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Speaker 2: What kind of a show you guys putting on here today?
Speaker 2: You're not interested in armed?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: No, Look, we're going to do this thing. We're going
Speaker 2: to have a.
Speaker 3: Conversation from Chicago. This is film Spotting. I'm Adam Kempinar and.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Larson.
Speaker 4: I'm Carrie Linda Garden.
Speaker 3: You got the car, you've been brand new, burnt numbers here.
Speaker 3: You want your own wife, kidnap our dad.
Speaker 1: He's real, well owned, so.
Speaker 3: Why don't you just ask.
Speaker 4: Him for the money.
Speaker 3: See, these are personal matters, personal matters. Thirty years ago,
Speaker 3: the Coen Brothers were the quirky team behind five features,
Speaker 3: most notably and profitably raising Arizona. Fargo made them Best
Speaker 3: Picture nominees and star Francis McDow dorman a Best Actress winner.
Speaker 1: This week, we'll try to cool you off with an
Speaker 1: anniversary review of The Wintry Crime Caper, plus Olivia Wilde's
Speaker 1: The Invite and David Wayne's Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity
Speaker 1: Sex Pass. That and more. You betcha ahead on film Spotting.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Film Spotting. Last week here, Josh, we discussed
Speaker 3: the biggest moneymaker of nineteen ninety six, Independence Day. That's
Speaker 3: how we celebrated July fourth and that film's thirtieth anniversary.
Speaker 3: Now we're going to discuss what I think was the
Speaker 3: best film of nineteen ninety six overall, and that's Fargo.
Speaker 3: Back on episode I think three seventeen, before you joined
Speaker 3: the show, we did our top five films of nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety six, and I did have Fargo in the number
Speaker 3: one slot. You know what it was competing with in
Speaker 3: the number two slot.
Speaker 1: Ninety six.
Speaker 3: Any guests, Oh gosh, I don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't even think I have a top Breaking the Waves, Trainspotting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Breaking the Waves actually I think was my number five,
Speaker 3: but number two was another film, coincidentally about a small
Speaker 3: town sheriff investigating a murder, which I don't think I
Speaker 3: realized at the time they had that in common Lone
Speaker 3: Star from ritactor John Sales.
Speaker 1: Of course, solid list. You know, it's just registering now
Speaker 1: that we are doing back to back nineteen ninety six films.
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly that didn't hit me earlier, but
Speaker 1: we haven't done. I have to look at that and
Speaker 1: see what my top five of ninety six would be.
Speaker 1: I had not start compiling top tens at that point,
Speaker 1: at least on my website. I feel like James and
Speaker 1: the Giant Peach might be up there for me. I
Speaker 1: remember loving that from that year. Spike Lee had I
Speaker 1: think Get on the Bus from that year. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I would have put that in my top five,
Speaker 1: but a good film, yeah, I have to revisit ye.
Speaker 1: But we're doing our best these last two weeks at least.
Speaker 3: Well, this isn't so much about getting in the time
Speaker 3: machine and going back to nineteen ninety six and commemorating
Speaker 3: that year. It's really about our pantheon project. Fargo is
Speaker 3: a film that is in the film spotting pantheon, but
Speaker 3: we have never discussed it, and we are going to
Speaker 3: remedy that here on this show. You also caught up
Speaker 3: with a movie I'm eager to see Olivia Wilde's the
Speaker 3: Invite that expands to more cities. This weekend, we both
Speaker 3: saw David Wayne's Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass.
Speaker 3: We'll have some talk about both later plus poll results.
Speaker 3: Our listeners are going to weigh in on the best
Speaker 3: pair of nineties blockbusters. Some good feedback there. A reminder,
Speaker 3: Film Spotting is now available as a video podcast. You
Speaker 3: can watch us talk over at YouTube dot com slash
Speaker 3: film Spotting up. First, Fargo at thirty.
Speaker 5: Did you look in a citation book?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Vehicle E Rodion was a Tan Sierra at two
Speaker 2: eighteen am under a plate number for DLR. I figured
Speaker 2: they stopped him or shot him before he could finish
Speaker 2: filling out to tag number. So I got the state
Speaker 2: looking for a Sierra with a tech starting DLR. They
Speaker 2: don't got no match yet.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure that I agree with you one hundred
Speaker 5: percent on your please work there Low.
Speaker 3: Thirty years later, it's easy to forget how decisively Fargo
Speaker 3: reoriented the Cohen Brothers' careers. Nineteen ninety one's Barton Fink
Speaker 3: earned Joel and Ethan their first three Academy Award nominations
Speaker 3: Best Art Direction costume design and supporting actor. But Fargo
Speaker 3: was easily their most commercial, critical and awards circuit success,
Speaker 3: earning seven Oscar noms and winning two. The film was
Speaker 3: so instantly highly regarded Roger Ebert said, it emerges as
Speaker 3: one of the best films I've ever seen that when
Speaker 3: the American Film Institute put out its one hundred years
Speaker 3: one hundred Movies list a couple of years later, it
Speaker 3: was Fargo, not Best Picture winner The English Patient that
Speaker 3: made the cut, the most recent movie to do so
Speaker 3: what was so different about this Cone's effort? Reading reviews
Speaker 3: from the period makes you wonder if the mischievous brothers
Speaker 3: didn't set a movie in the frozen tundra of the Midwest,
Speaker 3: winkingly to show critics what a truly cold movie was.
Speaker 3: In Sight and Sounds in May nineteen ninety six issue,
Speaker 3: Lizzie Frank cited it as a common term for their ludic,
Speaker 3: ironic approach to cinema and the detached precision with which
Speaker 3: they unravel their stories. In her March eighth New York
Speaker 3: Times review, Janet Maslin called them coolly cerebral filmmakers. Oddly coincidentally,
Speaker 3: Frank and Maslin both used the word perversely to describe
Speaker 3: Fargo's great irony that despite the film's frigid sending and
Speaker 3: noir inflected plot, which finds a Twin Cities car salesman
Speaker 3: scheming to have his wife kidnapped to collect the ransom
Speaker 3: from his rich father in law, the Cones reveal a
Speaker 3: surprising warmth. While I vaguely recall some claims of contempt
Speaker 3: at the time, there's undeniable affection in their portrayal of
Speaker 3: Francis mcdormand's incessantly hungry seven months pregnant Minnesota and ice,
Speaker 3: Marge Gunderson and her droll duck painting, ice fishing, egg
Speaker 3: making husband Norm, son of a Gunderson played by John
Speaker 3: Carol Lynch. So much affection, in fact, that we could
Speaker 3: discuss whether the Cones have presented another such vision of
Speaker 3: earnest tenderness, since whether such an abundance of heart is
Speaker 3: good or bad depends on your perspective. On a twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two episode of the Unspooled podcast with Paul Sheer
Speaker 3: and front of the show Amy Nicholson, Amy tempers Paul's
Speaker 3: enthusiasm for Fargo, calling it the Radison. You know it's
Speaker 3: pretty good. She just prefers her Cone movies to be
Speaker 3: more Coheny. According to her, it's their most naturalistic. They're
Speaker 3: having the least fun behind the camera. I'll note here
Speaker 3: that Fargo was their third straight collaboration with cinematographer Roger Deakins,
Speaker 3: and because of that shift in tone, they perhaps were
Speaker 3: being rewarded for being nicer human beings. It's not a
Speaker 3: lesser Cone film in terms of talent, but lesser Cone
Speaker 3: in terms of the amount of Cone that's in the film.
Speaker 3: Amy concludes rating it on a scale against two titles
Speaker 3: she prefers, raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski. Josh, I
Speaker 3: want your perspective. Do you take issue with any part
Speaker 3: of Amy's assessment of Fargo? How much do you weigh
Speaker 3: the amount of Cohen that's in the film when you
Speaker 3: are judging any Cone film? And where does that leave
Speaker 3: you with Fargo?
Speaker 1: Oh, you're setting me up to disagree with the great
Speaker 1: Amy Nicholson's fair. I do one of our favorite critics,
Speaker 1: and I understand where she's coming from. I get the impulse.
Speaker 1: I also feel not having a full handle of her
Speaker 1: understanding of the Coen Brothers. If you name Lebowski, and
Speaker 1: raising Arizona as among their best. I understand what you're
Speaker 1: looking for in a Coen Brothers film. That is definitely
Speaker 1: a particular vein. It is one I appreciate as well,
Speaker 1: and Fargo's now operating in that register. Absolutely. I would disagree, however,
Speaker 1: in that it is warm and fuzzy. I think I
Speaker 1: understand where you would land, especially those original reviews comparing
Speaker 1: that to the movies that came before from them. But
Speaker 1: I find this for me, this is a question when
Speaker 1: it comes to the Cohen of nihilism on the far
Speaker 1: end in their movies, and flickers of hope, glimmers of
Speaker 1: grace amidst really bizarre, awful evil. That's what a lot
Speaker 1: of their movies hold. And so I have always thought
Speaker 1: of Firego as one, despite Marge Gunderson's presence, that falls
Speaker 1: closer towards the nihilism end, closer towards the no country
Speaker 1: for old men, and closer toward the battlet of buster
Speaker 1: scrugs and a serious man. That's how I think about
Speaker 1: their films, so than realism or naturalism, it's nihilism, and
Speaker 1: perhaps we have a reason to livesm I don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't think we ever go for full throated hope
Speaker 1: to a Coen Brothers movie, although some offer something like
Speaker 1: that more than others, and I still land there with Fargo.
Speaker 1: But I appreciate the nuances it brings to that attitude
Speaker 1: more and more every time I have revisited this movie
Speaker 1: countless times, Adam, and it is continually revealing new depths
Speaker 1: to me. I'm thrilled we get to talk about this.
Speaker 1: We have some movement on a ranked list for me,
Speaker 1: which you know does happen when we revisit films, but
Speaker 1: not always. This isn't dramatic movement, but I'm going to
Speaker 1: be bumping Fargo up further after this revisit. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I just think it has to do with where it's
Speaker 1: landing on this central question of evil again in the world,
Speaker 1: what possibility there is to resist it as an outside force.
Speaker 1: And here's where Fargo moved ahead for me as an
Speaker 1: inside force, as an interior wrangling that we have to
Speaker 1: wrestle with. I identified this earlier in William H. Macy's
Speaker 1: Jerry Lundegard, that he's the everyman. He's not the hard
Speaker 1: and criminal, but he's the guy more like us who
Speaker 1: might find themselves in a somewhat similar situation, what choices
Speaker 1: would you make? What would you do? This watch Adam,
Speaker 1: And previously I saw Marge as an opposition to that,
Speaker 1: as the you know, the shining hope, the warm comfort,
Speaker 1: the force of gentle justice. This watch, I recognized Marge's
Speaker 1: struggle with that question as well. How do we make
Speaker 1: the moral decisions within ourselves? What does it even mean
Speaker 1: for Marge? That's something I had not considered before, and
Speaker 1: I think is a through line here. I think a
Speaker 1: key scene for this is the most perplexing, mysterious scene
Speaker 1: for anyone who watches Firego Mike Yanagita. I want to
Speaker 1: break down Mike Yanagita as we get to this, because
Speaker 1: I think it's it unlocked this for me in regard
Speaker 1: to Marge. But yeah, Fargo's brilliant. I don't have the
Speaker 1: same problems. It sounds like Amy has. I think the
Speaker 1: filmmaking is there. If it's more subtle, we'll talk deacons.
Speaker 1: And I also think that you know, you could argue
Speaker 1: even no Country is maybe more naturalistic. I think we
Speaker 1: get a fair amount of cohenisms here, especially in Steve
Speaker 1: Buscemi and Peter Stormeyer's back and forth as the criminals
Speaker 1: the hardened criminals here, So I do it does sound
Speaker 1: like I like Fargo better than Amy for different reasons
Speaker 1: and see it a bit differently than her as well.
Speaker 1: Is there any shifting here for you in terms of
Speaker 1: in the Cohen canon or on any of these questions
Speaker 1: you just raised.
Speaker 3: I'll get there, but I already had it in my
Speaker 3: top three and it's definitely staying there in my top three.
Speaker 3: I think this is the first time I've watched it
Speaker 3: though in its entirety, since I saw it in the theater.
Speaker 3: I don't know how that's possible, but I have said,
Speaker 3: and this is usually the case with these Sacred Cows,
Speaker 3: I don't get to revisit a lot of films, and
Speaker 3: that might just be because of the number of children
Speaker 3: I have, and also doing this show, I'm usually trying
Speaker 3: to see new things, and I'm always prioritizing new films,
Speaker 3: and that's why we end up doing these Sacred Cows.
Speaker 3: That's the impetus for these types of reviews. So I
Speaker 3: felt like I was seeing this, even though I do
Speaker 3: also feel like I know these scenes so well, I
Speaker 3: felt like I was seeing it with very fresh eyes.
Speaker 3: I do want to note that Amy definitely doesn't say
Speaker 3: the movies warm and fuzzy, nor do I think from
Speaker 3: what I saw Janet Maslin or Sit and Sound do.
Speaker 3: But they do say it's warmer, and I think Amy's
Speaker 3: actual word that she says is there's some warm heartedness.
