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Speaker 6: What kind of a show you guys putting on here today?
Speaker 7: You're not interested in armed now?
Speaker 4: No, Look, we're going to do this thing.
Speaker 8: We're going to have a conversation.
Speaker 4: From Chicago.
Speaker 6: This is Film Spotting celebrating our twentieth year.
Speaker 4: I'm Adam Kempinar.
Speaker 9: And I'm Josh Larson.
Speaker 4: I don't understand at all. Why just her classroom? Why
Speaker 4: only hurt a children?
Speaker 6: We have a lot of emotional parents here.
Speaker 4: I think his best.
Speaker 6: If you keep some that's from this place, I'll tell
Speaker 6: you who didn't keep their distance, Josh. Moviegoers. Zach Kraiger's
Speaker 6: horror mystery Weapons was number one at the box office
Speaker 6: last weekend.
Speaker 9: Josh Brolin and Julia Garner starring that one. We've got
Speaker 9: a review, plus the new doc It's Never Over Jeff Buckley,
Speaker 9: that and more.
Speaker 1: This is where the story really starts.
Speaker 6: Ahead on film Spotting, Welcome to film Spotting. I know
Speaker 6: you're very happy, Josh that Weapons was released in August.
Speaker 6: You have plenty of time to get your Halloween costume ready.
Speaker 4: You're all set.
Speaker 9: There's one very obvious direction you could go with Weapons, Adam,
Speaker 9: and I'll be curious to see if that happens when
Speaker 9: Halloween rolls around for a lot of people.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we've got a review of Weapons coming up. Plus
Speaker 6: I'll have some thoughts on the new doc It's Never
Speaker 6: Over Jeff Buckley, and we'll play Massacre theater.
Speaker 9: But first Weapons. Late one night in the suburban town
Speaker 9: of Maybrook, Pennsylvania, every kid from a singer classroom disappeared
Speaker 9: at the exact same time, and that, as the opening
Speaker 9: narration tells us, is where the story starts. Here's Josh Brolin,
Speaker 9: the father of one of the missing children, confronting Julia Garner,
Speaker 9: the Missing Kids teacher.
Speaker 4: Hey, I want to talk to you.
Speaker 3: I don't think we have anything to say to each other.
Speaker 4: I think you have a lot to say you and.
Speaker 3: Every other person in the city.
Speaker 1: Believe me, the message is a loud and clear I'm
Speaker 1: the problem, got it?
Speaker 7: You know what? I think.
Speaker 2: That's the first honest thing I've heard you say you
Speaker 2: are the problem?
Speaker 3: What you want to get in my face?
Speaker 2: You want to threaten me?
Speaker 4: Nobody's threatening you right now.
Speaker 9: That's the wrong tree.
Speaker 5: Aren't you have this whole victim persona that you're taking on?
Speaker 7: It might have to be.
Speaker 6: Maybe it was always obvious. The Weapons trailer features imagery
Speaker 6: of a tense town hall meeting with angry parents demanding answers,
Speaker 6: snapshots of departed children, and a candlelight, flower filled memorial
Speaker 6: outside an elementary school adorned with a sign that says,
Speaker 6: may Brook strong And have I mentioned that the movie
Speaker 6: is called Weapons? If you didn't go into Zach Craiger's
Speaker 6: sophomore feature already assuming the writer director intended an allegory
Speaker 6: of American school shootings, you almost certainly walked out considering
Speaker 6: the strong possibility during a dream sequence in which Brolin's
Speaker 6: grieving father, Archer HMM, a weapon iSER, chases after his
Speaker 6: missing son Matthew. A large assault rifle appears floating above
Speaker 6: one of the neighborhood houses. Craiger also introduces and underscores
Speaker 6: how bullying regularly occurs amongst this group of students. Since
Speaker 6: many studies have connected bullying to school shootings, it's reasonable
Speaker 6: to assume that he expects us to make the same connection.
Speaker 6: We like to pose deeply flawed questions here on film
Speaker 6: spotting Josh, So pardon me if this one follows suit.
Speaker 6: Craiger's invoking of school shootings is a entirely intentional and
Speaker 6: powerful offering, a meaningful added layer to unpack while unraveling
Speaker 6: the chilling mystery of Maybrook's lost children. B entire lif intentional,
Speaker 6: but also entirely hollow and as a result, possibly even
Speaker 6: distasteful or see. I don't know whether it's intentional or unintentional,
Speaker 6: and I'm not convinced Craiger himself knows, but I don't
Speaker 6: care because I was having too much dreadful fun.
Speaker 7: Boy.
Speaker 9: This is gonna be an addition of how dnse is Josh,
Speaker 9: because I'm gonna take you Adam through the timeline of
Speaker 9: my wrestling with this very question. Uh and and I'll,
Speaker 9: you know, get to the end right now and say, see,
Speaker 9: I loved weapons. I think it's I think it's incredible,
Speaker 9: but I will allow, not only allow, but give way
Speaker 9: to anyone who feels be that was the unethical choice,
Speaker 9: right that this that you posited. Essentially, it's interesting. You know,
Speaker 9: this is the week of Cinema interrupt Us and a
Speaker 9: listener came up to me just yesterday after we had
Speaker 9: screamed Robert Altman's the Player, and I thought, you know,
Speaker 9: we're we're gonna talk a little bit about what we
Speaker 9: just saw, and she wanted to talk about weapons. And
Speaker 9: if you want to follow this listener on letterbox, she's there.
Speaker 9: She posted about weapons. Kurt Runs is her handle crt Runs,
Speaker 9: and she was quite distraught about what she called the
Speaker 9: ethical choices made by the filmmakers. Now, I should say
Speaker 9: we didn't end up getting into it too much, so
Speaker 9: I am not certain that she's talking specifically about the
Speaker 9: school shooting's connection. It seemed to be perhaps more generally
Speaker 9: about children and the use of children in the film.
Speaker 9: So it's just an example that I want to use
Speaker 9: to put out there is anyone who does have those
Speaker 9: concerns I think are legitimate. I mercifully have not been
Speaker 9: personally touched by what has become all too common in
Speaker 9: American society school shootings, and if I had, I might
Speaker 9: have a totally different perspective on this. I did end
Speaker 9: up in that place where I found this to be
Speaker 9: a potent allegory, a cathartic allegory from the vantage point
Speaker 9: of a person who witnesses this from afar but still
Speaker 9: feels an impotent rage about it. But to the denseness question, Adam,
Speaker 9: I'm telling you, I'm in that group where not only
Speaker 9: was it not walking out of the theater, it was
Speaker 9: looking over my notes and trying to piece things together,
Speaker 9: where I was suddenly like, oh, that's it, Like this
Speaker 9: is absolutely it, And maybe that moves me more towards
Speaker 9: the intentional category on the part of Craiger and his collaborators.
Speaker 9: You know where I started right away, though, Adam was
Speaker 9: with the Tale of the Pie Piper, and as soon
Speaker 9: as I knew the premise going in, But as soon
Speaker 9: as we get it anew in the opening segment of
Speaker 9: Weapons and Craiger pretty much gets it out of the
Speaker 9: way before the title, I think, even with these haunting
Speaker 9: images of the children fleeing at night, you know, I
Speaker 9: was thinking about that legend of the Pied Piper, the
Speaker 9: rat catcher, who the town refuses to pay for his services,
Speaker 9: and so he leads the town's children away and they disappear.
Speaker 9: And I'm thinking as I'm watching, what was that legend
Speaker 9: about and why does it persist? And you know, read
Speaker 9: up some more when I got home and realize that
Speaker 9: some people suggest, well, this was a way for medieval
Speaker 9: communities to deal with mass deaths of children, maybe to
Speaker 9: natural disasters, maybe to disease, and a story like that
Speaker 9: was helpful in processing it. So I thought, Okay, how
Speaker 9: might weapons which is very much about children being lost
Speaker 9: to inexplicable evil, right, just something that you can't rationalize,
Speaker 9: like a natural disaster, how might weapons be working in
Speaker 9: the same way or is it hollow or is it
Speaker 9: you know, not really serving the purpose? Is it ecsploiding this?
Speaker 9: And that's when I usually go to the text. You know,
Speaker 9: during the movie, I was thinking, is this like a
Speaker 9: Gaza situation? We've been inundated with images of starving children
Speaker 9: in Gaza. Obviously that couldn't have been intentional, But is
Speaker 9: that a way to go with this where there's a
Speaker 9: potent metaphor or allegory here. I thought of a couple
Speaker 9: of other directions, and then, yes, you mentioned it in
Speaker 9: the setup there, Adam, this image of a gun over
Speaker 9: a house. In the moment, I didn't make the connection,
Speaker 9: but I did think about other things in the text,
Speaker 9: and you counted them off right, this empty classroom, the
Speaker 9: memorial candles and flowers, and I'm realizing these are bitterly familiar.
Speaker 9: And I do think that this movie works as a
Speaker 9: modern pied piper tale. And we can't really at this
Speaker 9: point get into why I found it. So in the
Speaker 9: end there is a Bonker's climax. Let's just say that
Speaker 9: is darkly funny, insanely sustained on the level of filmmaking.
Speaker 9: But also I found myself, Adam like, feeling disturbingly cathartic
Speaker 9: emotions from that, because subconsciously, I think I had been
Speaker 9: connecting it to this recurring, recurring crisis in America that
Speaker 9: fits a few things. We hear Archer, the Josh Brolin character,
Speaker 9: saying I see something that doesn't make any sense at all,
Speaker 9: and later accusing the teacher. You're either negligent or complicit.
Speaker 9: We are both negligent and complicit as a society when
Speaker 9: it comes to sacrificing kids at the idle of firearms.
Speaker 9: And I personally found weapons to be entirely effective as
Speaker 9: an allegory for that, even if it took me a
Speaker 9: while being dense and not usually watching movies as puzzle
Speaker 9: pieces while I'm in the moment, it took me a
Speaker 9: while to get there, but I got there, and I
Speaker 9: think I like where the movie landed, or at least
Speaker 9: where I landed with it.
