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S6E3: Top Guns (Patreon)

Published:
2022-06-13 17:12:10
Imported:
2026-06
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  • BEE_061322_S6E3_TOP_GUNS.mp3

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Content

Bret Easton Ellis revisits Tony Scott's soaring smash hit from 1986 before heading to a theater to watch Tom Cruise bring Maverick back to the big screen in 2022.

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Comments

Ryan L

Moving. Funny. Nostalgic. Thank you so very much.

Chris Wright

Is it just me or is the audio, Bret's voice, constantly affected by an audio bug, like it becomes muffled for a moment.

Josh McClintock

I know it’s a few years on now. Been going through the podcast from the beginning. Just wanted to say condolences on the loss of your friend Bret.

Mr.Pink1996

Jennifer Connelly has got to be the hottest fifty-something year old woman ever.

Normaling

sitting in a jacuzzi in the woods of Topanga listening to BEE talk about Top Gun is the pride parade float for these end times

James__

It’s time for Owain’s run.

David Eugene

Maverick was ok. I give it two ratings. 6.8 for a true movie review. 9.0 if you are purely looking forward a nostalgic popcorn action movie. Heavy on the nostalgia. The opening scene is a complete copy of the original down to music and timing of sequence and song changes. It is not a movie I feel I need to see again. Compared to There Will Be Blood which I saw 8 times in the theater because I knew it was an instant classic that would be rare to see on big screen again.

M. Nero Nava

A little a presumptuous to say Modine “forgot” and was “hired for Goose”. Modine received critical acclaim for Birdy, and Vision Quest. Modine at that point hadn’t played second lead to anyone. I can’t see why or who he’d play second fiddle to at that point. He had some cache at the time. 
Also, Modine is a Stella Adler guy, it’s rooted in their program to utilize their platform and artistry for social and political issues. So, it’s not off the wall for an SA trained guy to see this movie for what it is—a fancy Navy commercial.
I worked in advertising for several years, and one of my main accounts was the US Army. They’d propose astoundingly underhanded ideas in ways to attract recruits. One of my many roles—was the task of writing the brochures and shooting spots that would appeal to “urban” youth. Most of my work was showcased in malls that appealed to people of color, and poor people. I digress, just wanted to point out the great ends the gov will go to—to put on a good face and sucker people into joining the armed forces. That being said: brilliant and hilarious reading of Top Gun. This is why I’m a member. (Huhuhu, I said “member”) P.s. Thanks for taking my question regarding news stories becoming series. I really loved The Staircase, but ultimately felt unfulflled… but maybe that was the idea.

FlyingWaffle

I've just watched the blu-ray of the 3D version of the old TOP GUN, and they did a great job, it was glorious.

Patrick

Fantastic episode. Now I have to see that god damned Maverick movie tho. 🙄

Erix Antoine

The best thing about this episode is Bret being unable to keep a straight face and barely stifling his laughter as he describes the plot details, and some of the dialog. It highlights just what an astoundingly stupid movie Top Gun really is. Maverick, however, is the real deal. I agree with Bret that it’s not a “great” film. But it is an almost perfect popcorn blockbuster that must be seen on the biggest screen possible.

Kerry

This was great, better and more enjoyable than any of my attempted rewatches of Top Gun over the years. These rawness and candor of Bret’s monologues is so enjoyed and appreciated. Many emotions on my end when listening and this is a good thing. Thank you Bret

Thomas Edwards

You are a good person Brett. Such a moving end to this review.

Gabriel

For some reason this one hasn’t showed up In my podcast app yet any idea why? The Friedkin ones did

slimshadyfan666

it's hilarious how self-consciously gen x would use the word "geek" hahahahahahaha

slimshadyfan666

seriously though i don't give a shit what bret easton ellis thinks about fucking top gun

James__

That is why I pay for this podcast. Beautiful essay. Thank you.

Tom Jennings

great episode and once again reduced my girlfriend to tears!

Thomas Edwards
>>85756603

Thank you. Notwithstanding I am grateful to the real people in the armed services for their service.

M. Nero Nava
>>85756603

People go above and beyond to thank folks in the military. I think culture has turned that corner. If anything people lay it on pretty thick and regard troops as infallible.

Alex Bielovich

Walked out of Maverick - maybe I just wasn't in the right headspace for the experience. Couldn't stomach the cheese.

