#277 Best of the Best Crossing The Streams (Bonus Ep76) – Great TV binge watching suggestions!

CTS Announcer 0:01

Looking for your next TV show or movie to binge? Well buckle up, grab the remote and settle into your couch for this special edition of crossing the streams. We're here to help you tune in and get the most out of those 50 monthly streaming channels you're currently paying for. So without any further ado, here's your host of crossing the streams. Jeff Dwoskin.

Jeff Dwoskin 0:29

Hey, oh, it is I Jeff Dwoskin, your host of classic conversations and your guide through this bonus episode of crossing the streams. What is crossing the streams is where we answer the universal question. What should you be binge watching next year, just watch something and now you got to watch something else. Well, you've come to the right place. We have over 127 hours of streaming suggestions just waiting for you on our YouTube channel. But you're in luck because right now we're going to take three segments from three of those live shows and Bhima Moravian deer airs from Live episode 43 Fire the greatest party that never happened. The Janet Jackson documentary from Live episode 60 And best of the best from Live episode 111. crossing the streams myself, my co host special guests come together we talk about shows we're watching. We've watched and we think you should watch as well. We're gonna kick things off with the best of the best. Larry Roberts, friend of the show back for his fourth time in Episode 111. And it's no coincidence that my guest this week on classic conversation is Eric Roberts star best of the best. Let's get to it. Take it away, Larry. We're gonna take this to the next level. With the best of the best. We're just we have an 80s block coming in. Yeah,

Larry Roberts 1:56

man in jeopardy, though, anytime but while the show is all about the 80s You know, I think this is at least my fourth time on the show. What did we cover Flash Gordon? We covered Teen Wolf. We cover ninja three, the domination. And now what are we doing? I think we're doing best of the best you have the cover art actually, for Best of the Best to which actually wasn't amazing sequel to the first we very rarely get great sequels. But in the form of martial arts movies, best of the best to is one of the Well, best of the best in martial arts films. Man, me being a karate guy back in the 80s and 90s. This movie really resonated with me, this still fits in my 80s motif because it was released in 1989. And believe it or not, it's got quite the lineup of I mean, we'll call it a minus list stars. I mean, this thing has it was written by a guy by the name of Philippi him and his brother Simon they start it and Philip re although he's definitely not an alias or by any stretch of the imagination. He is an alias or martial artist and he actually competed in the 80s on the US National karate team. And his competition against the South Korean team in real life is what inspired him to write this movie. So he and his brothers starred in the movie alongside some other real names that we would know. Julia Roberts brother, Eric, Eric Roberts, stars in this movie right alongside the late and great Christopher Penn, he was in it as well. We have another guy there that everybody knows we were talking about the Mandalorian and Boba Fett. This guy made an appearance as his alter ego, Darth Vader, James Earl Jones stars in this movie, as the legendary coach of the US National karate team. And this movie is all about a ragtag band of Americans that receive letters to compete to earn a spot on the national karate team. And in doing so they get the honor of flying to Seoul, Korea to compete against the South Korean team. Now this is basically a rocky ripoff filled with training montages and manufacturer drama that really wouldn't exist anywhere else. But we have some some great moments here with the team that's training. We have an excellent coaching James Earl Jones. We have a couple of people here that are in the movie that will shock you as well. It's funny when you're watching the movie, because although a karate guy and a big karate fan that I was, even I call BS on the film, because they try to make it seem like Americans really give a shit about karate as a sport. They cut away to two bar scenes when the Americans are competing, and people in the bar cheering and they're acting like they really are invested in the sport which they have zero interest in, in all honesty, but they also got a mod Rashad, who at the time was the announcer of the NBA, so he was an amazing announcer they brought him in to provide some legitimacy to this competition and it was just really kind of fun to watch. But as a martial artist, this really is one of the best movies just because the martial arts in the film is really next level the technique is 100% on point the fight scenes are super, super well choreographed. And you can really get invested into the fight scenes. And the fact that the leader of the South Korean team just happened at a previous competition to murder the captain of the US National karate teams bro. Whether there was an accident, but he actually used a killer technique to put him out of his misery on the mat. So that gives us that drama there now where the captain of the US team has to come and face off with the captain of the South Korean team in order to make this this pinnacle of the movie at the end here. And during that time, we have Crispian that is trying to add some cowboy realism in he's trying to give some some some southern boy, some tough guy attitude to the whole karate guy mix. And he hits us with some great quotes, like you shouldn't block with your face. That was always a good one. While watching the team trained, he yells out drop in like a toilet seat. And while I've been to a shit ton of fights in my life, I have never heard anybody realistically say drop people like a toilet seat, and I still don't even get that now I'm 50 years old that I still don't really understand that saying, but whatever he says it was a lot of passion. And we all believed it when we were watching this movie. But it comes to the pinnacle. It's the final fight. It's Tommy versus de Haan the evil South Korean team leader, and they are about to face off at the end. And then they go at it for two or three rounds. And well Tommy gets himself in a position to where he has this move. It's the exact same move the de Haan used on his brother to kill his brother. And he's getting in position to make this final move and kill de Haan. And we have James Earl Jones say one word that just stops the entire audience. He looks at Tom and he says no. And the whole movie just stops. Tommy looks over and he goes no, I'm not going to kill him coach and the timer runs out. And Tommy ends up not killing de Haan. And in an act of gratitude and asking for forgiveness, de Haan stumbles his way over to Tommy. And he says he says to him to save a life in defeat is to earn victory and honor within your brother to was a great fighter. I deeply regret your loss. And I offer myself as your brother. And I'll tell you every karate guy that ever watched his movie, every one of us we all teared up right there at that moment. And if you don't tear up, I don't think you have a heart. So if you want to tear up you want to watch a great action movie. You want to see some old school people for some be less maybe some some low level A listers compete in a karate movie. Best of the Best is one of the best martial art movies out there. And I highly recommend it. What a great job.

