Speaker 1: Film Spotting is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all you
Speaker 1: can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in
Speaker 1: just two visits. See any standard two D movie anytime
Speaker 1: with no blackoutdates or restrictions. Sign up now on the
Speaker 1: Regal app or at the link in our description and
Speaker 1: use code film spot twenty six to receive fifteen percent off.
Speaker 2: What kind of a show you guys putting on here today?
Speaker 2: You're not interested in art?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: No, Look, we're going to do this thing. We're going
Speaker 2: to have a conversation from Chicago.
Speaker 1: This is film Spotting.
Speaker 2: I'm Josh Larson and I'm Adam Kempinar. You play very well?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so do you? Oh god, what a dumb
Speaker 2: thing to say, right, I mean, you say you play well,
Speaker 2: and then.
Speaker 1: Right away I have to say you play well?
Speaker 3: Oh oh god, Annie, well? Oh well?
Speaker 1: Ladi Da, Lotti Da.
Speaker 2: When the Great Diane Keaton died fall, we knew we
Speaker 2: owed her some time on the show. We also felt
Speaker 2: like we could benefit from some homework.
Speaker 1: Baby Boom not the unflinching critique of the post World
Speaker 1: War two generation. I was expecting, Adam our top five
Speaker 1: Diane Keaton scenes and more ahead on film Spotting.
Speaker 2: Are you telling me that I inherited this baby from
Speaker 2: a cousin I had seen since ninety four? Later in
Speaker 2: the show, Josh, we'll take a break from talking about
Speaker 2: movies to talk about music, or at least the music
Speaker 2: that could be found on movie soundtracks in the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to mention the titles now, but I
Speaker 2: know you know the titles that comprise the current deeply
Speaker 2: flawed film Spotting poll. You've read Sam's weekly newsletter that
Speaker 2: goes out to film Spotting family members, and I just
Speaker 2: want to know, did you own at least one of
Speaker 2: those movie soundtracks in the nineties, and do you still
Speaker 2: own any of those movie soundtracks?
Speaker 1: I'll get into that with a poll out. Adam much
Speaker 1: to say about Sam's choices, Yes, I can say yes.
Speaker 1: I can also say definitively, the nineteen nineties the best
Speaker 1: decade for movie soundtracks, and and my mahpirical evidence for that,
Speaker 1: that was the decade I bought the most movie soundtracks.
Speaker 2: So right, fair enough, we will have this week that
Speaker 2: nineties movie soundtrack poll question. Can't wait. Also, listeners tell
Speaker 2: us about their favorite Diane Keaton character and we'll also
Speaker 2: recognize the passing of Catherine O'Hara. A quick reminder, Film
Speaker 2: Spotting is now available as a video podcast. You can
Speaker 2: find us on YouTube, YouTube dot com slash film spotting.
Speaker 2: For a link to video episodes, you can also go
Speaker 2: to film spotting dot net slash episodes. First up, our
Speaker 2: tribute to Diane Keaton. It's always tough, or we always
Speaker 2: debate this when we want to pay tribute to a performer.
Speaker 2: Do we do movies, do we do characters? Do we
Speaker 2: do scenes? And we did ultimately decide that we wanted
Speaker 2: to do scenes. That has been oura of late. It
Speaker 2: really allows us to dig into what seems essential about
Speaker 2: these performers. What is it that makes them special? How
Speaker 2: did the process go for you, Josh?
Speaker 1: It helped me, I think appreciate the range that Keaton
Speaker 1: had and scenes that approach. Yeah, it allows you to
Speaker 1: really dig into the granular elements of the techniques and
Speaker 1: actor employees and expand beyond. Maybe characters I think would
Speaker 1: have fit for Keaton. I think she's known for some
Speaker 1: iconic characters and that would have been a good way
Speaker 1: to go about it. But I think by choosing scenes,
Speaker 1: I was also able to look at other movies that
Speaker 1: maybe we wouldn't say, you know is the first character
Speaker 1: that comes to mind with dian Keaton, but show really
Speaker 1: well what she was good at, and the thing that
Speaker 1: I came around to with her, I wouldn't say it
Speaker 1: was a revelation. Sometimes we'll do these adamant and realize
Speaker 1: I had a misperception of this performer, or maybe just
Speaker 1: a slightly skewed idea. I think I came to better
Speaker 1: appreciate what my understanding of her was, which is this
Speaker 1: presence in most of her movies. She had a feisty feminist.
