Listener Choice – Chosen by Poppy M48

PART 1 – The Nutshell – If you haven’t seen it

A spoiler-free breakdown of the dark, stylish and genre-blending comic-book adaptation that became a cult phenomenon.

The team unpack its tone, atmosphere, world-building, mythology, and the visual and musical identity that cemented The Crow as a 90s cultural landmark.

By the end of Part 1, you’ll know whether this brooding blend of gothic revenge, comic-book grit and atmospheric filmmaking belongs on your watchlist today.

PART 2 – The Unboxing – If you’ve seen it

What Did You Miss? →

A deeper look at the symbolism, themes and creative choices woven into the film — from its mythological roots and stylistic decisions to the emotional undercurrent that sets it apart from other revenge narratives.

Expect thoughtful insights, unexpected connections and context that reshapes how the movie sits in the canon of early comic-book cinema.

Paul’s Facts of the Day →

The remarkable behind-the-scenes truth: early CGI work, last-minute script changes, casting almosts, the atmosphere on set, the accident that changed film safety standards forever, and how the soundtrack became iconic.

Hate It or Rate It?

Marc, Darren & Paul drop their scores — and because this is a Listener Choice episode, The Crow takes its place in the Listener League.

Part 3 - The Listener Lounge

Your questions, your comments and your shout-outs — plus our Question of the Week (this time inspired by The Crow’s legendary soundtrack) and the reveal of next week’s movie.

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Every movie we’ve featured and rated on the podcast…

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Marc Farquhar

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Darren Horne

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Paul Day

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Recorded at:

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Music:

Main Theme: BreakzStudios – https://pixabay.com/users/breakzstudios-38548419

Music Bed: ProtoFunk – Kevin MacLeod – https://incompetech.com

(All music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License)

In every episode, we quickly help you decide whether to press play or skip on a movie you haven’t seen — with no spoilers at all.

If you have seen it, we reveal what you've missed… even if you've watched it a hundred times.

Movies In A Nutshell

Don’t just watch movies — understand them!

Hello and welcome to Movies in a Nutshell with me, Marc Farquhar, myself, Darren.

Horn and I, Paul Day.

We help you spend less time browsing and more time watching.

If you've seen the movie, we'll reveal what you might have missed.

If you haven't, we'll give you a quick spoiler free breakdown.

We've got behind the scenes trivia including Paul's facts of the day host ratings.

And a legend league table plus your.

Chance to choose a movie.

So grab some popcorn and let's jump into this week's movie.

Okay.

This is Listen the Choice chosen by Poppy M48.

So in part one it is the nutshell where we break the movie down spoiler free to help you decide if the Crow is your kind of movie if you've not seen it.

So let's go to the nutshell.

How do we break this down for someone who hasn't seen it, I'm going to go to you first, Darren.

This is a movie about a lovely couple who are about to get married and how they are putting in complaints about landlords and tendency rights because they are living in a slum basically and it's their fight to make the world a better place.

With a great soundtrack.

It's about revenge.

It's basically.

It's a rape revenge narrative.

It's.

Which is a really common thing that happened in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Something horrible would happen to a woman and if she survives, she goes on.

She's.

She then finds her strength and goes on a killing rampage.

Or somebody else gets revenge for them.

Yeah, exactly.

It's.

It's like the.

What they call it in comics?

Phrygian.

When you kill the love interest, the crow is that.

What is the crow?

The symbol of.

The symbol of resurrection.

Resurrection or guidance to.

It depends which culture you follow.

Like Odin had two crows on his shoulders and Hugin and Mugen or something like that and they would fly around and collect all the gossip and then come back and tell him the tea and I think native American Indians would.

It was a.

It was a death omen.

I think I should remember this because when I was 19, around the time I watched this, I got a tattoo on this shoulder of it turned out I ended up getting a raven because the mythology was much, much better.

But yeah, it's lots of cool omens around it.

You got anything else to add, Paul, about breaking this down?

It's film noiri Definitely film noir.

And then I did write down some of the films, see if you Agree, though, because I was writing them down thinking, is it.

Is it not?

Maybe Batman, like maybe the Tim Burton Batmans.

It's gothic like them.

Similarities.

Daredevil to a certain point, whether it's the TV show, maybe not so much the Ben Affleck one, but probably the TV show, because that's very dark.

Dark City, which is the same director.

Don't even know what that is.

Same director.

V for Vendetta.

Got V for Vendetta.

Dibes, Watchmen.

Like superheroes, but not conventional.

Lost Boys.

Yeah, Lost Boys vibe.

Kind of 90s.

Yeah.

Well, I know Lost Boys was 80s, but that kind of vibe.

Underworld films.

Kate Becksentale, that kind of rainy, leathery.

Yeah.

Blade.

I didn't say Blade, but that's a good call.

Maybe Kill Bill, because that's vengeance sort of stories.

It also has Winston from Ghostbusters rocking up as a cop.

Yes.

Which is happening a lot in the movies we're choosing.

Yeah, there is.

There is links.

I forgot Ernie Hudson.

Winston was in this.

And when he turned up, I'm like, hey, check us out with the links.

That's the film in a nutshell.

Have you got any cross between?

Yes, but what I'd start doing is I do movies that it can be compared to a lot of.

