becoming friends with...

before we get anywhere close to heaven or hell, there’s two hours of this nonsense: a sean connery voicemail, not one but two cameo pep talks that both go sideways, and an oral history of every song the coward american radio stations quietly stopped playing in september 2001. because of the 9/11. (check out the intro on YT, there’s more wild 9/11 happenings).

we open up our new inbox ([email protected]) and then run through the whole pre-show run sheet like children lost at play:

finally, we stumble into break before our feature presentation…make sure to check that out. it dropped tuesday. look for new podcasts every tuesday and thursday in the morning. live shows are saturday night on patreon, twitch, and YT…though they sure do like to yank us off air for having a good time, man.

seriously, thanks for listening…please like and subscribe. it’s the only way we’ll eventually get paid to do this. reach out at bfw.gripe or bfw.doctor and we’ll read it on air. check in on each other and be well until next week.

⁃ byron j.

An angel gets thrown out of Heaven, comes back as a Hong Kong cab driver, gets gunned down, and then has to fight his way out of the underworld with a girl named Red Dress.

That’s the movie. It’s somehow stranger than that sounds.

This week I drag Rene and Chris into Heaven and Hell (1980), also known as Shaolin Hellgate — the divisive, borderline-unhinged Shaw Brothers picture Chang Cheh shot on and off across five years while the studio’s empire was drifting toward television, then ended on a high with the Venom Mob and dumped into theaters. I picked it blind...started with Wu-Tang and worked my way to Shaw Brothers, and finally landing on this because of the crazy nature of the shooting schedule and being released during the Shaw Bros. transition to TV. My first note... “this movie is already crazy.”

So we get into all of it: the glitter-rain fountain sets that play like a stage musical, the Bob Fosse fever-dream dance numbers, the color-coordinated gangsters straight out of The Warriors, three separate sets of opening credits for Heaven, Earth and Hell — and then the roughly 80% of the runtime that is just Hell. Paper-mâché pig noses. Fruit-roll-up flesh peels. A gambling hell where demons rifle through your wallet. A man who keeps getting his fingers cut off so he’ll never do it again. A guy sentenced to be split in half so he can fight himself forever. And the nail-through-the-throat shot that genuinely made all three of us flinch, which we slow-mo, freeze-frame, and argue about for a solid stretch.

My burning question: how much of Quentin Tarantino’s whole thing is sitting right here? Go Go Yubari’s haircut, the Jack Rabbit Slim’s dance contest, the arterial spray — it’s all on screen in 1980. or 1994?!!???!

Also in this half:

gripes to BFW.gripe, symptoms to BFW.doctor (we are not doctors), everything else to [email protected]. thanks for listening. we love you. please make sure to like and subscribe.

The boys dive into Stephen Chow’s Shaolin Soccer (2001), the cult martial-arts sports comedy that Miramax butchered on its way to American shelves and is now quietly held by Paramount in its streaming library. Tracing the film’s rocky journey — from the trailer that spoils the ending, the 23 minutes Dimension Films chopped for the US distribution (including the Golden Leg Fung flashback and key Sing/Mui scenes), and all the way to how Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax sat on it before piracy forced their hand.

From there, it’s a full breakdown of why this “live-action Looney Tunes” still holds up: the surreal tonal shifts that recall Michel Gondry and Boots Riley, the Kill Bill-style scoring, the Rocky IV training-montage energy, and a shared cast with Chow’s follow-up Kung Fu Hustle. There’s quite a debate over the film’s best performance (Small Brother’s egg-eating scene gets singled out), discuss the makeover sequence and its satirical intent, and land on the same conclusion: this is a movie built for kids and adults alike, packed in slapstick laughs and layered enough for repeat viewings. Family-movie-night approved, according to Rene who watched it again with his wife and kids the night before recording.

Before we ever get to Shaolin Soccer, buckle up, because this is the half of the show where the wheels fall off. We open with a live rendition of the Become Friends With theme that may or may not have accidentally invented a weekly remix tradition, immediately pivot into a Kevin Smith ruse discourse nobody asked for, and somehow end up debating whether Kevin Smith owns a thesaurus.