Speaker 2: Core to her.
Speaker 1: But the first thing that came to mind for me
Speaker 1: when I thought of Diane Keaton previously was that it
Speaker 1: came in a flighty package. And revisiting these scenes made
Speaker 1: me appreciate the core a little bit more, I think,
Speaker 1: and the way she managed to balance that, because that's
Speaker 1: a tricky balance, right. We think of maybe feminist characters
Speaker 1: as being take charge figures or you know, kicking in
Speaker 1: the door, and I don't know if Keaton often led
Speaker 1: with that sort of sensibility, but that doesn't mean she
Speaker 1: didn't have that inner again feistiness about around these principles
Speaker 1: of her character's experiences as women.
Speaker 2: So to add to your litany of f words, there
Speaker 2: was a little bit more fierceness in her performances and
Speaker 2: with her characters then maybe you had expected as you
Speaker 2: looked at her films. Yeah, and I think that's something
Speaker 2: I noticed as well, something producer Sam and I talked
Speaker 2: about as we were thinking about this top five list
Speaker 2: and this show, and it's something I was aware of.
Speaker 2: I don't know that I was shocked, but it is
Speaker 2: something I hadn't fully processed, the extent to which she
Speaker 2: had these dry spells in her career. And it happened
Speaker 2: in the eighties, and then she came back right and
Speaker 2: then she went a long time before she had any
Speaker 2: really big hits, and then she had some more hits
Speaker 2: in the two thousands, and then she was hot again.
Speaker 2: And it's something where I think when you look at
Speaker 2: her filmography, it's a little disappointing. As good as she was,
Speaker 2: and as good as she is in so many movies
Speaker 2: and in so many roles and performances that we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about, you wish that someone with her talent
Speaker 2: had five to ten more great movie on her list.
Speaker 2: Don't you.
Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's accurate, and that's not
Speaker 1: on her, that's on Hollywood, right, you know, that's evidence
Speaker 1: that the industry was underutilizing her skills for certain periods
Speaker 1: across her career, for sure.
Speaker 2: So real quick, a little bit of homework I did
Speaker 2: as part of my New Year's resolution. I listened to
Speaker 2: her audiobook, her Memoir then again from twenty twelve, and well,
Speaker 2: that's the only way I can get through a book
Speaker 2: these days is to listen to it. I just had
Speaker 2: to stop listening to podcasts and start listening to audiobooks.
Speaker 2: But also there's a real benefit here, and that is
Speaker 2: it's read by her. So getting to hear her perform
Speaker 2: her own words was really satisfying because, as you can imagine,
Speaker 2: she didn't just kind of go through the motions. She
Speaker 2: really does perform it. It's a little eerie, Josh, because
Speaker 2: it's not really about her career, though that is covered
Speaker 2: and I'm going to mention some parts from the book
Speaker 2: where she covers it, but it's mainly about her family,
Speaker 2: and it's really about mortality because her father's death and
Speaker 2: her mother's death are largely the impetus for the book,
Speaker 2: and the framework what she quotes from extensively are her
Speaker 2: mother's journals, which her mother kept for several decades, and
Speaker 2: that's really profound. And there's even a part where one
Speaker 2: of her young kids and she's writing this book in
Speaker 2: her early sixties. She didn't adopt children until her fifties.
Speaker 2: One of the kids asks, and I don't remember the
Speaker 2: exact phrasing, but ask something like, Mom, will you still
Speaker 2: lay in bed with me when you're eighty? And all
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about is how she died when she was
Speaker 2: seventy nine. Yeah, there, You know. It's tough. It's tough
Speaker 2: to hear that. It's tough to hear her read that,
Speaker 2: you know, and seems like, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, just so young, even not knowing that context, but
Speaker 1: to hear that really drives home how young that actually is.
Speaker 2: There was also a major reveal the book that of
Speaker 2: course came out as major news at the time now
Speaker 2: that I look back and see articles about it on Google,
Speaker 2: but it's not something I remember hearing at the time,
Speaker 2: and that is she didn't finally reveal a Josh until
Speaker 2: the book, but in her twenties she suffered from bolimia.