Unknown Speaker 7:12

Fantastic review. I mean, they hammered me enamored by one thing. What's are you? Are you married to a dentist?

Larry Roberts 7:21

No, but I did just buy these actually. These are all veneers. I did just buy them last year. And honestly, I just paid them off last week. So I'm very happy to announce they are actually my teeth. Now the bank no longer owns them. Very excited about that. I'm married to a dentist. No, I'm trying not to be 50. So you're trying to get on that five to six scale. I'm trying to stay in that six to seven range at 50. So I I paint my face on every Sunday. This is all bullshit. You know, it's just for men. And then the fake teeth of the little flat build hat trying to clock in and about 35 I don't know if I'm pulling it off. But that's the goal.

Jeff Dwoskin 7:54

Yeah. 36 really strong 37 and a half. So this movie, Fred won an Oscar winner, Louis Fletcher and asked her nominees Eric Roberts, James Earl Jones, and you haven't mentioned yet Sally Kirkland. She's in

Larry Roberts 8:11

my notes. She is here to mention, because she's she's probably done more other than Eric Roberts than anybody else in the list, honestly. I mean, she's been in a lot of high profile roles and a lot of high profile movies. And she's earned a ton of awards. So she's probably had the most impact on Hollywood overall, unless you take Eric Roberts into account or James Earl Jones, obviously voicing Darth Vader, but overall, I think Sally Kirkland made a real big impact on Hollywood.

Jeff Dwoskin 8:35

That was impressive. That was really good. He's a good talker. I had to

Larry Roberts 8:39

do my research. I actually watched the movie this afternoon, knowing that I was coming on my wife and I were cooking dinner and I turned it on in the living room. And when I found that I was still quoting movie, I thought, okay, I'm fine. I can that was tell your wife to drop dinner on the plate like the toilet seat, dropping like a toilet seat, honey.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:04

How many best of the best movies are there?

Larry Roberts 9:07

There's actually four Believe it or not. And one and two were really good. Three was kind of me. Chris Penn was already gone when they did three and four was just terrible. I mean, it was super, super low budget. But one and two are a lot of fun. And they both have some really, really well choreographed fight scenes. So if you're a martial arts fan, I highly recommend to check check it out because they're done really, really well. Yeah, so Jennifer's gonna run out and watch three and four now because that's what the crap Yeah, the worst. The worst, the better. Yeah, well, four is the worst of the worst instead of the best of the best. So the worst and filmed with a camcorder. So most likely, yes. Yeah. I'll probably love it. Like on an iPhone. Good. All right, take it

Jeff Dwoskin 9:49

to Jennifer. We'll come back and review three and four. So the best three There you go.