Speaker 3: I do really like your dichotomy, and I think that
Speaker 3: that's appropriate. I see that as well. Maybe we can
Speaker 3: call it nihilism versus optimism. Some optimism that's definitely there.
Speaker 3: I also want to give this perspective, and we've dated
Speaker 3: ourselves in this way before. I certainly have multiple times
Speaker 3: on this show back in ninety six. So here's where
Speaker 3: I'm at. Seeing this in the theater. I really begin
Speaker 3: my journey as a cinophile in ninety two ninety three.
Speaker 3: I saw Raising Arizona as a kid. Loved that movie
Speaker 3: as a kid, but I don't know who the Coen
Speaker 3: Brothers are. I'm just enjoying that movie. So two hugely
Speaker 3: important movies to me as I'm starting to become a
Speaker 3: serious movie fan are Miller's Crossing and Parton think renting
Speaker 3: those films, just trying to process those as narratives which
Speaker 3: Miller's crossing. Maybe I'm just now figuring out when we
Speaker 3: wrestled with that a few years ago, and we we
Speaker 3: put that back in our feed just a few days ago,
Speaker 3: wrestling with those as narratives, processing those two, processing the filmmaking,
Speaker 3: they were formative. So then a few years later, just
Speaker 3: a few years later, I get to go see a
Speaker 3: Cone Brothers movie in the theater on the big screen,
Speaker 3: and not only that it's being hailed by everybody as
Speaker 3: their best film, and not only that one of the
Speaker 3: best films of the year, and then I go in
Speaker 3: and it delivers. I also think it's incredible. That may
Speaker 3: be part of why, even though I do think I've
Speaker 3: only seen it once, maybe I rewatched it once over
Speaker 3: one other time over the last thirty years that I
Speaker 3: don't recall. Maybe that's why this film still does have
Speaker 3: such a hold on me, Why even though I hadn't
Speaker 3: seen it recently. When I formed that Cone Brothers list,
Speaker 3: I put it there in the top three. I agree
Speaker 3: with you. I do think there's a flaw in the
Speaker 3: comparison with other films like Raising Arizona in The Big
Speaker 3: Lebowski in that just very they're very different movies. She
Speaker 3: gave Paul the choice if three TVs are on, and
Speaker 3: those are the three movies playing? Which which one are
Speaker 3: you watching? I don't really know how i'd answer that question, Josh,
Speaker 3: but I do know that one's a screwball comedy effectively
Speaker 3: a live action cartoon, and the others an absurdist genre subversion.
Speaker 3: They are, They're just they're just way more playful and
Speaker 3: coolly detached. But they're also going for laughs in a
Speaker 3: way that that Fargo isn't, even though Fargo is often
Speaker 3: very funny. You're right, it's just not operating.
Speaker 1: It's a volume. It's a volume level for me as well.
Speaker 1: I think Raising Arizona and Lebowski are operating at a hot,
Speaker 1: higher volume compared to Firego.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think that's appropriate to the camera work point.
Speaker 3: It may not be as ostentatious with the camera as
Speaker 3: some of their other films, But and I've obviously listened
Speaker 3: to more of the conversation than you have, I don't
Speaker 3: think Amy gives the cinematography enough credit. I think we
Speaker 3: may get into that a little bit more, but I
Speaker 3: would say the biggest issue is I think it's distinctiveness,
Speaker 3: as you are speaking to how the film does still
Speaker 3: not only then, but still stand out in their filmography.
Speaker 3: I think that's what makes it special. That's not something
Speaker 3: I hold against it, and they are my first or
Speaker 3: second favorite living filmmakers. Their top three films on my list.
Speaker 3: Certainly could we all say this, but it's true, could
Speaker 3: be rearranged daily. I don't remember when I put the
Speaker 3: list together on letterbox Josh, but when I made it,
Speaker 3: I did put No Country at number one. I put
Speaker 3: Fargo at two, and I put Inside Lewin Davis at
Speaker 3: number three. Now, before I looked at the list on letterboxed,
Speaker 3: I actually thought I had Fargo number one, and after
Speaker 3: rewatching it, I was ready to come here on the
Speaker 3: show and say, great, it gets to stay there, firmly
Speaker 3: ensconced in the number one spot. And maybe Lewin Davis
Speaker 3: is a carecter who doesn't offer the warmth and the
Speaker 3: heart that margin Norm do. But for me, he's a
Speaker 3: richer character, He's a more complex character. I think he's
Speaker 3: tormented by this push and pull between the solitary life
Speaker 3: of the artist and just his natural bastard self and
Speaker 3: recognizing that there could be another path, a path, a
Speaker 3: path of optimism and hope, like Margin Norm, something that
Speaker 3: a more domestic life that could be satisfying perhaps, and
Speaker 3: there's a soulfulness and depth to that character combined with
Speaker 3: all the movies big ideas that I really connect with.
Speaker 3: And I just say that all to illustrate how much
Speaker 3: I do love those three films. And that's the reason
Speaker 3: why I could even put Lewin Davis quite honestly in
Speaker 3: that top spot. But when I rewatched this Josh, I
Speaker 3: was very comfortable keeping it there. And before I dig
Speaker 3: into the main reasons why, I'll say that whether it's
Speaker 3: movies like Miller's Crossing, The Big Lebowski, and Barton Fink
Speaker 3: where I liked them but didn't fully appreciate them on
Speaker 3: first viewing, or a movie like Lewin Davis, which I
Speaker 3: love from the start. Cone Brothers movies, they don't just
Speaker 3: reward rewatches for me. I feel like the best way
Speaker 3: to describe it is that when I'm lucky, I'll detect
Speaker 3: a cipher. There's some kind of code, there's something that
Speaker 3: unlocks the movie for me that helps me to understand
Speaker 3: and appreciate them more. And I think, maybe going back
Speaker 3: to my setup thinking about these movies in those in
Speaker 3: those terms about how precisely crafted they are, maybe cipher
Speaker 3: is the is the best word. I did find that
Speaker 3: here something was unlocked for me here watching it this time,
Speaker 3: maybe maybe a couple related things that we can dig into.
Speaker 3: That that did, even though I'm going to keep it
Speaker 3: in its number two spot, that did even elevate my
Speaker 3: esteem for this film.
Speaker 1: Well, let me get my ranked list housekeeping out of
Speaker 1: the way for me. I'm going to move it ahead
Speaker 1: to the number four slot. I head at number five.
Speaker 1: I'm moving it ahead of Hale Caesar, which I love,
Speaker 1: you know, beyond most people. And I did have that
Speaker 1: slightly ahead of fire Go, but I'm swapping those two.
Speaker 1: So I'm moving fire Go ahead of Hale Caesar to
Speaker 1: number four. That means it's still behind my top three,
Speaker 1: which are Miller's Crossing. As I've talked about on the show.
Speaker 1: Did see that in the theater? For whatever reason, they
Speaker 1: were on my radar? That film was on my radar.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, Debbie and I were into gangster
Speaker 1: movies at the time. That's why it was on my radar.
Speaker 1: That was like the WHOA, what is this experience with
Speaker 1: Miller's Crossing? And so that makes it tough to knock
Speaker 1: it from number one. After that, I have No Country,
Speaker 1: and then another unusual pick for me, I have True
Speaker 1: grit as their third best film, but Firego's coming up
Speaker 1: on that. You know, to your point, if I watch
Speaker 1: those two back to back, who knows what would happen.
Speaker 1: But easily moving this into number four after this rewatch
Speaker 1: what unlocked for me? It's an extension, I would say,
Speaker 1: audam of something that was gradually unlocking the last time
Speaker 1: I watched this, this was twenty twenty one, so not
Speaker 1: that long ago. We were doing to think Christian movie
Speaker 1: Club series on the Coen Brothers at the time. And
Speaker 1: it's interesting it's related to something you just said, which
Speaker 1: I think is correct, comparing Lewin Davis to Margin Norm.
Speaker 1: You know this domestic happy life they could have on
Speaker 1: this watch how happy is this life that Marge and
Speaker 1: Norms share? And I'm not saying this is something that
Speaker 1: I entirely missed earlier, or that is even a criticism film.
Speaker 1: I think this is a nuance that the film is
Speaker 1: offering that I didn't pick up on until now, because
Speaker 1: I probably just love this notion of Margin Norm as
Speaker 1: these contrasts not only to the Cohen universe but to
Speaker 1: the Fargo universe. It was so cozy to get any
Speaker 1: scene of the two of them and catch your breath
Speaker 1: away from Jerry's frantic Maine, away from the frighteningness of
Speaker 1: the criminals, away from all the other elements in the
Speaker 1: movie the cold, Away from the cold exterior scenes. Here
Speaker 1: is Marge and Norm sharing a meal together, quietly happy.
Speaker 1: Just let me have that.
Speaker 5: What do we got here? Arby's how's a paint?
Speaker 2: Coin?
Speaker 1: Pretty good?
Speaker 3: Oh no, the Halpman's are entering a painting this year.
Speaker 5: On your better Nam.
Speaker 3: They're real good.
Speaker 4: They're good, Norm, But you're better Nom?
Speaker 1: You think so?
Speaker 5: You got Arby's all over me?
Speaker 1: I think, to the movie's credit, it is more complicated,
Speaker 1: and on this watch, you know, I think it's really
Speaker 1: about Marge's awareness of her own susceptibility to some sort
Speaker 1: of moral failure, and that a key thing this movie
Speaker 1: is asking us is are humans capable of contentment? And
Speaker 1: this is in opposition to another human drive, which is greed,
Speaker 1: which is what's driving everything else in the film, right,
Speaker 1: and contentment is a virtue that this movie shows us
Speaker 1: is so difficult to cultivate. And here's where Mike Yanagita
Speaker 1: comes in. So again, this classmate, high school classmate, does
Speaker 1: that sound right? Or yeah, he had to be high
Speaker 1: school right, Yeah, I don't think he was a college classmate.
Speaker 1: So high school classmate calls Margin in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night because he saw her on TV investigating this
Speaker 1: case and wants to meet her up in the meet
Speaker 1: with her in the Twin Cities. And I think this
Speaker 1: whole sequence presents her And maybe some people got this
Speaker 1: the first time around. I know I didn't in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six. It wasn't until again, the most recent visiting
Speaker 1: where this kind of opened up for me. They meet,
Speaker 1: and you know, notice what Marge wears. She wears this
Speaker 1: blouse that we haven't seen her in anything like that
Speaker 1: for this meeting. She touches her hair a little bit
Speaker 1: before approaching him at the table. She goes there so
Speaker 1: supposedly to follow a lead for the case, but she
Speaker 1: doesn't make that decision until after Mike's call. And notice
Speaker 1: Norm's response, his surprise that she's going to go there
Speaker 1: for this. And I just think here that we're seeing Marge.
Speaker 1: Once Mike clearly starts making a move, she rebuffs his
Speaker 1: awkward advances, but that mortified look she has, she looks down,
Speaker 1: and she realizes for the first time that he'd been
Speaker 1: fooling her, and she'd been fooling herself.
Speaker 3: I shouldn't have done this such.
Speaker 4: I thought we'd have a really tearth time. You were
Speaker 4: such a super lady, and then I'm so lovely.
Speaker 1: In a sense, it's almost like that question Marge asks
Speaker 1: Stor Mayor at the very end, Adam, And for what?
Speaker 1: Like why why did you? Was it worth all this?
Speaker 1: And for what? It's almost like you could be asking herself,
Speaker 1: or is asking herself that same question in that moment,
Speaker 1: Why am I here? And for what? And so it's
Speaker 1: not just Jerry, it's not just the killers. Where we're
Speaker 1: living a moral life is the Sisyphian task, even in
Speaker 1: a loving marriage like margin Norms, it's a Siciphian task
Speaker 1: because you gotta get up every day. You've gotta here's
Speaker 1: the imagery. You've gotta go scrape the ice off the windshield.
Speaker 1: Yet again, the perfect moment in this movie of Jerry
Speaker 1: failing to do that, his Sisyphian boulder is the ice
Speaker 1: on the windshield. It's gonna come back. You're gonna have
Speaker 1: to push that rock up again. You're gonna have to
Speaker 1: scrape that windshield again. The prowler is always gonna need
Speaker 1: to jump. This is just living a life of contentment,
Speaker 1: which is so hard for us to do. And this
Speaker 1: was the first time I realized it's hard for Marge
Speaker 1: as well, which just made her, of course, so much
Speaker 1: deeper of a character.
Speaker 3: This is gonna be very ha hard because in order
Speaker 3: to get into margin norm and to get into the
Speaker 3: Mike Yanagita scene, which as far as I can tell, Josh,
Speaker 3: people still either wildly I won't even say they wildly misunderstand,
Speaker 3: because anytime I hear anybody talk about it, they just
Speaker 3: kind of throw in the towel. And I actually don't
Speaker 3: think it's that complicated. I think it's complex, but I
Speaker 3: think there's lots of ways to come at it, and
Speaker 3: I think there's lots of conclusions we can draw from it,
Speaker 3: as you already have. I want to discuss both of
Speaker 3: the things that you just dug into, but in order
Speaker 3: to get there, I have to explain what my unlock was,
Speaker 3: and that may take a little while, so I'm trying
Speaker 3: to I'm trying to best figure this out. I will
Speaker 3: note very quickly that you do love true grit and
Speaker 3: I've always known that about you, and True Grit is
Speaker 3: the movie I most need to have that second watch
Speaker 3: experience with. And I'm praying. I'm expecting, but I'm praying.
