Is this movie secretly the descent of luck story for Russell Casse in Independence Day? Perhaps the story of a distant Killbot relative striking out on its own trying to get a career started for itself? In the famous words of a meme, why not both? Apparently Heartbeeps is set in the future (at the time) with the year 1994. Casse could have descended pretty quickly in the span of a couple years. Hello boys, I’m baaaaack indeed. The Chopping Mall connection isn’t exactly a faaaaaar stretch either as both movies have appearances by Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov, who frequently starred as a couple in many movies.
How many movies with Paul and Mary can I cover on this site? Current count: 2
In all reality, Heartbeeps is a movie length earful of Latka Gravas minus a foreign accent slant. Bless Andy Kaufman’s heart, he did try with the movie. Though he also tried to convince people the voice was a mix of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. I see through you here Andy. As history goes, according to David Letterman, Kaufman only needed change for a $20 to refund everyone who went to see the movie in theaters.
My heart beeps for you
True love
At the heart of this beeping story is Val Com 17485 and Aqua Com 89045 setting out on an adventure to visit the mountains and trees they see off in the distance outside their storage area at the factory. You see, these are robots, wanting to experience life outside of servitude for a little bit. Outside of their programming. TO LIVE! Is that so bad?!?!? They also let Catskill tag along, a fellow robot that tells jokes worse than the ones that I write in these posts here on Up All Night Movies.
“Boy, this town is so small, they probably got 1 yellow page.”
“I hear they closed the zoo, the duck died.”
~ Catskill
Along the way on their adventure, Val, Aqua, and Catskill end up giving birth, er, I mean, creating a son out of various parts from their getaway vehicle they hijacked to start their adventure. You can tell Phil is a son by the way the top of the robot head resembles a slightly oversized baseball cap. Of course the bill is flat, predicting fashion of the 00s and onward, way back in 1981.
Accidental hipster
If Val and Aqua survive, this would probably play at the wedding.
Anyways, Russell “Charlie” Casse and coworker Max are tasked with hunting down Val, Aqua, and Catskill to bring them all back to the factory. The factory managers also have Cousin Crimebuster sent out to help track every robot down as well. Too bad Cousin Crimebuster isn’t always the most accurate with who he spares vs who he attacks, especially once he’s had a bit too much Old Engine Oil
Already three sheets to the wind
My Kingdom for a battery charge
Before too long, the movie turns into a race against time, man, and battery power. Not only are they needing to find shelter for a night, where they encounter the actor most deserving of an Oscar, a bear in a cave, but they only have so much battery power between all of them.
Oscar worthy roar
God is an irrational unknown variable which humans associate with the value judgement known as goodness.
~ Val
At one point, our intrepid adventurers stumble upon a small town and almost manage to find some renewed power sources, and end up having to rob a place. Cousin Killbot almost manages to catch and stop them, but is foiled by logical fallacy. “You can not be robots because you are criminals. You can not be criminals because you are robots! *head explodes*
Russell and Max are also still on the pursuit. They also present the biggest question of the entire movie. Why the hell do they have bags of beer? Is there an aluminum shortage in their version of 1994?
I function better with maximum input
In the end, Val, Aqua, Phil, and Catskill all finally succumb and run out of power, allowing Russell and Max to finally catch up and bring them back home. To end the movie, we find out that the humans tried to figure out why the robots malfunctioned in the way they did, but could never figure it out. The robots in turn got thrown out and sent to the junkyard where they took on a new life with the junkyard caretakers, and Phil even gets a little sister, never officially named. We’ll call her Lillian. Oh shit, Nickelodeon is going to sue me.
What’s eating you two?
Final thoughts
Despite being nominated as worst film a number of times, Heartbeeps sadly never won that honor.
Do you think I could call the Andy Kaufman estate and posthumously take him up on that refund offer? I rented this twice for this post.
Thankfully it didn’t derail Bernadette Peters’ career, however Russell Casse turned into a lost casse.
Maybe my next poll should be all Paul and Mary movies.
Yes indeed, the winner of the latest poll is Heartbeeps. Things were actually tied early in the day yesterday with The Punisher (1989), but I came across a post on reddit about the movie and decided to promote a little bit. This quickly got Heartbeeps 6 more votes and secured the victory.
We’re back with another “Al Right Questions”, this time we’re talking with Thoreau Smiley, from our sponsor Harmless Entertainment. I got to know Thoreau via Audiodrama shows like Attention Hellmart Shoppers, 1994, and various other guest parts that he has participated in.
