entirely
on who made them, on him.

"The Naked Kiss" is about

when you kiss someone
the first time,

you can tell
they're a child molester.

You can feel it
from the one little kiss,

and that is what it's about.

Under the guise of a small
town, very sentimental movie,

because it's got
little crippled children in it.

It's still berserk-ish
in parts.

Oh, when she's in love
and those shots in Venice.

Oh, my God.
It's jaw-dropping.

It is. It's kind of schizophrenic.

But it's a dark movie.

And also,
the people in his movies

are not quite beautiful.

Like they fit his genre.

I think that's the added appeal.

And that opening credits
scene, though,

is one of the best
opening credits ever.

Because it's this hooker,

and he rips her wig off
and then she's bald.

And then she beats him over
the face with her pocketbook

and then picks up
a fire extinguisher

and squirts it in his face.

It is great.

"The Naked Kiss" begins
with a tall blonde prostitute

in the midst
of beating up her pimp.

Well, I think a lot of Sammy's
pictures became cult films

because they were really
out there.

That opening sequence
is pretty startling.

You parasite!

I'm taking
only what's coming to me.

Hearing with the likes
of Martin Scorsese

on "the Tonight Show," say
the opening of "The Naked Kiss"

was the greatest opening
I've ever seen.

"Naked Kiss" is an extremely
low budget Samuel Fuller film.

It tells the story

of a prostitute
that gets into trouble,

and she decides to start
a new life for herself.

She flees and she ends up

in a town
that doesn't know who she is,

and she gets a job
working with handicapped kids

and she becomes
kind of respectable,

although people seem to think

there's something strange
about her.

A hooker moving in
with the town virgin.

What an act!

I saw a broken down
piece of machinery,

nothing but the buck,
the bed, and the bottle

for the rest of my life.

She becomes the fiancée
of this top guy in society.

And there's something
weird about him.

And basically
he's a child molester.

Well, Sammy's pictures
could be very shocking,

and the subject matter is dark.

You are playing
the first pedophile

in the history of our business.

And he said,
that's why I want you.

You're just perfect.

He said, you won't get
the recognition

for the job you did

and the guts you had
to play this character

until 30, 40 years
down the road.

Now you know why I could never
marry a normal woman.

That's why I love you.

You understand my sickness.

And it's basically her,
who has no credibility,

against the main guy in town.

I'm going to keep asking you
the same question

until you tell me the truth.

Why did you kill him?

He was molesting a child.

Oh, I got the same taste
the first time Grant kissed me.

It's what we call a naked kiss.

It's the sign of a pervert.

"Naked Kiss"
became a cult classic

because it was a different side
of the director Sam Fuller

that people weren't
that familiar with.

Sam Fuller was a tough guy.

He was a former journalist,
a tabloid writer.

And Sammy made pictures that
were like newspaper headlines.

Hit you in the face.

And he made a lot
of terrific film noirs

and a lot of war films.

I was in the hands
of Sammy Fuller,

and his reputation preceded him.

This was the Sam Fuller
that pushed the envelope,

that went places
where the other Sam Fuller,

the studio Sam Fuller,
did not go.

This was
the independent Sam Fuller.

When I think about
my love for Sammy

and appreciation
of working with him

and he's gone and left us,
but I'm so grateful

to have had the opportunity
to work with him.

Sam Fuller made an art form
out of the B Movie.

And he made films like
"Shock Corridor."

Somebody do something
about my head!

His masterpiece
is "The Naked Kiss."

I consider "The Warriors"

the "Rocky Horror"
of gang movies, you know.

Can you dig it?

Can you dig it?

Can you dig it?

The plot of "The Warriors"

actually
is a pretty simple plot.

It's a movie about
a meeting of all these gangs,

very colorful gangs in New York.

And during this meeting,

like the leader
of one of the gangs is killed.

A gang is blamed for
something that they didn't do.

It's the innocent
falsely accused...

There he is! That's him!

After a tragedy occurs...

They think we shot Cyrus.

Every gang in the city
must be looking for us.

Holy shit.

The Warriors has to get back

and take the subway
across New York.

And an hour it is C-I,
the big Coney.

They have to fight their way
back to their home turf.

And everyone
is out to destroy them.