Speaker 6: We'll see where the conversation goes if you feel like
Speaker 6: we need to get into that sustained bonkers ending, and
Speaker 6: I agree. We can certainly make some room for some
Speaker 6: spoiler talk here, and we will provide plenty of advanced
Speaker 6: warning if we do decide to do that. You talk
Speaker 6: about some of these other references potentially, I don't think
Speaker 6: this movie has anything in common with the other movie
Speaker 6: I'm going to mention, or the book I'm going to mention.
Speaker 6: But when you talk about losing children and how we
Speaker 6: process that, does it have to be losing children to
Speaker 6: something evil? It can just be nonsensical, unfathomable. The Sweet
Speaker 6: hereafter that am Agoyan film The Russell Banks novel is
Speaker 6: something I thought about as I.
Speaker 9: Have you been talking to Scott's bias.
Speaker 4: No, I haven't.
Speaker 9: Actually, our friend critic and Next Picture Show hosts he
Speaker 9: was at the screen and I was at and afterwards
Speaker 9: he's like, I'm going to try to sell the group.
Speaker 9: I'm pairing it with the Sweet look after which I think,
Speaker 9: I think you're exactly right. I think that's great. That
Speaker 9: would be a brilliant YEP. That would be a brilliant pairent.
Speaker 9: I hope they do that.
Speaker 6: And you mention things that people viewers could potentially get
Speaker 6: upset about, like the person who came up to you
Speaker 6: after Cinema interrupt us. There's even another potential aspect, and
Speaker 6: I know some people have, and that's regarding who and what?
Speaker 6: Maybe what is the better way to phrase it, what
Speaker 6: the villain is? That again, we would have to leave
Speaker 6: to some spoiler talk in terms of my answer to
Speaker 6: the question. And I like this movie too. I don't
Speaker 6: like the movie quite as much as you do, but
Speaker 6: I do like the movie. I maybe tempted to say
Speaker 6: d all of the above or or can I go
Speaker 6: with other in that I think it's it's maybe a
Speaker 6: bit of a red herring. You certainly can't ignore it
Speaker 6: for all the reasons I outlined and you discussed. I
Speaker 6: don't necessarily think that Craiger is trying to make an
Speaker 6: overt political statement, nor do I think he's saying something
Speaker 6: particularly profound about how we as a country or society
Speaker 6: process collective trauma. And if you were inclined, I'll go
Speaker 6: back to this notion of maybe getting a little bit
Speaker 6: upset about the film, If you were inclined to be
Speaker 6: annoyed that the movie is exploiting these tragedies, another strike
Speaker 6: against it could be This just occurred to me today
Speaker 6: as I was prepping for this conversation Josh, the narrator
Speaker 6: tells us this little girl's voice. We never find out
Speaker 6: exactly who she is as far as I know, right,
Speaker 6: but we have this girl's voice narrating the story at
Speaker 6: the beginning and comes back at the end, and she
Speaker 6: tells us that the powers that be in the town
Speaker 6: are going to cover up what really happened to the kids.
Speaker 9: Sod unresolved. I have unresolved questions about the narrator and
Speaker 9: the logic behind that. I don't think that's a strength
Speaker 9: of the film and even really necessary.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, I bring that up only because now now
Speaker 6: Craiger is potentially harnessing the language of conspiracy theories, which
Speaker 6: I don't know that we necessarily want to bring up
Speaker 6: when it comes to conversations about tragedies involving school shootings.
Speaker 6: But for me, I suppose it it speaks to the
Speaker 6: challenge and the limitations of these types of allegorical interpretations.
Speaker 4: And I've maybe talked about this a little bit before.
Speaker 6: We've talked about Mickey seventeen this year, We've talked about
Speaker 6: Tarkovsky during our Tarkovsky Marathon, So there's been a lot
Speaker 6: of allegorical talk. But it doesn't necessarily expand my understanding
Speaker 6: or appreciation of a work to read what happens in
Speaker 6: a movie as representative of something else. I'm more interested
Speaker 6: in what the text itself is giving me or not
Speaker 6: giving me, and what I grasped onto here, And I
Speaker 6: don't mean grasped onto to try to decipher some deeper meaning.
Speaker 6: I mean just keeping me engaged in the story and
Speaker 6: feeling like you've got a filmmaker actually wrestling with something.
Speaker 6: Maybe even something personal and not just trying to usher
Speaker 6: us forward toward a bloody resolution. Within this pulp fiction
Speaker 6: esque or magnolia esque nonlinear structure that we have, and
Speaker 6: that is what we have. We have chapters divided by characters,
Speaker 6: character names, and it overlaps. We get repeating moments from
Speaker 6: different points of view, different perspectives of these individual characters.
Speaker 6: It's not just that each one of them, Josh, each
Speaker 6: one of these characters is dealing with individual pain and
Speaker 6: trying to forge ahead. There are lots of movies about
Speaker 6: characters who are suffering. Here we have very lonely, isolated,
Speaker 6: hurt characters who consistently and I would say arguably always
Speaker 6: unintentionally hurt other people. Not only are none of them bad,
Speaker 6: We're usually sympathetic to their circumstances, we understand, but their
Speaker 6: pain leads to choices and a spiraling that causes other pain.
Speaker 6: I'll give you just two examples. The first two characters
Speaker 6: we meet Justine the teacher, Julia Garner's character. She is
Speaker 6: certainly a victim here. She is not someone to blame
Speaker 6: for anything that has happened. She's not to blame for
Speaker 6: this tragedy, despite how some people feel or think have
Speaker 6: to believe. They're clinging to this notion that she must
Speaker 6: be to blame because they need they need someone to blame.
Speaker 6: She's not a witch, but she chooses to self medicate
Speaker 6: excessively with alcohol. It's an issue that we learned she
Speaker 6: had before this tragedy, and selfishly, again understandably but selfishly,
Speaker 6: she brings another character down with her, and that character
Speaker 6: makes their own choices. I'm not discounting that, but it's
Speaker 6: a cycle. And what do his choices lead to another
Speaker 6: person's unintended pain and disappointment? Think about Josh all that
Speaker 6: ensues in this film, all the dominoes that fall that
Speaker 6: you can trace back to Justine at the bar, and
Speaker 6: of course before that, the tragedy. But Justine at the
Speaker 6: bar insisting just have one drink with me, Please drink Yeah.
Speaker 6: And then we go to Archer. The pain of losing
Speaker 6: his son not only causes him to lash out at Justine,
Speaker 6: amplifying her pain, which leads to her going to the
Speaker 6: bar and meeting with that person and wanting to have
Speaker 6: just one real drink. But Kraiger shows us one interaction
Speaker 6: one interaction with Archer's wife, her saying goodbye to go
Speaker 6: to work. He's sleeping, he's waking up in his son's bed.
Speaker 6: It's clear from that one terse interaction that their marriage
Speaker 6: is completely on the ropes since Matthew's disappearance. Rather than
Speaker 6: turning to each other, rather than relying on each other,
Speaker 6: Archer anyway has completely turned intword. He is understandably here
Speaker 6: again but selfishly let the pain completely consume him, and
Speaker 6: he's completely detached from his marriage. And I think there's
Speaker 6: a corollary with every other main character, certainly every other
Speaker 6: character who gets to chapter save one. And I won't
Speaker 6: get into that because of spoilers. And it even connects
Speaker 6: back to the character who we shall not speak about,
Speaker 6: because then we're really getting into spoilers that villain character
Speaker 6: as I'm identifying them. But that connection to Josh even
Speaker 6: confirms further from me that Krager explores the way pain
Speaker 6: consumes and controls us, how it can be weaponized, and
Speaker 6: the collateral damage it causes.
Speaker 9: I think you're onto something that I was trying to
Speaker 9: piece together, and this is helpful in that vein about
Speaker 9: the notion of parasites in a way and feeding off
Speaker 9: others and these characters, it really is. Yeah, it's a motif.
Speaker 9: There are characters watching a nature documentary and we see
Speaker 9: a good thirty seconds of it, and it's about a
Speaker 9: form of parasites. And it's not that the characters you're
Speaker 9: describing are necessarily meaning to feed off others. But I
Speaker 9: like how you're talking about the recurring, the transferring of pain,
Speaker 9: and I think that fits. Yeah. The structure I think
Speaker 9: is is very intricate and smart and clever and effective.
Speaker 9: I want to return to it, but first I want
Speaker 9: to say that I like what you were talking about
Speaker 9: in terms of appreciating the experience that you're given, not
Speaker 9: necessarily putting all your eggs in the basket of the allegory.
Speaker 9: And I wanted to return to that because I'm not,
Speaker 9: despite what I said at the top, I'm not as
Speaker 9: enthusiastic about weapons because it does function for me as
Speaker 9: an allegory for school shootings. I mostly appreciated this as
Speaker 9: an expertly constructed, terrifying, like heart thumping horror movie. And
Speaker 9: and then if I can afterwards, when I'm going home
Speaker 9: trying to catch my breath and I missed my stop
Speaker 9: on the train, can I point out because I was
Speaker 9: so discombobulated by this movie. I wouldn't one stop too far.
Speaker 9: If after that great experience, I can then have that.
Speaker 9: Oh but it could also mean this, then it's a bonus.
Speaker 9: So just wanted to kind of like agree with you.
Speaker 9: It's kind of prioritizing that.
Speaker 4: And real quick.
Speaker 6: My version of that was seeing it late afternoon and
Speaker 6: coming home and sitting at dinner and I was being
Speaker 6: a bad husband and father, where Sarah looked across the
Speaker 6: table at one point and said, you seem to have
Speaker 6: something on your mind, and I had to be honest
Speaker 6: and say, I just kind of can't shake the movie.
Speaker 9: I just saw I have a few things on my mind. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 9: and I'm never going into the basement again. Oh right,
Speaker 9: so I already you're there right now, I believe.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So we were, Oh the structure.