Speaker 3: I liked it. I liked it quite a bit, but
Speaker 3: I'm praying that the unlocked will happen. That that is
Speaker 3: just hard to get sometimes in the theater with any movie,
Speaker 3: but especially with a Cone real.
Speaker 1: Quick, real quick, I find and perhaps their most optimistic,
Speaker 1: which may be why I.
Speaker 3: Had it there. Yeah, so let me try to explain
Speaker 3: how I get to where you're at. But my path
Speaker 3: and I think I think people, at least based on
Speaker 3: what I've heard over the years, may underestimate the significance
Speaker 3: of the opening text that this is a true story,
Speaker 3: the events depicted, that whole thing. You know. Everybody sort
Speaker 3: of goes, Oh, those tricky Cone brothers, aren't they funny?
Speaker 3: Playing with our expectations and keeping us on our toes?
Speaker 3: And my take this time as Fargo remains gripping decades later,
Speaker 3: not just for its craft and darkly comic story, but
Speaker 3: for the way it turns myth making, storytelling, and deception
Speaker 3: into its central preoccupation. That's what myths are myths are
Speaker 3: fundamentally just storytelling and deception. We've got fundamentally a movie
Speaker 3: about people who lie that opens with one right, it's
Speaker 3: not based on a true story. The filmmakers tell us
Speaker 3: a lie right off the jump. And even the name,
Speaker 3: even the name of the movies a bit of misdirection
Speaker 3: since it almost exclusively takes place in Minnesota. It is
Speaker 3: about Minnesotan's but it's called Fargo, and even the name
Speaker 3: and if this is too simple, I don't really care,
Speaker 3: but even the name Fargo is symbolic of the nature
Speaker 3: of lying and what we see happen in this movie
Speaker 3: with violence in this scheme too. Once you start, how
Speaker 3: far does it go? Once you start? You can't stop.
Speaker 3: The lies just continue to compound, right, Jerry can't stop
Speaker 3: the kidnapping from happening once he sets it all in
Speaker 3: motion in Fargo. And what I love about the opening exchange,
Speaker 3: and this is something about the movie overall, Josh, that
Speaker 3: I just think is brilliant about it, not that it
Speaker 3: should be a surprise. With the Coen Brothers film What
Speaker 3: is It? Ninety eight minutes, I truly don't think that
Speaker 3: there is a scene that's wasted at all. In terms
Speaker 3: of I don't story, story plot plus character. In that
Speaker 3: opening exchange with Carl and grimsrude or maybe we should
Speaker 3: just call him BOUSHEMI and Stormare, they don't just accept
Speaker 3: the deal, right. They ask him a bunch of questions.
Speaker 3: They want to understand the story. They want to understand
Speaker 3: why he's asking them to do this. What kind of
Speaker 3: trouble you and Jerry Well, that's that's I'm not gonna
Speaker 3: get into into. See, I just need the money now,
Speaker 3: her dad, he's real well off, So why don't you
Speaker 3: just ask him for the money or your wife, you know,
Speaker 3: or your wife Jerry.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: One of their their great screenwriting strokes is that they
Speaker 3: for the entire movie withhold the reason why Jerry needs
Speaker 3: the money. He withholds it from them, which means they
Speaker 3: also withhold it from us. We're in the same position
Speaker 3: the hired thugs are the entire movie, right that we
Speaker 3: have no idea and Boushemy and we don't need to know.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter. We just know he needs the money desperately.
Speaker 3: And so when Bouscemi says this, he goes right at
Speaker 3: the end of that scene at the bar, he goes, Okay, Jerry,
Speaker 3: you're tasking us to perform this mission, but you won't.
Speaker 3: You won't. Basically, he's saying, you won't give us the details,
Speaker 3: you won't tell us why, and then he goes, Okay,
Speaker 3: let's take a look at that, Sierra. We as an
Speaker 3: audience could be saying that to the Coen Brothers. Your
Speaker 3: task us to perform our duties as audience members to
Speaker 3: buy into all this, to get invested in this and
Speaker 3: go on this journey. But you're not going to tell
Speaker 3: us why he needs the money. Oh you know what, efit.
Speaker 3: Let's just get the plot in motion. And I love that.
Speaker 3: But even if you think about it, Josh, why is
Speaker 3: the movie said in BRAINERD because it's it's a fun
Speaker 3: word to say, because they wanted, you know, the silliest
Speaker 3: sounding small Minnesota town. I bet there are others that
Speaker 3: could compete with that. It's because it claims Paul Bunyan
Speaker 3: Babe the Blue Ox, which everybody says when BRAINERD is mentioned,
Speaker 3: Paul Bunyan's not real, Babe the Blue Ox isn't real.
Speaker 3: They're characters out of folk tales. They're they're part of
Speaker 3: the mythic Great White North. They're part of this story.
Speaker 3: We there're stories we tell ourselves to define ourselves. Right,
Speaker 3: And almost every single scene, this is where Yanna Geeda
Speaker 3: comes in certainly right, almost every single scene. And I'll
Speaker 3: hold off on getting into my proof here because I
Speaker 3: want to get to the heart of the matter. Almost
Speaker 3: every single scene involves storytelling and truth or deception in
Speaker 3: this In this film, there are so many of them.
Speaker 3: So how does this fit in with what you were saying?
Speaker 3: I think what we see in this movie ultimately are
Speaker 3: the Kohene brothers playing with and subverting myths surrounding American
Speaker 3: life and the American family. And maybe one of the
Speaker 3: key ideas, certainly that we're sold is that happiness is possible,
Speaker 3: and not only that happiness is possible, but that it's
Speaker 3: that it's required, that it's that it's it's an expectation
Speaker 3: of American life. And so in this movie we get
Speaker 3: here's the thing. I think we get three distinct visions,
Speaker 3: at least three distinct visions of dematic life. There's the
Speaker 3: one Jerry pretends to be living and that his wife
Speaker 3: firmly believes that she is living. Okay, then there's margin
Speaker 3: norm and I am gonna I want to discuss the
Speaker 3: ending a bit more and yanagita, but I'll just say overall,
Speaker 3: I'm with you that I have always read it as
Speaker 3: very loving, black and white. You know, very clear that
Speaker 3: they that everything's perfect, and I'm still very close to that.
Speaker 3: I love for sure that it's a happy marriage. Clearly
Speaker 3: they depend on each other, the way he he insists
Speaker 3: on making her breakfast because his pregnant wife needs to eat,
Speaker 3: needs nourishment, no matter how early it is, and of
Speaker 3: course fix or some eggs, and then of course he's
Speaker 3: there to help give the prowler a jump. I love
Speaker 3: I read it this way. I love that when when
Speaker 3: they meet, no matter what's happened on the job, I
Speaker 3: like that he doesn't ask her a bunch of questions.
Speaker 3: I think it reflects the fact that he just trusts
Speaker 3: that his wife knows what she's doing. He doesn't need
Speaker 3: to get into her business, he doesn't need to offer
Speaker 3: her any tips or suggestions. He's letting her do what
Speaker 3: she does. And I do think, even though I want
Speaker 3: to unpack it more in a minute, I do think
Speaker 3: that that last line, heck, norm we're doing pretty good here,
Speaker 3: is genuinely moving. At least it was this time. I
Speaker 3: didn't give it much thought in the theater in ninety six.
Speaker 3: This time genuinely moving. But here's my big point. Aren't
Speaker 3: the two criminals just sort of replicating domestic life, but
Speaker 3: a completely deranged version of domestic life. They've got a house,
Speaker 3: they're staying at a house with a wife. He's even
Speaker 3: eating a TV dinner when we find him. He's eating
Speaker 3: TV dinners. And the thing is they're miserable out there.
Speaker 3: They could just be making choices we're talking about, like
Speaker 3: making choices for happiness. They could just be choosing another
Speaker 3: path and living that domestic life for real, rather than
Speaker 3: replicating it as part of this crime. And they could
Speaker 3: have a functioning TV where they could actually get reception
Speaker 3: and watch whatever they wanted. And in some ways it's
Speaker 3: even a dream alternate reality to suburban family dreams, because
Speaker 3: who doesn't dream about having a second house out on
Speaker 3: the lake, right, But it's a terrible experience where terrible
Speaker 3: things are happening inside that house. And it even just
Speaker 3: occurred to me here at the last minute that that
Speaker 3: comedic duo of stormare in Bouscemi is so perfect and
Speaker 3: it fits a very conventional comedic mode right to have opposites,
Speaker 3: the small guy and the big guy, the guy who
Speaker 3: talks too much, the guy who doesn't talk at all.
Speaker 3: But if you put it into this scheme that I'm
Speaker 3: talking about, they all almost feel to me like the
Speaker 3: split personality of the quote unquote conventional American husband ones
Speaker 3: at home, he's gruff, he's silent, he's completely emotionless. He's
Speaker 3: just there eating his dinner, unhappy, ignoring his wife. And
Speaker 3: what's the other doing. He's doing what other husbands do.
Speaker 3: He's going crazy out there on the lake as we
Speaker 3: hear about him, and he's stepping out for trists with
Speaker 3: a prostitute. It's like there's a perfect schism there. And
Speaker 3: watching how Josh And in nineteen ninety six, this would
Speaker 3: have been true to some extent, it would have been
Speaker 3: truer in eighty seven, when this movie is set. Something
Speaker 3: about how we consistently see at the end and earlier
Speaker 3: scenes the glow of the TV, all these different characters
Speaker 3: in their different settings, watching like The Tonight Show with
Speaker 3: Johnny Carson, that same glow, no matter their situations, no
Speaker 3: matter how messed up they are, all these characters are
Speaker 3: just ending up in the same places. They've all just
Speaker 3: made radically different choices to get there, and all are
Speaker 3: experiencing different levels of happiness.
Speaker 1: To your point, Yeah, and I think I love the
Speaker 1: idea of them as this bickering couple. They're definitely to
Speaker 1: take a historical look at this. This was the era
Speaker 1: of the loquacious criminal couples, wasn't it, or at least
Speaker 1: just criminals. Because we've got this is nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: following Usual Suspects in ninety five, and then of course
Speaker 1: we get what pulp fiction in ninety four maybe the
Speaker 1: definitive the trend setter for this. I think about Boushemi
Speaker 1: and Stormare when they're arguing about stopping for pancakes or steak,
Speaker 1: you know, pulp Fiction's raal with cheese comes to mind.
Speaker 1: There Also to your description of their first meeting with
Speaker 1: Jerry in the bar, I love in addition to the
Speaker 1: things you talked about that they try to talk him
Speaker 1: out of the plan because it's so dumb. It's like
Speaker 1: these all these guys have is like money to make,
Speaker 1: but they're so perplexed by his choices they try to
Speaker 1: talk him him out.
Speaker 3: Of the story. It doesn't make sense, It doesn't check out.
Speaker 3: That's what I love it.
Speaker 1: A great screenwriting touch there. Yeah. So the only other
Speaker 1: thing I'd add about margin Norm and it sounds like
Speaker 1: we are in the same place. I just I just
Speaker 1: want to re emphasize again to place her mindset and
Speaker 1: decision making and sort of moral awakening here in context.
Speaker 1: I read their lunches. I read them this time the
Speaker 1: same way you did. He doesn't get into her business.
Speaker 1: At first, it was like, so caring, but also yes,
Speaker 1: but if he's doing this every day, it's almost become
Speaker 1: more routine. It's a nice routine. It's a caring routine.
Speaker 1: I think every time we see them together, unless they're
Speaker 1: in bed, they're eating, they go to the buffet restaurant,
Speaker 1: and you get this sense that maybe this is like
Speaker 1: what they do every Thursday night, you know. And the
Speaker 1: camera pans over the options, which don't look great, but
Speaker 1: it's what they've got, it's what it does the job. Right,
Speaker 1: there's a reading of this where marriage is doing the
Speaker 1: job for Marge and Norm and should there be more? Right,
Speaker 1: that's the question. Should I have more? That's the question
Speaker 1: for Marge in this very minor domestic scenario. It's the
Speaker 1: question for Jerry in his life scenario, and it's the
Speaker 1: question for BUSHEMI and storm Are and their criminal scenario.
Speaker 1: You know what, how can I get more? Because I
Speaker 1: deserve more? And I think Jerry is interesting in this regard.
Speaker 1: Another thing that nuanced a bit for me was again
Speaker 1: I saw him as the everyman, the one we can
Speaker 1: relate to. We probably don't run scams like the vin
Speaker 1: number scam he would want to do, but you know,
Speaker 1: we make our own moral choices here and there and
Speaker 1: fudge things and maybe it could snowball out of control.