He then established Harmless Entertainment and I became a Patreon patron because I truly enjoy the shows he’s produced. If you are a fan of Superhero movies, especially Marvel and DC, among many others. Check them out, as Thoreau and his friends have a long catalog where they’ve discussed and ranked each superhero movie in order of release. Plus, I’m not going to cover most of those here. Let Harmless Entertainment be your fix.
Now, onto the interview!
UANM:How did Harmless Entertainment come to be, and how do you know the other hosts that join you each episode? TS: It started after the podcast network I was previously a part of fell apart. I had multiple shows in production at that time and wanted a single brand to put them under. I began Harmless Phosphorescence and the name came from there. Harmless Phosphorescence basically came from my desire to talk about movies and not have to spend 120 hours producing and editing each episode like on an Audio Drama like Attention Hellmart Shoppers. Josh and Al I’ve actually known since High School. We’ve been roommates, workmates and friends for decades. Brian I met more recently, just a few years ago when I was working at a music store. We got along great and had similar taste in movies, so he seemed like a natural fit for the show.
UANM:Which classic horror movie character is your favorite? TS: I guess that depends on what you’d define as classic. If we’re talking about the Universal horror era, I’d say Dracula. Bela Lugosi is amazing in that role and the character is iconic for a reason. If we include more recent genre classics, I’d have to go with Freddie Krueger. I grew up watching Nightmare on Elm Street movies, and his wise-cracking sensibility always drew me in. He had so much more personality than Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees.
UANM:What are some of your earliest movie memories and which films were they? What keeps them memorable to you? TS: The earliest movie I remember watching is Star Wars Episode IV. I was a child of the 80’s and I remember it playing over and over on HBO in the very early days of the channel. I must have been about 4 years old. That movie more than any other molded my taste and idea of what a movie could be. I even told the barber that I wanted my hair cut like Luke Skywalker. My friends and I played Star Wars endlessly, using sticks for lightsabers and blasters. Star Wars might be the piece of pop culture that is closest to my heart. Maybe it’s in a close race with The Beatles.
UANM:What’s a movie that you think everyone should see but most seem to have never heard of? TS: There are a few that come to mind. The Incredibly True Adventure of 2 Girls in Love is a great coming of age love story from the nineties, Ice Pirates is an absolutely insane 80’s Comedy Sci Fi movie, and Kicking and Screaming is a really funny quarter life crisis movie by Noah Baumbach. Also, I think John Carter is a completely unfairly maligned Sci Fi adventure.
UANM:Do you have any movie habits that you’d like to instill in your children and continue as a family tradition? TS: I’ve been trying to get my son into Star Trek, so far pretty unsuccessfully, but I’ve had better luck with making Lord of the Rings a holiday tradition.
UANM: If you could take one thing from your daily/weekly routine and never have to worry about it or do it again, what would you choose an why? TS: Hmm…If I’m talking about all of life, I’d love to not have to work a full 40 hours per week on a day job, but hey, that’s life, right? Podcasting ain’t paying the bills. If I’m talking about producing, I’m pretty over the editing process. It’s a grind, for sure, and the reason why Hellmart is so slow to come out.
UANM:Does Harmless Entertainment have a meme that embodies the show? If yes, which and in what way? TS: Slaps top of car “You can fit so many uneducated movie opinions in this bad boy”
Harmless?
UANM:What are some movie tropes that make you wretch every time you see them coming? What are some that make you perk and sit up because you know things are going to get good soon? TS: It drives me crazy when people don’t say goodbye on the phone in movies. I know it’s not a big one, but they just hang up. On their loved ones, a lot of the time. What kind of psychopath does that!? One that I love, no matter how many times I see it, is the heist-explanation voice-over. It’s just fun!
UANM:Finish this sentence: “Keep calm and ___” TS: panic!
UANM:If you could have anyone from the movies covered on Harmless Entertainment become a patron, who would you pick and why? TS: Are we talking about a fictional character? Then Bruce Wayne. He could fund us for life. If it’s an actor: Robert Downey Jr. He’d be fun in the chat.
UANM:Any final thoughts? TS: I have watched so many superhero movies. Please, Hollywood, stop making them. For the love of my sanity.