Speaker 2: She finally came out and admitted it in the twenty
Speaker 2: twelve memoir. I don't remember the exact number, but she
Speaker 2: details how starting when she was on Broadway in hair
Speaker 2: and through some portion of her twenties. She eventually did
Speaker 2: overcome it with therapy. But when she was dealing with this,
Speaker 2: she would consume something, you know, tens of thousands of
Speaker 2: calories per day. It was it was almost like a
Speaker 2: full time job. How she had to buy the food,
Speaker 2: sneak it back to her apartment in New York, and
Speaker 2: obviously eat it, and do this all in secret. It
Speaker 2: was something that was a great shame for her that
Speaker 2: she finally revealed in the books. So all of that
Speaker 2: was with something really interesting to hear how she dealt
Speaker 2: with that issue. And you know, for me, she's known
Speaker 2: for her chattiness. I love the word you use, her flightiness.
Speaker 2: There is plenty of that in my scenes. I didn't
Speaker 2: fully realize, Josh, until I was maybe three quarters of
Speaker 2: the way through my notes. I had already picked all
Speaker 2: my scenes, how much I was drawn to how expertly
Speaker 2: she uses her face and silences pauses. I mean, she
Speaker 2: really was a master. So with that, I can't wait
Speaker 2: to hear your number five, all right?
Speaker 1: And number five I'm going with a pick from nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven's Baby Boom. I'm going to call this the
Speaker 1: mother scene. So different. Don't confuse it with Darren Aronofsky's
Speaker 1: mother mother missus mother mother, more of a yeah mother
Speaker 1: And somehow, I don't know. I saw Baby Boom when
Speaker 1: it came out in eighty seven, and maybe I tagged
Speaker 1: along with my parents for some reason. I mean, I
Speaker 1: would not in the target market. It could have been
Speaker 1: like a VHS watch at someone else's house more likely,
Speaker 1: But I did give it a revisit for this list,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, we'll see. I think you watched
Speaker 1: it too. What you thought of the movie overall? I
Speaker 1: don't know if it held up incredibly well. It was
Speaker 1: extremely broad and really more of a screwball fantasy than
Speaker 1: than any sort of pointed feminist critique for me. But
Speaker 1: I'll say, if it holds up at all, it's because
Speaker 1: of Keaton and what is she she is bringing to
Speaker 1: this part and this story. She plays a J. C. Wyatt,
Speaker 1: who is a New York City management consultant, and she's
Speaker 1: basically on the fast tracked partnership thanks to her smarts
Speaker 1: thanks to her workaholic attitude, until she unexpectedly inherits a toddler.
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 2: A million dollars at Pega Button? What is it?
Speaker 3: I mean, what is it that I inherited?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 3: Elizabeth?
Speaker 2: Of course you'll cousin Andrews, Eizabeth, are you joking? Keaton
Speaker 2: really gives this stuff life.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a sharpness to the dialogue delivery that
Speaker 1: I don't know the dialogue itself has. And for me,
Speaker 1: the key to this performance was very much the deft
Speaker 1: physical comedy that she works into almost every scene. My
Speaker 1: favorite example of that comes from this scene. It's when
Speaker 1: she arrives at the airport to pick up the package
Speaker 1: that she's inherited. She doesn't know what it is and
Speaker 1: is promptly handed a little kid. So this is an
Speaker 1: illogical scenario, right broadly set up. There's no way this
Speaker 1: would go down like this in any world. Somehow Keaton
Speaker 1: makes it work when she's handed the baby. I love
Speaker 1: how her instinct is to immediately kind of drop the
Speaker 1: kid out of frame, like not to the floor, but
Speaker 1: just like you would when you're handed a book or
Speaker 1: something you don't that's a pain to be given where.
Speaker 2: You're like, I don't need a loaded weight. Loaded weight just.