Similar to, like, I'll look them up and John Wick came up, but I haven't seen it.

So.

Interesting.

Yeah, I had to sort of dig into that, but then I ended up with John Wick meets Interview With a Vampire.

Yeah, I can kind of see that.

That's about.

Because I have seen that.

So I've only seen bits of Interview with the Vampire.

It's kind of wrapped up in the aesthetic of a.

A rock and roll graphic novel, really, isn't it?

Has he got a song called Ghost Rider on this?

Don't think so.

It's like Ghost Rider Brown.

Wow.

I don't know.

I feel like it should have if it hasn't, though.

Yeah, that's weird.

I know what my mind was doing.

It's quintessentially 90s, though.

Oh, yeah.

It's very 90s with it.

The greatest decade, its look and its feel, and the musical sort of scenes that it throws through it as well.

Because that's a big part of this film, isn't it?

The music and the style.

It's very much.

We're not giving away a lot about the plot, but it is quite a simple revenge plot in the sense.

So a lot of this film is very much about the style of the film itself.

And the way it's shot, it's a stylistic movie.

Okay.

That takes us on to part two, which is the unboxing.

If you haven't seen the Crow and we've helped you decide you want to watch it, we recommend you go and do so now, because from this point forward, there will be spoilers.

So in part two, we have what did you miss?

Where we'll highlight things you may have missed.

Even if you've seen the movie many times, Paul will have his facts of the day, and occasionally we chip in with them as well.

And then we round off with Hate it or Rate it, where each of us will give our opinion and brief score of the movie.

And then our combined score goes into the Legend League, which we will check out when we get there.

So let's go to.

What did you miss?

I'm gonna go to you first, Darren.

I don't think we missed that much, because back in the 90s when we did comic book movies, they were kind of trashy.

They were kind of surface level.

And it was the same with, like, fantasy movies kind of in the 80s.

Like, we were spoiled with things like Legend or Beastmaster.

And then Lord of the Rings comes out in more recent times.

It's, like, stunning.

This is the same, like.

I mean, think of other comic book movies.

What do we have?

The Shadow Rocketeer was a slight high point.

Jennifer Connelly.

You're naming all these classics.

But it wasn't really until, like, Iron man came out that we had the budgets and the special effects that we could really bring comic movies to life.

I mean, even the Spider man show and the Hulk TV show.

I was gonna say maybe you had Batman sneaking in.

What was that, 89?

90.

Batman returns.

Yeah.

Big jump, right?

So that's when it started to get a bit.

And then, like you say in man is when it went.

I mean, Spider Man's got a.

And X Men was in the middle somewhere.

Superman's got a charm, but it's.

It doesn't hold up great.

And so I think they were just kind of churned out.

But this was based on a graphic novel by James Obarr, which I used to own.

I don't own it anymore.

But if anyone wants to buy it for me, just send it care of Darren Horn at Carlisle College, because I'd love to own it again.

And it's a really deep kind of almost poetic.

It's almost like a precursor.

I don't know.

When things like Sandman and stuff like when.

Like.

Or watch.

When, like, real.

When was V for Vendetta as well?

Was that all around that time?

Yeah, I think they were all around that 90s time.

Yeah.

When suddenly comic books.

Well, it's when the kind of.

I guess the graphic novels came out, when comic books really grew up and they started dealing with really adult themes.

Well, even Batman had year.

What is it?

You know, the Dark Knight Returns.

Yeah.

Killing jokes.

Killing jokes.

They got quite dark as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, not for kids.

No.

This has quite a sad backstory because James o' Barr was gonna get.

I think he was engaged.

I think he had a fiance, and she was killed by a drunk driver.

And he was not in a good place.

And then he's withdraw as a way to kind of deal with that.

And there's a real kind of melancholy and sadness, like genuine grief to the story itself.

And it's a weird thing to say like that because I remember with who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Which is his animated parts, and one of the guys was going through.

One of the animators were going through a divorce.

And the head.

I think the head animator wanted him to draw Roger Rabbit where he's depressed, leaning against the wall, and someone overlord him was like, no, no, that guy can do it.

That guy can do it.

And he's like, you know, that guy did an okay job.

But the guy going through the divorce, which just understood sadness and loss on a deeper level.

And I think even though it deviates quite strongly from the comic book, I think there's this deep melancholy to this film.

And it's.

It's almost like myth.

It goes into our subconscious and it's exploring something in a kind of a clunky way.

But it's something that.

It's universal.

It's a universal, like, desire for justice and vengeance.

For me, I think that's powerful.

And I don't think it doesn't really explore, like, the background of the.

The crow.

And it doesn't explore the myth of it or what cultures believe that, and.

Which is kind of a shame, but at the same time, because it doesn't.

It gets straight into the movie, you know, opens up bad things happen montage.

Then it's like one year later, he's already climbing out the grave, and it's bosh.

We're into the movie and it's fast and he's.

I mean, the flashbacks keep it going a bit down.

They kind of keep jumping back.

But you've got the concept of he's through the window.

He's gone.

This is where we're exactly right.

And he's.

This is.

I think it's one of these films we should give a trigger warning to because I think that it's one of those movies where it doesn't show you that much.

So your imagination is far, far less is more.

Absolutely.

You know, and that doesn't happen in the.

