mike@projection-booth.com mike@projection-booth.com

August 14, 2012

Episode 75: Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990)

Special Guest: Rex Weiner, Daniel Waters, Floyd Mutrux
Guest Co-Host: Stewart "Feedback" Andrews

It's booty time across the USA! We're discussing the ill-fated Andrew "Dice" Clay vehicle The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990) in which he portrays a rock & roll detective with a dirty mouth and a bad attitude.

Interviews include discussions with the creator of Ford Fairlane, Rex Weiner, the film's original producer, Floyd Mutrux, and the film's screenwriter, Daniel Waters.

We're joined in the Projection Booth this week by Toronto's very own Stuart "Feedback" Andrews, host of the Rue Morgue and Cinephobia Radio podcasts.

Listen/Download Now:

Bonus: Interview with Rex Weiner

Bonus: Interview with Floyd Mutrux

| Bonus: Interview with Daniel Waters

Links
Read "The (Original Adventures) of Ford Fairlane: The Long Lost Rock ’n’ Roll Detective Stories" by Rex Weiner (2018) by Cullen Gallagher
Here's Feedback's Cinephobia Radio site
Visit Floyd Mutrux's web site
Check out Rex Weiner's official site
Andrew "Dice" Clay's Facebook page
Stop by Renny Harlin's official website
Buy The Adventures of Ford Fairlane on DVD

Watch: Ford Fairlane, Inception Style

10 comments:

  1. Wow ! What a great show. Feedback was my introduction to this podcast and I must say I was completely enamored and fascinated by this. I like many others mistakenly assumed that FORD FAIRLANE was written and tailored for the crude comic known as the Dice Man. I have downloaded several more podcasts from this site because of the latest show. Episodes that I was not aware were available. Currently listening to part one of the LAST ACTION HERO episode and Mike brought up something that really hits home and peaks my personal interest film topics. I am paraphrasing of course but it was something along the lines of " big failed blockbuster and what went wrong is usually more fascinating then the picture itself." Or something to that effect. Mike mentioned the book FIASCO about failed blockbusters including LAST ACTION HERO. I could not put that book down. Particularly the chapter about said film above. From pre to post production, marketing, meetings, handfuls of writers and rewrites and the final failed execution. This is brilliant and fascinating stuff. All the misfires including FORD and LAST ACTION. I think I have sought out and read everything surrounding the making of Arnies first major box office failure. I believe FORD FAIRLANE had many of the same development issues as LAST ACTION HERO. I would love to see a show on BATMAN and ROBIN from 97 as that features failures are far more interesting then that film. In the case of the latest podcast I got a real kick out of Waters stating that he wasn't worried about FORD at the time because he and the great Joel Silver were already hard at work on the sure thing of Bruce Willis "blockbuster" HUDSON HAWK. Absolutely fascinating to say the least. I have a soft spot for the crudely charming disaster that is The ADVENTURES of FORD FAIRLANE and I loved HUDSON HAWK has a boy and need to revisit that film as well as the underrated LAST ACTION HERO. At any rate you guys are busy I am sure and I wanted to say thanks for expanding on the birth and death of some of these features on one of my new favorite podcasts, The Projection Booth. Keep it up gentlemen and thanks.
    Scott Tank

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  2. Very good show, except for all the 80's music bashing. I for one found the late 80's-early90's to be a particularly great time for music.

    I recall seeing this in the theater, and it was fine. Good music though, and Ed O'Neil was great (during the height of his "Married with Children" run).

    But yeah, it was a time-capsule of the end of the 80's.

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  3. Day late and a dollar short, I know, but I would like to state for the record that Robert Englund's Cockney accent isn't even close to the worst such attempt in movie history. Only someone unfamiliar with the late great Brion James and his work in the execrable TANGO & CASH could make such a claim...

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  4. I know it's been a couple years and may be too late to fix, but the bonus interview with Dan Waters just links again to the interview with Floyd Mutrux.

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  5. Give it a spin now. I think I fixed it.

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  6. It says Dan Waters in the flash player, the embed link is to the Waters mp3, yet the player still plays Mutrux. Huh.

    Anyways, thanks for poking at it, Mike, and sorry I made my intro through this. I've been working my way up through the archives after Dr Freex passed me a recommendation, and think this is an absolutely wonderful podcast series, full of fun commentary and great info. Thanks so much to you and Rob for it, and I look forward to being entirely up-to-date one day soon. :)

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  7. I'm going to make this work.

    Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad you're enjoying it!

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  8. There's a bunch of extended, bonus interviews with writers Weiner, Mutrux and Waters on the Projection Booth site for this episode. They're well worth a listen. Be forewarned though - they are completely unedited. If anything, they'll give you a greater appreciation for the efforts that spoken word producers put into editing their raw content.

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  9. Fun fact: Apparently, The Offspring's song "Cool to Hate" was inspired by Mr. Feedback. I bet you did not know that. But seriously, I wish you had someone like Josh Headly, who likes the movie, on as well. It would've been fun to hear the fans' take on the movie and Dice too. I find his shtick offensive and the movie is pretty sexist and it occasionally even gets creepy (the forced food exchange kiss scene is a riot when you're 6 and arguably rape when you're not), but the movie also has tons of charm none the less thanks to Harlin's awesome late 80s/early 90s Tony Scott-esque direction, the casts' (yes even Dice's) fun performances and the script's childish lack of realism. Cool interviews, though. And yeah, Brain Smasher...A Love Story (1993) is pretty much the spiritual sequel to this. By the way, you could've speculated on what a movie based on this "music detective" idea would look like today. My guess is as bad or worse than Be Cool (2005).

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  10. The Canadian with the Brit accent signs off with some snark about grunge rock being a pale imitation of punk rock from the UK. He should get his facts straight about which side of the Atlantic punk rock actually started on.

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