From there it’s trailer chaos: The Guest gets a genuine, heartfelt recommendation sandwiched between jokes about British guys doing American accents, Onslaught gets roasted for its “weak” German accent, and Surviving the Game’s poster turns into a 10-minute fever dream about Gary Busey’s face, Rutger Hauer cosplaying Teddy Roosevelt, and a full Charles S. Dutton Roc retrospective. Naturally this spirals into competing cuts of Alien 3, a deep dive on the Assembly Cut chestburster debate, and a completely unhinged detour into a Busey movie called Bulletproof where every line of dialogue is just the word “Butthorn.”

We are having fun times with hands and feet and heads and ears. Have fun time listening to friends talking about a movie called Friday the 13th part III. Other things we move our moves and make noise about are some music and just stories fun.

what a funny joke for the children, it’s the return of becoming friends with…

on this episode we start a series of three horror films, all the third in their franchise…starting wit the 1982 film halloween iii: season of the witch. this little oddity stands out as it is the only one in the franchise that doesn’t center around michael myers, a plan originally conceived by john carpenter himself. the film switched directors two weeks prior to filming but that did little to break the spirit of the foley artists who document every footstep and nipple suck. it’s not one to be missed…the movie or the podcast. we also chat about airline etiquette, get frustrated at the game framed while we play and then continue to play. well hell…stop reading this and start listening to actual pod. and tell everyone you know. have a great day….we love you!!

becoming friends with…the wraith (1986)

every time you listen to this podcast, a wraith loses another metal brace. what a thrill to be alive. join everyone’s favorite guys that talk into mics as they discuss the 1986 independent action-fantasy film the wraith. this movie is all over the place, but not nearly as much as the topics discussed in the first segment. everything from a maga christian rapper named angry abe, feelings on buffets in a post-pandemic world, colloidal silver and how only the smartest people are drinking it and dinosaurs. you won’t be believing your ears when you are listening.

Did you ever watch that movie with Fred Ward called Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins? Good for you. So did we AND we recorded us talking about it so you don’t have to.

That’s right, america’s only podcast is back and talking more meathead movies. This go around, they’re steeped in racism watching Joel Grey pull an Emma Stone four decades before that was even a thing. Isn’t science amazing? This bonkers movie is celebrating 40 years of questionable (and some just wrong) decisions. So, we are just the silly boys to talk about it.

We also talk about a bunch of other stuff, like that band Nelson, remember them? We revisited a few old student films that Rene and Byron made back around the turn of the century. And so much more…it’s more fun than anyone deserves in this economy. Enjoy it and don’t forget to like and subscribe to complete your life.

#becomefriendswiththepod

#becomingfriendswith

#bfw   

#movieswithfriends

#RemoWilliams

#TheDestroyer

#Sinanju

#Chiun

#80sMovies

#ActionAdventure

#VintageAction

#MovieAdaptation:

#TheAdventureBegins

#EatTheRich

#blessed 

#moreurinetalk

flying killer compact discs and plenty of confusion

Listen up, space cadets! This episode of Becoming Friends with... is a real trip. The aging-stoner crew fires up some high-minded chatter in the first segment, debating a confusing photo of MC Hammer and George Michael that's almost as wild as a lightbulb-shaped head. It's a journey, man.

The main event features the Dolph Lundgren classic, Dark Angel (aka I Come in Peace). The plot involves an alien-cop partnership to take down an intergalactic brain-harvesting drug dealer.

The group deconstructs this cinematic artifact through the hazy lens of modern masculinity. They reveal hidden truths and offer insightful, if not slightly off-kilter, observations. So, tune in because you won't want to miss this head trip.

This week on becoming friends with… the crew sparks up another installment of their “Meathead Movie” saga — and this time, it’s Sylvester Stallone’s Cobra. What starts as random, smoke-hazed chatter about farts, guitars, and accidentally mixing up Spider-Man with Superman, slowly morphs into a surprisingly sharp (and hilarious) takedown of 80s macho cinema.

The gang of aging stoners dissect every growled one-liner, every gratuitous action shot, and even the idea of what it means to be “hard” when you’re just a bunch of dudes getting softer, funnier, and more self-aware with time. Think less testosterone-fueled gun smoke, more late-night dorm room haze with friends who can’t stop laughing at their own jokes — but also find real meaning in the chaos.

If you’ve ever wondered what happens when old-school tough-guy movies get passed through the filter of modern masculinity, good weed, and too much free time, this is the episode that’ll make you pause, chuckle, and lean in.