In the comic book.

It's not even.

It's not even that narrative.

They've just.

They've.

Their car's broken down on the side of the road and some random guys just walk up and see him and then bad things happen.

So it's a story of revenge, I think.

I don't think people are going to have missed it.

But it's interesting to me after the castaway that he's got a cat called Gabriel.

Like that's not by accident.

And it's called Gabriel in the graphic novel.

I'm sure it is as well.

And it's a white cat called Gabriel.

What's the significance of Gabriel?

Well, there's Archangel Gabriel, which is like one of the highest levels of angels that you have in the Abrahamic religions.

I didn't know that.

Really?

Oh, man.

Nope.

Well, Gabriel rocks up all the time in like Constantine and Supernatural.

Supernatural.

It's just not my world.

I've just.

No idea.

Yeah, like the main ones you'd mention, like Gabriel and.

And Michael probably.

Aren't they my kindergarten?

Michael's the guy with the sword.

I think he killed all the firstborn.

If you watch all 15 seasons of Supernatural, at some point everyone is.

All of them.

At some point.

They seem to keep swapping characters.

Oh, Jensen Ackles.

Is Michael this week?

Okay.

Yeah.

Lucifer as well.

The TV show, they woke up in that a lot, I think.

The other thing that I don't think people have missed, but it's kind of obvious looking at it, is the director hasn't done that much, but he did a lot of music videos and you can tell that.

But honestly, I'm kind of watching it and I know what's coming.

And that moment there's a song that kicks in and he punches the mirror and it goes into that kind of rooftop scene.

That's just a music video for me.

Particularly a 90s style music video.

But it's done in a good way.

Not like Armageddon, where it's like a music video, but trash.

This is a really cool kind of.

How could you say that?

So, yeah, it's a revenge narrative.

It is not a love story.

I don't think see it as that.

People, revenge is the main factor.

It's not like romance, like romance would be if he stayed dead in heaven.

With Although we're both still alive.

Yeah, totally.

It's like it's, you wronged us.

There has to be justice.

I'm going to kill all of you.

And so I'm going to go do that.

But also like this idea of repentance, I think.

I can't remember the.

They've all got dumb names like T Dog or whatever, but the guy puts into a car, he's like, I know you.

I know you, but we killed you.

There ain't no coming back.

There ain't no coming back.

And then he's like, then I beheld how evil goodness is or how bad goodness is because he knows that there's an afterlife.

He knows he's been a bad guy.

He knows he's going to be judged.

And that is a depth that you don't always see in a comic book movie or even in a film.

So I think that's what I got.

What you got, Paul?

Interestingly, I watched.

There's not that much on the Blu Ray in terms of special features, but there is like the last interview with Brandon Lee and that's wired into this feature, which is about 10 minutes long.

And one of the things all the producers saying is it's very much about love transcending death.

Oh, I don't know where they got.

That's what the producers were saying.

Well, if anything, what it's about is how our time could be over so quickly.

And I remember seeing a video decades ago of randomly talking about this, and I think about this line on a weekly basis and he says, you know, because we don't know when we're going to die, we take everything for granted.

But how many times are you going to sit and watch the sunrise again?

How many more full moons are you going to notice?

How many times are you going to kiss a loved one or whatever?

It's limited and it is limited.

You're right.

Even when I was like, you know, 20, and he was saying it was like, how many, how many times am I going to sit and watch the sunrise?

I'm not sure I've done that into double figures since this movie came out.

Why not?

Why don't we do these things?

Why don't we do these things?

We get distracted by the system of the Matrix of work and everything else.

I suppose I get, I get the.

Concept of, of this if you, you were murdered, but you got the chance to come back.

Oh, you.

You killed me, you tosser.

I want to kill you.

I think you should star in the remake.

You don't often.

No one gets that chance.

You're dead.

But, like, it's chance of going back.

Redemption slash revenge.

Yeah.

If you die, you get to see behind the curtain and you get to see why these characters are like that.

And actually the main guy played by Michael Wincott, I don't know why I laugh at that, because I always get that actor wrong and you've always corrected me.

And I was like, I'm going to remember who this guy.

Michael Wincott from Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.

Hello, cousin.

Yeah, exactly.

But he.

You.

You are stealing from the sheriff's land.

Dude, that was a really good voice.

Thanks.

It's the best we've done yet.

But he alludes to his childhood and he's like, my dad said, gave me this when I was five years old.

And he says, childhood's over the moment you know you're going to die.

I mean, like, this guy's had a bad childhood.

And all of these characters have had rough lives, and they're a product of the system, you know?

And what's.

You're going to come back from the dead and kill them?

I mean, I get that you're going to stop them from hurting others, but at the same time, I don't know, it's.

It's interesting.

It's also sad that Brandon Lee died at 28, and people on the Internet love to point out that Heath Ledger died at 28 as well, playing an iconic character.

Not quite the 27 Club.

No.

And it's hard to watch the film without taking that into account, isn't it?

It is.

You're watching the film and you're always very aware that he died making the film.

I started Googling in the middle of the film, like, how did he die again?

What were the facts?

And apparently the actor who shot the.

Gun, Michael Massey, was he in Warriors?

He may have been.

He was in the first season of 24.

That's right.

I'm watching you, Jack.