Speaker 1: Drops the kid out of the scene then quickly hands
Speaker 1: her back to the woman. And I think in this
Speaker 1: scene she actually hands the kid back twice. There's like
Speaker 1: a double refusal. And really every movement she makes here
Speaker 1: is just on point. I love how she acts surprised
Speaker 1: whenever the kid moves or makes a noise. It's like
Speaker 1: she doesn't understand how the package suddenly became sentient, right,
Speaker 1: And even like the next three or four scenes, she's
Speaker 1: carrying this kid around like luggage. It's just a nice,
Speaker 1: amusing touch. I got to say too. Throughout this movie,
Speaker 1: the toddler's played by twins Christina and Michelle Kennedy, and
Speaker 1: Little Elizabeth is the girl's name in the movie. They're
Speaker 1: kind of amazing how they interact with adults, and they
Speaker 1: actually add a little something to their scenes as well,
Speaker 1: and Keaton of course plays off that beautifully. I also
Speaker 1: want to give a little crewdit here to the director
Speaker 1: Charles Schier for this airport sequence, because just a nice
Speaker 1: touch where the camera pushes in at the end for
Speaker 1: that moment when the girl kind of mumbles something, and
Speaker 1: that's where Keaton just did a panic, says mother mother,
Speaker 1: So really nice little bit of filmmaking to add to
Speaker 1: the comedy there. Speaking of Shier, he wrote Baby Boom
Speaker 1: with Nancy Myers, and there's a line in here from
Speaker 1: Jac's boss. He tells her Something's got to give. And
Speaker 1: of course, yeah, that'll become the title of a Meyers
Speaker 1: written and directed Keaton's starring film. Maybe they'll come up later.
Speaker 1: Just two thousand and three, Something's got to Give with
Speaker 1: Keaton there and Jack Nicholson. So yeah, we'll see what
Speaker 1: happens when it comes to the rest of our picks.
Speaker 1: But Baby Boom was a fun rewatch solely on the
Speaker 1: strength of Keaton.
Speaker 2: A great choice. My only disappointment in you choosing it
Speaker 2: is I was pretty sure that we would have at
Speaker 2: least two overlapping films, if not scenes maybe a third
Speaker 2: overlapping film, and I thought one of the ways to
Speaker 2: distinguish our list, so one of the films that would
Speaker 2: distinguish our lists, I thought it might be Baby Boom.
Speaker 2: But there you go, choosing Baby Boom at five and Josh,
Speaker 2: I also have Baby Boom at five, And I didn't
Speaker 2: have to rewatch Baby Boom because I watched it enough
Speaker 2: times in nineteen eighty seven, in nineteen eighty eight. It's
Speaker 2: a film that was on HBO constantly. My family, my
Speaker 2: parents enjoyed the movie quite a bit. We almost surely
Speaker 2: recorded it our own VHS copy off of HBO, so
Speaker 2: when it went off HBO, we could watch it whenever
Speaker 2: we wanted. And I was thinking about this too. It
Speaker 2: was it had to be my introduction to Keaton. It
Speaker 2: had to be my first Diane Keaton. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Uh huh. Now you said, if it works, it's attributed
Speaker 2: to her, But let's not forget that Sam Shepherd's pretty
Speaker 2: great and almost everything he's in and I do think
Speaker 2: their chemistry is part of what works here. I'm a romantic.
Speaker 2: I'm a romantic.
Speaker 1: They maybe the most absurd element in the film, but
Speaker 1: you're right, you have comists.
Speaker 2: When when when he is looking at her in front
Speaker 2: of a refrigerator, or he moves in for the kiss
Speaker 2: when changing the tire, it works And those are scenes
Speaker 2: that I considered. But what I went with the payoff scene,
Speaker 2: her declining the big offer for Country Baby, and the
Speaker 2: financial windfall and the title and the power she's been
Speaker 2: chasing the whole movie is so satisfying. What I really love, though,
Speaker 2: is the walk from the bathroom back to the boardroom.
Speaker 2: She's taken a few minutes to think it over, she
Speaker 2: has stepped out, but the reality is that she knows,
Speaker 2: and we as the audience know, or we feel like
Speaker 2: we know, based on her body language, that she's taken
Speaker 2: the deal. She's taking it right. And speaking of body language,
Speaker 2: one of the great comedic bits, one of the great
Speaker 2: little bits of physical comedy in the Boardroom by Keaton
Speaker 2: is how she starts bouncing her legs up and down
Speaker 2: so quickly under the table once the money starts getting mentioned,
Speaker 2: like one of the business guys has to comment on
Speaker 2: it because he doesn't know where that noise is coming from.