So the Warriors encounter
all of these gangs

throughout the movie.

For instance,
the Gramercy Riffs,

who are
the African-American gang.

In the Turnbull ACs, which
are like a skinhead gang.

And the Baseball Furies,

who almost have makeup
like the band KISS.

I'll shove that bat
up your ass

and turn you into a popsicle.

And then they have encounters
with The Lizzies,

who entrap some
of the Warriors.

And we have a rollerskating gang

who they encounter
in a subway station,

and they have an ultimate battle
with them in a bathroom.

Aah!

And then they meet
The Orphans,

who were like a low class,

way down on the totem pole gang.

You see what you get, Warriors?

You see what you get
when you mess with The Orphans?

You know, it's funny.

My scenes in The Orphans
is that it was a small part.

However, people remember that,
especially my line.

"We're going to rain on you
Warriors," you know.

I've said that maybe
a million times since 1978.

"We're going to rain on you
Warriors," you know.

We're going to rain
on you, Warriors!

Let's go.

When that thing blew,

it was a real explosion,
you know.

So the hood of the car
wound up on the roof.

But they forgot to take
the glass, the windshield out.

And I'm watching this glass
rain down on these extras.

I do think that what unites
the cult films that I like

is they have a quality
of danger, you know.

Whether it's "Clockwork Orange"

or, you know,
this quality of edge.

And I think clearly that's
what people sort of like

about "The Warriors."

You know, I've gone to
screenings of "The Warriors,"

a few with fans.

It's hilarious, because
they're talking to the screen,

they're say the line
before it comes out.

So they've been rediscovered
by people, you know,

and it's easier to do now
because you've got, you know,

all kinds of alternative means
of finding it.

The best scene
in "The Warriors"

is actually a very quiet scene.

Swan and Mercy on the subway
when the prom couple comes in.

It's like really,
really late at night

and they're dirty and they're
tired and they're beaten up.

And then a group of four
students get on the train.

Everything that
needs to be said and expressed

is done without words.

Everybody's favorite moment
in "The Warriors."

Warriors, come out to play.

David Patrick Kelly
owns that movie.

Warriors, come out to play.

The Warriors chant

has been a blessing
and a burden over the years.

And there was nothing
in the script, of course,

and Walter
wanted to up the ante.

And he just said
we need something here.

And it was from a guy
who lived next to me

who was a scary guy,

who I didn't know much about,
but he would say to me...

I'd say, Rich, how you doing?

And he'd say, Dave...

Dave... Dave...

And that's all he'd say.

And I thought that was the
creepiest thing I'd ever heard,

so I put that in.

We rehearsed it
and then we did it.

I've never done it again.

Come out to play.

I go to the Coney Island
Film Festival every year,

and at midnight
they play "The Warriors."

And people come out
dressed up as The Furies

and all the different gangs
and even a few Orphans, too.

We did a cast reunion
in Coney Island,

and 7,500, 8,000 people
showed up.

It was humbling to me,
I thought.

I get back home

and 10 minutes later
the phone rings

and a gentleman
on the other end said,

I'm President Reagan's
press secretary

and he wanted you to know
how much he enjoyed

a screening of "The Warriors"
at Camp David.

People sort of claim that
violence was connected to it.

But if you look
at the film now

and compare it
to what we see today,

it's really, really lightweight.

Paramount overreacted
by pulling all the publicity,

and the movie just kind of died

after about three weeks
to a month.

Had "The Warriors"
had a successful run

and continued
to do good box office

and become a successful
first-run movie,

would it have become
a cult classic movie?

I don't know that it would have.

For someone who hasn't seen
"Point Break,"

the plot of the movie is this.

There's four renegade kids
who love skydiving.

They skydive a lot.

When they're not skydiving,

they put on the masks
of presidents and rob banks.

It's Keanu Reeves' mission
to find them and arrest them.

He's being told
that they might be surfers,

and the kind of finds these guys
who teach him how to surf

and who are
kind of Zen philosophers.

Hey, you're not going to start
chanting or anything, are you?

I might.

He realizes these surfer dudes

are actually the presidents
who are robbing everywhere.

And so the cop,
the agent, the FBI agent

has to become them
in order to arrest them.