Speaker 9: I wanted to ask you so a question I had
Speaker 9: in my notes, and I think this might have already
Speaker 9: come up on the film spotting Family discord a listener
Speaker 9: who had seen the movie. I think that's where I
Speaker 9: saw it, and they were talking about the chapters and
Speaker 9: what that might have added, and I did actually have
Speaker 9: that in my note. Did the structure add anything? And
Speaker 9: where I landed after thinking about it some more. Yes,
Speaker 9: the things you talked about absolutely allowing us to make
Speaker 9: these connections, I think what it does it also kind
Speaker 9: of excruciatingly but inventively doles out the pieces of this
Speaker 9: increasingly terrifying puzzle. I think it's effective that way. But also,
Speaker 9: you know, I do think that it allows us to
Speaker 9: get a fuller sense of this traumatized community. I found
Speaker 9: myself forming more intimate connections with each character and learning
Speaker 9: about their foibles to your point, in a way I
Speaker 9: probably would not have if this was all focused on
Speaker 9: Justine Say or all focused on Archer, those others would
Speaker 9: have been more supporting character. And by making everyone a
Speaker 9: supporting character, I felt like I knew this, this place,
Speaker 9: this town better than I would have otherwise, and so
Speaker 9: I appreciated that. And I also think, you know, it
Speaker 9: allows the actors to really dig in and get not scenes,
Speaker 9: not even just one scene where they get to be
Speaker 9: the main focus, but an entire section. And I think
Speaker 9: Brolin is excellent and Garner is incredible as this exasperated
Speaker 9: basket case you described her well, you know, she is
Speaker 9: not the villain, but boy, she's making almost every wrong
Speaker 9: choice you could given the situation she's in. And I
Speaker 9: think Garner is incredible in the role.
Speaker 6: Yeah, she's very good because she is making all those
Speaker 6: wrong choices, but we see her as flawed, we see
Speaker 6: her as human, and I think we understand, at least
Speaker 6: I understood that she was thinking about her students, that
Speaker 6: she was making us choices that weren't here. Again, she
Speaker 6: wasn't making choices that were driven by selfishness, but her
Speaker 6: pain was eating her to make what often were very
Speaker 6: bad decisions. I was at first a little bit confounded
Speaker 6: by the structure, Josh, because I was so interested in
Speaker 6: those first two characters, and especially Justine, especially Garner and
Speaker 6: her performance too. And once we started going from Justine
Speaker 6: to Archer and then to Paul, which is the Alden Ehrenwright.
Speaker 4: Character who is he was also great, He's very good.
Speaker 6: But once I went from him, and then I went,
Speaker 6: I think we go from from him maybe to James,
Speaker 6: who is a character we do meet earlier. Again, all
Speaker 6: these these stories overlap, and he's someone who is asking
Speaker 6: for money and he's he's looking.
Speaker 4: For a fix.
Speaker 6: There may be another character in between, but we do
Speaker 6: meet James at one point, and the point here is
Speaker 6: regardless of what order they go in. H I started
Speaker 6: feeling like, Okay, you're right, he is being very clever
Speaker 6: about how he's doling out information, and I almost felt
Speaker 6: like Craiger was being too clever.
Speaker 4: You're being a little too deliberate.
Speaker 6: You're being a little bit too precocious about how you're
Speaker 6: doling out the information. And I, maybe, to the movie's credit, Josh,
Speaker 6: I was so invested in where the story was going
Speaker 6: that I wanted to get some of the resolution at
Speaker 6: a little quicker and I felt I felt like he
Speaker 6: was going down some paths that were distractions. But I
Speaker 6: want to go back to why I really felt that
Speaker 6: way and why I felt like some of those storylines
Speaker 6: were kind of At first, I felt like it was
Speaker 6: the movie spinning its wheels a little bit. I started
Speaker 6: to feel sitting in my seat, I started to feel
Speaker 6: myself become a little disengaged from the story. And as
Speaker 6: I said, it really was because I was so tied
Speaker 6: to those characters, Justine an Archer, and I think that
Speaker 6: that's because the movie fundamentally is about them. It understands
Speaker 6: that at the core of this film, seventeen kids disappear
Speaker 6: all from one teacher's classroom, and he's the one who
Speaker 6: says it, why only hers for different for different reasons.
Speaker 6: This is what she's also trying to learn, what she's
Speaker 6: trying to understand, So they're both trying to understand this
Speaker 6: central mystery. And we try not to play screenwriter here
Speaker 6: and rewrite the movie. But there's a part of me
Speaker 6: that wonders if this movie would be just as effective,
Speaker 6: if not more effective, if you sort of played the
Speaker 6: movie straight and let let Justine be the main character,
Speaker 6: let Archer be a co lead or a supporting character,
Speaker 6: and have their storylines intersect. But what we would miss
Speaker 6: in that, Josh and how I ultimately came around is
Speaker 6: at some point, at some point when we got we
Speaker 6: got into those chapters, what clicked for me is what
Speaker 6: I articulated earlier. Clicked for me was, oh, there's a
Speaker 6: reason why we're meeting all these characters, and the through
Speaker 6: line is the pain and the transference of pain. Yes,
Speaker 6: it's also cleverly giving us new information and we're starting
Speaker 6: to put together the pieces of what's really happening here,
Speaker 6: but it's the transference of pain, and that that for
Speaker 6: me then made me understand what Craiger I thought was
Speaker 6: really up to and it justified it for me. Now,
Speaker 6: I'll also add quickly, I saw this today because it
Speaker 6: popped up in my feed Letterboxed published it. He really
Speaker 6: is just a huge fan of Magnolia. And I swear
Speaker 6: to you the first time Alden Ehrenreich popped up on screen,
Speaker 6: I sat there as he walked into that bar, and
Speaker 6: I cannot totally explain it, but I sat there and
Speaker 6: stared at him on screen and went mustache, huh, mustache?
Speaker 4: Like why?
Speaker 6: And he's a he's a police officer and he's got
Speaker 6: that mustache. The first time we see him, he's in
Speaker 6: his uniform and he's got a mustache. And I kind
Speaker 6: of just sat there. There was something about it. I'm
Speaker 6: not even saying I responded negatively to it, but there
Speaker 6: was something that just made me dwell on it.
Speaker 4: And then I read.
Speaker 6: Today that that was just Craiger going, I just love
Speaker 6: the character John c Riley plays in Magnolia. So I
Speaker 6: had Alden Aaron Reich have a mustache like the cop
Speaker 6: in Magnolia.
Speaker 9: Okay, there you go. We have to find all kinds
Speaker 9: of inspiration, all kinds of places. Sure, Yeah, yeah, definitely
Speaker 9: magnolia a touchstone. You can see that throughout this movie
Speaker 9: and to your point about you know, once you connected
Speaker 9: with the through line of pain for all the characters
Speaker 9: that's tied to what I was saying about, then it
Speaker 9: became a portrait of communal pain for me. The structure
Speaker 9: allowed it to be a community's pain that we're holding,
Speaker 9: and the pacinge I never flagged because again I don't
Speaker 9: remember where we get these set pieces, and I'm going
Speaker 9: to dance around this for spoilers, but there is a
Speaker 9: gas station incident which the way that is staged is
Speaker 9: the opposite of a jump scare, and so Adam I think,
Speaker 9: I think my heart leapt when I realized what was happening,
Speaker 9: and then it like tried to literally crawl out of
Speaker 9: my throat.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was cusation right before that happened. You heard
Speaker 6: the audio, Yeah it was.
Speaker 9: It was this, yes, sensation I don't know that I've
Speaker 9: had since maybe I was a kid's watching The Shining
Speaker 9: too young. And then there is another moment which I
Speaker 9: think occurs earlier that I will not describe in detail
Speaker 9: as well. It is I'll just say Justine is asleep
Speaker 9: in her car and particularly vulnt where you're going, and
Speaker 9: the way Craiger uses delicate movement of the camera, very
Speaker 9: specific blocking and then sound design to communicate what could
Speaker 9: be about to happen without it's a single take, I
Speaker 9: can say that, and it's just an unbearable experience of dread.
Speaker 9: And connected to it, the mileage they get in this
Speaker 9: movie out of a suburban homes front door opening to
Speaker 9: a blackness. I don't know how they managed that, but
Speaker 9: it is unlike anything else I think I've seen the
Speaker 9: cinematographer Larkin Seeple here, who worked on everything everywhere, all
Speaker 9: at once. Actually, the blackness when that door opens is underworldly.
Speaker 9: I don't know how you describe it, but it's terrifying
Speaker 9: just a shot of that every time you see it,
Speaker 9: because it's a motif I never got used to. So
Speaker 9: there are The overall point is there are enough well
Speaker 9: brilliantly crafted horror set pieces in this for me to
Speaker 9: just hook me and keep me, allowing me to catch
Speaker 9: my breath when we do then go follow another character
Speaker 9: for a little while while also being fearful of but
Speaker 9: in some cases I know is coming that they don't,
Speaker 9: that a character might not which brings us back to
Speaker 9: Craiger's you know earlier movie Barbarian, which which I liked
Speaker 9: well enough, but it did cleverly play with narrative perspective.
Speaker 9: Barbarian is you know famously a good way into the
Speaker 9: movie cuts off from the people we've been watching and
Speaker 9: introduces someone entirely new, and then has that person in
Speaker 9: the situation we'd been watching, so we know more information there,
Speaker 9: and he's doing something similar here. I think it's more
Speaker 9: effective here playing with the idea of narrative perspective.
Speaker 6: Well, I wouldn't know, because I tried to do my
Speaker 6: homework and finally catch up with Barbarian the other night.
Speaker 4: You had to bail and two Krager's.
Speaker 6: Credit as a filmmaker when it comes to building dread,
Speaker 6: because at this point there had been no Gore, zero Gore,
Speaker 6: zero monsters on screen. Here, I was Josh thinking I
Speaker 6: was finally a big boy at middle aged, at middle age,
Speaker 6: I could handle horror finally. Yeah, right, yeah, I've had
Speaker 6: this string of horror movies that I've enjoyed for the
Speaker 6: most part, or I've enjoyed talking about here on the show,
Speaker 6: and I pretty much remember the exact moment it was
Speaker 6: about forty minutes in. I think I can say it's
Speaker 6: when the main character goes to the basement.