Phoenix

I was 6 when Top Gun came out, but I don't remember seeing it until it came out on video in '87. I was mesmerized with it at the time, even the romance between Tom and Kelly seemed so sexy to me with Take My Breath Away playing in the background. I don't care how cheesy it is, it's pure fun and nostalgia and hot men. I went recently to see Maverick and loved it. Cried at certain parts. The old man next to me had glassy eyes too. It's just a reminder of how this country used to be. Top Gun is America. Love it or hate it.

Rafael Diaz

You have to come back to Books and Books in Coral Gables.

Fredrik Fahlman

Regarding the Q&A, I can wait, thanks 🙏😎

P Smoke

I love these movie deep dives. Beautifully read and really well researched. Now time to revisit to the Tom Cruise deep dive with Nick Pizzolato!

David Willis

Really disagree with Bret on The Lighthouse. You keep on about the lack of creativity in film. That film is fantastic.

Travis Films
>>85756603

I was hungover about ten years ago - too drunk to drive to the gas station for cigarettes so, I walk there after putting on a classy sweatpants/button up long sleeve combo and walking back a Marine (?) Recruiter literally stalks me from the gas station and pulls alongside me like a creep and asks me if I thought about the military. But I still enjoy the movies. I really only care about the flight action.

Stevan Popovic

Thanks for this. Saves me visiting the cinema to watch this.

Oleg

There is nothing accurate about the Vikings in THE NORTHMAN.

Arthur Ricardo Sousa Machado
>>85870435

Of course you do. That is why you want to tell us what you think, without actually doing so, because your opinion is irrelevant and probably based on superficial feelings, unlike BEE's review.

slimshadyfan666
>>85870435

Then agree with him and shut the fuck up, you fucking bootlicker. Jesus Christ. People are allowed to not like things.

Dan Zilic

Really loved this. I wish more of my friends listened to this just to talk about the interesting take on Top Gun.

kevin rathbun

Read Ross Douthat's review in the NYT, there's a spoiler about just one specific plot point that will completely upend how you experience the movie, exposing a subtext that runs throughout the whole movie. Ross says "this is an interpretive spoiler, no apologies, the movie has been out for weeks — it offers it in a subtle but, once you notice it, unmistakably supernatural framework" but I noticed one clue towards the end of the movie that actually makes his interpretation unavoidable.

Steven Volynets

I first saw TOP GUN at 8 or 9, in Soviet Ukraine, illegally taped and dubbed into Russian. The glamour, the projection of power, the sexual bombast—that ineffable American cool—to a Soviet kid, none of it seemed schmaltzy. The film’s ending was only the beginning, a promise of something even bigger and louder still to come, “faster, more dangerous.” In many ways, it was. The stunt pilot who "flipped the bird" in the famous "inverted" cockpit scene was Navy Capt. Scott "Scooter" Altman. He would later go up to space as a NASA astronaut. The 2022 MAVERICK is a vastly better movie. Before it started rolling, a shaggier haired Tom Cruise in a black tee shirt—megastar actor, not Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell—appeared on screen to thank me, along with a dozen people in a mostly empty darkened theater, for choosing to watch Maverick on a big screen. Decades in the making, he said, the film was made for exactly this experience, with real flying and fighter jets. Truth in advertising: the next two hours pushed at the limits of live action cinema. Int cockpit scenes of dog fights are no longer gyrating simulator boxes. Tom Cruise and other actors, those who played pilots, did stomach-turning acrobatics in the sky, pulling actual Gs in actual F-18s. Under Cruise’s guidance (he is a licensed pilot), these actors trained for months. More than that, they "also had to learn how to run the cameras because when they're up in the jet they have to direct themselves essentially," Jerry Bruckheimer told Wearethemighty.com. "They needed to be taught about the lighting, cinematography and editing." But this time the ending is really the end—of an iconic franchise, of manned fighter jets, of big live-action spectacle, and maybe, tragically, of Hollywood per se, beclowning itself in ways that couldn’t possibly strike as American the 9-year-old me living behind the Iron Curtain. Maybe that’s why MAVERICK, better in every way than Tony Scott's original, is short on that same magic. Or maybe it's because I am 43 now.

grainpulp

Beautiful pod Bret.