Speaker 1: So we can recognize Jerry here though, I saw him
Speaker 1: as even more devious than that, and sort of like
Speaker 1: one of the original sinners of this movie. If Marge
Speaker 1: is presented with if life has presented her brought her
Speaker 1: to a point where she is being challenged with a
Speaker 1: question of right or wrong. Jerry, I thought, was maybe
Speaker 1: born looking for the wrong choice. It's the true coat
Speaker 1: gag the customer who yells at him, you're a bald
Speaker 1: face liar, you know, telling us that Jerry does this
Speaker 1: even in his supposed legit business. Was Jerry's original sin
Speaker 1: possibly marrying jan for her family's money. I was thinking
Speaker 1: about it watching this where originally I thought he's just
Speaker 1: a guy who, you know, has a bore of a
Speaker 1: father in law who's holding it over him because he
Speaker 1: wasn't at successful. Then I'm reathing Jerry and everything he
Speaker 1: does is for his own gain. I'm thinking maybe this
Speaker 1: guy was like ask Jan out on a date in
Speaker 1: high school because her dad was rich, and now he's
Speaker 1: just perpetuating that further into his life. I just think, Macy,
Speaker 1: you know, Jerry was I think my number five Cohen
Speaker 1: character when we did that list, and the performance here
Speaker 1: is incredible, incredible in its own nuance. His face looks
Speaker 1: like he has a continuous case of diarrhea, yet he
Speaker 1: manages to project so much more going on beneath that.
Speaker 1: And I love the touch when Marge knows Jerry's line
Speaker 1: when in one of their interviews when the Midwestern politeness drops.
Speaker 1: Everyone else throughout this movie, not the criminals. Everyone else
Speaker 1: is polite no matter what the situation. But when Jerry says, ma'am,
Speaker 1: I answered your question.
Speaker 3: Ma'am, I answered your question.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, sir, ma'am, I answered your question. I answered
Speaker 4: the dark. I'm cooperating here, and there's.
Speaker 1: No the light changes in her eyes because she's like,
Speaker 1: he would only say it that way if he was lying.
Speaker 5: Sir, you have no Kyle to get snippy with me.
Speaker 5: I'm just doing my job here.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it does relate to this general
Speaker 1: idea of when we can't cultivate contentment, what choices are
Speaker 1: we going to make? Then that'll be destructive for ourselves
Speaker 1: and for others. It relates to the line you pulled
Speaker 1: out at the end, if Myerge doesn't fully believe that yet,
Speaker 1: she's recognizing that contentment might be possible here with norm
Speaker 1: It's going to be work, you know, the ice scraper
Speaker 1: have to come out again. But I think she's recognizing
Speaker 1: this is the choice that she's content to make to go.
Speaker 3: In that direction. A couple titles I wanted to highlight
Speaker 3: this week, josh as I was looking at the Regal
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Speaker 3: I've never seen any of these older movies on the
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Speaker 3: is a film I desperately need to revisit. But in
Speaker 3: addition to those limited engagements, you can of course see
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Speaker 3: your disking. I want to get a little bit more
Speaker 3: into Macy and how I saw the character this time,
Speaker 3: which is very similar, if not exactly how you're reading it,
Speaker 3: But to get back a little bit to Marge and Yanagita,
Speaker 3: specifically that scene. I don't I guess understand as I
Speaker 3: mentioned earlier, how people are coming up so blank on
Speaker 3: this scene. I was trying to.
Speaker 1: Think what I think it is. I'll just say real quick,
Speaker 1: I think it's the length of it. I think it
Speaker 1: might be like and I don't think it's too long.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that. I just think if it had
Speaker 1: been a blip, like almost the conversation between the one
Speaker 1: trooper who goes talk to the neighbor who overheard Bushami
Speaker 1: say something that's like a minute and a half scene,
Speaker 1: I think then people would have been fine. But that
Speaker 1: Yannighita gets a significant chunk is what really perplexes well.
Speaker 3: I think tied to that, Josh, I think it's genuinely
Speaker 3: this may sound like more than I mean it to,
Speaker 3: but I think it's genuinely a disturbing scene too. I
Speaker 3: think it's a hard watch. I think the emotional terrain
Speaker 3: that he covers in that scene makes us uncomfortable, and
Speaker 3: I think that's where the humor even comes from. I
Speaker 3: was trying to think back. I don't remember exactly the
Speaker 3: experience I had in the theater in nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 3: but if you asked me what my recollection was, I
Speaker 3: would tell you that I think I remember people laughing,
Speaker 3: and that I might have even laughed myself because Mike
Speaker 3: is so desperate and he seems so lost, and the
Speaker 3: way he is trying to cling to Marge, even though
Speaker 3: he seems so sad, he's so pathetic that you kind
Speaker 3: of can't help but laugh. But I think it's more
Speaker 3: that uncomfortable laughter rather than really laughing at him. And
Speaker 3: this time I didn't feel that type of discomfort. I
Speaker 3: just felt real sadness for this character. Now that might
Speaker 3: be because I know the truth of his situation, but
Speaker 3: in terms of how that scene functions in the movie,
Speaker 3: his lying seems to trigger her right the next day
Speaker 3: as she's driving out of town. That seems to be
Speaker 3: the trigger for her thinking. This goes back to my
Speaker 3: idea of storytelling and deception. Something doesn't check out with
Speaker 3: the story I was getting from Shep and Jerry. I'm
Speaker 3: going to go back. I think that was part of it,
Speaker 3: that just the night before she heard this and in
Speaker 3: the phone call that morning where it's revealed right that
Speaker 3: that's she just finds out that morning before she got
Speaker 3: in the car that she's been lied to. Obviously, I
Speaker 3: also think, to my entire point about the myth making element,
Speaker 3: he has concocted an entire narrative around his life to
Speaker 3: earn her sympathy. That's absolutely essential. But then he has
Speaker 3: as part of that narrative he has revealed that all
Speaker 3: he is seeking in life, all he is clinging to,
Speaker 3: is the hope that maybe someday he'll have a relationship
Speaker 3: like margin Norm have. That's another vision of domestic life.
Speaker 3: It's the absence. It's the absence of having someone in
Speaker 3: your life that can be that that other to you,
Speaker 3: like like Norm is for Marge. The thing that is
Speaker 3: very interesting is seeing at this time, as you did,
Speaker 3: where she puts on that outfit and she kind of
Speaker 3: adjusts herself, and you go, she is she getting herself
Speaker 3: ready because she wants to impress Mike. Is that entering
Speaker 3: her mind at all? I always read it as it's
Speaker 3: the first time. It's the first time we've seen her
Speaker 3: outside of her work clothes. It's the first time we've
Speaker 3: seen her in civilian clothes. And so when she's kind
Speaker 3: of pulling at her clothes, it's like she almost doesn't
Speaker 3: know what to do with herself. She's in civilian clothes,
Speaker 3: and it feels it feels awkward. And do we really
Speaker 3: think that she hasn't seen this guy in a hundred
Speaker 3: years and she all of a sudden is having some
Speaker 3: fantasy about him, like like she's thinking about another life
Speaker 3: with another guy that isn't norm That seems a little
Speaker 3: bit hard, hard to swallow, but maybe it does just
Speaker 3: open enough of a door, just enough of a portal
Speaker 3: in her mind that what happens. What happens is when
Speaker 3: you watch then that last scene, that last line when
Speaker 3: she says, hey, we're doing pretty good here, you can
Speaker 3: realize that two things can be true at once, that
Speaker 3: she absolutely means it, that it is true it's with
Speaker 3: full conviction that she loves Norm with all her heart
Speaker 3: and he loves her, and they can't wait for their
Speaker 3: baby to come and they're going to be extraordinarily happy
Speaker 3: for the rest of their lives together. But it is prompted,
Speaker 3: She's provoked in a way to say it because it
Speaker 3: is a bit of an affirmation. She feels like she
Speaker 3: needs to say it, that she needs to affirm. If
Speaker 3: you're fully content and you know it, you don't need
Speaker 3: to necessarily reinforce it. You just exist in the moment.
Speaker 3: The fact that she needs to tell Norm that everything's
Speaker 3: great right suggest that she needs to hear it for herself.
Speaker 1: But I also think a fallacy that the movie is
Speaker 1: exposing is that in a world that the Cohens usually
Speaker 1: see as messed up, if not outright evil, that's what
Speaker 1: we see in their movies. Maybe happiness is impossible, maybe
Speaker 1: it's just not possible, but but something like contentment is
Speaker 1: that's kind of that's kind.
Speaker 3: Of thee Well, that's took a read for me.
Speaker 1: I think it's I don't know that they're always going
Speaker 1: to have this perfectly you know, happy domestics.
Speaker 3: As much as any happy marriage is moments I guess
Speaker 3: that's Josh. Yes. But the the other thing I did,
Speaker 3: I did just want to add, going back to my
Speaker 3: my notion of of of myth making here and storytelling
Speaker 3: is what stands out to me too about that scene
Speaker 3: is what precedes it, okay, because he has entered his
Speaker 3: painting into that contest and he wants to win. And throughout,
Speaker 3: as I said, felt this entire movie, people have been
Speaker 3: stretching the truth outright, lying, doing whatever they have to
Speaker 3: do to get what they want, and only causing fur
Speaker 3: their damage. And in this scene, he's upset because he
Speaker 3: didn't win. He says, the Houtman's blue wing teal got
Speaker 3: the twenty nine cent and people don't much use the
Speaker 3: three cent, which is what he got. And there's something
Speaker 3: that I'm still fully unpacking, Josh. But when I was
Speaker 3: thinking about the way I read the film, I love
Speaker 3: the fact that she says to him, over Pete's sake,
Speaker 3: of course they do whenever they raise the postage, people
Speaker 3: need the little stamps. And he says, yeah. She says
Speaker 3: when they're stuck with a bunch of the old ones,
Speaker 3: and he goes, yeah, I guess like she tells him.
Speaker 3: She tells him a little story, the story he needs
Speaker 3: to hear, and how how true is it? Maybe it's
Speaker 3: fully true, Josh, Maybe it's fully true, because yes they
Speaker 3: do when they do raise the stamps, you do need
Speaker 3: the old ones. That is a reality of American postal life.
Speaker 3: But it's still something a wife is telling her husband
Speaker 3: to make him feel better. So there's something about the
Speaker 3: fact that that you're that the movie in that final
Speaker 3: moment is encapsulating the truth and a story that he
Speaker 3: needs to hear. But there's also some symbolism in it
Speaker 3: where it's like, times change, the stamp, this this steady thing.
Speaker 3: Times change. But you know what, we'll just digest and
Speaker 3: we'll move on and we've got each other and we'll
Speaker 3: be fine.
Speaker 4: People don't mutch you the three cent Oh, of course
Speaker 4: they do. Whenever they raise a postage, people need the
Speaker 4: little stamps. Yeah, when they're still with a bunch of
Speaker 4: the old ones. Yeah, I guess it's terrific. I'm so
Speaker 4: pretty and normal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it works for that reading. Absolutely. I
Speaker 1: think it's a nice gesture of the goodness they do
Speaker 1: have in their marriage. Neither of us is suggesting that
Speaker 1: this was a false marriage that they had Barge's response
Speaker 1: in that way shows how much they do care for
Speaker 1: each other, and in my reading it absolutely is a
Speaker 1: symbol of contentment. You're not always going to get the
Speaker 1: twenty nine cent stamp. You know what, Maybe you can
Speaker 1: be happy with a three cent stamp, and she helps
Speaker 1: him find out that he can be happy with that. Okay,
Speaker 1: last thing on Mike Yanagita, because I just realized this
Speaker 1: with this viewing, Adam. We've seen Stephen Park given credible
Speaker 1: performance not that long ago in Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch.
Speaker 1: He was he was Nascafier, Lieutenant Niscoffier, the chef for
Speaker 1: the police Commissar. So how about that, because I just
Speaker 1: think we also need to give credits as I think
Speaker 1: we've been hinted at Tuparc in the tightrope he's walking
Speaker 1: in this scene where he can't make the guy a joke.
Speaker 1: I agree with you. He registers emotionally incredibly strongly, even
Speaker 1: as he's very silly and awkward and off putting at
Speaker 1: the same time. I mean, this is a tightrope back
Speaker 1: and to just come into the movie for one scene
Speaker 1: like this, and perhaps it sounds like deliver the definitive scene. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what a what a performance there by by Stephen Park.
Speaker 1: Do we need to say more about McDormand or do
Speaker 1: but we go here?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to talk about McDormand and Deacon's but
Speaker 3: I do want to say something about about Macy if
Speaker 3: I can, even though I go to Echo, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: ache have a lot of it, you said, I. I
Speaker 3: do think it's a stunning performance, the desperation that he conveys,
Speaker 3: and specifically in in the meeting with with Stan and Wade,
Speaker 3: with the father in law and his guy Stall in
Speaker 3: that meeting when it when it turns, when he realizes
Speaker 3: the moment where he realizes it's not it's not going
Speaker 3: to go that it looks so promising and then it
Speaker 3: flips and he realizes it's not going to work out
Speaker 3: the way Macy silently conveys that this is sunk and
Speaker 3: he knows he is screwed. Is is so powerful and
Speaker 3: and I say powerful because I will get into this
Speaker 3: more in just a second. I do think it for
Speaker 3: as much of a weasel and terrible person that he
Speaker 3: clearly is who sets all of these terrible things in motion,
Speaker 3: I do think he is remarkably human and that comes
Speaker 3: through in his character, but performance wise too is.