He was haunted for, like, ever.

Yeah, but you would be, wouldn't you?

Like, begged the family and the fact their family, like, it wasn't your fault.

Like, you've got nothing to worry about.

He took a break from acting for a year and really struggle with it.

Did a blank misfire.

Is that what happened?

I've got the actual proper facts.

Let's do it now.

Should we do it now?

He's breaking with something like.

It wasn't the case of like I had a real bullet instead of a blank.

I think a blank, it had a different.

It had a live blank.

And I think I had a metal something in the.

In the barrel, didn't it?

Here we go.

So the gun used was a.44 Magnum revolver.

For the earlier close up shots, dummy cartridges were made by removing the powder charge from live rounds.

But the bullet tips were left in place.

One of these dummy rounds had a bullet accidentally lodged in the barrel.

So what they call a squib load.

Later, the same gun was loaded with blank cartridges which have powder but no bullet.

And when the blank was fired, the pressure propelled the lodged bullet out of the barrel striking Brandon Lee in the abdominal.

And he was rushed to hospital but died after several hours of surgery.

The official investigation determined that there was no criminal intent, there was clear negligence and the props department had failed to properly inspect and clear the weapon before filming.

So basically there was a bit left from a previous thing.

That's a shame because Gates shot the other one.

Like loads of people survive that.

I was thinking that.

I was thinking that's if you shot.

In the head, obviously dead instant.

But usually round here if it's not in the vital organs.

And apparently I think one of my other facts was around let's throw it in while we're talking about it.

Because like I say, it's hard to watch the film without thinking about this, isn't it?

And that scene where he shot him, that was added by the director.

He's like, oh no, he added that later.

Like not in the script.

Which makes it even more like fate.

Or do you know what she movie it was when it happened.

We always try and guess, don't we?

But I don't think we do.

Okay, I.

When I was.

Not that we need to know.

It's a bit morbid.

But I always think it's the scene where he goes to take.

What's he called?

Rude Boy?

No.

Playboy?

No.

The name of the character.

I have no idea.

It's like T Bird and Top Dog and I can't remember.

Yeah, it'll come back to me in a bit.

But yeah, there's the scene where he confronts Michael Massey's character.

And I always think that's the scene where he's like shooting at him.

But is it that it was a scene.

And I'm sure it isn't where he gets shot, but he said is he gets wounded and he kind of touches the wound.

He's like, ah.

But I don't think it is that I'm not entirely sure.

I know there was debate.

There was so much tabloid nonsense back in the 90s and misinformation on this.

Like they were are we going to use the footage or we're not going to use the footage.

And you know, there's plenty of films where people have died on screen and you've seen them die on screen.

I think Mad Max is one of them.

Really?

Yes.

Killed.

Wowzers.

But they still use the scene.

Yeah.

Wow.

But it's in a bit like Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight where obviously he comes in.

In a body bag and there's all these things.

And I remember Chris Nolan talking about how hard it was to obviously then edit them scenes together.

This film is all about death.

You know they're talking about all the way through.

So to have that as the finale seems really, really weird.

And.

Yeah, I can't not think about it when I'm watching the film.

Takes me out of it a little bit.

He's such like an attractive man as well.

And they don't.

It's not just kind of attractiveness but his smile and his peace.

And it's one of the few films where the snippets of his relationship with the.

His fiance can't remember name.

Seems really, really genuinely.

And it doesn't feel corny.

Even though they're doing corny thing like explaining each other with whipped cream.

He really nailed this role.

Yeah.

And you can feel the passion there, can't you?

Yeah.

And that sells the vengeance, I suppose and the vendetta that he gets.

The retribution story.

The first.

The first scene.

But the scene where you first see the cop in the crime scene after they've been murdered.

What's this?

I don't know what the guy.

Ernie Hudson.

Yes.

So he's.

The opening scenes.

He puts a cigarette on the floor in the middle of everything's wood.

And I'm just thinking that's just gonna set a light.

Why?

Why are you doing that?

Then CSI come in putting their gloves on because everything's evidence.

What does he do?

He starts picking everything up, looking at everything in his hands.

I'm like, what are you doing?

It was the 90s mark.

It's fine.

He's just pissed off that the Ghostbusters went bust.

The only.

The only other thing I've got is sort of how it was filmed, which is Brandon Lee and the director were really pushing to do it in black and white.

So it was really like a comic book.

And then obviously still have the Color flashback scenes where it's that real bright, rich color.

But the producers were the ones who were like, no, you're not doing.

Sure.

The comic book.

I might be wrong, but I'm sure it had color panels in between like chapters or something because I definitely remember seeing lots of color images.

So their idea was obviously to put that in the flashbacks and then have the rest of the film black and white.

It wasn't a big C. I think it was a four part comic book series.

It wasn't like a long running thing at all.

It like did it and then kind of walked away.

Very underground sort of comic.

I read that many of the scenes were completed with early CGI in this film, which made it like a landmark digital film.

Sure.

Restoration to complete it with the scenes that they hadn't filmed with Brandon and they got the permission of his then fiance or girlfriend.

That's who's at the end when it says it's for Brandon and.

Oh, that's curious about that.

What's her name?

What's her name?

Eliza.

Yeah, Brandon.

Eliza.