Speaker 4: The second time another I said, another basement.
Speaker 6: I said, you know what, I'm out. The dread, the feeling,
Speaker 6: the anticipation of dread was so overwhelming. I just said,
Speaker 6: I can't do it. I don't want to know what's coming.
Speaker 6: I'm bailing on this film and I will just go
Speaker 6: in to weapons without having the benefit of seeing this film,
Speaker 6: and I don't know that I ever will see it.
Speaker 6: I mentioned Tarkovsky earlier, and you mentioned the door We
Speaker 6: go back to the Tarkovsky marathon, all the films and
Speaker 6: all the filmmakers that he references, Kraiger and including on
Speaker 6: that letterbox article. He doesn't mention Tarkovsky. But the significance
Speaker 6: of doorways, remember, is something we keyed in on and
Speaker 6: it comes up again and again.
Speaker 4: Here.
Speaker 6: It's not just that door and it happens even in
Speaker 6: Barbarian in the first forty minutes that I saw. Yeah,
Speaker 6: in Tarkovsky, sometimes it's just the archway itself. It's the
Speaker 6: entryway that is like this this threshold, this powerful threshold
Speaker 6: that that becomes an entryway, It becomes this powerful force.
Speaker 6: Almost he is obsessed with doors and the creepiness of
Speaker 6: a door opening slowly beckoning you to enter, the unseen
Speaker 6: force that's kind of ushering you you in, and even
Speaker 6: if it's just opening on its own and the way
Speaker 6: he also repeatedly mounts the care on like Archer's truck door,
Speaker 6: so even the truck door, so when it shuts, you
Speaker 6: get that very sudden jarring effect. And you mentioned both
Speaker 6: the scene in the car with Justine and the gas
Speaker 6: station that we heard a little bit of the gas
Speaker 6: station confrontation, and in both those cases what he does
Speaker 6: so well there because there are so many other examples
Speaker 6: where he's lifting moments from the shining where he's using
Speaker 6: the steady cam to great effect, and he's using those
Speaker 6: more jarring effects and he loves movement. What I love
Speaker 6: about both of those scenes, it's Julia Garner first alerting
Speaker 6: us with their eyes that something is coming, and that's
Speaker 6: what clues us in and gets us a little nervous first,
Speaker 6: gets us anxious first, and then the camera just kind
Speaker 6: of swings a little bit before it even shows us
Speaker 6: what's coming towards us. And then in that shot in
Speaker 6: the car, it is a still camera that is just
Speaker 6: focused on her in the driver's seat of her car,
Speaker 6: and it's all what's happening off camera. That's what's killing us,
Speaker 6: is view us, the waiting, the waiting, and the not
Speaker 6: knowing what is happening and.
Speaker 4: What could be about to happen.
Speaker 6: So he understands how to use that space within the frame,
Speaker 6: but also the space outside of the frame to build
Speaker 6: that dread. And then even you think about the poster
Speaker 6: and the imagery that comes back that recurs in this
Speaker 6: film again and again, the running shots of the children,
Speaker 6: it does become clearer what that is meant to evoke.
Speaker 4: To me.
Speaker 6: It really does feel like a jet plane where their
Speaker 6: arms are spread back like wings and obvious lead for
Speaker 6: them all to be running to the same place at
Speaker 6: the same time, they must be here again that idea
Speaker 6: of control. They must to be lacking some control. But
Speaker 6: there's also this sense, Josh, that while some force must
Speaker 6: be driving them, they also look like kids who are
Speaker 6: using their imagination and that they're totally free in the moment.
Speaker 6: And so that juxtaposition, that contradiction is so striking.
Speaker 9: And it's you know, you, Sometimes horror can be reduced
Speaker 9: to one image like this, and then if the movie
Speaker 9: backs it up, it will go down indelibly as a
Speaker 9: landmark horror image. And I think that is going to
Speaker 9: be the case with this shot of the kids running.
Speaker 9: I mean, it's instrumental to the marketing campaign, but it's
Speaker 9: more it's richer than that when you actually see the film.
Speaker 9: And I do like how he uses it sparingly. As
Speaker 9: I said, we get this before the title of the movie,
Speaker 9: and we don't really return to it. Let's say this,
Speaker 9: we don't return to it for the majority of the
Speaker 9: film otherwise save for one one little reference that you
Speaker 9: know is effective. But it's not like he's way using
Speaker 9: it too much to my mind, basically, And I think
Speaker 9: it's just going to be a marker. It's going to
Speaker 9: be like the you know, the blood coming out of
Speaker 9: the elevator in the Shining. It's going to be like
Speaker 9: Heather's face looking in the camera in Blair Witch. I
Speaker 9: think the silhouette of a kid running down a dark
Speaker 9: suburban street is going to ten to twenty years from
Speaker 9: now have that cultural cachet and impact, and I think
Speaker 9: it earns it. I think it earns it now. I
Speaker 9: don't think Weapons is a perfect film, and I want
Speaker 9: to ask you something that's somewhat related to your Barbarian experience,
Speaker 9: which I loved hearing about the part you didn't get to.
Speaker 9: For me, the ending of Barbarian is kind of what
Speaker 9: lost me. Where Craiger did start really amping up the insanity.
Speaker 9: I almost felt like the movie had abandoned not not
Speaker 9: only given a new perspective to what came before, but
Speaker 9: a band in it in trying to trick us and
Speaker 9: be clever. I don't think that happens in Weapons, but
Speaker 9: I do think while I found the ending, particularly the climax, cathartic,
Speaker 9: I do think there are and this is a question
Speaker 9: for you because it goes to like horror logic, I
Speaker 9: do think there are some we're gonna have to dance
Speaker 9: around this, some logic plot holes that were not big
Speaker 9: enough to throw me off. But let's just say to
Speaker 9: totally buy in on weapons, you have to understand that
Speaker 9: this is the most incompetent police force in the history
Speaker 9: of the world.
Speaker 4: Is that fair? And if you really did that, did
Speaker 4: that throw you off?
Speaker 9: With Once we once we understand what's really going on here,
Speaker 9: and the movie does tell us it puts all its
Speaker 9: cards on the table quite clearly, and then your mind
Speaker 9: starts thinking, Okay, if this is what happened, how did
Speaker 9: it actually go down? And we see some of that,
Speaker 9: but then your mind starts saying, like I was anticipating,
Speaker 9: like they're going to have to answer this big question
Speaker 9: I have, and the answer was, you know, like these
Speaker 9: guys needed a few more years of training.
Speaker 4: I think, Okay.
Speaker 6: You know what I would point out, Josh, is the
Speaker 6: thing that undoes the film even more is this is
Speaker 6: a movie that does, for the most part, play by
Speaker 6: the rules. It plays by real world rules, and it
Speaker 6: acknowledges that this is a world that has, as our
Speaker 6: world does, ring cameras that captures neighborhood activity. And I
Speaker 6: will say, if only there was one ring camera placed
Speaker 6: in one particular area, then there also wouldn't be an
Speaker 6: entire movie. So there are there are ways that we
Speaker 6: could certainly undercut it. But for the most part, I
Speaker 6: really respect that Craiger tries to play by rules in
Speaker 6: ways that I don't think a lot of horror movies
Speaker 6: try to. And I'm I'm game for getting into some
Speaker 6: spoiler talk if you want to save that. And maybe
Speaker 6: at the very end of the podcast. We can do that,
Speaker 6: I think in terms of just kind of putting a
Speaker 6: bow on this conversation, I am interested. I find it
Speaker 6: interesting to hear that you weren't necessarily totally on board
Speaker 6: with the ending of the film, because I wasn't either.
Speaker 6: And the way I would describe it is it does
Speaker 6: get openly silly. There is I think and my audience.
Speaker 6: I didn't see it with a huge crowd, but the
Speaker 6: crowd laughed. I don't think there's any I don't think
Speaker 6: there's any response you can have to what happens at
Speaker 6: the end of this film, but to laugh. It seems
Speaker 6: decidedly intentional on the filmmaker's part, and I do have
Speaker 6: I do have tremendous respect for Craiger for going there,
Speaker 6: and it requires, I think, great confidence as a filmmaker
Speaker 6: to do it when you have a film that otherwise
Speaker 6: is so gory and so portentous and is so dread filled.
Speaker 6: My questions would be, based on everything that came before,
Speaker 6: should there be some kind of should there be real
Speaker 6: and you mentioned this, Josh, should there be real emotional
Speaker 6: Catharsis at the end, and then did you have it
Speaker 6: or did the silliness undercut that and my answers are yes,
Speaker 6: there should be and no not really, I didn't really
Speaker 6: have it, and the silliness is part of what undercut it.
Speaker 6: I walked out of this movie more with kind of
Speaker 6: a grin on my face, thinking, boy, Craiger's really is
Speaker 6: such a cheeky filmmaker. So it never it didn't fully
Speaker 6: deliver on the promise of its provocative premise for me.
Speaker 9: Yeah, to be clear, I was all in on the climax,
Speaker 9: the actual ending, and what I was referring to is
Speaker 9: once we start seeing the logistics of the answer to
Speaker 9: the mystery.
Speaker 4: So that's where I love the silliest.
Speaker 9: Yeah, answered the bottom it was I was like, no,
Speaker 9: this isn't going to happen, is it.
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 9: And then I was like, oh, it's happening. Yeah, And
Speaker 9: it's like it's it's still happening, and it's happening like
Speaker 9: that and not and it's like it's almost like they
Speaker 9: knew they had a good joke. And then I mean
Speaker 9: it is played as a comedy bit because it's now
Speaker 9: let's up the ante here. Now what if it happens
Speaker 9: here now here? And the audio that goes with it,
Speaker 9: we really can't we really. I can't talk in detail
Speaker 9: here about why it works for me, but I will
Speaker 9: say out of my my intellectual response gave way to
Speaker 9: the Catharsis. And again, this was before I had made
Speaker 9: the allegorical connection to school shooting, so it was like
Speaker 9: a subliminal, subconscious like. I didn't know why I was
Speaker 9: feeling so cathartic about this crazy climax, because every bone
Speaker 9: in my body was probably telling me I should not
Speaker 9: be enjoying this, I should not be disturbed laughing. Why
Speaker 9: am I finding this?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 9: Yes, like, And I think for a couple of reasons,
Speaker 9: the brilliance of the filmmaking, and deep down there was
Speaker 9: something this movie was nagging at me about that I
Speaker 9: needed a cathartic experience. So I really do believe that's
Speaker 9: what I had. And I completely understand if you were
Speaker 9: taken out by because it is a big, big swing.