Larry Roberts 9:55

I'll be here for that for sure.

Jeff Dwoskin 10:00

All right, Larry Roberts given us best of the best. Larry's always bringing the greatest 80s action movies to the show. And this one did not disappoint. Up next, from Live episode 43 Ron Lippitt is taking us through the social media disaster the fire festival in the documentary fire a greatest party that never happened. Take it away, Ron, this is a fascinating one. There were two, there was a Hulu documentary. And then this one that we'll talk about is the Netflix documentary.

Ron Lippitt 10:32

Yeah. So first of all, you know what, once again, thank you to the Netflix algorithm that that put this thing in front of me, I had never even heard of it before. And I was looking for a show to do and started up on squid game. And I knew I needed something. And this went in front of me. So it's a one, one time documentary hour and a half. on Netflix. I wasn't even aware that it was available on Hulu, or that there was another one I love. But yeah, well so some of you guys who know me personally know that, you know, I've been to Burning Man. And I'm a super invested and continue to be interested into the success of a Burning Man moving forward. So when I saw this come forth as an option in my algorithm for Netflix, I was fascinated by what could have possibly gone wrong with a festival of this magnitude with such high powered people behind it the kind of money it had behind it. How could this have happened? And I didn't know anything about the fire festival. And I don't know if any of you guys had even heard of it, or were you aware of the of the scandal

Jeff Dwoskin 11:31

that I watched both documentaries.

Ron Lippitt 11:34

Yeah. But I'm saying Were you aware of it, like as it went down through

Jeff Dwoskin 11:38

there, I was there. Perfect. Like, I hang out with super cool models,

Ron Lippitt 11:44

I mean, kinda little bit. So so for those of you that don't know, I mean, this producer, the this gentleman, his name was Billy McFarland basically set up a festival that had not, you know, it was promoted by social media and the whole influencing community and build a momentum to it. That allowed him to fabricate what was going to happen on this Bahamian Island, this highly exclusive access to VIP only a special event called the Fire Festival, which was gonna have incredible music, incredible amenities, unbelievable food, just the best of everything. And it was put forth by you know, Jah rule whose name is all over this thing and just influencers left and right tickets were going for $100,000 A piece. I mean, it was just incredibly powerful for your own personal brand to say that you got a ticket and you're going to the fire Festival, and it all went down with none of this thing happening. I mean, it was the island was left like without any logistics, the people on the island who did all the hard labor to support the festival no one got paid. None of the things that you would expect like just simple things like delivering luggage and having your hotel and or tents in this case set up to be able to defend against the elements which are rough in the in the Bahamas, just everything went wrong for this event. The food has like there was one of the most produced reproduced social media posts about fire festival was their elegant dinner, which came in a styrofoam box and it was two pieces of cheese and a piece of bread. And that like that post I don't know who created the original of it. But that post got went completely viral. You can pull it up right now that that was that was representative of the fire festival. That's what you got, like by getting

Sal Demilio 13:59

$100,000 or $100,000

Jeff Dwoskin 14:01

they they like hired like supermodels and they filmed things to kind of show you like if this was going to be like event of events of events, right? They had no infrastructure no toilets, nothing it was a it was worse than what bands that were supposed to be didn't even know that I

Ron Lippitt 14:23

was gonna say that Jen so so the the thing completely unspooled interestingly enough, when blink 182 got wind of how badly this thing had been set up. And when they cancelled it created an immediate momentum of all of the names that had been attached to this thing that that were a part of the foundation for its success, just one by one by one at all just just crumbled and so you know you're talking 10s hundreds of millions of dollars of money that just evaporated and now and this Billy McFarlane was skip town and then moved to New York, they finally finally did come up and did go to trial for it and only served, I guess six years I think it was for, for for was essentially every financial crime you can think of. And they still even now they don't know where the money is. Most of it just burned away. And you know, listen to get the guy's a crook. But as Bernie Madoff proved, you know, if you have the, you know, the panache and the friends and the name attached to it, you can get away with anything. Well, and this guy is just another example of what can be possible when enough people in positions of public, you know, strength, you know, put their backing on it. So it's it's a fascinating documentary. It's a story I didn't even know about. And it makes me reflect on Burning Man about how hard it is to produce an excellent event. And it really gives you a sense for how much has to go in to cover every single detail to make a flawless seamless event of that magnitude.