Speaker 1: Real quick there and that moment you're talking about, you
Speaker 1: know what it is. He's doing two things. He's conveying
Speaker 1: the desperation that his scheme is falling apart simultaneously. The
Speaker 1: other side of this, this was the way for him
Speaker 1: to get respect from his father in law as a
Speaker 1: man who can make that money. And Macy hits both
Speaker 1: of those notes without saying a thing.
Speaker 3: That's exactly it. The tiny voice crack this gets right
Speaker 3: at that. And I'm going to talk about this with
Speaker 3: Deacons too. And in one of the choices with the
Speaker 3: production design and the way they shoot it, you said,
Speaker 3: maybe he always wanted Maybe his original sin was was
Speaker 3: something back he dated her and married her just for
Speaker 3: his mind, or maybe this was a building in his
Speaker 3: mind of insecurity over time, maybe he's he's felt that
Speaker 3: he's never gotten the respect he deserved from life, including
Speaker 3: his father in law. And when he says to Marge, well,
Speaker 3: I should know I'm the executive sales manager, and he
Speaker 3: has to say his title, his full title, and the
Speaker 3: way his voice just subtly cracks on his executive could
Speaker 3: not be could not be more more perfect, and I
Speaker 3: also want to go back and note that that that
Speaker 3: true coat exchange is one of the more memorable sequences
Speaker 3: in the entire film, and and that that too, this
Speaker 3: is his flaw and what makes him human but also
Speaker 3: a character on the level and and this is the
Speaker 3: the playground that the the Cones play in on the
Speaker 3: level of a Greek character or a Shakespearean character. His
Speaker 3: fundamental tragic flaw is that he is, perhaps in seeking
Speaker 3: this respect, part of it is that he is I
Speaker 3: believe incapable of being honest. I believe that he is
Speaker 3: fundamentally incapable of telling the truth. He can't stop himself.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter what that guy says. It's not about
Speaker 3: the money. What's he going to get out of that
Speaker 3: true coat another four hundred dollars. He does not care
Speaker 3: about the money. And he even and I think Macy
Speaker 3: captures this and the Cones capture this, he does care
Speaker 3: about the guy calling him a bald faced liar to
Speaker 3: his face. We get the close up. You can tell
Speaker 3: that it does hurt him, It wounds him that he's
Speaker 3: called a liar to his face, but not enough that
Speaker 3: it stops him from doing it. He'll do it every
Speaker 3: single time, because it's in his nature to do it
Speaker 3: and he can't stop himself from doing it. But the
Speaker 3: way you know that he's got that insecurity as well
Speaker 3: is when he says and that in that meeting scene,
Speaker 3: you know, well, this will be a real good deal
Speaker 3: for Gene and Scotty, meaning he says, Gene and Scotty
Speaker 3: have nothing to worry about. Yeah, yeah, doesn't matter. It
Speaker 3: doesn't matter about Dagger. He's completely inconsequential. But they will
Speaker 3: always Yeah, they never have to worry, is what he says.
Speaker 3: They will always be taken care of. So yeah, I
Speaker 3: think he's always I think he's always fighting for that.
Speaker 3: But to the human part, as I said, you see
Speaker 3: that he's wounded, but not enough to ever change. How
Speaker 3: about when when they say after the crime has happened,
Speaker 3: and I think Stan maybe says something about like how
Speaker 3: Scotty taking.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, poor Scotty, Poor.
Speaker 3: Scotty, who's such a little twit at the beginning, but
Speaker 3: you of course genuinely feel for him at that moment.
Speaker 3: You see on Macy's face, on Jerry's face that he
Speaker 3: of course hasn't thought for a second, nope, how this
Speaker 3: is going to affect his son, and I think you
Speaker 3: see that he is thinking, oh no, this is going
Speaker 3: to be really hard on him. He does care how
Speaker 3: this will affect Scotty, not enough to change anything that
Speaker 3: he's doing. He's even ask Scotty to lie on his
Speaker 3: behalf right, and he's going to continue every part of
Speaker 3: this deception because again it's in his nature and he
Speaker 3: can't stop himself. But he does care. So the fact
Speaker 3: that the Cone Brothers make him that kind of character,
Speaker 3: with that depth, and the fact that Macy portrays all
Speaker 3: of that is crucial to the success of this movie.
Speaker 3: And one deacons thing I'll say, and maybe this will
Speaker 3: transition into some of the filmmaking and we'll circle back
Speaker 3: around to the best actress is there's a shot Josh
Speaker 3: in this film. I think it might be the second
Speaker 3: time Riley Diefenbach Gmac calls about the serial numbers. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I think it's that because they then cut to
Speaker 3: a wide shot looking at his office across the showroom,
Speaker 3: like he's in profile standing at his desk, and we
Speaker 3: see the office from across the showroom and the way
Speaker 3: that the production design is set up, the way it
Speaker 3: everything is is established with the framing his office looks
Speaker 3: like he's in his cuss. Yeah, it looks like he's
Speaker 3: already in jail. But not only that, we add to it.
Speaker 3: It's like this daytime noir touch where all the beams
Speaker 3: in the showroom look like they've imprisoned him. But not
Speaker 3: only that, beams and the shades, the blinds in his
Speaker 3: office all are vertical, and our additional bars that are
Speaker 3: holding him in. But here's the thing I noticed this
Speaker 3: time that really stood out this guy. Here's how insecure
Speaker 3: Jerry is. This guy has more trophies in his office.
Speaker 3: It does than Tom Brady does.
Speaker 1: He.
Speaker 3: I don't know if he's sponsored. I don't know if
Speaker 3: he sponsored Little League teams or or know what they are.
Speaker 1: What they are, you sell ten true coats.
Speaker 3: Get there, you go. Maybe that's it. Maybe all he
Speaker 3: wants is the trophies Josh has. He they go across
Speaker 3: one wall and then over the other, and and the
Speaker 3: way Deacons and the Coen Brothers frame this is that
Speaker 3: in his door there's a reflection that shows more bars
Speaker 3: and trophies. So it just amplifies it even more. The
Speaker 3: way he's already a prisoner, and the fact that he
Speaker 3: is just inundated. He's his office is overrun with trophies.
Speaker 3: It's incredible.
Speaker 1: It's so good. And I broke that exact thing down
Speaker 1: when I did that TC Movie Club thing a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. I made a video essay for it,
Speaker 1: and yeah, pulled that out to emphasize it. Maybe I'll
Speaker 1: link to that in the show note. So it's fun
Speaker 1: to look at that again. Deacon's brilliant here, and the
Speaker 1: thing I think of first, It's the thing I think
Speaker 1: of first with Firego is this wide out visual milieu
Speaker 1: which they employ. I love the midwestern setting just so
Speaker 1: that it is a quintessential American film and giving us
Speaker 1: something that's not you know, New York or La crime movie.
Speaker 1: But it's also so effectively used as mood and thematic
Speaker 1: visual support. And what they're capturing here is that moment
Speaker 1: and we know this because of where we live. When
Speaker 1: it's been snowing for a while and it's starting to
Speaker 1: warm up just a little bit, the sky is not clear,
Speaker 1: and so the snow is evaporating slightly, but it has
Speaker 1: nowhere to go, and you just feel like you're encased
Speaker 1: in gray. Right, it's all of one. Let's go back
Speaker 1: to our back Room's Exit eight conversation. It's a limital
Speaker 1: space we're in here. And again, if I'm seeing this
Speaker 1: movie as mostly a meditation on how to navigate a
Speaker 1: moral universe when everything is murky, could there be a
Speaker 1: better It's the first thing we see of Jerry's car
Speaker 1: emerging from this where Marge has arrested Stormare, and she
Speaker 1: pulls over and waits amidst this white out, so that
Speaker 1: for the other police cars to arrive, we get variations
Speaker 1: of it even on night at night. Think about that
Speaker 1: scene where Stormyre is chasing the people who witness them
Speaker 1: shoot the trooper, and we have that karahead disappear into
Speaker 1: the darkness. So much imagery here of not quite being
Speaker 1: able to see what we want to see or get
Speaker 1: our bearings for where we are. And that is practical,
Speaker 1: but it's also deeply existential for almost everyone of these characters.
Speaker 1: And when we think of great cinematography, I think we
Speaker 1: think of dramatic lighting. Lighting, We notice landscapes that are
Speaker 1: clear and overpowering colors just like wow stuff. And what
Speaker 1: Deacons is doing here is take making the most mundane,
Speaker 1: banal visual elements you could hand a cinematographer and creating
Speaker 1: deeply monumental, important, impactful meaning from it in visual terms,
Speaker 1: it's genius.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And just creating atmosphere that you feel. You don't
Speaker 3: have to necessarily dissect it, you feel it. The opening
Speaker 3: is that everything about the opening of this film with
Speaker 3: that car emerging, and you described it so well, But
Speaker 3: then you do also have to add in how effectively
Speaker 3: that's working in tandem throughout the entire movie with Cargomerwell's score.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, and all this time.
Speaker 3: This I'm going to use to support my overall point
Speaker 3: about this film too. That main theme he's using, it
Speaker 3: has that feel to it, and you look up a
Speaker 3: little bit some of the details on it. He's taken
Speaker 3: a Norwegian folk melody. This this is it is something
Speaker 3: people recognize. This is something people know. He's reappropriated it, right,
Speaker 3: This is a familiar tune and he's using it in
Speaker 3: a new way. But the shot that I do think
Speaker 3: of and the camera isn't You're right, it's not doing
Speaker 3: dramatic things. It doesn't have to. It is how it
Speaker 3: makes you feel. It's what it evokes when you watch
Speaker 3: that aerial shot after that meeting, how it goes so
Speaker 3: terribly wrong, and you know that he has no chance
Speaker 3: of getting this money. That aerial shot of him walking
Speaker 3: to his car, and his car is the only one
Speaker 3: in the parking lot, but you have sort of those
Speaker 3: planters in the lights. The emptiness of that, yeah, isolation,
Speaker 3: the bleakness, and then yes, the indignity of the windshield
Speaker 3: scrape on top of it. It must not be that
Speaker 3: clever of a thing to say, because you said it
Speaker 3: and I had it in my notes too. It is
Speaker 3: the midwesterner's version of Sissyphis's boulder, that is what it is.
Speaker 3: And he just he just gives in and lets the
Speaker 3: boulder roll over him right totally. He just loses it.
Speaker 3: He just can't take it anymore. But but the way
Speaker 3: the county roads are shot, the endlessness to it, the
Speaker 3: endlessness of the fence when when plants the scraper, like
Speaker 3: we know, without knowing anything else that's going to happen,
Speaker 3: that nobody is ever going to find that money until
Speaker 3: it thaws, of course, But but nobody else is ever
Speaker 3: coming back to find where I got to help Scott?
Speaker 1: Is it? I don't know, I don't know how, But
Speaker 1: can Scotty just come across it.
Speaker 3: You hope, But I even noticed this, Josh when that
Speaker 3: that here again, it's an expansive wide shot, and it's
Speaker 3: just how it how Deacons uses the environment, uses that
Speaker 3: white that white space. When Marge has just shot storm
Speaker 3: are grimsrude and she we we see her make that
Speaker 3: long walk as he's laying down and as she goes
Speaker 3: out the way is this the poster too, The way
Speaker 3: the way the trees, the way the trees on the
Speaker 3: land are bent, It couldn't be more perfect. It's as
Speaker 3: if the trees even are are bent towards him, like
Speaker 3: they're like they're incriminating him somehow. There's something about it
Speaker 3: that just feels so right in that moment and ominous
Speaker 3: in a way. Just an extra little bit of that
Speaker 3: tension that you need.
Speaker 1: And your point about the tactile nature of all this,
Speaker 1: you know, hurt the crunching in the snow when she's
Speaker 1: walking out there, when any characters really are walking outside,
Speaker 1: they're very attuned to putting that noise on the soundtrack.
Speaker 1: There is so much, you know, foggy breath in the air.
Speaker 1: We feel the heavy burden of these sweaters and the
Speaker 1: parkas and the gloves and the hats, and it all
Speaker 1: again is not just cultural context even it's also thematic context.
Speaker 1: I did not know that about the Burwell score, but
Speaker 1: that makes perfect sense because I think of it as
Speaker 1: being having quaint elements. I would exactly then builds to
Speaker 1: this momentous which speaks to your point about the myth
Speaker 1: making this momentous almost you know, biblical sense when it
Speaker 1: really starts to swell. So yeah, I think this is
Speaker 1: absolutely all time work from Carter Burwell, as we're as well,
Speaker 1: and it does work really well in concert with the cinematography.
Speaker 1: They are of a piece.
Speaker 3: So Marge, we've been talking a while, but we do
Speaker 3: need to talk about the Best Actress winner, Marge Gunderson
Speaker 3: here a little bit. What stands out about her performance?
