Rewatchables Reference

• Bill: Young Michelle Williams escaping the glass cage – 'this movie starts immediately, no 4-minute hallway walk.' Also the entire Hollywood Hills section with Robbie (the BMW, the automated lights, the Sade, the turn to date rape, the kill).
• CR (winner): The dueling sex scenes at the end – Madsen/Helgenberger and Natasha/Molina happening simultaneously.
• Van: Agrees with the dueling sex scenes – 'Henstridge is going forward in that sex scene... I really have to focus watching this movie. I apologize.'

• Bill (winner): The portable Sony TV that only existed for about 3 years – great for watching sports, tiny screens, like walkie talkies.
• CR: The paper credit card authorization machine at the hotel.
• Van: Everyone is so thin – Molina, all the actors look so young. Also the analog credit card machine.
• Bill: The horrible special effects at the end.

• Bill: Madsen dumping garbage on Ben Kingsley's chair and hanging it from a crane (from the director's commentary). Also that the cast was 'sneaky devastatingly good.'
• Van (winner): The ragtag-group-hunts-a-threat genre – 'an anthropologist, a molecular biologist, a Black Ops mercenary and an empath.' He loves when the government has to go outside the box.
• CR: Madsen watching hockey and being 2 beers deep when he gets the call. Also Forest Whitaker's empath performance – 'something bad happened here' said in a room with a dead woman and an alien uterus husk.

• Bill: Natasha coming out of the cocoon on the train (they had to invert the train to make it work).
• CR: The Biltmore Hotel looking awesome. Shot by Andrzej Bartkowiak (Prince of the City, Speed) – 'one of those greatest cinematographers who'd be like, yeah, I guess I'm shooting 'Species'.'
• Van: The tongue coming through the back of the guy's head – 'the defining shot of this movie.' Not the most cinematic, but the most memorable and affecting for selling the film.

• They're listening to The Crystal Method in the movie, which is very 1995.
• Bill thinks they could have dialed it up with early EDM – early Moby, Tricky. They weren't about to give Moby any cash though.

• Bill: The last 12 minutes – once Natasha is no longer Natasha and it becomes a conventional B-movie sewer chase.
• CR: The girl Sil kidnaps at the end – 'it doesn't matter that she's in the car, they napalm the whole thing anyway, so it's just 10 extra minutes.'

• Bill: All the missed opportunities for Natasha to find a mate in Hollywood – she only goes back to the same club. 'She easily could have gone to the Viper Room, the bar in 'Swingers', Canter's Deli.' He wanted Hollywood landmarks.
• Van: The Long Island Iced Teas – nobody drinks those anymore because people black out and they're very calorie-dense.
• Bill: 'Species' 2 – Madsen said 'It's lousy, I only did it for the paycheck.'

• Van: Actually an under-acted movie.
• CR: Forest Whitaker for the entire film, but Ben Kingsley for a single tier – his 'What kind of computation?' delivery.
• Bill: Wasn't sure whether to put Forest Whitaker in aged-the-best or aged-the-worst. His empath performance is inexplicable and a huge part of why the movie works.

• CR: Would this movie have been more interesting if the alien was a six? Like at the club and guys are like 'yeah, I guess...' It becomes a rom-com where she's just trying to find love.
• Van: The movie should have had more fucking. 'They had stuff in there we didn't need to see. As soon as she becomes a grown-up woman on the train, she should pull somebody in the room.'
• Bill: This should have been an HBO TV show in 1995. With the nudity, it would have fit HBO perfectly. 'Species and Oz would have been on HBO.' Would have been the first great cable one-hour show, predating Sopranos by 4 years.
• Craig: What if it was just a guy and he was kind of ugly and couldn't get any girls, so he had to just get a job and have a life?

• Pierce Brosnan was offered a part but couldn't do it because of 'GoldenEye'. He later worked with Roger Donaldson on Dante's Peak.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger was briefly interested in the script but the budget wouldn't allow him.
• CR thinks Brosnan would have been the Kingsley part. Bill imagines Kingsley finding out: 'I'll give you the single tier and that's it, you motherfuckers.'

Whip Hubley (won before on 'St. Elmo's Fire'). Bill: 'Top Gun, 'St. Elmo's Fire', 'Species' – those are his best 3.'

• CR: Michelle Williams – she's disavowed this film. Bill imagines being on the 'Manchester by the Sea' junket: 'Great work. In 'Species', did you have to eat all those chocolate puddings?'
• Bill: Hollywood Hills date rape guy – 'a pretty good villain in 5 minutes.'
• Van (co-winner): All the dead guys besides Molina – 'they all have their little Dion Waiters moment and then get killed.'