Speaker 6: And I think the distinction in what I'm hearing or
Speaker 6: what I think I'm hearing from you is you're speaking
Speaker 6: about Catharsis more in the sense of the movie itself
Speaker 6: delivering a sense of Catharsis, And I'm thinking very specifically
Speaker 6: in terms of the characters. I'm thinking about where Justine
Speaker 6: is at, where Archer is at. I'm thinking about where
Speaker 6: another character or characters are at that I don't want
Speaker 6: to get. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the Catharsis. I need
Speaker 6: the movie to deliver, and I think the movie tries
Speaker 6: to deliver it. It's not that it's not there, but
Speaker 6: I didn't feel it on the level that I thought
Speaker 6: I might based on everything that came before.
Speaker 9: Yeah, the final moments, and this is related back to
Speaker 9: my qualms about the voiceover narration that bookends this and
Speaker 9: the final moments, I maybe fell closer to that. When
Speaker 9: we do get that narration again and it again opens
Speaker 9: some questions, I think maybe I don't know how you feel.
Speaker 9: I feel like we've covered a lot of good stuff,
Speaker 9: and maybe we hold spoilers for like if we get
Speaker 9: listener feedback emails and you know, that might be a
Speaker 9: chance to dig into some of the particulars. But I
Speaker 9: do want to say real quickly, because we praise the
Speaker 9: performances overall. Austin Abrams, who plays James, who's the young
Speaker 9: guy who is looking for a fix, and really I
Speaker 9: think anchors a significantly comic section of the movie. I
Speaker 9: was like this, this guy is amazing. He is fantastic.
Speaker 9: And then I was looking at the credits and do
Speaker 9: you saw Wolf's right the Clooney and Brad Pitt thing.
Speaker 9: Remember that grungy goofball the third Wheel who hangs around
Speaker 9: with them, He's sort.
Speaker 6: Of like and he had that same sort of effortless
Speaker 6: kind of.
Speaker 4: Yes, effortlessness Austin abras right, like so good?
Speaker 6: Here too interesting? Yeah, I'm glad you looked that up.
Speaker 6: Weapons is currently playing in wide release. If you've seen
Speaker 6: it and you agree or disagree, or you have any
Speaker 6: other thoughts you'd like to share, we would love to
Speaker 6: hear from you feedback at film spotting dot net.
Speaker 9: Listening is the number one thing you can do to
Speaker 9: support an independently produced show like ours. Here are a
Speaker 9: couple of other things you could do. Take a minute
Speaker 9: to give us a rating or a review on Apple
Speaker 9: Podcasts or Spotify. Every new review helps us each new listeners,
Speaker 9: so please send one of those along. Even better, how
Speaker 9: about joining the film Spotting Family. We are continuing our
Speaker 9: celebration of film Spotting's twentieth year by sharing voice messages
Speaker 9: from film Spotting Family members. So these were submitted ahead
Speaker 9: of Film Spotting Fest back in March. Here our messages
Speaker 9: from Aaron as well as Eric Nelson from Racine, Wisconsin.
Speaker 7: I've raised three kids on Film Spotty. They all love
Speaker 7: film in their own way. My oldest Ambrose, obsessions about
Speaker 7: John Williams and did the Christopher Nolan Marathon with me
Speaker 7: to become a completist.
Speaker 4: But he also saw Puss and Boots in the theater
Speaker 4: five times.
Speaker 7: I discovered Get Out with Vigo and we even agree
Speaker 7: with Josh that Jordan Peel's US is the better film.
Speaker 4: But then Vigo fell in.
Speaker 7: Love with a girl in part based on their shared
Speaker 7: affinity for the Saw movies. My third son, Keanu, he
Speaker 7: only loves good movies like Dog Day Afternoon, Whiplash.
Speaker 4: Fury Road will probably.
Speaker 7: Find a way to burn Film Spotty Nation to the
Speaker 7: ground if they don't give Sherlock Junior its rightful place
Speaker 7: among the pantheon. And this is what you get for
Speaker 7: young adults when your kids don't know a world without
Speaker 7: Film Spotting. As a cinephile, there's stuff I worry about
Speaker 7: with the trajectory my boys are on. But then I
Speaker 7: listen to episode fourteen from two thousand and five, Adam
Speaker 7: enthusiastically hope that Ian mcdermot's portrayal of emperpor Palpatine would
Speaker 7: finally get him Oscar attention, while Sam praised A Boy
Speaker 7: and his Dog, a nineteen seventy five film where Don
Speaker 7: Johnson telepathically communicates with his dog in a post apocalyptic
Speaker 7: world while battling Jason Robards, who wants to use the
Speaker 7: hero for a sperm bank. Thank God, people grow and change, Adam, Sam, Josh.
Speaker 7: They continue to surprise us because they love film. They
Speaker 7: share themselves authentically while they interpret art. I see that
Speaker 7: in my boys. I love that about my boys, and
Speaker 7: I'm not sure my family would be this kind of
Speaker 7: awesome if it wasn't for twenty years of film Spotting.
Speaker 8: Hey, film Spotting. This is Aaron Neworth and Lagua Hills, California.
Speaker 8: Happy twentieth. I've been listening to this show since two
Speaker 8: thousand and eight, which is.
Speaker 4: That's a long time.
Speaker 8: I want to talk about my favorite film Spotting moment
Speaker 8: money to choose from. I of course love Adam and
Speaker 8: Josh together, but there were the Mattie Ball game years
Speaker 8: and one that's the moment that's always stuck out to
Speaker 8: me is episode two thirty four, it's when you reviewed
Speaker 8: Seneca Kyaw York, the Charlie Coffin film that I'm quite
Speaker 8: a fan of. You guys gave a wonderful review of it.
Speaker 8: You went over the film and its themes and what
Speaker 8: you took away from it and all that, and then
Speaker 8: you also laid into at the movies in its final
Speaker 8: incarnation at that time, and how disappointing it was to
Speaker 8: see what passed his film criticism on that show to
Speaker 8: go out there with their frankly very underwhelming thoughts on
Speaker 8: the film. Meanwhile, here we are, twenty years later, Film
Speaker 8: Spotting is still going and I'm happy to listen while
Speaker 8: I have. The movies in that form is no longer
Speaker 8: anywhere to be found. So thank you for preventing such
Speaker 8: wonderful reviews over the years.
Speaker 6: And cheers always great to hear from Aaron and Eric
Speaker 6: Senecticky New York. Yeah, episode two thirty four, that's a
Speaker 6: that's an infamous one in the Film Spotting catalog, when
Speaker 6: Maddie and I got a little upset at the Benz
Speaker 6: for their review, and I use that term loosely, it
Speaker 6: was like.
Speaker 9: A film critic brawl going.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was a little bit of a brawl, a
Speaker 6: one sided brawl for sure.
Speaker 4: And then you've got Eric.
Speaker 6: Now, I don't know how this is possible, great great voicemail,
Speaker 6: Thank you, Eric, But he's chiding me for hoping that
Speaker 6: Ian McDermot might get OSCAR attention for playing the Emperor
Speaker 6: in Revenge of the Sith. By the way, after hearing
Speaker 6: this voicemail, I looked up who was nominated for Oscars
Speaker 6: in two thousand and six and who won. And you
Speaker 6: know what, Ian McDermott got robbed. He deserved a nomination.
Speaker 9: I support you, I support you and your crusade. He
Speaker 9: is fantastic.
Speaker 6: And then Sam, Now I haven't seen a boy and
Speaker 6: his dog. It sounds like Eric may have a case
Speaker 6: against Sam. But how is it, Josh, with all of
Speaker 6: your opinions over the years, how is it that only
Speaker 6: me and Sam are getting taken to task by Eric
Speaker 6: for terrible movie thoughts.
Speaker 9: I mean, I have not seen a boy and his
Speaker 9: dog either, but just reading or hearing that description, I
Speaker 9: should say it's hard for me to even top that one.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we do appreciate all the great feedback that we get,
Speaker 6: of course, all the love and support that we get
Speaker 6: from longtime listeners. And supporters like Aaron and Eric. I
Speaker 6: think we only have one more of these very special
Speaker 6: messages to share. We'll get to that in a few weeks.
Speaker 6: We think all of our Film Spotting Family members. In
Speaker 6: addition to keeping us doing what we're doing, your support
Speaker 6: comes with perks. You get to listen early in ad free,
Speaker 6: you get our weekly newsletter, you get exclusive opportunities like
Speaker 6: being part of the Film Spotting Family discord, and you
Speaker 6: get monthly bonus shows. In July we shared with you
Speaker 6: are we were wrong once and it turns out I
Speaker 6: was wrong again about the Coen Brothers burn after reading
Speaker 6: and in August. Later this month, we haven't taped it yet,
Speaker 6: but we're doing a blind cow review of Akira Kurrosawa's
Speaker 6: Stray Dog that's available on the Criterion Channel. Now why
Speaker 6: are we talking about Stray Dog. We gave Film Spotting
Speaker 6: Family members a vote. It was up against The Rocky
Speaker 6: Horror Picture Show for its fiftieth anniversary and Gaslight, which
Speaker 6: is a forties film, and we have nineteen forties Madness
Speaker 6: coming up. Straight Dog is also a nineteen forties film,
Speaker 6: and with highest to lowest coming out, we thought, why not.