Surprise content! The other night, I was expressing some appreciation to an actor in some to me classics from the late 80s and early 90s over on the tweeters, and Patrick Labyorteaux got me off guard with a dare to watch one of his more recent movies, 2012 Ice Age
I checked it’s availability, found it readily available on TubiTV and promptly accepted the dare. Not only is it up our alley in general, but it’s also from The Asylum which is notorious for its very purposely low budget product. I’m in heaven. While we still have a poll running for our next user-voted movie (make sure you vote), we’re adding 2012: Ice Age as bonus content. Lets get to it.
Calling “2012: Ice Age” a movie is considered illegal in some states, but knowing that it’s from The Asylum renders all illegality null and void in the first place, so we’re good there.
Ice age is your standard Asylum natural disaster film, wherein right from the getgo, a volcano in Iceland erupts, causing a 1000 mile long glacier to break off from the shelf, and start racing southwards. Don’t take me to task for these measurements, I just quote the bad movie.
Intrepid alleged homosexual zombie football star turned scientist Ram “Bill” Sweeney has gone off and married Mike Seaver’s former main squeeze Julie “Teri” Costello. Ram is with his son Nelson, dropping off his daughter Julia, to take off to New York for her first year of college. He’s so distracted with trying to figure out what’s going on at his dayjob, that he basically misses seeing Julia off, and in the process is completely rude to airport security officer someone, who was just trying to do her job.
Head south!
In very short time, New Foundland is basically scraped off the map thanks to Super Glacier. Characters are being told to head south as fast and as soon as possible, to get out of its way.
Ram and Nelson pick up Julie and struggle for minutes to convince her that they need to get out of dodge asap and head south. Naturally, she’s worried about their daughter Julia, so they need to book it to New York to pick her up.
Permission to go on a road trip, Senator.
Road trip!
Whoa
― Nelson
Use words, Nelson
― Seaver’s ex
I don’t think I can
― Nelson
I can’t either to justify this movie
― Gilbert Shear
There is definitely a lack of comedic element in this movie, so I’m going to be trying to make some chicken salad out of chicken excrement. Probably a good thing that there’s no comedy, as the comedy movie community would shun everyone involved.
Throughout the movie there are instances of military grade jets attacking the glacier, and breaking it up into smaller parts, including at one point nuclear firepower that allegedly does zero discernible damage. At the same time though, plenty of instances of ice shrapnel, squashing the innocent, nearly driving our heroes off the road, puncturing frozen rivers which no sell and don’t break the top layer much.
Icehenge?
Just like that…RIP Bangor Maine
Our first jump scare comes when Ram almost rams into crashed cars ahead of him on the street, and they crash and overturn their car. Thanks to standard The Asylum budget, they’re largely unharmed, barring some scrapes and scratches. So, they’re stuck trying to find new wheels in the freezing hellhole called New England area. Ram, Julie, and Nelson stumble onto a van, with Ram wandering off to survey the current situation, prompting Nelson to ask what the fuck his dad is doing. He’s trying to save you, Nelson, pay attention.
Breaking the glass is breaking the budget books.
Suddenly keys appear in the ignition for the van they found, and Nelson gets it started up. As he and his mom try to warm up a bit, they suddenly catch whiff of the movie they’re in and realize that the van is carrying manure. Ram returns to the vehicle and smells the movie as well, prompting him to remember science class before J.D. and Veronica killed him in 1988. Who knew Ram was paying attention at the time? Regardless, he was able to clear a path to the theater exit using the manure, some chemicals, and some diesel fuel. Shit, this movie continues on.
Meanwhile, Super Glacier is apparently hitting up Beantown and somehow instantly freezing the people there. What did Boston do to you, Super Glacier?
Attack of the Shrapnel
Anyways, Ram, Nelson, and Julie are back on the road again natural disasterly, and continuing on to New York. Of course rescuing Julia is important, but surely Julie can understand the need to possibly pick up some other stranded folks along the way with their van space available. That’s not needed for long though, thanks to more Shrapnel taking out more helpless people.
Life tries to get revenge on Julie by having the van nearly run out of gasoline, causing them to stop anyway, which leads us to a new secondary character, Gary. Gary is at the end of his rope. He’s wanting to go to California. That’s where end of their rope people always wanna go. Gary hijacks the almost out of gas van and drives off. Life gets its revenge on Gary right away, where he crashes through the ice on a river. Through some fast thinking, Nelson at least manages to rescue the radio equipment he’s been using all movie.