It's very much a movie

about American masculinity
seen from the outside.

You gotta go down.

You crossed the line and people
trusted you and they died.

"Point Break"
was always thought of

as like surfers robbing banks

to support their endless summer.

The tagline in our mind
even as I was writing it

was 100% pure adrenaline.

Everybody freeze!

But when director Ridley Scott
was going to helm of the film,

it was going to be James Garner,
you know,

fresh off the "Rockford Files"
to play Pappas

and it was going to be
Charlie Sheen

I believe fresh off of "Platoon"
to play Johnny Utah.

And that was locked and loaded.

But then the studio
changed hands

and Ridley left picture.

So the film fell apart

and it was made four years later

by Jim Cameron
and Kathryn Bigelow.

Jim Cameron rewrote me.

He did the final polish
on "Point Break."

So a lot of kudos to Jim,
who's the master.

He turbocharged
a lot of the action.

Kathryn was determined that
it was going to be Keanu Reeves,

and she is quite a force.

- You mad?
- Yeah, I'm mad!

- Good and mad?
- Yeah!

What you want to do about it?

Feels good, doesn't it?

- Like you're still alive, right?
- Yeah!

They should release it again
on the big screen,

because it'll work
again and again and again

because it's that powerful.

I mean, when Kathryn
shoots her arrow, whap,

100 yards away,

that arrow will go right smack
dab in the center of the target.

And she did that with me,
you know.

She did it with everybody.

She's strong.

I want to work with her again.

I'm going to call her.

Kathryn,
just been talking about us.

When's the next gig? Edit.

The linear thrust was a story
about these four kids.

He's a fucking federal agent.

I should have shot him
when I had the chance.

I'll deal
with that fucking cop.

And my little buddy Keanu.

Pappas.

Angelo Pappas.

- Punk. Quarterback punk.
- Hmm.

Either you love
to hate the bad guy,

they're deliciously evil

and you just can't get enough
of their evilness.

Or they are like a Swayze
in that you really relate.

You do care,

and because you care,
it makes it fascinating.

Every scene I do
is my favorite.

Every scene the people I'm
working with are my favorite.

That's the way it goes.

You satisfy yourself
before making a judgment,

and when you're
satisfying yourself,

there is no judgment.

You just go.

"Point Break"
has the best running scene

in the history of movies.

Look out!

Hey!

Aah!

It's brilliant stuff, man.

It's going
tick, tick, tick, tick.

It's clipping, man.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-

tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.

Oh!

People remember the lines.

I'm so hungry I could eat
the ass end out of a dead rhino.

I should've had you get me
three of these things.

You gonna jump or jerk off?

I'm not a crook.

Caught my first tube
this morning.

Sir.

Swayze did all his stunts
for the most part.

He did the skydiving.

If you look,
the shot that blows my mind

is the one when he jumps off
the airplane at the end.

Adios, amigo.

Well, guess what?
That's Swayze saying a line

and rolling backward
and falling out of an airplane.

That takes
a big pair of cojones.

He's the man.

There's a thing... I think it's
all over the United States now.

It's called "Point Break Live."

And it's these actors,
they're Shakespearean actors,

they're awesome actors.

and they re-create
"Point Break" live.

They pull somebody out of the
audience to play Keanu Reeves,

and it is hilarious.

Yeah, my knee got folded

about 90 degrees
in the wrong way.

I'm so honored that
you picked "Point Break"

as one of the greatest
cult films of all time.

It sounds arrogant to say
it doesn't surprise me,

because I just hear it
from so many people.

I started getting letters
from people all over the world,

sincere, heartfelt letters

that the film
had changed their life.

"Point Break" is one
of the greatest films made.

It's not a cult film,

it's not a dramady,
a psychodrama.

It's not a farce
or tragedy or vaudeville.

It's a movie of its own
with its own identity,

and it moves in that direction
all the way through it.

The beginning, the middle, the
climax, the end, the resolution,

it's all the same.

I think "Point Break"
was a game changer

not as much to cinema
as it was to surfing.

It was a game mover.

You don't change the game
in art.

And let me tell you this, buddy.

Art is only the search.

It is not the final form.

It is forever and unlimited,

and you can't beat that
because it won't be beaten.

Hear that?