Sal Demilio 16:11

What else was the draw for the 100? Grand? Was it just blink? 182? I mean, what what was the draw?

Ron Lippitt 16:18

Now the draw the main draw is Jeff alluded to it, you've got supermodels, you've got the top influencers of social media being there, you've got you know, Silicon Valley, you know, executives, and just superstars. And it's not like it's, you know, there's bracelets and fenced in areas. We're only once you're there, you're part of it. I mean, you're you get to mingle with everybody.

Sal Demilio 16:45

How many people would you say bought tickets for this? Or suppose that

Ron Lippitt 16:48

it's a great question. I don't know that off the top of my head, I want to say I would guess somewhere around three or 4000 people maybe. Okay, all right. I could get you that exact number though. That's just curious

Sal Demilio 17:01

if it was like, you know, 50,000 people, or if it was just like 100 people, you know,

Jeff Dwoskin 17:07

it was more than 100 people and then they were all stranded and nobody could get off.

Ron Lippitt 17:11

Yeah, no one could get off the island and no. Water, it was

Jeff Dwoskin 17:16

1000s of dollars. That's just saying it's a fun train wreck. The interesting thing about the two documentaries, the one on Netflix and the one on on Hulu is they were made by different people. So they have slightly different points of view. One of them was made by the ad agency, so they come up a little better. And then the other one, right, so it's definitely interesting. The guy was the main guy. He only MacFarlane barely hit like a history of being a shyster and kind of screwing people and all that kind of stuff. So he did. He did, but it was it's a whole statement on the concept of how influencer marketing can really kind of lead you astray. 100%

Ron Lippitt 17:57

So so check this out, Sally. And so the big secret about fire leading leading up to the fire festival is that these influencers that were at the top of their game, they would simply put out posts of orange squares, and your you were left to interpret, you know, like, she's like she's posting an orange square. What does that mean? Like what you know, okay, so yes, like that, that means something and as word got out about fire festival, like people started to understand you're going to fire festival you got to tickets to this fire Festival, and you've earned the right to produce this orange square on your Instagram account. And just that that turns into a currency of sort of, which shows you how screwed up we are as a society that the currency becomes the right to produce an orange square on your Instagram account. And that drives the even more hunger for for the tickets, right? Well, I blame the Kardashians.

Jeff Dwoskin 19:02

All right, that was a lot of fire festival. Thank you, Ron. elimite Definitely check out both of those documentaries. There's two fire festival documentaries. Both very, very interesting. And up next. I'm going to take us through the Janet Jackson documentary. All the way back from Live episode. 60 Oh, I was so young back then. All right. Let's do it. Take it away. Me. Speaking of winners, let's talk about Janet Jackson Jackson. This is her story her true.

Ron Lippitt 19:32

cool is that? Yeah. Does that was it was that her? Was that her velcro exposing your nipple.