Speaker 3: To you? One thing that stood out to me this
Speaker 3: time is realizing that in a ninety eight minute movie,
Speaker 3: the Best Actress winner doesn't show up until thirty minutes
Speaker 3: into the film. Oh crazy, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I didn't. It was more of a
Speaker 1: character realization, as I talked about at length here about
Speaker 1: Marge's wrestling with contentment. But in terms of the performance,
Speaker 1: I would just say, and honestly, I look at I
Speaker 1: don't know why we did this our Coen character's list,
Speaker 1: and I had a group of canon characters at the
Speaker 1: top that I didn't allow for my top five, which
Speaker 1: meant Marge didn't make my top five, which is absolutely asinine.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what I was thinking with all
Speaker 1: of that too. The hell I felt then too many
Speaker 1: characters to consider. I don't know what I was doing anyway.
Speaker 1: The performance itself, I think, is on an even more
Speaker 1: nuanced level than what Stephen Park is doing with Mike Yanagita,
Speaker 1: but asked essentially to do the same thing is to
Speaker 1: be funny and moving and carry the existential weight of
Speaker 1: the movie. And I think McDormand manages all those things.
Speaker 1: She makes Marge's whip smart. She has her own sense
Speaker 1: of humor that's not outside you know, you could argue,
Speaker 1: and maybe one the nitpicks with this goes back to
Speaker 1: the loquacious Criminals, is that Storm Mayer and Bushemi, as
Speaker 1: entertaining as they are, are very much movie types, right.
Speaker 1: They're funny the way people are funny in the movies.
Speaker 1: Marge is both funny for the movie and a funny person.
Speaker 1: And I think that it takes skill. For mcdormant to
Speaker 1: be able to do both of those things at the
Speaker 1: same time, she's completely believable. She's part police chief, part
Speaker 1: your favorite primary school teacher. You know, she's like the
Speaker 1: school teacher doesn't want to yell at the kids, but
Speaker 1: if she has to, she will, and she'll do it firmly,
Speaker 1: and you know she doesn't. Basically, she's always seems disappointed
Speaker 1: but not reluctant to arrest a wrongdoer. And I think
Speaker 1: it's because she sees the good in people or wants to.
Speaker 1: I think it relates to what I've been talking about.
Speaker 1: I think she sees and thinks of herself as good,
Speaker 1: essentially at the bottom of it good and is deeply
Speaker 1: distressed when she realizes that she might struggle with things too.
Speaker 1: And if you are asking her to also do all
Speaker 1: of this in that last it's not even a conversation.
Speaker 1: The monologue too, Stormayer in the back of her prowler,
Speaker 1: just musing. There's one thing, Adam, when you ask a
Speaker 1: character to deliver the thematic huft of a film, and
Speaker 1: the character is doing that. In other words, that's in
Speaker 1: the realm of the story. The character is giving the
Speaker 1: lesson in that scene, we're getting the thematic huft of
Speaker 1: the film, I feel, and Marge Gunderson is realizing it
Speaker 1: herself in the moment as she's talking. And that's the
Speaker 1: level of performance we're getting there, is that this growing
Speaker 1: self awareness that is opening up to the character the
Speaker 1: same time it's opening to the audience.
Speaker 5: There's more to life than a little money, you know,
Speaker 5: don't you know that? And here you are and it's
Speaker 5: a beautiful day.
Speaker 3: The best performances always feel like they're not overly calculated.
Speaker 3: They feel like real life. They feel like characters are
Speaker 3: discovering themselves and their emotions or whatever their epiphanies are
Speaker 3: in the moment. And that is how this character feels throughout,
Speaker 3: not only with important ideas, but also just moment to
Speaker 3: moment with the humor. We now or in the wake
Speaker 3: of this movie, we can call on certain lines or
Speaker 3: it becomes sort of an SNL type punchline with the
Speaker 3: accent and certain things that she says. But when you
Speaker 3: watch it, when you actually watch her say things like
Speaker 3: that's your accomplice in the wood Chipper, she's not mcdormand's
Speaker 3: not overdoing anything in this film. She is downplaying everything
Speaker 3: and playing this character completely straight, and to your point
Speaker 3: about her seeing the good and everything, you can actually
Speaker 3: argue she's not that great of a cop because shep
Speaker 3: is totally suspect and Jerry is very suspect based on
Speaker 3: their behavior, and what does she do. She takes them
Speaker 3: at their words. She's about ready to head home without
Speaker 3: further investigation. But that's also something I like about the
Speaker 3: character is people describe Marge and I also in fairness.
Speaker 3: I mean, mcdorman's wonderful. There's just no questioning that. But
Speaker 3: a lot of times, if we're being honest with ourselves,
Speaker 3: when we're talking about how much we love a performance,
Speaker 3: a lot of times we are talking about the nuance
Speaker 3: of the character and the dimensions to that character and
Speaker 3: what that performer brings out. And with this character, nothing
Speaker 3: the sheriff, nothing Marge Gunderson does, feels extraordinary. And that's
Speaker 3: so appropriate for this film because in so many ways,
Speaker 3: not only is it the Midwest and whatever, but in
Speaker 3: so many ways this film is puncturing this notion of
Speaker 3: traditional crime thrillers with many things that it's doing, and
Speaker 3: in that regard, this sheriff is not one of those
Speaker 3: detectives or one of those lawyers where they have some
Speaker 3: extraordinary talent or always come up with some magical insight
Speaker 3: at the last minute. What does she do. She's just
Speaker 3: doing very solid, fundamental police work. That's how she solves
Speaker 3: this case. She's just following leads. Yeah. And and the
Speaker 3: thing is that even Lou and the other cops, even
Speaker 3: though maybe we maybe we want to be a little
Speaker 3: condescending or someone could be because of their accents watching it,
Speaker 3: guess what, they're fine cops. They do their job too.
Speaker 3: They do their job well. The only thing that she
Speaker 3: is smarter than Lou about is that she deciphers what
Speaker 3: DLR means. Otherwise they all do their jobs. There's nothing
Speaker 3: there's nothing actually silly or dumb about any of those characters.
Speaker 3: There's no there's no Barney Fif's here. And so I
Speaker 3: love the fact that she's she's just a good cop.
Speaker 3: She's a good sheriff is what is what she is,
Speaker 3: And the discovery to her character I think is really
Speaker 3: app There's just no there's no glibness, and there's no
Speaker 3: attempt to play Marge as a funny character.
Speaker 1: And that's so important, which brings us, you know, back
Speaker 1: to I think it sounds like from that conversation Amy
Speaker 1: Nicholson did observe and was right about, is like there
Speaker 1: is this there's not only this interdecency to Marge, but
Speaker 1: there's a appreciation of it and a yearning for it
Speaker 1: in others to Marge, which does stand outside of the
Speaker 1: Cohen can I think absolutely.
Speaker 3: Just finally going back to Macy real quick and myth
Speaker 3: making or storytelling and deception. His best scene, his best
Speaker 3: moment might actually be when he has to perform and
Speaker 3: we start off camera hearing him rehearsing what he's going
Speaker 3: to say after he finds out the gene is gone. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and and then of course what happens when he actually
Speaker 3: gets on the line with the real receptionist or whatever.
Speaker 3: He can't he can't perform. He just wage gust of
Speaker 3: simple or whatever he says. You know, he just he
Speaker 3: just goes into normal mode. But he's he's rehearsing it
Speaker 3: because he knows at this point he's he's supposed to
Speaker 3: do something. He's supposed to pretend, he's supposed to put
Speaker 3: on a certain behavior. But I said that the movie
Speaker 3: punctures our expectations in that way. This is the brilliance
Speaker 3: again I'll use that word of the Cone Brothers moments
Speaker 3: like Bouscemi walking up to the glass, and rather than
Speaker 3: it feeling like a thrilling moment from a crime movie,
Speaker 3: the break in, she does what I think a lot
Speaker 3: of us actually would do in that moment is we'd
Speaker 3: sit there and go what the hell is happening? We
Speaker 3: wouldn't know how to uly react, And she doesn't really
Speaker 3: react until it gets crazy when he breaks the glass
Speaker 3: and the violence Josh of the dark humor the way
Speaker 3: and only the Cone Brothers do it on this level,
Speaker 3: that balancing of dark humor, where when she comes out
Speaker 3: of the shower like a chicken with its head cut
Speaker 3: off with a shower curtain and falls down the stairs,
Speaker 3: there's a part of you, inevitably that wants to or
Speaker 3: can't help but laugh, because there's something apherently funny about
Speaker 3: a character running around like that, even though it's terrifying.
Speaker 3: And then what happens later it's mirrored when she gets
Speaker 3: out with the bag over her head at the house
Speaker 3: at the lake and she starts running around again crazy,
Speaker 3: except now they're nothing funny about it. Now we know,
Speaker 3: now we know what those characters are capable of now
Speaker 3: we know that she's in real danger, and it's it's
Speaker 3: it's a heightened experience from a terror standpoint.
Speaker 1: Real quick, and maybe listeners can help with us. It's
Speaker 1: something I noticed regarding that break in sequence when she's
Speaker 1: watching that morning TV host or TV show. The host
Speaker 1: says they're talking about a cruise event that they want
Speaker 1: a contest, they want people to enter, and I think
Speaker 1: the the host ends signs off with like, that's the truth, Ruth.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking to myself, I think that I've only
Speaker 1: heard that and do the right thing, right Jackson, and
Speaker 1: and so I did a quick search if that's a
Speaker 1: phrase that pre dates do the right thing, and I didn't.
Speaker 1: It has anything. There must be something. It was just
Speaker 1: like so bizarre that that shows up in this like
Speaker 1: whitebread morning TV host. Now that's the throwaway sequence in Firego.
Speaker 1: I was like, what is going on here? If anyone
Speaker 1: knows the backstory, let us know. But I think we've
Speaker 1: had a day so much about Firego. That's where we've
Speaker 1: ended up on that little tidbit.
Speaker 3: Bargo currently streaming on Netflix and twob and is available vod.
Speaker 3: Let's take a minute to thank family members Joseph Carr
Speaker 3: in Barnett, North London, and Michael Soderberg in Tucson, Arizona.
Speaker 1: Thanks to them both, they wrote in with a few
Speaker 1: notes for us. Joseph told us this membership has been
Speaker 1: a long time coming. Okay. The first email I sent
Speaker 1: to you, guys was in twenty time film Spotting number
Speaker 1: three oh seven, which was a Mattie Ballgame plus guest
Speaker 1: Steve Procopi episode about musical moments. So it's been at
Speaker 1: least fifteen years. As for Michael, he said, I don't
Speaker 1: remember how I found you, but I'm a fairly new listener.
Speaker 1: I think one of the earliest episodes was Hobbs and
Speaker 1: Shaw in twenty nineteen. I remember really enjoying the mix
Speaker 1: of both high and low art in your selections that,
Speaker 1: let me make clear at him that is Fast and
Speaker 1: Furious presents Hobbs in Shaw.
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you, good movie. I don't think I agreed
Speaker 3: with you quite as much on that episode, but tie
Speaker 3: back to Fargo. High and Low, a kidnapping movie that's
Speaker 3: one of the Coen Brothers' favorites. Appropriate to our Fargo conversation.
Speaker 3: I love that Joseph got turned onto film spotting with
Speaker 3: an episode that neither of us were posts on and
Speaker 3: he's still listening. That's a good stuck around. Okay, Favorite
Speaker 3: show segments, Joseph says, it's the marathons that I fell
Speaker 3: in love with. There are so many that have opened
Speaker 3: my world. Lubitch, Ray Brassan Ofles, That's Satuga, not Nicholas Oofles,
Speaker 3: Iranian Cinema, all of which I'd probably never have come
Speaker 3: across except through film spotting. But if there's one marathon
Speaker 3: that stands out to me in particular, it's Powlin Pressberger,
Speaker 3: whose films I've revisited many many times over the years,
Speaker 3: including on the big screen. Colonel Blint for the Win. Yes,
Speaker 3: Michael says, I always loved the Oscars episodes with Michael
Speaker 3: Phillips and the seeming ambivalence with which everyone approaches the
Speaker 3: Academy Awards. This is perfect, Like I don't care, but
Speaker 3: also I kind of do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Michael may honestly, nothing.
Speaker 3: Sums it up better like I don't care, but I
Speaker 3: also kind of do.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's it. You gotta Michael, nicely done. We
Speaker 1: asked them both if there was a review we got
Speaker 1: wrong for Joseph. I don't generally get on with Christopher
Speaker 1: Nolan films, with some notable exceptions, and I still cringe
Speaker 1: at the dialogue I recall from Interstellar. I probably need
Speaker 1: to revisit it to give it a second chance. But
Speaker 1: my recollection of the opening scenes of Interstellar is that
Speaker 1: the dialogue seems so functional, expository, and clunky that I
Speaker 1: just can't bring myself to spend my precious time to
Speaker 1: reconsider it. I think that puts me on team Josh.
Speaker 3: I guess so we're cool.
Speaker 1: We're close, sir. I've warmed to Interstellar, but I do
Speaker 1: still have those concerns Joseph, so sure, welcome teammate.