The family makes their way to a near by house and break in, performing petty larceny. Thank fuck they did though, because they get to steal a plane afterwards, at least once they help the house owner get unstuck from under some shelving the fell on him as he was trying to pack up and drive to safety with his kid.
Budget for 4 vehicles, including a plane, and we can only get minor scrapes?
What’s Julia been up to?
Good question. She initially made it safely-ish to New York and NYU campus. She met up with her boyfriend and they start fleeing and trying to find safe ground. Through bad signal they try to tell Julie that they’re not staying at the dorm like originally discussed. Eventually Julia and boyfriend walk through the subway system from New York to New Jersey. Bad weather has a way of getting to everyone, but an attempted mugging is just another Jersey afternoon. Thankfully the National Guard was there to save them, as the US had officially declared war on Super Glacier.
Back on the plane, Ram, Julie, and Nelson are trying to get some frequent flier miles out of the whole ordeal of saving Julia, but the bad weather is having bad effects on the plane. Not long into the flight and they already need to land due to lack of fuel in the right engine and freezing wings. They try to reach out to nearby airports but no one answers, so they just say fuck it and approach a landing strip, only to almost be taken out by a completely different plane taking off. Here I thought all flights were grounded, but the plot must go on.
BELLY FLOP!
Another crash resulting in more lack of injury due to The Asylum budget, but there’s at least an exploding plane due to leaking left engine fuel. Everyone’s saved by an attendant at the airport! Yay! Too bad the attendant forgot about the second jump scare in the budget, and died.
New York, New York
Our heroes had finally made it to New York, or at least the Jersey side. They find another vehicle, fourth one of the movie if you’ve been keeping track, and try to drive into Manhattan. Local authorities tell them that’s impossible, because well, the bridge is out. Possibly the most logical moment in the movie.
Ram and Julie start reminiscing on how they wish they could have implanted tracking devices on their kids when they were younger, for moments like this. Good thing society made such a thing fashionable via mobile phones. In the end, they didn’t have to worry about ethics of such tracking as we do that all consensually. Nelson grabs the phone and within a minute has tracked down his sister’s GPS location. They’re only a couple blocks away!
Is that the light at the end of this movie or is it just me?
No, it’s also the obligatory token “The end is near!” character, more concerned about holding up a sign than he is saving himself.
The family goes on foot at this point as it’s quicker than trying to locate Julia by car. Ram finds a gun on a frozen pig, and uses it to shoot the air like Veronica did to him back in high school. At least this time it helped locate Julia. The family is all back together!
For reasons unknown to everyone, including the writers and directors, suddenly the family is all back together in the car driving on the frozen Hudson river. Remember how I mentioned rivers no selling falling ice shrapnel? The Hudson is no different. Despite it being pierced many times by large ice boulders, it’s stable enough to drive on and the family is racing towards the Statue of Liberty. Ole Lady Liberty apparently looked like a safe place to go, and thankfully she’s stable enough to save everyone as the National Guard has finally managed to stop the progression of Super Glacier.
This was all in your head
Mercifully, this movie is finally over.
Final thoughts
Honestly, this is going in at number 4 of my “Top Patrick Labyorteaux movies” list.
Ski School
Summer School
Heathers
2012 Ice Age
If and as I watch others that Patrick has had parts in, I suspect the ranking will go down quicker than the expectations I had for “Titanic 2”, though I am doubtful the top 3 is going to budge much.
Do I think everyone should see this movie? Yes absolutely. Why? Because if I willingly put myself through it twice for the sake of this post, I absolutely want everyone else to be tortured by it too.
No word yet on what prompted Patrick to take on the role, but I have asked.
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Movie Descriptions
All descriptions care of IMDb.com
State Park
In the year 3000, the Earth has been rendered a desert by nuclear war. A group of survivors goes in search A business man plans to dump toxic waste in a state park, but it doesn’t go according to plan.
The Punisher (1989)
When Frank Castle’s family is murdered by criminals, he wages war on crime as a vigilante assassin known only as The Punisher.
Bikini Beach Race
Rev up your engines as the most gorgeous and charming Bed Race Team of all, The Sex Puppets, heat up the raceway. Clad in bikinis and sexy lingerie, they’ll bump and grind their way to victory aboard comical “Bedmobiles”.
Heartbeeps
Two household robots run away and try to start a family.