Speaker 2: But it's just her bouncing her knees underneath the table.
Speaker 2: She goes to the bathroom, she's in front of the
Speaker 2: mirror and she says it.
Speaker 3: I'm back.
Speaker 2: I'm yeah, I'm back. That's right. It's what she's been
Speaker 2: building towards the entire movie, and she's finally got it.
Speaker 2: But she does end up walking into the boardroom and
Speaker 2: declining the offer and Josh in twenty seconds, it's twenty
Speaker 2: seconds of screen time walking down the hallway from the
Speaker 2: bathroom to the boardroom, and Keaton has to convince us
Speaker 2: in those twenty seconds that it takes that everything she
Speaker 2: has chased the entire movie, her entire career, is worth rejecting,
Speaker 2: because it would mean sacrificing the type of love she's
Speaker 2: built with her daughter, the type of life she's built,
Speaker 2: the home they've built, the man she's in love with.
Speaker 2: That she would be sacrificing that love, that life, all
Speaker 2: just to be back in the rat race. And we
Speaker 2: have to believe that she has thought about all of
Speaker 2: that and come to a new decision. In those twenty seconds,
Speaker 2: you get a little bit of a wistful bill CONTI score,
Speaker 2: but that's it. And I'm going to give Charles Shier,
Speaker 2: the director, some credit here myself, because the camera is
Speaker 2: just on Keaton and it's a subtle tracking shot that
Speaker 2: just pulls back as she walks forward. And I think
Speaker 2: a lot of directors here wouldn't have trusted the audience,
Speaker 2: and maybe wouldn't have trusted the actress, would have gone
Speaker 2: for the schmaltz, and they would have felt the need
Speaker 2: to layer in shots of the baby, shots of Shepherd
Speaker 2: moments from the movie that we've seen of them laughing
Speaker 2: and loving, so we were absolutely clear that that's what
Speaker 2: she's thinking about, that that's what she's processing, and that's
Speaker 2: why she's about to walk into the boardroom and reject
Speaker 2: the deal. But he doesn't need to do that, Josh,
Speaker 2: because he's got Diane Keaton, and she does deliver all
Speaker 2: of that. We see it play out on her face
Speaker 2: in those twenty seconds, the fast confidence gait as she
Speaker 2: walks out of the bathroom that gets slower, and her
Speaker 2: eyes tilting down and around instead of forward where she
Speaker 2: was focused right on that door, the breath getting a
Speaker 2: little heavier. There is this one look and she does
Speaker 2: this in every great scene of Keaton's I found there's
Speaker 2: one moment like this, Josh. There's one look and gesture
Speaker 2: she makes. And in the YouTube clip that I'm going
Speaker 2: to post on our top five page and I'll post
Speaker 2: in the show notes. We'll link to that top five page,
Speaker 2: or if you just go to YouTube and google it,
Speaker 2: google Baby Boom an investment opportunity. It's the moment on
Speaker 2: her face at the six minutes seventeen mark. Okay, it's
Speaker 2: just something very very subtle. She does with her mouth
Speaker 2: and with her eyes that you sort of feel like
Speaker 2: Keaton can only deliver. And that's the moment where she's
Speaker 2: registering that she now knows what to do, that it's clicked,
Speaker 2: she gets it, and after that the confidence is back,
Speaker 2: the eyes are forward again, but the mission is different.
Speaker 2: And then of course the boardroom rejection itself is a
Speaker 2: lot of fun because all of those chauvinus in the
Speaker 2: room get there, come up, and so that we've kind
Speaker 2: of been hoping for as viewers the entire time. So
Speaker 2: bathroom to boardroom is my favorite. It's my favorite Diane
Speaker 2: Keaton acting moment in the film for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, smart move to just trust her with that moment
Speaker 1: as well. And maybe this is an instance too, that
Speaker 1: entire sequence, that climactic sequence where you see that feisty
Speaker 1: core coming a little bit more to the forefront compared
Speaker 1: to some of her other performances too. Adam, you know
Speaker 1: I missed twenty eight years later The Bone Temple when
Speaker 1: it first came out. You had Roxanna Hadadi on the
Speaker 1: show to review that one. I had to see it,
Speaker 1: and I had to see it on a big screen,
Speaker 1: and I was starting to get worried that it was
Speaker 1: going to leave and make its way to streaming and DVD.