Speaker 3: Well. I hope Joseph. I don't know for sure when
Speaker 3: he submitted this. It could have been a while ago.
Speaker 3: I hope Joseph has a chance to listen to the
Speaker 3: movie Deathmatch episode we just published in our feed this
Speaker 3: week in honor of the Odyssey coming out. We've got
Speaker 3: pop culture scientists Abigail James talking about Interstellar, defending that
Speaker 3: against Bilga Abiri and Inception. Very enlightening conversation. Who knows,
Speaker 3: she might just change your opinion about Interstellar or at
Speaker 3: least give you some fodder to revisit the film. So
Speaker 3: we thank you Joseph and Michael for being family members
Speaker 3: and for all of those years of listening to the show.
Speaker 3: You can follow Joseph on letterbox. He is film Egg.
Speaker 3: That's pretty self explanatory. Michael is at Mix. That's m
Speaker 3: i ckes. There you go. In addition to keeping us
Speaker 3: doing what we're doing, membership comes with perks like listening
Speaker 3: early in ed free our weekly newsletter, get to be
Speaker 3: part of the Film Spotting Family discord. You get monthly
Speaker 3: bonus shows like our recent discussion of David Robert Mitchell's
Speaker 3: It Follows and our July bonus. Since we do have
Speaker 3: coming up next week our top five films of the
Speaker 3: year so far, we're gonna riff on our favorite performances
Speaker 3: of the year so far. So we're gonna check in
Speaker 3: to get working through lists years and yeah, and then
Speaker 3: Josh Film Spotting Madness Best of the twenties and thirties,
Speaker 3: an exclusive tournament with prizes, Bracket challenge with prizes we're
Speaker 3: gonna give away. Oh man, we had a couple things
Speaker 3: to give away. I'm blanking now I know one of
Speaker 3: them is a signed Film Spotting Fest two poster. Very
Speaker 3: nice and give that away. We are doing that exclusively
Speaker 3: for the film Spotting Family that's gonna start Monday the thirteenth,
Speaker 3: So if you want to participate in that, you just
Speaker 3: got to be a family member. You have time learn
Speaker 3: more at film Spottingfamily dot com.
Speaker 4: Hi, Hi, come in, nice to see you. We are
Speaker 4: so happy fear here.
Speaker 3: The Invite is Olivia Wilde's third film as a director.
Speaker 3: She made BookSmart in twenty nineteen, followed that up with
Speaker 3: Don't Worry Darling in twenty twenty two. That was a
Speaker 3: film that was largely piled on by audiences and critics,
Speaker 3: including me. But you went for it so much so,
Speaker 3: in fact, that it made your top ten list in
Speaker 3: twenty two. You have seen The Invite, which also stars
Speaker 3: wild with Seth Rogen as her husband, and Penelope Cruz
Speaker 3: and Edward Norton as their enigmatic neighbors. Is wild for you? Batting?
Speaker 3: Three for three, perfect one hundred, perfect, one thousand. I
Speaker 3: should say.
Speaker 1: Absolutely this was a delight. I don't know, it just felt,
Speaker 1: you know, comic chamber drama. It's not necessarily that inventive.
Speaker 1: I don't know the last time I saw one a
Speaker 1: genre piece like this that was just so fun to see,
Speaker 1: especially with a theater with a crowd. And I also
Speaker 1: don't know, Adam, I'll have to think about this some more,
Speaker 1: But we've had directors who give lead or co lead
Speaker 1: performances in the movies they're directing. How often is it
Speaker 1: that the best thing about that movie is the director's
Speaker 1: lead or co lead performance, Because for me, that's what
Speaker 1: we get here. Wild is on screen the standout of
Speaker 1: the invite for me, and that is while acknowledging that
Speaker 1: all four of the main characters, the main players in
Speaker 1: this cast are fantastic. They each do their own thing
Speaker 1: that makes this movie work as well as it does,
Speaker 1: I mean to give them their credit. At Rogan Is
Speaker 1: he's delivering the one liners you'd expect, but also probably
Speaker 1: delivering the deepest well of sadness that this movie has,
Speaker 1: So he's doing great work. You look at Edward Norton,
Speaker 1: just delightful also as this kind of a zen prankster,
Speaker 1: this calm, but he's disrupting things at the same time.
Speaker 1: And Cruise. It's interesting because I haven't seen every one
Speaker 1: of her English language performances, and she's given some good ones,
Speaker 1: but this is I think her best that I have seen.
Speaker 1: This is adapted from a Spanish language play that was
Speaker 1: turned into a movie. She wasn't involved in either of those,
Speaker 1: so I don't know if there's any perhaps some cultural
Speaker 1: translation going on here that allowed her to deliver such
Speaker 1: a great performance here. But she's really sharp in terms
Speaker 1: of the repartee and also has this she's a sly
Speaker 1: provocateur as well. Just a glance that Penelope Cruz gives
Speaker 1: in scenes here will throw the entire dynamic off in
Speaker 1: a chaotic way. So she's really good. But Wild Adam
Speaker 1: is the gyrations on her face playing this woman who
Speaker 1: is deeply constricted, which we've seen that type. But also
Speaker 1: again it goes back to what you're talking about in
Speaker 1: Firego realize over the course of this night, what she's
Speaker 1: willing to entertain to bring something fresh and new to
Speaker 1: her life, to her marriage, to herself, and the way
Speaker 1: Wild responds to things that her husband says or that
Speaker 1: her neighbors say, and then eventually to things that she
Speaker 1: says and she starts surprising herself. It is just a
Speaker 1: phrase that kept coming to mind is one that you'll
Speaker 1: hear on like NBA podcasts. It's a quick twitch performance
Speaker 1: where just like the muscles are there doing immediately what
Speaker 1: she needs them to do for every moment in a
Speaker 1: movie that's incredibly fast and quick and quippy. And yeah,
Speaker 1: the invite is it's some of the most fun I've
Speaker 1: had in a theater this kind of fun in quite
Speaker 1: a while. So people need to get out there and
Speaker 1: check this out.
Speaker 3: It expands to more cities this weekend. I will finally
Speaker 3: get a chance to see it this weekend. I hope
Speaker 3: I have as much fun as you, and who knows,
Speaker 3: maybe it will make my top five list next week
Speaker 3: when we share our favorite films of the year so far.
Speaker 4: I had a celebrity free past thing with my fiance,
Speaker 4: but he took it literally, so now I need to
Speaker 4: have sex with John Ham to even out the score
Speaker 4: and save my relationship.
Speaker 5: You do the do you know?
Speaker 3: I do the doos Gaale needs to do the nasty
Speaker 3: with mister John hamm asap seems so so sorry that
Speaker 3: we got.
Speaker 1: You fired, right, Adam. We both caught up with director
Speaker 1: David Wayne's latest Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass.
Speaker 1: That title plus directed by David Wayne, should give you
Speaker 1: some idea of what's going on with this movie. It
Speaker 1: stars Zoey Deutsch as Gail, a small town woman who's
Speaker 1: fiance takes their celebrity sex pass joke literally. That puts
Speaker 1: her on a mission to even the playing field and
Speaker 1: have sex with a guy named John Ham. So she
Speaker 1: heads to La with that in mind. Adam, we've been
Speaker 1: talking about David Wayne on the show because we hot
Speaker 1: American Summer. His prob we most beloved film was part
Speaker 1: of Film Spotting Fest two a couple of weekends ago,
Speaker 1: and we had David Wayne introduce that screening with a
Speaker 1: video he was kind enough to send in. He's been
Speaker 1: listening to the show for years now. You know, this
Speaker 1: always makes me nervous when I hear of anyone at
Speaker 1: any level of filmmaking, Yes, who happens to listen to
Speaker 1: the show. Makes me feel like a fraud, especially so
Speaker 1: when it's an accomplished, beloved filmmaker like David Wayne. So
Speaker 1: I don't know, this isn't a review we're letting I'm
Speaker 1: letting people know that a friend of the show is
Speaker 1: a new movie out, And what I can say is
Speaker 1: one of the things I talked about when we watched
Speaker 1: Wet Hot American Summer and discussed it afterward. Is the
Speaker 1: absurdism that I think I didn't give enough credit for
Speaker 1: it to Wet Hot American Summer when I first saw
Speaker 1: that come out. And I think the one absurd touch
Speaker 1: I want to highlight here, which isn't a spoiler at all.
Speaker 1: It's a minor character, John Ham's guard. I forget how
Speaker 1: he even gets into this story about going to a bullfight,
Speaker 1: and I forget if he's there with his wife or
Speaker 1: his girlfriend or something. Yeah, the bull, the bull leaps
Speaker 1: into the stands and impales her or It's this gory,
Speaker 1: horrible story that keeps going on. It has no reason
Speaker 1: to be in this movie whatsoever. Yeah, the chef's kiss.
Speaker 1: And I don't remember how how they even got this
Speaker 1: is an insert shot of a bull. It must be
Speaker 1: real footage. It looks like real footage leaping into the
Speaker 1: stands of a bullfight. It's like a second and a half.
Speaker 1: And then he just goes on with his story and
Speaker 1: the movie goes on with its plot. I mean, you
Speaker 1: get stuff like that in Gail Daughtry, which is how
Speaker 1: you know it is a David Wayne movie. And the
Speaker 1: question I had for you also is how soon did
Speaker 1: you realize this was also going to be a Wizard
Speaker 1: of Oz riff.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know how soon it was, but
Speaker 3: you recognize a couple of illusions. Certainly by the end
Speaker 3: that's very late. But there's a there's a moment with
Speaker 3: her slippers, right with her shoes, and there's there are
Speaker 3: some there are some, there are some I think before
Speaker 3: that for sure, but I didn't skipping right, little skipping
Speaker 3: of course, right. And and the fact that she is
Speaker 3: she is like Dorothy in the Land of Oz, who
Speaker 3: keeps acquiring new people as part of her entourage along
Speaker 3: the way, and they all have they all have certain skills,
Speaker 3: I suppose as well, so that element is definitely there.
Speaker 3: I like that you brought up the absurdity because one
Speaker 3: of the things that stood out to me that I
Speaker 3: really liked about Gail Daughtry is that absurd tone. And
Speaker 3: what I mean is specifically that something I struggle with
Speaker 3: often with comedies is that line you have to walk
Speaker 3: where you're putting us in the real world, but you're
Speaker 3: also having things happen that are clearly happening in a
Speaker 3: comedic universe where they could happen my brain struggles with
Speaker 3: that very often, and maybe it's maybe it's just me,
Speaker 3: but it's a comedy, and and people that's there, that's
Speaker 3: the reasoning when I bring those things up. Well, it's
Speaker 3: a comedy. It's it's goofy, goofy things are going to happen, okay,
Speaker 3: But everything else about the movie, all the other stakes
Speaker 3: to the movie are happening in the real world, Okay.
Speaker 3: In this movie. You know, you know from the opening
Speaker 3: pretty much from the opening narration Fred mellm Head's postal
Speaker 3: worker who is our guide through this story. You know
Speaker 3: from his tone, you know from the script and the
Speaker 3: things he's saying that this isn't the real world, that
Speaker 3: totally crazy, absurd things are going to happen, and that
Speaker 3: anything can happen in this universe. And so I knew
Speaker 3: what ground I was on, and I knew that I
Speaker 3: could go with it. And if I didn't totally know,
Speaker 3: I absolutely knew. By the time we get to the
Speaker 3: Jennifer Aniston book signing and the fiance says, I got
Speaker 3: to go back in and get what my sunglasses or
Speaker 3: something like that, and then doesn't come back because he's
Speaker 3: having sex with Jennifer Aniston in the back room for
Speaker 3: multiple hours.
Speaker 1: I did. That's like, yeah, I did. Like how just
Speaker 1: got that out of the way, you know, didn't waste
Speaker 1: twenty minutes setting up the fiance's move right, No.
Speaker 3: No, And there's there's no conflict in him or anything
Speaker 3: like that. He just moments earlier says, well, it would
Speaker 3: be Jennifer Aniston, and then he takes advantage of it,
Speaker 3: and that sets up all the action of the film.
Speaker 3: So I knew the universe we were in. I went
Speaker 3: along with it, and then you get the type of
Speaker 3: humor that I expect from David Wayne and I love.
Speaker 3: And it's the jokes that make me laugh the most
Speaker 3: are like when Richard Kine shows up and he's just
Speaker 3: a taxi cab driver in La. Who is who is
Speaker 3: taking Zoe Deutsch's character and her friend what is her?
Speaker 3: Her character's name Otto played by Miles Gutierra Hiley. They're together.
Speaker 3: They fly out to La in pursuit of John Hamm.
Speaker 3: He's there to help her in this pursuit and just
Speaker 3: completely straight faced, he explains that I know why you're here.
Speaker 3: Everybody comes out here expecting to be the next Elizabeth Perkins,
Speaker 3: but there's only one Elizabeth Perkins, and that slayed me.