Jeff Dwoskin 19:38

Okay, so Janet Jackson documentary that just aired days ago on Lifetime. You can watch it on my lifetime.com and the lifetime or a in the apps lifetime might rerun it. I will tell you I watched all four hours. And let me just say I enjoyed it. But I enjoyed the second two hours better than the first two hours because the second two hours I was etched with the ability to fast for the commercials. And that is a key to watching this documentary. Sometimes they just resist too many commercials when you watch a two hours of TV and 30 some minutes of it, it's commercials. Yeah, it's just it can it can be, it can start to really feel like a million million years. So here's the interesting thing about this documentary, it was produced by Janet Jackson and her brother, Randy Jackson. So it's her truth. And so it goes as deep as she wants it to go. However, if you're a fan of Janet Jackson, which I am, and I've saw her in concert, and you know, you can't deny she was one of the biggest female or just even just pop icons in general in the 80s and 90s. And to put her career and consider that she came from the same family as Michael Jackson, and that she was able to reach the heights that she did. That's an incredible thing in itself, just the amount of talent that came out of that. Now, a couple interesting things about this documentary one, Randy Jackson and Tito Jackson are the only brothers that are interviewed in this movie put together by Janet Jackson. She has a sister Raby, which I don't know if you guys knew this. I didn't even know there was a sister. Jackson. Yeah, but she's she seems to be pretty cool. Latoya also was not the only those three siblings were interviewed for this entire movie about Janet Jackson talking about her life. Now, it it downplays certain things and puts things in, I think her perspective of things that she wishes were true like that her father, who supposedly allegedly was very, very, maybe abusive, and like, whatever, whatever, but it was kind of like, oh, you know, you know, he was a mentor, it was, you know, like, he guided me and I'm in it's like, that kind of thing. So it doesn't go into that type of, there's no negativity or drama doesn't. The drama level doesn't go beyond that. It's never mentioned that the other brothers aren't there. I can imagine that they're all jealous of Janet's career that worked out for you, Jermaine, we get it, you kind of still showed up for the movie. So the IG talks about her marriages with James two bars. And this Rene Ella Alonso. And the interesting thing is he documented like 10 years of their lives together. So there was a lot of interesting video that they had and things. And I thought one of the most touching things that really I've really enjoyed watching and I'm glad that I was able to see was when Michael Jackson was going through the issues that he was going through, he reached out to Janet and they wanted to he wanted to do a song with her, that song was scream, and there's just raw footage of the two of them sitting on a bed together, working it out talking and she's you know, he's like, I want you to bring your voice. So you know, like in black cat, and you know, like, and like there, it's just a real conversation. It's kind of like watching a little bit of like, get back like it was that kind of real. And you'd never saw interaction like this between the two of them. It was it was real, like they were really just kind of working through this song that they were eventually going to do together in showing the video for scream, Janet, this is where like, it starts to become her version where it's like, she's like, oh, you know, the his record company was trying to make him more prominent. But apparently the stories where he even went back and Michael went back and remixed it, so his voice would be more prominent. So there was there's definitely was drama there. Lots of drama. And he talks about how her first two albums were flops. Those are the ones that were totally under the control of the Father as her manager, they wouldn't let her go to college, they really controlled her life. That's why when she finally decided I'm going to make my own album, which became control, she fired her father, and basically the people involved with that they almost they created basically a new sound for her. I mean, it was like it was a groundbreaking album, but it's called control because she literally had control of her life. I know, we all know the lyrics, but when you see the story leading up to it, you realize, oh, those were pretty literal, you know. And this is really, really what it was. And I talked it shows Rhythm Nation and her creating that and then just the follow ups. And then it talks a little bit about the Super Bowl. And I think this was the most disappointing piece of it for me personally is she forgives Justin Timberlake meaning she says she's claimed that she told him not to make a statement. And you know, because I mean, think about this. He pulled that away right from her, and she became the biggest villain it to completely or that one and a half seconds literally destroyed her career. I mean, I mean, it's, it's insane when you think about it through today's lens. Yeah, but it like ruined her for a very long time. And we still talk about it to this.

Ron Lippitt 24:42

Wait a second, Jeff connec. Is she suggesting that that wasn't planned?