So Eliza's the girlfriend who said to the director, I want you to finish it and kind of gave the blessing.

So I think that's why she's mentioned.

You mentioned the music, Darren.

It did become iconic.

The bands I picked up, the Cure, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Table Pilots.

There's a bit grunge gothic, kind of industrial feel to it.

Even after my divorce, I kind of regressed to being a teenager again and I went and got comic books again.

I want to go like Hellblazer and Sandman.

I didn't get this, but I downloaded the soundtrack and you know, this time of year I would put headphones in and walk out in the rain listening to this music.

I just.

It's one of my happy places I would go to just lose myself in it.

Yeah.

Unbelievable soundtrack.

Well, you used the word melancholy.

Yeah.

And that's what's surprising about this film.

You maybe expect it to be one way, but then it's got this real heart.

And it is that character of Sarah that kind of pulls it back, isn't it?

Yeah.

That.

The kid in the film, that's what you kind of get to see him where he's gentle with her.

Like he goes on his rampage, but.

Then he's very serious about revenge and killing people.

But there's quite moments of mercy and humanity hidden beneath the vengeance.

Even with Darla, like, he's like, you know, morphine is bad, you know.

Oh, that's.

Yeah.

Mother is worth a God on the lips and hearts of all children.

Like he understands that she's going through a rough time and kind of pulls her back from the brink.

And that sweet is that scene where she's making a breakfast as well.

It's just freaking adorable.

Yeah, it's excellent.

Trying to be a bit normality or everything that a kid should have.

Just wake up and some.

There's a grown up making you some food.

Like it's just how it should be.

And that's why he said, isn't it?

It's like you need.

She needs you to be the mum.

His hidden tenderness, things like.

Like Sarah and his forgiveness towards those who show regret in the film.

Yeah, yeah.

Because he.

The guy actually one of the worst guys, he lets off almost.

He.

He lets him have a pain.

He just gives him nova this, doesn't he?

Because he is repentant, isn't.

He's like, there's a few people where.

Yeah, he's.

He's more lenient with them because that he remembers them.

Show regret.

Yeah, the guy, they are showing regret.

So he's like, murder.

Let me tell you about murder.

It's fun and it's easy.

So you're gonna have these put into your organs in Africa.

No remorse.

Yeah, no remorse.

It's not great.

And then I suppose the way he beats the big villain Michael Winko at the end is he transfers the pain he was feeling for the death of his.

His fiance onto him and that's kind of what defeats him.

It's almost like a karma thing, I suppose, where it's like he transfers that pain and he's like, yeah, you deal with that pain that you've caused almost.

And then that's his.

Actually there's a Metallica song called no Remorse and the lyrics, I think watching this film just reminded me, no remorse, no repent.

We don't care what it meant.

Another day, another death.

Kind of fits into his.

Like the Buddies mentor.

Yeah, yeah.

Also like the whole.

What they want.

I guess one of the themes is it can't rain all the time.

And I think this builds on what we were talking about with Castaway and he's.

He was basically saying, you can't.

You got to keep going because you don't know what the tide is going to bring in.

And with this as well, it's like, yes, sometimes it's raining, but it can't rain all the time.

You know, the sunnier days are going to come.

Much like seasons change from one to the other.

As humans, we can be so impatient and we can want everything now.

We want, you know, the bad times to end, and then we cling onto the good times too long sometimes.

But it can't rain all the time.

And it said with such a softness.

Can't rain all the time.

Yeah.

Eric, anything else before we move on?

Oh, just on the color process thing, they purposefully took out.

I think it was like, the blue color, and there was two colors.

They took it out so it would be as monochromatic as possible.

So it was basically as close as they could get it to black and white without being black and white, because.

Most of it's at night anyway.

So most of it's at night and raining a lot.

Okay, let's move on to Paul's facts of the.

Whoo.

Day.

Let's go.

Pool day.

No messing around with this one.

I hate it when he brings on the.

When he brings the pressure there.

Yeah.

So we've obviously done the.

The bullet stuff, but let's talk about some of the other things.

So Brandon Lee was unhappy with the way his face paint looked when the makeup department applied it to him before shooting.

So him and the director, Alex, they agreed it looked best if he applied his own makeup every night before going to bed.

So when he woke up, his face paint would naturally look more worn out.

You can tell the last interview with Brandon Lee.

You can tell when he's talking about he's really invested in the project and he's really excited about the character.

I suspect they didn't do that in the sequels, which is why it looks more cartoony.

In the sequels.

Yeah, sequels.

Actually, most of them are remakes.

I haven't seen any of the sequels.

One of them's got cast and Dunstan.

According to James Obar, the writer of the comic book, he didn't like casting Brandon Lee as the main lead for his comic book adaptation because at the time, he'd only seen him in Showdown in Little Tokyo and feared it would end up like a kung fu movie and go straight to video.

But he was thrilled when he first met him on the set in the makeup and the outfit.

And he was amazed by his take on the character when he spoke the exact line from the comics.

So he won him over very quickly, by the sounds of it.

I think he.

I think somewhere in these facts, they wanted Johnny Depp or someone like that, which I can see.

Yeah, he nailed the softness and the ferocious revenge.

So this was Fun Boy.

That was the name of the character.