Speaker 6: We've got the Kurrosawa tie in there because Highest to Lois,
Speaker 6: of course, is a remake of a Kurrosawa film. It
Speaker 6: turns out it's a Blind Cow because it's blind spotting
Speaker 6: for you, Josh and for Sam, but a sacred cow
Speaker 6: for me. I've seen Stray Dog Straight Dog one. I
Speaker 6: do look forward to revisiting that film. You and Sam
Speaker 6: will be seeing it for the first time.
Speaker 9: Cannot wait. It's been a curs hour summer for me.
Speaker 9: I think we had our trip to Japan w and
Speaker 9: I so before that we watched Yo Jimbo, and then
Speaker 9: when we got back Thrown of Blood. I just watched
Speaker 9: High and Low this past week for the first time.
Speaker 9: If I can add Stray Dog to the pile, that's
Speaker 9: just great. Can't wait to watch it.
Speaker 6: If you'd like to be part of the Film Spotting
Speaker 6: Family and hear that conversation later this month, you can
Speaker 6: do that at film spotting Family dot com.
Speaker 8: I mean, he was literally the best singer I've ever heard.
Speaker 6: This is a less and he's my favorite vacation.
Speaker 7: I stayed with my father, you had a whole other family.
Speaker 1: No calls were returned, and.
Speaker 3: Put his little hands on my face and shape We're
Speaker 3: going to be okay, mommy right.
Speaker 9: Welcome to Adam's Alcove, your source for Under the Radar
Speaker 9: music doc reviews. Do we have some I feel like
Speaker 9: we need some soothing music to go along with this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this is going to be short lived, though. I
Speaker 6: think this segment's over after this week. Oh no, no,
Speaker 6: are there other raid docks coming out hitting the ratings?
Speaker 4: A great are getting canceled already? Yeah.
Speaker 9: That was from the trailer for It's Never Over. Jeff Buckley,
Speaker 9: a new doc about the singer songwriter who died in
Speaker 9: nineteen ninety seven at thirty, but whose music has lived on,
Speaker 9: in particular his now ubiquitous cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah,
Speaker 9: which appeared on his only studio album, nineteen ninety four's Grace.
Speaker 9: The documentary was directed by Amy J. Berg, who made
Speaker 9: the Janis Joplin doc Little Girl Blue in twenty fifteen
Speaker 9: and was OSCAR nominated for the two thousand and six
Speaker 9: documentary Deliver Us from Evil. I mostly know Jeff Buckley
Speaker 9: from that Hallelujah cover, Adam, but I think you were
Speaker 9: more of a fan of his work, So tell us.
Speaker 9: Does the new doc offer anything for non fans.
Speaker 6: Like me, absolutely, and I don't know how you couldn't
Speaker 6: be a convert after seeing the movie and to that point. Unfortunately,
Speaker 6: as people hear this, they won't have this opportunity because
Speaker 6: my understanding is this is exclusive footage that Magnolia is
Speaker 6: only Magnolia Pictures is only making available the first week
Speaker 6: of the movie's release, so eight eight through eight fourteen.
Speaker 6: But I saw it in that window opening weekend and
Speaker 6: after the movie and they say this with some text
Speaker 6: at the very beginning. Stick around after the credits, because
Speaker 6: they've got twenty six minutes of exclusive remastered footage of
Speaker 6: a rare solo performance from February nineteen ninety four of
Speaker 6: Jeff Buckley at a place called the Middle East in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Speaker 6: I saw it on a Sunday afternoon, not a huge crowd,
Speaker 6: but every person there Josh stayed for all twenty six
Speaker 6: minutes of that footage, some of which you do see
Speaker 6: in the dock itself. But it makes sense that anybody
Speaker 6: who considers themselves to be a Buckley fan would want
Speaker 6: to stay and see that footage. But I have to
Speaker 6: imagine there were some people there who were there at
Speaker 6: the movie out of curiosity who weren't that familiar with
Speaker 6: his work or familiar with it at all. And the
Speaker 6: doc is so powerful a testament to his talent that
Speaker 6: getting the chance to watch him perform unfiltered wasn't one
Speaker 6: anybody was going to miss out on. I shared a
Speaker 6: little bit of personal music background last week during Adam's
Speaker 6: doc Alacove talking about the Mark Bowland doc. I might
Speaker 6: as well do it here. I don't want to disparage
Speaker 6: that doc when I say this, I want to properly
Speaker 6: appraise this one. It's never over is a greater cinematic, musical,
Speaker 6: and emotional experience then the Bowlin Dock. Not just because
Speaker 6: of my deeper appreciation for Buckley's music, It's largely attributable
Speaker 6: to how Berg approaches Buckley's life with the same intense
Speaker 6: empathy that Buckley himself approached his art. I was a
Speaker 6: year late to Buckley. Grace came out in the summer
Speaker 6: of ninety four, and this is yet another part of
Speaker 6: my life. Like film spotting, I can connect back to
Speaker 6: my college roommate, Kevin Rich. He introduced me to Sam
Speaker 6: after they both moved to Chicago after graduation from their
Speaker 6: respective colleges. In the summer of ninety five, when school
Speaker 6: got out for the year, I drove down to Saint
Speaker 6: Louis to visit Kevin in his Saint Louis suburb, and
Speaker 6: I'd already gotten to know some of his high school friends,
Speaker 6: and I met Jeff Halquist for the first time. Jeffy
Speaker 6: he was a musician, one of Kevin's friends. Obviously, Jeffy
Speaker 6: was a musician like me. And we're hanging out and
Speaker 6: he's telling me about Jeff Buckley, who I had never
Speaker 6: heard of. And he's telling me about this album Grace
Speaker 6: and how incredible it was. And I don't remember if
Speaker 6: we listened to it together or not. I do know
Speaker 6: that when I heard it, within the first thirty seconds,
Speaker 6: I knew that I could trust Jeffy's taste in music,
Speaker 6: because that voice and that songwriting was otherworldly. It was
Speaker 6: like nothing I'd ever heard before. And that's because to
Speaker 6: explain what Jeff Buckley's music sounds like to someone, the
Speaker 6: best way I can characterize it now is this radical
Speaker 6: combination of Led Zeppelin, Nina Simone, and Tim Buckley, his father.
Speaker 6: In ninety four, I knew Zeppelin, I didn't really know
Speaker 6: Nina Simone and I wasn't familiar at all with Tim Buckley.
Speaker 6: That combination itself is singular, but there just was no
Speaker 6: context for Jeff Buckley. His sound was that distinctive. And
Speaker 6: I want to highlight, to go back to your question
Speaker 6: asking about what's in it for people who don't really
Speaker 6: know him or aren't fans of his music other than
Speaker 6: hopefully being turned on to it because he's such a
Speaker 6: remarkable artist. I do want to highlight two choices that
Speaker 6: Berg makes that really elevate this documentary. And I haven't
Speaker 6: seen any of Berg's other films, I'm very curious now,
Speaker 6: and they tie back to Nina Simone in a way.
Speaker 6: One's overarching in Berg's approach, and one's very specific to
Speaker 6: the song you mentioned, the one Buckley is best known for, Hallelujah,
Speaker 6: the Leonard Cohne cover. You know the doc's going to
Speaker 6: have to devote time to it, right, It's only a
Speaker 6: matter of when and how and maybe how long. A
Speaker 6: lot of other music docs would spend this time, having
Speaker 6: various musicians and industry luminaries and honestly probably a lot
Speaker 6: of dudes talking about what Buckley's version means to them,
Speaker 6: breaking down what makes it so special musically, and Berg
Speaker 6: grounds it in Buckley's relationship at the time to a
Speaker 6: fellow musician, Joan Wasser. You actually hear her talking for
Speaker 6: a good chunk of the song. Over the top of
Speaker 6: the song. Buckley wrote that the song you see this
Speaker 6: in the film, that the song wasn't some spiritual please
Speaker 6: so much as a song about sex. And whether you
Speaker 6: believe that or Buckley believed it, it's really irrelevant. The
Speaker 6: point is that Berg doesn't make it all about spotlighting
Speaker 6: the song. The song's a tool to further express very
Speaker 6: real emotions and physical desires. It's about spotlighting this relationship,
Speaker 6: this really powerful relationship that they had. And then, really
Speaker 6: what I think is Berg's boldest stroke, Josh, the majority
Speaker 6: of time we spend in this movie with talking heads
Speaker 6: reflecting on Jeff and these relationships, it's devoted to the
Speaker 6: women in his life, his mother, his first significant love, Rebecca, Joan.
Speaker 6: And it's not something that Berg structurally is imposing on
Speaker 6: the material. It's there organically. Jeff laments later in the
Speaker 6: film that he doesn't really understand how to be a man.
Speaker 6: There's talk about how he was raised by his mother.
Speaker 6: We get into how he was raised by his mother
Speaker 6: because his dad split before he was born, the fact
Speaker 6: that he's got this voice that can go into those
Speaker 6: very higher registers, and he's sings so powerfully, but it's
Speaker 6: kind of this androgynous voice. And before led Zeppelin ever
Speaker 6: gets mentioned, the first three influences that are invoked are
Speaker 6: ain't no Mountain high Enough. I think it's the Diana
Speaker 6: Ross version. It's definitely a female singer, Judy Garland and
Speaker 6: his obsession with Nina Simone, and the movie makes that
Speaker 6: influence explicitly clear. It's almost like Berg decided that the
Speaker 6: best way to honor Buckley was was to not let
Speaker 6: the ghost of Tim Buckley continue to haunt him at
Speaker 6: the expense of the women who knew him best.
Speaker 4: It even starts.
Speaker 6: The movie starts with Rebecca, the first girlfriend, saying that
Speaker 6: she's been hesitant to speak about Jeff and their relationship
Speaker 6: since his death because the girlfriend isn't always treated well
Speaker 6: in these types of stories, and it's true that they're
Speaker 6: either marginalized or worse, they're villainized. And Berg reclaims the
Speaker 6: portrayal of women in these tragic rocktails, and in so
Speaker 6: doing renders the more honest, intimate portrayal of who Buckley was.