Speaker 1: So this past week I did that. I rushed to
Speaker 1: the closest theater to me to get that big screen experience.
Speaker 1: And yeah, we'll have to talk about The Bone Temple
Speaker 1: at some point because it is a wild, wild movie.
Speaker 1: I know most of our listeners feel the same way.
Speaker 1: I mean, they watch a lot of stuff at home,
Speaker 1: but it is that big screen experience that they prioritize.
Speaker 1: They go to the theater regularly, and those listeners need
Speaker 1: to sign up for Regal Unlimited because they could see
Speaker 1: something like The Bone Temple for free. Regal Unlimited is
Speaker 1: the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays
Speaker 1: for itself in just two visits. And right now Regal
Speaker 1: is offering film spotting listeners endless movies for less. If
Speaker 1: you sign up for Regal Unlimited and use the code
Speaker 1: film spot twenty five, then you're gonna get ten percent
Speaker 1: off a three month subscription. Regal Unlimited is the only
Speaker 1: truly limitless movie subscription pass. You can see any standard
Speaker 1: two D movie anytime. There are no blackout dates or restrictions.
Speaker 2: Also, with Regal.
Speaker 1: Unlimited, you won't just save money on tickets, you're going
Speaker 1: to save on snacks. Members get ten percent off all
Speaker 1: non alcoholic concessions.
Speaker 2: So sign up.
Speaker 1: Now in the regal app or at the link in
Speaker 1: the description and use code film Spot twenty five to
Speaker 1: receive your discount.
Speaker 2: All right, So at number.
Speaker 1: Four, I'm going to call this one ingmar Bergmann and
Speaker 1: it comes from Manhattan. Yeah, so Keaton and Allen, all right,
Speaker 1: we have to talk about her work with Woody Hellen,
Speaker 1: of course, in order to consider the full scope of
Speaker 1: her career. Manhattan, I don't know, probably more of a
Speaker 1: problem picture than Annie Hall in this sense. I mean
Speaker 1: Allen's character with dating is dating a seventeen year old
Speaker 1: played primary Levingway.
Speaker 2: That's evident in the scene you chose Josh.
Speaker 1: Yes exactly, and you know, Yeah, I'll just say this,
Speaker 1: if you can separate art from artist, and I personally
Speaker 1: find it especially difficult to do that with Alan, but
Speaker 1: if you can, Manhattan as a whole is a formidable
Speaker 1: movie for a lot of reasons. And Keaton is absolutely
Speaker 1: great in it. You're right. The scene that I want
Speaker 1: to talk about, Hemingway is in it. It's after Keaton's
Speaker 1: Mary has been introduced to Alan and Hemingway's cares at
Speaker 1: an art gallery. So they're talking. They're all talking as
Speaker 1: a group while walking down the street. Michael Murphy's Yale
Speaker 1: is with them as well, so there's four of them
Speaker 1: and they're discussing quote unquote overrated artists.
Speaker 2: You guys don't want to leave out Mozart. I mean
Speaker 2: a lot of your trashing people.
Speaker 1: Oh well, how about Vincent ben got or in more
Speaker 1: artist In a sense in this scene, Keaton's breezy sort
Speaker 1: of pontificating her. Mary is kind of an Allen type, right,
Speaker 1: the opinionating the pattern. You can easily imagine him delivering
Speaker 1: some of these same lines about overrated artists in another movie.
Speaker 1: Makes sense he wrote the script. For me, it's not
Speaker 1: so much Mary's perspective on art in this sequence that
Speaker 1: necessarily makes this a great scene. I mean, forget Bergman,
Speaker 1: cheap handwaves, Vincent van Gogh. She's really really going for
Speaker 1: it here, yes and pronouncing it, you know, the Dutch way.
Speaker 2: Of course.
Speaker 1: For me, it's more about the way Keaton wields may
Speaker 1: Mary's opinions like a scalpel to absolutely nail the woody
Speaker 1: Allen ethos doing. You see don't you guys see that
Speaker 1: it is the dignifying of one's own psychological and sexual
Speaker 1: hangups by attaching him to these grandiose philosophical issues.