So originally, Fun Boy was not supposed to fire a gun at Brandon Lee's character, which ultimately led to Lee's death.

It was changed at the last minute by the director.

And it's interesting on the.

On the little featurette, the director wasn't actually anywhere on it.

It was the producers talking.

It had the clips from Brandon Lee and Ernie Hudson, but it didn't actually have the director.

Maybe you can't talk about it.

While most of the scenes after Brandon Lee's death were digitally composed, there was in fact a mask that had been made directly from a mould of Lee's face.

It had been intended for use on his stunt doubles if needed.

They attempted to create the scenes using this mask.

However, the cast and crew were far too unsettled by the prop that it was destroyed and digital means were used to fill in the gaps.

So sometimes they do this.

They have like.

They do it with Hagrid, I think, in Harry Potter, where they have like this very realistic mask.

So they can have.

I suppose in the.

You know, they're doing it the moment with the TV show.

But Robbie Coltrane, back in the day, they used to have this mask that looked just like Robbie Coltrane and you'd have Harry Potter with him.

But obviously it must have freaked them out on the set.

So Brandon lee lost over 20 pounds to play Eric, even though, according to James Obarr, he didn't have much to lose to begin with.

And he put himself on a diet so strict he would weigh his food on a scale before eating it.

According to Empire magazine, cocaine abuse was rampant on the set, with cameramen shooting whilst high, crew going into the toilets to snort between shots and people cutting around.

One crew member recalls hearing the sound of a sneeze on the set one day, and an annoyed Brandon Lee quipped, someone just lost $50.

Wow.

There you go.

Maybe it wasn't fake in those drug scenes.

Yeah, I can imagine Brandon Lee would be anti drugs just because if he's dad, but I have no idea if that's true.

It's just my kind of fanboy perception.

And some believe that because the tragic death of him on this film, it's responsible for changing.

You probably know this one, Darren.

It was responsible for changing gun safety standards in films.

So action scenes, the gun is held off to the side and tricky camera angles are used when the weapon is aimed at a character to avoid misfiring or other horrific accidents.

That's weird because of the Alec Baldwin thing.

Yeah, I was just thinking that.

So how did that end up?

Maybe that's why he got into so much trouble, because it was really against the rules.

Maybe because I don't think they even had, like, weapon handlers on this film back in the day.

Even though the movie based on the comic is called the Crow, none of the birds used in the film are actually crows.

All of them were, in fact, ravens.

Yeah, yeah.

Let me hear for my ravens, which.

Are much larger than crows and have longer, more impressive beaks.

Yeah.

But they did look cool in the film.

I have one fact.

Go for it.

The restless Sting.

His complete gimmick is based off the crow, like he stated.

The fact that this, my character, is inspired by.

That's cool.

Does look a lot like him.

He was very popular.

People who turned down the role of Eric Draven, River Phoenix, Christian Slater.

River Phoenix could have done it.

Yeah.

Christian Slater, not so much.

Did I think he could have been one of the bad guys and then.

Finally leave you with this kind of spooky one.

There were several accidents that befell the production crew.

A carpenter suffered serious burns on his upper body during the first day of filming.

A manual worker had a screwdriver get embedded in his hand.

An equipment truck burst into flames.

A stuntman broke several ribs after falling through a roof.

A rigger was horribly electrocuted.

A disgruntled set sculptor went berserk and drove his car through the props room, destroying it.

And a hurricane destroyed several of the sets.

And Brandon Lee got shot and died.

Yeah.

So there you go.

Top it all off.

Oh, there's one more.

Cameron Diaz was offered the role of Shelley but turned it down because she didn't like the script.

But then she starred in the Mask, which had a similar sort of film noiri vibe.

I suppose that was her big.

Oh, I guess her heart's bigger in the Mask.

Phenomenally bigger.

Plus it's.

Plus it's with Jim Carrey, who was pretty hot at the time.

That's true.

And that was her big break as well, wasn't it?

So.

Yeah, it was.

Thank you very much, Paul.

Let's move on to hate it or rate it.

And I'm gonna go to you for first, Paul.

I don't have the same nostalgic thing that you're going to have with it because it's still more of a newer thing to me.

And it's one of those that the more I watch it, the more I seem to get out of it.

Because, like I say, the first few.

First time I remember watching him be like, it was pretty good.

Enjoyed it.

And then the more I've watched it, I'd like That melancholy side of it and Brandon Lee's performance and it's great.

And then the more I went down the rabbit hole of the behind the scenes and everything, the more I think I'm enjoying it.

Just.

Just the stylistic look of the film, like you say, it takes you to this kind of place.

Like some of them other films like Underworld, whatever.

It's rainy and it's very Blade Runner Ian atmospheric.

So it's less about the story, which is very much a John Wick sort of.

I'm gonna get revenge.

I don't know what to get.

I've been debating this all day.

I think I'm gonna give it because it's not up there with my favorite films.

But it's growing on me the more I watch it.

And every time I watch him, like, yeah, it's a.

It's a good film.

And I like Ernie Hudson in it and I like the sweet relationship with the daughter and oh, on Blu Ray, gotta say, the chimp with the colors and everything and the surround sound.

Really good.

Especially when it goes back to them.

Flashbacks like really pops.

7.7.

I think.

I'll give it.