Speaker 6: I thought that was fascinating, fascinating choice, really effective, and
Speaker 6: then you've got the incredible music on top of it.
Speaker 6: I think it's a must see, all right.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it definitely makes me want to put on grace
Speaker 9: and give the whole album a listen after this, and
Speaker 9: maybe catch up with the doc itself soon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's never over. Jeff.
Speaker 6: Buckle is out in limited release. If you get a
Speaker 6: chance to see it, and if you do and have
Speaker 6: any thoughts to share, we would love to hear from
Speaker 6: you feedback at filmspotting dot net. Next week on the show,
Speaker 6: we had intended to talk about the return of Spike
Speaker 6: Lee and Denzel Washington. Highest to lois a remake slash
Speaker 6: reimagining of Akira Krosawa's nineteen sixty three film High and Low.
Speaker 6: This is their fourth collaboration and first since one of
Speaker 6: my favorite films two thousand and six is Inside Man.
Speaker 6: Highest to Lowest, and we're now discovering that it's getting
Speaker 6: such a limited theatrical release. I don't know how this
Speaker 6: is possible. I actually am able to see it in
Speaker 6: Iowa City, Josh, but somehow you're not really able to
Speaker 6: see it in Chicago this weekend.
Speaker 9: Yeah, we got to clarify this, so there's a chance
Speaker 9: we can still do this next week, but it appears
Speaker 9: it's not coming to Chicago until the following week, and
Speaker 9: with Cinnamon interruptus, I wasn't able to make the press screening.
Speaker 9: So yeah, we're going to get to this no matter what.
Speaker 9: It's just a question of if it's going to be
Speaker 9: sooner rather than later. We'll stay tuned on that one.
Speaker 6: Yeah, will it be next week's show or the week after,
Speaker 6: As Josh said, stay tuned for that. What we do
Speaker 6: know for sure is that next week on the show
Speaker 6: we will have a Pantheon Project conversation, another Sacred Cow
Speaker 6: conversation coming Dog Day Afternoon, the Sydney Lamette film. This
Speaker 6: is why we held off on including this in our
Speaker 6: Lamette Marathon. Now, of course, we also tried to keep
Speaker 6: that marathon, as we usually do, two blind spots. Sydney
Speaker 6: met films we hadn't seen, but we knew we didn't
Speaker 6: want to talk about Dog Day Afternoon because it was
Speaker 6: turning fifty this year and it is in the Pantheon,
Speaker 6: so we're going to give it that Pantheon Project treatment.
Speaker 4: Next week.
Speaker 6: I don't remember the last time I saw Dog Day Afternoon.
Speaker 6: It might have been in college, Josh. Just like One
Speaker 6: Flow Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Speaker 9: It's been a while. We're going back to the seventies,
Speaker 9: back to you. Would you consider Pacino an anti hero?
Speaker 9: A seventies anti hero for sure? Thinking about Hackman and
Speaker 9: Nicholson and Newman. I know that goes back to the sixties,
Speaker 9: but that's a conversation we've been having. So yeah, very
Speaker 9: eager to take another look at Dog Day Afternoon, just
Speaker 9: in general, but also in the context of some of
Speaker 9: these other conversations we've been having.
Speaker 6: We'll also have results from the current deeply flawed film
Speaker 6: spotting poll. We're asking you, aside from Jaws, which of
Speaker 6: the nineteen seventy six nominees for Best Picture, So the
Speaker 6: films of nineteen seventy five should have won the Oscar
Speaker 6: the other options maybe the greatest ever lineup of Best
Speaker 6: Pick nominees. We got Kubrick's Berry Lindon, We have Dog
Speaker 6: Day Afternoon, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Robert
Speaker 6: Altman's Nashville.
Speaker 4: Josh.
Speaker 6: I was surprised. Now this was early when I looked
Speaker 6: at the initial voting, but I thought for sure this
Speaker 6: was going to be Dog Day Afternoon, or it would
Speaker 6: be Cuckoo's Nest and Nashville was in the lead for
Speaker 6: a show killing me. It's not in the lead anymore
Speaker 6: as I take a quick glance. But this is one
Speaker 6: of those polls where maybe it's not deeply flawed because
Speaker 6: it's almost a four way race. Oh wow, Oh yeah,
Speaker 6: it's very very close.
Speaker 9: Yeah, no shade on Nashville. I just that wouldn't have
Speaker 9: been my guest that it would have the lead at something.
Speaker 9: It's not in last place, but that it's in the
Speaker 9: running does make sense.
Speaker 6: Yeah, not in last place. I'm a little bit surprised.
Speaker 6: I thought maybe that one would take up the rear.
Speaker 6: But it is in contention. Your vote really does matter.
Speaker 6: You can vote in that poll and leave a comment
Speaker 6: at film spotting dot net. And since we're mentioning Altman here,
Speaker 6: I'd be remiss, Josh if I didn't ask. I'm very
Speaker 6: curious myself. We're taping this here. D two has been completed.
Speaker 6: Cinema interrupt us the player too. How it's been going.
Speaker 9: It's well, it was a lot of fun, but we're
Speaker 9: a little behind at them. As you know, the goal
Speaker 9: is to finish the movie in three days, stopping and
Speaker 9: starting repeatedly. I just checked before we started recording, and
Speaker 9: we are only twenty minutes into the player after an
Speaker 9: hour and a half.
Speaker 4: Are you killing of interrupting now? I'm oho, it's not
Speaker 4: as short, Josh. I didn't like the sound of that. Laugh.
Speaker 9: I'm trying to make myself. I've never been in all
Speaker 9: the years i've been doing this this far behind after
Speaker 9: the first day of interrupting. But wow, you know the
Speaker 9: opening shot.
Speaker 6: I was just going to say, how the player you
Speaker 6: spend just on the opening shot?
Speaker 4: Guess how many minutes I mean the full day one?
Speaker 9: No, it was. It was not that bad. Thirty minutes.
Speaker 9: We spent thirty minutes breaking that down obviously. I mean,
Speaker 9: you know, if it's going this long, we're having a
Speaker 9: good time. That's the way I'm looking at it right now.
Speaker 9: And I will panic on day three when we have
Speaker 9: like I don't know, an hour of screen time to
Speaker 9: get through or something. But yeah, it's going great. The
Speaker 9: players holding up to screw as I knew it would.
Speaker 9: And here's a really cool thing. This always happens when
Speaker 9: I do this at the conference on World Affairs. There
Speaker 9: are other speakers there and I'm usually able to find
Speaker 9: someone to bring in as a guest and they can
Speaker 9: add something to it, and didn't have someone this year.
Speaker 9: But a day before this started email out of the
Speaker 9: blue from Alexander Julian, who's credited as a costume designer
Speaker 9: but really slash wardrobe designer because he outfitted all the
Speaker 9: studio executives in their suits for the Player, which, as
Speaker 9: I'm sure you can realize, is crucial to that movie.
Speaker 9: He I guess, worked out of a boutique on Rodeo
Speaker 9: Drive from nineteen seventy something on he heard we were
Speaker 9: doing this and he's just like, he's just sending me
Speaker 9: these emails full of details. He's like, I just got
Speaker 9: to get this out while it's in my head. Use
Speaker 9: it if you can. And there are some gems in there.
Speaker 9: So we've already talked a little bit about one of
Speaker 9: the suits, and there are a couple other mom moments
Speaker 9: we'll get to now.
Speaker 4: Adam, now you can see.
Speaker 9: Why we're barely through this movie. You can you can
Speaker 9: get so granular at interrupt us. It's wonderful but we
Speaker 9: might have to pick things.
Speaker 4: Up a little bit.
Speaker 6: So you're saying this man Alexander Julian played a major
Speaker 6: role in communicating Tim Robbins tremendous douchebaggery in that film.
Speaker 4: Exactly, mil Yeah he is.
Speaker 9: He's very particular about the shade of green he chose
Speaker 9: for that particular reason. So yeah, Unfortunately, by the time
Speaker 9: this airs will have wrapped up, hopefully have finished the movie,
Speaker 9: so listeners can't join us, but there are some there.
Speaker 9: Thank you so much to those film Spotting listeners who
Speaker 9: have stopped by to be a part of it. And yeah,
Speaker 9: we'll see if we can.
Speaker 4: Get through Altman.
Speaker 6: We got Nilosh Foreman, Lamette Kubrick all in that Film
Speaker 6: Spotting poll question. You can vote now at film spotting
Speaker 6: dot net and you can check out our show schedule
Speaker 6: at film spotting dot net.
Speaker 9: Slash episodes this week on our sister podcast, The Next
Speaker 9: Picture Show, looking at Cinema's present via its past. They
Speaker 9: have a new pairing that is for the Naked Gun fanatics.
Speaker 9: They are looking at the New Naked Gun twenty twenty
Speaker 9: five with Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson. And of course
Speaker 9: the first episode is going back to nineteen eighty eight
Speaker 9: to consider the original. New episodes of the Next Picture
Speaker 9: Show drop every Tuesday and you can find them wherever
Speaker 9: you get your podcasts. It's time now for Massacre theater,
Speaker 9: where we perform a scene and you get a chance
Speaker 9: to win a film spotting prize. Last time we massacred
Speaker 9: this scene.
Speaker 10: This may seem like a really stupid question, and there
Speaker 10: are no stupid questions. You inherit five million dollars the
Speaker 10: same day Aliens land on the Earth and say they're
Speaker 10: going to blow it up in two days.
Speaker 7: What do you do?
Speaker 4: That's the stupidest question I've ever heard. I don't operately
Speaker 4: row out to the middle of a lake somewhere, bring
Speaker 4: along a bottle of tequila, my sacks and some buck.
Speaker 9: How very That was Christian Slater as J. D. Dean
Speaker 9: and Winona Ryder as Veronica Sawyer in nineteen eighty nine's Heathers,
Speaker 9: written by Daniel Waters and directed by Michael Leeman. That
Speaker 9: masacre was part of Our Jack Nicholson Show A couple
Speaker 9: of weeks ago, a fiftieth anniversary Pantheon Project review of
Speaker 9: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and our Top five
Speaker 9: Nicholson scenes. So why that scene from Heathers.