Jeff Dwoskin 24:47

I think they were supposed to do something I will but what I'm saying is they didn't talk about Iran like that was what was disappointing. They said it they said it happened. They said it was horrible. Everyone felt bad. It wasn't that specific. There wasn't supposed to be nudity All right, but they didn't talk about like, why it happened. Meaning like, what did they do that this incident this that allowed this thing to accidentally happen? You know what I mean? Like, it didn't go any deeper than just kind of glossing over that it happened, you know, the anonymous that you know what I mean? Yeah, that part was disappointing because I would have been nice saying, Oh, we we changed our, you know, the costume last second. And we did this. And when Justin did that, it was like, you know, that kind of thing. So it talks about her role and good times and fame. And most of that was very pushed by her family to do those acting roles. Oh, she was a very good actress, and poetic justice, oddly, did not mention different strokes at all, which I think was also a prominent show for her talked about, they did a good job not making it all about Michael, but just how Michael impacted her life like Michael was about, you know, they signed a huge deal with Pepsi, which is what when his hair caught on fire, which is why they say he was eventually on all those drugs for the rest of his life that eventually led to his death because of the pain from that incident. Don't quote me, but that's what I think happened. But she was about to sign like a huge deal with Coca Cola, like millions and it would have been a groundbreaking groundbreaking deal. And then the pedophile stuff came out and they just they're like, nobody wanted to do anything to do with Jackson's guilt by association, as she said, But you know, it kind of culminates with they're getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. Again, I'll put please Janet Jackson deserves to be in grad school often. When I google an article it says here's the her 30 Best Songs most people don't have.

Larry Roberts 26:40

You think of her as rock and roll,

Jeff Dwoskin 26:43

but the whole Rock and Roll Hall of Fame isn't I mean, it has like it has. That's my point. Right? There's a lot of people in the Rock Hall of Fame it evolved from my point, but it's been that way forever. It's like all of a sudden it wasn't like Janet Jackson. But I mean so the Beatles shouldn't be in it or they rock and roll I mean they were they were they passed and I mean yes back back in the rockin songs too and Michael Jackson and like all you know the I think yeah, I mean these are it's I think it's a Music Hall of Fame more than is a rock album that's what they should call it on in not sorry to an orange Yvonne should be in it but that has nothing to do with Janet Jackson so quit trying to appropriate this anyway it's it's if you like Jenna Jackson and I don't know who really doesn't I mean she's she I know I've well we know you're down call out to Netflix to put out a warrant Z Vaughn thing. But though the the Warrens Yvonne documentary about him making his last album is is good. Anyway, if you like Janet Jackson and I like Janet Jackson is this is a very enjoyable for hours, but it's probably like without the commercials two hours to digest. It's four episodes. And again, it's a lifetime so I recommend it. I thought it was really good. It was one of their biggest shows ever lifetime the ratings were through the roof for this thing.

Ron Lippitt 28:16

Did you did you seek this out? Or was it was it served to you or was it advertised? Yeah, now

Jeff Dwoskin 28:20

you know, Robin, my wife my wife was like I think it was on her radar and so we just knew was on so we just watched it. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, Jeff had a countdown on his calendar. Don't let him fool you. It's you know, something you know it's it's rare though. Ron. Right. They you even know something is on when it's on. It's one of those things. So that's the way love goes. Quick Jackson story real quick. Michael Jackson,

Sal Demilio 28:50

the whole Jackson family. So this is my buddy Jeff, who was in was a member of the Groundlings. He went on to do some acting and then he started touring with the Black Crowes. But when he was doing acting, I went out to LA to see him. He was in the middle. He's doing a lot of auditions at the time. He knew a lot of people he picks me up from the airport and he goes Hey, he told me before I got on the plane he goes Hey, bring bring your your like your mitt and we're because we're going to be playing softball. So he picks me up. He goes do we got a game right now and we need Yeah, so we had a gate. We went from the airport to some softball field and North Hollywood or whatever. And he was in a celebrity League and we played softball against the Jacksons. And obviously Michael wasn't out there. But some of the family members some of the cousins and stuff but Tino was out there Randy I mean, almost all of them except Michael and I slid into second base and splice. really did know this story I didn't know it was him. I just thought it was one of the causes or whatever. And I got off the field and somebody on my bench goes Dude, you just spiked Tito Jackson. I wouldn't worry. Ty Cobb in the 1909 I was just I just on it. It was it was a fun game

Jeff Dwoskin 30:17

I felt opinions of Janet Jackson are not the opinions of Gaza streams. Oh, Bob. i That was fun. Janet Jackson documentary. You got a lot of stuff to keep you busy to fire festival documentary. And best of the best one and two both got high praise in this episode. You got a lot of homework, go hop in the couch, find your cozy spot, grab the remote, cross your own streams, and we'll see you next time.

CTS Announcer 30:45

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