Nice.

It's a.

It's a really good film.

Like I say, I can't quite justify giving it to an 8 because it's not one of them.

That's still embedded in me from a long time.

But yeah, really solid film.

I enjoy watching it.

I have to be in the right mood though, because it's a strange film.

Probably because I think about how sad it is that he died just when he made this great sort of.

Was it 7.7?

7.7.

Darren, there's a lot of move about this movie to hate.

I. I hate that whole third act thing with the.

With the woman who's like, she's got pretty eyes and we must take the power of the crow.

Like, what are you talking about?

Yeah, that'll be crazy.

Is this all coming from.

That's just nonsense.

And I think Ernie Hudson's weak.

I think they dialogue.

The animosity as with his boss is just unnecessary.

And he's like, it's just a victim.

It's Amelia Earhart and you missed it.

Like, that's a real person right there.

How about you have some empathy?

What the has happened to you?

The boss was a bit of an a hole in the.

Yeah.

Only Hudson was an asshole in this.

So I'm like, you're Winston, like, be kinder.

What the hell are you doing?

There's a lot of stereotyping.

Yeah.

A lot of stereotype.

Like 80s kind of.

Yeah, it's like 80s stereotypes in the 90s.

I just took it as he was sassy.

Yeah, I didn't like any of that.

And then Sarah skateboarding in the rain, which you should never do.

A skateboard is going to be wrecked and just a nightmare.

But with all of that, you know, 16 minutes in, the music kicks in and I'm just invested.

The effects are interesting because they are so stylized and it looks like models and miniatures.

It doesn't feel.

I think if you made the Crow now you would want to do it with that exact type of effect.

It doesn't look dated, it just looks stylized.

It just looks like that.

That's what you would do.

Because the car chase was miniatures.

Because they couldn't afford to do a car chase.

Sure.

And all the kind of aerial shots over the cities and him and tracking him doing parkour over the buildings.

All that's just gorgeous.

And the soundtrack holds it together.

He's acting and.

And the way I feel about them at the injustice.

I still love it.

And it's still, it's interesting watching again that it has haunted me and Now I'm nearly 50 and I'm like, well, how many full moons am I going to sit and watch now?

How many times am I going to watch a sunrise?

How many times I'm going to watch a sunrise sitting with someone that I love?

You know, that might not ever happen again for me and when.

But if it does, I'm gonna freaking watch the out of those sunrises, you know.

So this is an easy, easy 8 out of 10 for me.

I just think it's.

I think it's.

In a way it's a cult masterpiece and I wish they hadn't done the shitty spin offs I or like the sequels.

I wish they had like a spawn style anime and adult animation.

And I wish they now did the same thing that predators doing.

And so you had the Crow in medieval Japan, the Crow in as Native American Indians, the Crow in freaking.

So it's a different movie but it's.

Basically the Crow is the like the hero and we're just seeing the Crow through time in different scenarios.

I'd love to crow to be a woman at some point.

That would be badass as hell.

Some kind of gothic woman going around with freaking blades taking care of business.

TCB baby.

That's what I want to see.

I feel like we should get Paramount on the phone right now that sell it.

It's wasted, wasted intellectual property.

They should be making a killing with this movie and this idea, this franchise.

Go.

You've never seen this before?

Never seen it before.

I knew of it.

Yeah.

Any of the Crow.

Maybe the music for you.

Because music.

Being a musician and things.

Yeah.

I love the soundtrack.

But this movie's not for me.

Okay.

I am not the target audience for this.

If I'd read.

I've got it here.

If I'd read.

Which I don't do for these.

I don't read the synopsis.

I don't look at anything.

So I don't want any.

But if I'd read this.

On Devil's Night in Detroit, musician Eric Draven and his fiance Shelley are brutally murdered by a gang.

A year later, mysterious crew resurrects Eric.

I'm out.

Nope.

Not for me.

Nope.

Really?

I can't stand anything like that.

Oh, wow.

But it's just.

That's just me.

I mean, there are.

I liked of it, like it was well shot.

The soundtrack, some of the.

It's got some iconic scenes and like when he's.

When the flames come out and show that.

I like all those initial shots, but just the general story I found a bit weak.

Poppy.

You direct your hate mail to movies.

In a nutshell, yes.

Hate me, hate me, hate me.

But yeah, this is not for me.

I love the fact that even the synopsis, you're like, no, I'm out.

Yeah, I'm done.

For me.

Like the.

Lots of the hiding in the shadows and remaining unseen.

He doesn't do a lot of that.

He like, he goes in to the.

Into the light to.

Obviously, I know he's out for revenge, but you know who does that better?

Batman.

I know he's not out for revenge and killing people, but he's, you know.

Well, he is the.

I didn't enjoy this.

I thought the story was pretty weak because I don't.

That's not really, you know that you like stuff like that, don't you?

Love stuff.

Exactly.

So I wrote down.

It resonate with me very much a story film.

It was more a stylistic film film.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And for that I am going to give it a five.

Those five points.

For everything else I mentioned the story wise doesn't get any more points for me.

So there we go.

But I do like.

I did like Brandon Lee.

I thought he was really cool.

Like, he pulls that character off very well.

It just feels such a shame that.

Yeah.

Extra bit of weight to the whole thing because of the tragedy that happened in it.