Bill: Vince Vaughn as Hollywood Hills guy – 'Look at this beautiful baby, what are you doing? Let me take you back to my crib. Let's party.' Full Vince Vaughn energy, then she kills him.

• The alien was designed by H.R. Giger (Alien). He was unhappy because the movie ripped off other Alien films. He threw his body in front of the original ending, resulting in the headshot kill instead.
• The ID Club was built in the Pantages Theatre.
• Alfred Molina said Natasha Henstridge was nervous on the day of their sex scene because she'd never acted one before. He told her 'I've never been in one either – with a woman' (he'd done one with a man in a prior film), which broke the ice.
• Dennis Feldman's suspiciously detailed Wikipedia page – paragraph after paragraph about his writing process. 'There's more in this Wikipedia page than in the Luka Doncic trade Wikipedia page.'

• Natasha Henstridge: Yes, for sure (unanimous).
• Michael Madsen: Debated. Van says no way – 'you name 5 movies before this one.' Bill argues the movie made over $100M and Madsen had the most juice around this time (passed on 'Pulp Fiction'). CR suggests 'Reservoir Dogs' or 'True Romance' on VHS.
• Marg Helgenberger: No, CSI.
• Ben Kingsley: No.
• Horny alien movies: 'I don't know what the competition is and I also don't know why we're not making more of them.' – Bill.
• Mid-90s BMW convertibles: Good one. CR: 'What's the one on the Frank Ocean cover?'

• CR and Van: Spielberg.
• Bill: Scorsese – 'I wanted his gritty sex alien movie steeped in Catholic guilt. Instead of an empath, it's a Catholic priest.'

• Bill: Probably the Molina part.
• CR: The Palisades guy (hot tub guy who gets killed).
• Van: The Molina part is 'pretty perfect for him.'

• Bill: Madsen's tough-guy character is first seen handing off a cat. 'How is it not a Rottweiler or something?'
• Bill: The train porter's clothes perfectly fit Natasha after a horrific murder – clean, no stains, right size.
• Bill: How they followed her from the club to Robbie's Hollywood Hills house is never explained. The doorman just knows where Robbie lives?
• Bill: Could they really figure out 'no semen in the hot tub water' in 10 minutes? 'You guys just got here.'
• Bill: Anyone in 1995 turning down sex or saying 'this is too fast' (Palisades guy).
• Van: People weren't horny enough for her. 'She's in LA. Not one scene where someone goes, Jesus Christ.'
• Craig: After the hot tub murder, Ben Kingsley says 'let's go home, get some sleep.' The alien is still on the loose!
• Van: They put a microbiologist in combat later in the movie. She's wearing a vest and carrying a rifle.

• Bill (major pitch): HBO series in 1995 – Madsen and Helgenberger as Mulder and Scully types. Each episode, Sil is in a different part of LA doing different things. Hollywood Hills guy is half an episode.
• CR: Madison and Helgenberger could totally be Mulder and Scully, and there could be other mysteries for them to solve.
• Van: Different types of mutations because the government agency is doing all kinds of crazy stuff.
• Bill: Could have killed Sil off after the first season, then Madsen and Marge become the attack team. 'Would have predated Sopranos as the first great cable one-hour show.'

• Van: Are the overarching aliens that she comes from pleased with her? Is she doing a good job for them? They had enough technology to do all this, but they're not watching?
• CR: Do we think Shawn Marks would have drafted the 'Species' if they were eligible? (Written late at night.)
• Bill: If you were the concierge for Natasha when she gets off the train, where would you send her? Bill: South Bay, walking up and down the Strand for beach volleyball barrel guys. Craig: USC frat party. Van: A Lakers game – 'she's going to find her mate.'
• CR: What's Sil's aging like? Does she just turn into Betty White in a week?

• CR: Forest Whitaker's goofy hat.
• Bill: Couldn't come up with one.

• Bill: Don't underestimate hot horny aliens.
• CR: If a six-foot blonde woman wants your baby at the club, it's probably too good to be true.
• Van: Women are not to be used.

• Bill: Under the Skin (Scarlett Johansson, 2013) – 'just like the upgraded Part 2.'
• CR: Mimic (1997, Mira Sorvino) – about killer cockroaches.
• Van: Amanda and the Alien (1995, Nicole Eggert) – 'a very low budget movie about a lady who meets an alien learning its body and having sex with people.'

Probably special effects. Bill also throws in Madsen 'just for the hell of it.'

Natasha Henstridge won the movie. CR tried to honor Madsen since the episode was prompted by his death, but Bill and the group agree: she wins the movie.

Craig's review: 'Mount Rushmore of most 90s movie premises. This movie's not good, but it's extremely enjoyable, kind of the perfect blend of that. Had no problem with any of the nudity – that's what it's about.'