Speaker 3: That's what it is.
Speaker 1: That's in a nutshell when it comes to Allan's work.
Speaker 1: And yes, we understand the metal levels at play here
Speaker 1: with alan s screenwriter, what Mary is saying about Bergman,
Speaker 1: Woody Allan is saying about Woody Allen. We can debate
Speaker 1: how much value there is in self awareness without self correction.
Speaker 1: That's a whole other topic overall. Again, for me, the
Speaker 1: scene works because it's being delivered by Keaton so expertly.
Speaker 1: I've described her before as the Woody Allen tonic I
Speaker 1: need in their movies together, and certainly that's what she's
Speaker 1: doing here in the scene from Manhattan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I understand why if you had to put a
Speaker 2: label on it, you'd call it Ingmar Bergman, but I
Speaker 2: probably would call it Van Goch because that's the most
Speaker 2: memorable part of that scene is the mis unciation of
Speaker 2: that and how how Alan has to turn to Hemingway
Speaker 2: and he just can't believe that that she's even mis
Speaker 2: pronouncing it. In addition to, you know, saying something terrible
Speaker 2: about his work. It's not even yeah, that's the Dutch way, Adam.
Speaker 1: We oh, we had, of course, we had a seminar
Speaker 1: here at my program and it was wonderful because someone
Speaker 1: was presenting on van Go and the professor introducing was like,
Speaker 1: we're getting this out of the way. Okay, everyone here
Speaker 1: can say it however they want.
Speaker 2: There is no shame.
Speaker 1: We're just going to have a conversation and don't worry
Speaker 1: about how you're pronouncing the name.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh this I like this place. Okay,
Speaker 2: so yeah, I shouldn't say that it's being pronounced incorrectly.
Speaker 2: It's just not being pronounced the way anybody else in
Speaker 2: New York cud. He probably says it and she's being
Speaker 2: a little pretentious or a lot party little, right, a little,
Speaker 2: and that's what he's He's trying to skeure Alan's character
Speaker 2: there in the film. It's not even and I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna mention this, right, it's not that Hemingway's in the
Speaker 2: scene that that makes it problematic. It's the fact that
Speaker 2: Mary even calls out the fact what do you do?
Speaker 2: And she says, I'm in high school and she books Knabokoff. Okay,
Speaker 2: but we'll move on from Manhattan. It's not going to
Speaker 2: come up on my list, even though I feel the
Speaker 2: same way about the film that you do. So here's
Speaker 2: another one where I fear we're going to have some overlap,
Speaker 2: and it's a scene from the movie Reds, directed by
Speaker 2: Warren Batty, who in the book she talks about this
Speaker 2: there really were kind of three great loves of her life,
Speaker 2: three great romances, and the most fleeting of them because
Speaker 2: I don't know to what extent other than Anette Benning
Speaker 2: Warren Batty ever had any real significant romances. You know,
Speaker 2: she had a relationship with Warren. She had a relationship
Speaker 2: with Woody Allen obviously, and then the man that she
Speaker 2: most was enamored with and wanted to marry, but he
Speaker 2: would never reciprocate that desire anyway. But they were very
Speaker 2: much in love for a long time is al Pacino. Actually.
Speaker 2: But back to Warren Batty and Red's. I use this
Speaker 2: scene during our top five Jack Nicholson scenes, and I thought,
Speaker 2: why not just approach it now from the other perspective,
Speaker 2: because it's a two hander. She plays Louise Bryant, who
Speaker 2: was the suffragist and a journalist, leaves her husband to
Speaker 2: marry the charismatic John Reid played by Baty. They meet
Speaker 2: some more activists like Eugene O'Neil, the playwright played by Nicholson,
Speaker 2: and Greenwich Village, and then they end up moving out
Speaker 2: to whereas it Provincetown in Massachusetts to get involved in
Speaker 2: the theater. O'Neill's there, right, and she's doing some acting
Speaker 2: there in his plays. What's interesting about this, Josh, is
Speaker 2: that she got nominated for Best Supporting Actress. She didn't win,
Speaker 2: but she got nominated for it. I know you love
Speaker 2: this movie now that you've seen it. I've always loved
Speaker 2: this movie, and I really love this performance. In the book,
Speaker 2: she doesn't dwell on the making of the movie much,
Speaker 2: but most of what she says about it is how
Speaker 2: hard it was to make and how she didn't work
Speaker 2: well with Warren, not because of any romantic involvement that
Speaker 2: they had previously, but just because he was a perfectionist
Speaker 2: and that's his reputation, right. That's not the way she
Speaker 2: likes to work. He was one of those perfectionist directors
Speaker 2: who shot forty takes of everything. This is how she
Speaker 2: describes it, sometimes it felt like I was being stun gunned.