But yeah.

So that gives it 20.5.

Is that lower than 20.5 puts it in 20th place.

All right, so it's just behind Minority Report and Margin Call, and it's just above Labyrinth and Smokey in the Bandit and When Harry Met Sally.

That's great.

Honestly, it's done a lot of films now, haven't we?

It's such a weird listing system because it merges all of our opinions.

It's weird.

But that's what makes this table unique to us.

It does, yeah.

This is what the listeners wanted.

They wanted it on a chart.

Yeah.

But for me, yeah, I'd put it alongside smoking about it.

Everyone who knows me right now, if you're listening, will be like, yeah, he does overthink stuff.

He overthinks everything.

So there you go, Poppy.

That is what we made of this movie.

Let us know what you thought, give us your thoughts on the movie, and also give us your thoughts on this episode.

Anyone else listening to this, Let us hear your opinion on this movie.

Did you like it?

Did you not like it?

Have you seen it?

Have you not seen it?

Have we made you want to watch it now that you've listened to this episode?

Okay, let's move on to part three, which is the listener lounge.

Okay.

So in part three, we have the lobby where we will answer your questions, your comments, and your emails.

And then we will reveal the question of the week, and we'll look ahead to next week's movie.

So if you want to get in touch, you can join the conversation.

You can send us a voicemail if you head over to Movies in a Nutshell Dot com.

There will be a banner along the side of the top.

Depending on your desktop or mobile.

Hit voice.

Send us a voice message, and it will open up a recorder and you can send a message directly to us, or you can do it by email, and we will read them out on the show.

Let's move on to the question of the week.

I was thinking, since the soundtrack to this is so iconic, which movie has the best soundtrack of all time?

That's a huge question.

It's open for debate.

I mean, it's hard to nail it down to one.

Top Gun.

Yeah.

Point breaks up there.

But it doesn't necessarily mean that it has to have, like, actual songs that are in the charts.

I'm just talking about generally.

It could just have, like, like, Back to the Future or Star Wars.

You know, they don't have, like, actual songs in, but you always remember the music in it.

I agree with all the ones you've just said.

Yep.

You know what I mean?

Like we're talking, like tower records had actual songs that would.

You tie.

So, yeah, you tie.

You tie to that time and then your nostalgia.

But some songs, some movies have just got such a good score that also sticks.

Like Jaws.

Yeah, Things like that.

So I just want to know what can.

You can throw out right now.

There was three cassettes when I first got a car that I used to have in my car all times.

One was Top Gun.

One was the Rocky Anthology, which was basically the songs from the Rocky films.

And the other one was Beverly Hills Cop 2.

You said you've listened to some.

You've had some own.

Some movie.

Movie soundtracks.

Yeah.

You still was exclusively getting them.

Which ones?

Which ones come to mind?

Weirdly, I also.

I did get Robin, the Prince of Thieves, but a lot of that was just instrumentals.

Still good music, though.

Michael Kamen class.

Yeah.

But that's even more impressive because it doesn't have words.

Yeah.

So it was the actual music that you were drawn to.

Yeah.

I loved that movie when it came out.

It's insane.

Tron Legacy's got a hell of a soundtrack.

Like Daft Punk as well.

That's fun to drive to at night.

Maybe it's.

It's actual songs.

I like Pump up the volume.

I.

That's how I discovered who Leonard Cohen was.

That's cool when movies do that, when they introduce you to someone you've never heard of before and it's like, boom.

I think I had the Sea of Angels soundtrack as well.

Cool.

There we go.

So which movie has the best soundtrack of all time and why do you think?

So you can email us.

Hello, shell.com.

you can send us a voice message.

Yeah, go to movies a nutshell dot com.

There's a voice message thing on there.

It will come directly to us.

Or you can just message us on our socials and links are in the show notes and we'll read the best ones out next week.

On to next week's movie.

Who is it?

Who is it?

It's you, isn't it?

Me?

Oh, we're into December, which means Christmas.

I'm going straight to it.

My favorite Christmas film, Elf.

I've got a feeling he's gonna hate it.

I don't care.

It's just there.

Elf, you say?

Yeah.

2003.

Will Ferrell.

2003.

Yeah.

Interesting.

So should I choose a Christmas movie as well?

And it's my turn?

Yes.

Paul will do the same.

And the listener choice will be the same.

Are we having Christmas, December, then it's a Christmas December of a festive.

Yeah.

Film.

Everyone's watching Christmas films everywhere.

Anyone loves Christmas films.

So let's do it.

Cool.

I suppose we were a couple of weeks out with our Ghostbusters choice for Halloween.

Weren't we?

But.

And the crow but this makes sense.

We didn't do a Halloween special month we could have.

But Ghostbusters 2 is a new year movie.

That's true.

I'll keep that in mind if that swings by.

My choice.

Yes.

Okay, so that is next week's movie.

So this is the end of the episode.

But if you want to get in touch with us, you can email us hellonichelle.com if you want to help us out.

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So we do appreciate you listening, guys.

Thank you very much for your time.

This episode is officially over.

This is Mark saying goodbye and Darren saying goodbye.

For now, I want you to tell me a story that's an Is it E. What is it emr?

Esmr?

Yes.

Or is it asmr?