Speaker 6: Here's Taylor in Chicago. Another incredible, another incredible Josh Larson
Speaker 6: performance in this scene from Heathers, it will there you go?
Speaker 6: His Christian Slater doing Jack Nicholson was almost at the
Speaker 6: same bizarre meta impression level as the time you all
Speaker 6: did a scene from Vertigo where it ended up as
Speaker 6: Adam doing Jimmy Stewart doing Andy Samberg's Nick Cage. WEO,
Speaker 6: that is exact eactly what I was going for.
Speaker 4: It was okay, yeah, I didn't remember that, but uh huh.
Speaker 6: Aside from the influence of Jack Nicholson this episode's focus
Speaker 6: on Slater's performance in Heathers, I also have to note
Speaker 6: that Heathers is a movie set in high school. This
Speaker 6: week's episode featured a voicemail from the great Trip Burton,
Speaker 6: who was a high school teacher. Yes, that's that's the
Speaker 6: tie in we were going for Old Taylor.
Speaker 9: Wow, Wow, nice work, Taylor. Here's David Zobel from Roswell, Georgia.
Speaker 9: At first I thought it might be Mars Attacks, which
Speaker 9: might be the first time it recorded history. Those two
Speaker 9: movies have been confused. Then came along the how very Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 9: you thought that had to be a giveaway ad him.
Speaker 6: Josh, this might be the most incorrect entries we've ever
Speaker 6: received for MASc Theater in the show's history. A lot
Speaker 6: of Mars attacks, So I think that speaks to how
Speaker 6: good you're nicholson impression it was.
Speaker 4: That's how I'm going to take it.
Speaker 6: Here's Bruce McClintock in Seminole, Florida. Heathers was such a
Speaker 6: formative experien that I remember exactly when and where I
Speaker 6: saw it in the theater. I'm guessing that you paired
Speaker 6: Heathers with one floor over the Cuckoo's Nest, because each
Speaker 6: highlights the absurdity and harshness of an institutional existence. Both
Speaker 6: introduce a charismatic but anarchic character to disrupt the status quo.
Speaker 6: High School is purgatory as well. Or maybe it was
Speaker 6: because Christians later sounded a little like Jack Nicholson.
Speaker 4: Let's go with all of that. I think Perl's figured
Speaker 4: it out.
Speaker 6: Reach into the still mostly brimming despite all the incorrect entries.
Speaker 6: Film spotting hat and pick out the winner, Josh.
Speaker 9: Our winner is Scott G. From Skokie, Illinois.
Speaker 6: Congratulations Scott, email feedback at filmspotting dot net and we
Speaker 6: will set you up with your very own film Spotting
Speaker 6: t shirt, tote bag, or trial membership to the Film
Speaker 6: Spotting Family.
Speaker 4: That was the greatest acting I have ever seen. I
Speaker 4: just don't know how you do it.
Speaker 1: Gary.
Speaker 3: How do you make yourself so sobeerg and emotional to
Speaker 3: make everybody cry like that?
Speaker 9: It's not that hard, really, I just think about the
Speaker 9: saddest moment in my life.
Speaker 6: I don't know that I've ever been more terrified about
Speaker 6: a Massacre theater scene in the entire time we've done this.
Speaker 9: I agree with you, Adam, and we've sung as part
Speaker 9: of Massacre Theater in before a live audience, and I
Speaker 9: didn't feel this unnerved.
Speaker 4: What is Sam doing to us? Why why do we
Speaker 4: allow this? Sam chose this scene, But we have veto power.
Speaker 4: We should say no.
Speaker 9: Don't say that.
Speaker 4: Let's just.
Speaker 9: Let's just remember Sam's responsible for whatever happens.
Speaker 4: That's right, It's Sam's fault. It's always Sam's fault.
Speaker 6: I'm not going to ask you if you're ready, because
Speaker 6: I know you're not, nor am I.
Speaker 4: Come on, come on, okay, and action mama, come to mama, baby, come.
Speaker 6: On you've been bad, Johnny.
Speaker 4: I may have been bad.
Speaker 6: I may have kept you chained in that room, but
Speaker 6: it was for your good. Ah. Don't you remember when
Speaker 6: I used to singdia oh when you were little? Rock
Speaker 6: goodbye baaby on the tree top. When the wind blows,
Speaker 6: the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle
Speaker 6: will fall.
Speaker 4: Break.
Speaker 6: I only dropped you once, No, well maybe twice.
Speaker 9: And scene scene I mean your decision to go half
Speaker 9: James Cagney half Gonzo even though it was a woman.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's brilliant. Did I go as a woman? I
Speaker 4: don't know. Well, no, you would as a Cagney Gonzo?
Speaker 4: Is who you? That's correct? If you know what film
Speaker 4: we just meant?
Speaker 6: Acord emailed the movies title and your qualification to feedback
Speaker 6: at filmspotting dot net. The deadline is Monday, August twenty eighth.
Speaker 6: We'll select the winner randomly from all the correct entries
Speaker 6: and announce it in a couple of weeks. But really,
Speaker 6: the winner was everyone who got to hear that, Josh,
Speaker 6: And that is our show.
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 9: If it was ever more appropriate to end the show
Speaker 9: with a mask or theater, I think it was this.
Speaker 4: One in fact we might have ended the show like
Speaker 4: for good. You're not wrong. Okay.
Speaker 9: If you want to find Adam and the show while
Speaker 9: it still exists, you can do that at Instagram and Facebook,
Speaker 9: as well as letterbox. He's at film Spotting. I'm at
Speaker 9: those places as well as Blue Sky. As Larsen on
Speaker 9: film film Spotting is independently produced and listeners supported. You
Speaker 9: can support the show by joining the film Spotting Family
Speaker 9: at film Spotting family dot com. That way, you can
Speaker 9: listen early at n AD free. You'll also get a
Speaker 9: weekly newsletter, monthly bonus episodes, and access to the entire
Speaker 9: show show archive. For show t shirts another merch go
Speaker 9: to film spotting dot net slash shop.
Speaker 6: In the film Spotting archive, you will not find a
Speaker 6: review of Zach Kraiger's previous film Barbarian. And that's because
Speaker 6: I will never watch Zach Craiger's previous film Barbarian and
Speaker 6: never finished. Make me no, I will not finish it.
Speaker 6: But it did make our twenty twenty two Scenes of
Speaker 6: the Year show. I forgot that, Josh, you had funniest moment.
Speaker 6: I guess that's fitting.
Speaker 9: Yeah, right, did you get this far? The measuring tape.
Speaker 4: Scene measuring tape. I don't in the tunnel. No, I
Speaker 4: don't remember. There's a lot tunne.
Speaker 9: Oh you did bail early.
Speaker 4: It's a good scene. Just go back for that. At least.
Speaker 6: I interviewed Josh Brolin way back on episode one eighty five.
Speaker 6: We also on that show had a No Country for
Speaker 6: Old Men review and shared our top five Cone Brothers scenes. Wow,
Speaker 6: that was a packed episode. Back on episode one eighty five,
Speaker 6: out new this weekend streaming, you can see fixed Adam
Speaker 6: Devine learns that he's going to be neutered, so he
Speaker 6: has twenty four hours to quote squeeze in one last
Speaker 6: Balls to the Wall adventure with the Boys worth noting
Speaker 6: it's animated and it's about dogs.
Speaker 9: Oh okay, hell, I was actually hoping this was an
Speaker 9: Elon Musk biopic MMM.
Speaker 6: With the voices of Idris Elba, Catherine Hahn, Fred Armison,
Speaker 6: and others. It's on Netflix, Okay. Out wide, Jimmy and Stiggs,
Speaker 6: an out of Ork filmmaker, goes on a bender, during
Speaker 6: which he claims to have been abducted by aliens. He
Speaker 6: recruits an old friend to join him on a hallucinatory,
Speaker 6: drug fueled battle. I don't know who the director is.
Speaker 6: I have no actors or actresses here. I think Sam
Speaker 6: is actually just making these up. It's like Anchorman and
Speaker 6: I'm just reading.
Speaker 4: But you're in.
Speaker 9: You want to go see that?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I do, of course, nobody too.
Speaker 6: Bob Odenkirk returns as a former assassin who is again
Speaker 6: forced back into battle, this time while his family is
Speaker 6: on vacation. Josh, I know you caught up with nobody
Speaker 6: because you like to do your homework.
Speaker 9: Did not, But I can tell you nobody to does
Speaker 9: certainly exist.
Speaker 6: Wichboard is also out. A cursed Witchboard awakens dark forces
Speaker 6: they always do. Was there a movie called Witchboard in
Speaker 6: the eighties there was? Is this a remake? Maybe it's
Speaker 6: from the director of The Mask and a Nightmare on
Speaker 6: Elm Street Three Dream Warriors.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 9: See Sam's telling on himself here, asking if this is
Speaker 9: a version that previously existed.
Speaker 4: When this does not even exist.
Speaker 6: In limited release, you can see twenty sixteen's shin Godzilla.
Speaker 6: It's getting a four K restoration in a re release
Speaker 6: in theaters. Our friend Isaac Feldberg says the best most
Speaker 6: thoughtfully made modern Godzilla movie. Okay, very curious now and
Speaker 6: Spike Lee's highest to Lois. We do hope to talk
Speaker 6: about that film next week, but we may have to
Speaker 6: put it off another week. We will have our Pantheon
Speaker 6: Project conversation about Dog Day Afternoon for its fiftieth anniversary.
Speaker 9: Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe So and Sam
Speaker 9: van Halgren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go.
Speaker 9: Our production assistant is Sophie Kempinar. Special thanks to everyone
Speaker 9: at wbeazy Chicago. More information is available at wbez dot org.
Speaker 9: For film Spotting, I'm Josh.
Speaker 6: Larson and I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening. This conversation
Speaker 6: can serve no purpose anymore.
Speaker 4: The fine.
Speaker 6: Film Spotting is listeners supported. Join the film Spotting Family
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