Speaker 1: Nice callback too with a yep, yes there is Yeah,
Speaker 1: I also want to you know, there's so many you know,
Speaker 1: cameos and guests in here, but I think one of
Speaker 1: the performances I enjoyed the most was a newcomer to me,
Speaker 1: at least, Ben Wang. It's Caleb, one of the people
Speaker 1: she picks up along the way, an aspiring agent, and
Speaker 1: I just love the energy he brought, which is, I
Speaker 1: don't know, there's something he popped because his character had
Speaker 1: this clear comic identity and yeah tone he was going
Speaker 1: to go for the entire time, and he stayed consistent
Speaker 1: in that and almost always worked. So yeah, well, it
Speaker 1: was fun to see a lot of the cameos. I
Speaker 1: think Ben Wang was a highlight too.
Speaker 3: He's very good. And speaking of what how to American Summer,
Speaker 3: this movie really is what happens when the State remakes
Speaker 3: The Wizard of Oz by way of What Hot American Summer,
Speaker 3: because it seemed like they were determined to get in
Speaker 3: almost or a lot of key members of the cast
Speaker 3: from What Hot American Summer. Marguerite Moreau shows us there
Speaker 3: for a moment and Paul Rudd's going to show up.
Speaker 3: Of course, there are a bunch of key members too,
Speaker 3: like Mike Lee and Black who you expect to see
Speaker 3: in Jolo Trulio from that group, but it is as
Speaker 3: if they're trying to make sure that we get some
Speaker 3: of those very familiar faces into the film. That's Gail
Speaker 3: Daughtry and The Celebrity Sex Pass, which is out in
Speaker 3: limited release now. If you get a chance to see it,
Speaker 3: or any of the films we've talked about so far
Speaker 3: in the show, we'd love to hear your thoughts feedback
Speaker 3: at filmspotting dot net. How big. That's what we call
Speaker 3: a global killer. Nothing would survived, not even bacteria.
Speaker 4: The United States government just asked us to save the world.
Speaker 5: Anybody want to say no, don't think.
Speaker 3: I'll get a hazard pay out of this time. For
Speaker 3: some poll results, a couple of weeks ago, we asked
Speaker 3: you to choose one pair of nineties blockbusters two films
Speaker 3: per movie year, the top two movies at the domestic
Speaker 3: box office. There's ten of them, Josh, so let's just
Speaker 3: dig right into the results.
Speaker 1: Last place went to the year nineteen ninety two and
Speaker 1: the pair of Aladdin and Home Alone two only got
Speaker 1: one percent of the vote. Two percent of the vote
Speaker 1: for Home Alone and Ghost that was the year nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety I thought for sure there was more Home Alone
Speaker 1: love out there, all right, jumping up to six percent
Speaker 1: of the vote. That went to nineteen ninety five Toy
Speaker 1: Story and Batman Forever. Nineteen ninety nine came next, Phantom
Speaker 1: Menace in the sixth sense with only seven percent of
Speaker 1: the vote. You lobb, H'm pretty hard for that one.
Speaker 1: I thought, Yeah, then we've got nineteen ninety eight saving
Speaker 1: Private Ryan and Armageddon with eight percent of the vote. Okay,
Speaker 1: jumping into another tier here, ten percent of the vote
Speaker 1: went to nineteen ninety six for Independence Day and Twister.
Speaker 1: Thirteen percent of the vote went to nineteen ninety four
Speaker 1: Forrest Gump and the Lion King. I think that's where
Speaker 1: I landed if I remember correctly. Fourteen percent of the
Speaker 1: vote went to nineteen ninety seven. That's Titanic and Men
Speaker 1: in Black. Second place in this poll with sixteen percent
Speaker 1: of the vote was the year nineteen ninety one, Terminator
Speaker 1: two and Prince of Thieves. Wow T two doing a
Speaker 1: lot of work there. I have to guess that means
Speaker 1: the win of our poll. Incredible, just incredible, twenty three
Speaker 1: percent of the vote. Missus Doubtfire, Just missus Doutfire took
Speaker 1: you on its own. No, actually it was got a
Speaker 1: little help from Jurassic Park nineteen ninety three. There, Missus Doubtfire.
Speaker 1: Jurassic Park win this poll with twenty three percent of
Speaker 1: the vote.
Speaker 3: The nineties kids in their dinosaurs, they just incredible love
Speaker 3: playing with their toys. Scott g let me get this straight.
Speaker 3: You're asking us to pick one of these pairs, and
Speaker 3: every other film released that year gets dumped in the incinerator.
Speaker 3: You guys are sick. This is a poll where we're
Speaker 3: supposed to punish hundreds of perfectly decent films for not
Speaker 3: having the highest grosses. Oh and the rules apparently state
Speaker 3: that every movie from every other year of the decade
Speaker 3: century eternity, they all get eliminated as well. This poll
Speaker 3: is a crime against cinema, to say nothing of the
Speaker 3: fact that I can't choose between saving Whoopi Goldberg's performance
Speaker 3: in Ghost or Tony Kollett's in the sixth sense, they
Speaker 3: do both involve ghosts, don't they. I sentenced all three
Speaker 3: of you to six months of NonStop Michael Bays screenings,
Speaker 3: especially you s.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know why why we're getting punished for
Speaker 1: Sam's invention here.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that's true. He did we okay, though.
Speaker 1: We did, Sam went full fanos here. No planets were
Speaker 1: preserved at all.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: We also heard from Matthew Gladys it's nineteen ninety six
Speaker 1: in a walk, Independence Day and Twister. I know it
Speaker 1: sounds crazy when you have Saving Private Ryan six Sons
Speaker 1: Drassic parkin T two, but hear me out, missus Doubtfire
Speaker 1: ninety three is pretty met. Armageddon ninety eight is Armageddon,
Speaker 1: and if I never hear that Brian Adams song again,
Speaker 1: it will be too soon. Plus ninety six has arguably
Speaker 1: the most stacked casts, Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, the criminally
Speaker 1: underrated Mary McDonald, jud Hirsch, Robert Loja, James Rebhorn, Randy
Speaker 1: not necessarily the lesser Quaid in Independence Day, Philip Seymour Hoffman,
Speaker 1: Ellen Rock and both Bps, Bill Pullman and Bill Paxton
Speaker 1: and Twister Game Over, Man.
Speaker 3: Came Over Man, jud Hirsh you lost Josh there, sorry,
Speaker 3: Rick says, Terminator Too is the only one of these
Speaker 3: movies I absolutely need in my life. I think, yes,
Speaker 3: a lot of people were there and that's why it's
Speaker 3: in second place. And Prince of Thieves has a strong
Speaker 3: nostalgia draw for me. Oh, everything I do, I do
Speaker 3: it for nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad you have that, Rick Andrew Howell here,
Speaker 1: I can't live without T two. And my bonus is
Speaker 1: I get Alan Rickman as a foppy Hans Gruber lest
Speaker 1: you can forget. Rickman plays the evil Sheriff of Nottingham
Speaker 1: and Prince of Thieves says shared us that note.
Speaker 3: I think that's true. Double up on Alan Rickman. Oliver
Speaker 3: Chang says ninety nine is totally a nostalgia pick for me.
Speaker 3: I have vivid memories of seeing the first trailer for
Speaker 3: The Phantom Menace in the summer of ninety eight and
Speaker 3: then going to an opening night midnight screening where we
Speaker 3: went to the theater a couple hours early to get
Speaker 3: our spot in line so we could get a decent
Speaker 3: seat since there was no such thing as a reserved seating.
Speaker 3: I was right there with you. It was Survival of
Speaker 3: the Fittest back in the day, then going back the
Speaker 3: next night and seeing it again, and just because it
Speaker 3: was Star Wars. I was not right there with how
Speaker 3: can I allow those memories to go into the incinerator?
Speaker 3: And of course six cents is amazing. This was a
Speaker 3: no brainer. I can't imagine my life without either of
Speaker 3: these films.
Speaker 1: Fair enough, Oliver, all right, one more here from Jeff Clark.
Speaker 1: Spielberg made d Day scarier than an asteroid destroying all
Speaker 1: life on Earth, and in Armageddon we had a range
Speaker 1: of really solid actors, including Steve Buscemi, who explains what
Speaker 1: the phrase space psychosis means, which is helpful since I've
Speaker 1: not seen it used elsewhere.
Speaker 3: Okay, I like your reasoning a lot there, Jeff. We
Speaker 3: think everyone who voted in that poll and sent in
Speaker 3: some feedback. Our new poll looks ahead to next week's
Speaker 3: top five of twenty twenty six so far. So we
Speaker 3: are asking you what is the best film of the
Speaker 3: year so far? And here are the choices we're giving you.
Speaker 1: Twenty eight years later, The Bone Temple, Back Rooms, Disclosure Day,
Speaker 1: the Drama Obsession Project, Hail Mary, The Sheep Detectives, and.
Speaker 3: Other Now, I thought that we did a pretty good job.
Speaker 3: This was largely Sam's doing, as these poll questions always are.
Speaker 3: I thought we did a pretty good job, even though
Speaker 3: I recall us both telling Sam he could leave out
Speaker 3: back rooms, and sure enough, back rooms is in dead last.
Speaker 3: So I don't know why back rooms is here. But
Speaker 3: that's fine. It's there if you want to vote for it,
Speaker 3: if you're one of the few, the happy few. Is
Speaker 3: your number one? Well, I was going to say additionally,
Speaker 3: I thought it was a good list. But Other, and
Speaker 3: this this is not uncommon. Other is decidedly in second place,
Speaker 3: so a lot of people are taking the field. Josh,
Speaker 3: But is your number one.
Speaker 1: On the list? I haven't finalized. There's two vne for
Speaker 1: number one, and I will say one of those options
Speaker 1: is on this list, and then obviously the other. You know,
Speaker 1: I would go in the direction of Other. I think
Speaker 1: I'll probably right now. If I had to choose in
Speaker 1: this moment, it would be one of the titles we offered.
Speaker 3: Okay, how about you. No, I would be voting other.
Speaker 3: My number one interest is not there. I look forward
Speaker 3: to sharing it next week. I will give a little hint. No,
Speaker 3: I guess I was going to say it hadn't been
Speaker 3: reviewed on the show. Maybe that's true. I know we
Speaker 3: didn't discuss my number one on the show. So there
Speaker 3: you go, I will.
Speaker 1: Say we both we both have you know, at least
Speaker 1: a title or two we want to be sure to
Speaker 1: fit in. Yes, so things will very much likely be
Speaker 1: in flux. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see where
Speaker 1: where listeners land on this best of the Year so far.
Speaker 3: Vote in that poll, leave a comment. We may read
Speaker 3: your feedback on air. You can do that at film
Speaker 3: spotting dot net right there at the main page. Josh,
Speaker 3: that's our show.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to connect with us on social media,
Speaker 1: you can find Adam and the show on Instagram, Facebook, Letterbox, YouTube,
Speaker 1: and blue Sky at film Spotting. I'm at those places
Speaker 1: as well as Larsen on film. We are independently produced
Speaker 1: and listener supported. You can support the show by joining
Speaker 1: the film Spotting Family at film spottingfamily dot com. You
Speaker 1: can listen early and ad free. You'll also get monthly
Speaker 1: bonus episodes, a weekly newsletter, and access to the entire
Speaker 1: show archive. For show t shirts and other merch go
Speaker 1: to film spotting dot net slash shop.
Speaker 3: Out in limited release this weekend is David Wayne's new
Speaker 3: film Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass. In wide release,
Speaker 3: Evil Deadburn. This is the sixth Evil Dead movie, the
Speaker 3: third Ramy Less installment since twenty thirteen. Complete Us, Josh,
Speaker 3: I think I saw the first of those three, which
Speaker 3: I liked quite a bit. Haven't caught the last two.
Speaker 3: The invite is expanding. Josh strongly encourages you to see it.
Speaker 3: Next week Big Things coming Monday, the debut episode of
Speaker 3: the movie Racket with Michael Phillips. He has a guest
Speaker 3: Michael Shannon, where they will be discussing what France saw.
Speaker 3: Trufoe said that there's no such thing as an anti
Speaker 3: war movie. They'll discuss whether or not Francois trufo is right.
Speaker 3: That's Monday. On Tuesday, film Spotting SVU. The state of
Speaker 3: streaming they're going to talk about to be a deep
Speaker 3: dive into the Free with Ad Free with Ad streamer
Speaker 3: Josh's favorite channel on the Internet. The Next Picture Show.
Speaker 3: On Thursday, Your beloved True Grit from the Coen Brothers, Josh.
Speaker 3: They will be pairing that with the new Supergirl.
Speaker 1: How about that.
Speaker 3: I may have to see Supergirl just to listen to
Speaker 3: this pairing because it sounds fascinating. And then Friday, we
Speaker 3: will have for you our top five films of the
Speaker 3: year so far.
Speaker 1: Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Desso and Sam
Speaker 1: van Holgren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go.
Speaker 1: Our production assistant is Sophie Kempinar. Special thanks to everyone
Speaker 1: at wbe Z Chicago. More information is available at wbez
Speaker 1: dot org for Film Spotting. I'm Josh Larson and I
Speaker 1: Madam Kempinar.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: This conversation can serve no purpose anymore.
Speaker 4: Good Bye.