303 – The Pod People
éééé
Things I liked about the movie:
Trumpy can make stuff fly around.
The name “Trumpy”
Music that stinks.
Impressions
No pods. No people. Just crap. This may be the worst movie panned by the crew yet! Disclaimer. It’s filled with inane music, idiotic dialogue, and grade school acting. There is a stretch of hilarity that begins when Tom is pretending to be Trumpy in Tommy’s room examining his pets and calling each one “potato” and ends after Trumpy makes all the toys and clothes in Tommy’s room dance in a Gumby-like stop motion circus of randomness. The host segments are funny remakes of the funniest scenes in the movie.
Synopsis
The movie begins slow motion surreal beginning reminiscent of Cave Dwellers. I believe in both this movie (and Cave Dwellers), they spliced credits from a different movie onto the front and back of this movie. Some kind of creature is loose in the forest and killing poachers. An alien arrives and lays some eggs about the size of watermelons. One of the poachers smashes some eggs, which ticks off the alien who proceeds to go on a killing spree.
In another movie, Tommy, a precocious kid, finds an egg and takes it home to the lodge where he lives with his mother and uncle Bill. It hatches and he names the tiny elephant man that comes out “Trumpy.” Tommy keeps Trumpy in his room and doesn’t tell anyone else about him. Trumpy turns out to be a hungry little alien and Tommy has to sneak lots of food to him.
In a third movie, some kids in a band head out on a camping trip. There is some tension in the band because the leader is a jerk and his cheating on his girlfriend right in front of her. The other woman gets injured and the group of kids goes looking for help. They find the lodge where Tommy lives. Uncle Bill doesn’t like them, but because it’s an emergency, they end up staying. Uncle Bill is apparently a violent and aggressive person, but helpful in his own, stubborn way.
Back in the first movie, the poachers catch the adult alien, but he’s too tough. He kills them. The rampaging killer alien looks exactly like Trumpy. The director tricks us, a la M. Night Shyamalan, into thinking Trumpy is doing all the killing. There’s some running around and a few of the characters get killed. The audience is apathetic.
Tommy kisses Trumpy. Now all that’s left is Tommy, Rick, Molly, and that other girl. Trumpy is left in the forest purring. It ends with a blurry scene of slow motion running around in the fog to the credits.
Host Segments
Segment 1: Crow rattles off acronyms and says they’re all the same. Joel says it’s art chautauqua today. Tom tells of his youth as a young Filipino. Invention exchange. Joel has a special guitar that, if a special chord is played, it blows up? Frank and Dr. Forrester introduce their public domain karaoke machine. They introduce the movie. Pod People. It has nothing to do with pods. It has nothing to do with people. Just pain.
Segment 2: Joel and the Bots are imitating the singing by the kids. Lyrics are just as inane. “Idiot control! Hideous control!” Dr F. and Frank do the studio flunkies. Joel even does the OK sign and then “It stinks!”
Segment 3: Joel is inspired by the cool new age music of the movie and gets a huge keyboard setup. He teaches Crow how to play one long note. Hold it down for an hour until you get a contract from Windham Hill! You can make a lot of money without a big initial investment. Tom emcees with a cool, professional voice.
Segment 4: Joel and Crow re-enact Trumpy’s circus-like scene with the floating chair complete with comical camera zooms and music. Frank and Dr. F are dumbfounded.
Final segment: Joel and the Bots are cleaning up. They’re melancholy as Joel disassembles Crow. Joel sings a show tune to end it. Tom sobs bitterly then sings a verse.
Stinger: Tommy giving the OK sign and then saying “It stinks!”
Funny Riffs
Joel: Pod People got no reason to live.
Crow: Now this guy’s got renaissance festival written all over him.
Crew: Huzzah!
Boring space music continues. Tom is narrating.
Tom: At the end of the hour, we’ll have information about the types of sedatives used by tonight’s artists.
Joel as kid: Hmm! What pretentious crap!
We see the renfest guy. Another poacher runs up.
Tom: Huzzah!
Man runs up. Babbles.
Tom as refest guy: Speak Middle English!
A poacher is smashing all the giant eggs with a stick.
Crow: What is he? An LA cop?
A monster attacks the guy who was smashing the eggs.
Joel: It’s the Easter Bunny and boy is he mad!
Tom: Even the movie Fog didn’t have this much fog.
After a lot of jump cuts, we cut to some deer.
Crow: We’re just as confused as you are folks.
Two guys find the girl and pick her up.
Guy: She’s sure in bad shape! Grab her legs!
Crow: Move her spine around a lot!
The girl is unconscious in the RV after her bad fall. The others are tending to her.
One girl offers a bottle of whiskey. “This will warm her up.”
A guy tries to poor it into her mouth but it just runs off her closed mouth and down her face.
Tom: She obviously doesn’t need it.
Each time Tommy holds the giant egg up to his head
Tom: Let me out!
Tommy looks confused and listens again.
Tom: Let me out!
Rick: There’s been an accident.
Tom: She soiled herself!
Rick: This phone isn’t working!
Crow as old man: Give me that, I’ll show you how to use a prop phone!
The alien throws one of the poachers down.
Joel: Alf, no! Alf, no!
Tommy: Trumpy. You like that name, don’t you.
Joel: I named you after Donald Trump
Crow as Trumpy with a strange, whiny British accent: Kitty is like a potato. Oh. Oh. So nice.
Where do I start. It all looks so good.
Trumpy sees some birds.
Crow: Oh. Wing-ed potatoes.
He sees a rabbit.
Crow: This potato’s got big ears.
He sees a baby hamster.
Crow: New potatoes.
Later, Tommy feeds him peanuts.
Crow: Oh. Little potatoes. Now you try.
Tommy working the puzzle: See, the pieces go together.
Joel: If only this film were so lucky.
Trumpy touches the Simon game and it plays bad music.
Joel as Tommy: Trumpy! You can do stupid things!
Tommy sees lions and hippos in his telescope.
Joel: They have wild kingdom on the telescope.
Joel as man: Gosh, that last scene was goofy! I’m glad I wasn’t in it.
Girl: The radio makes a funny noise, too.
Tom: It’s called music.
At one point, the truck seems to be driving through snow. A little later, it’s sunny and bright.
Tom: Thank goodness it’s summer again. We’ve been driving for months!
Mom: Where did you spring from?
Tom as Tommy: Your loins!
Tom: I’m starting to not believe this movie. I believed it when Alf went on a killing spree, but not now.
Tommy: Uncle Bill wants to kill you.
Joel as Tommy: My advice – don’t let him!
Rick: We gotta wait for daylight.
Crow: Night looks like daylight anyhow.