Speaker 2: Even now, I can't say my performance is my own.
Speaker 2: It was more like a reaction to Warren. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: what it was, a response to the effect of Warren Batty. Well,
Speaker 2: you know what a performance that's a response to the
Speaker 2: effect of Warren Batty, I guess is still pretty darn
Speaker 2: effective the way that manifests on screen. She also mentions
Speaker 2: Josh that it took shooting the train scene, which is
Speaker 2: the reunion moment in this film for those two characters,
Speaker 2: for her to find any or to take any pride
Speaker 2: in the character. And that scene alone took like sixty
Speaker 2: five takes, but she did. That's where she finally broke
Speaker 2: through with her own character, and the way she frames
Speaker 2: it like she stopped judging the character and finally loved
Speaker 2: the character. The reason she didn't like her, I do
Speaker 2: want to mention this, She says that she wasn't prepared
Speaker 2: to play Louise Bryant. She was less romantic than she
Speaker 2: had imagined. She became my cross to bear. I didn't
Speaker 2: like her. There was nothing charming about her will to
Speaker 2: be recognized as an artist in her own right. She
Speaker 2: says that her pursuit of John Reid was suspect and
Speaker 2: frankly laced with envy. I hated her. It was a problem. Wow,
Speaker 2: that's how she described the character she was playing. So
Speaker 2: I don't know what point in the shoot they shot
Speaker 2: the train scene, but it took that for her to
Speaker 2: get over this cross that she was bearing for Louise Bryant.
Speaker 2: So you can see I think in this scene with Nicholson,
Speaker 2: with Eugene O'Neil in Provence sound why she might have
Speaker 2: struggled with this character. The number of emotions that she
Speaker 2: has to evoke in what is a five minute scene
Speaker 2: is daunting. She starts off as the fawning actress, and
Speaker 2: then she turns sore and apologetic, and then she's seductive
Speaker 2: and trying to assume power, and that's all Josh within
Speaker 2: thirty seconds or less. And then and then she's defiant
Speaker 2: and abrasive, and the way Bryant, the character of course
Speaker 2: Keaton portraying her, betrays herself. There's a line where she says,
Speaker 2: you may feel that way I don't about something that
Speaker 2: he has zinged her with, and she says it with
Speaker 2: some smugness, like she's kind of above it all. You know,
Speaker 2: she's refuting his charge. And I love I love what
Speaker 2: she does. And this is something that she does playing
Speaker 2: Mary too. She plays Mary in Manhattan, a character who
Speaker 2: is not insecure or who projects confidence. Notice how her
Speaker 2: posture is like perfect. She's very rigid, the way she
Speaker 2: walks in this scene, in this moment when she has
Speaker 2: to project this confidence. All of a sudden, when the
Speaker 2: camera cuts back to her, she's like she's sitting back
Speaker 2: in the chair, her shoulders are completely back. In this
Speaker 2: whiskey bottle that's been a prop throughout the scene, she's
Speaker 2: now holding it and she's holding it off to the
Speaker 2: side in her hand like she's a pirate with a
Speaker 2: whiskey bottle. You know, it's almost like she she's all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, got this this machismo about her. Almost
Speaker 2: it's it's anything but you know, a quote unquote feeble woman.
Speaker 2: And and then he he says something else about how
Speaker 2: he would treat her, and and how John isn't John
Speaker 2: Reid isn't possessive enough about her, and she describes that
Speaker 2: as a waste of time. And and Keaton, she tells
Speaker 2: you that the case characters lying just by looking away.
Speaker 2: She looks away and you see in her eyes how this,
Speaker 2: how this registers with her, that she's trying to deny it.
Speaker 2: But it's clearly hitting it's clearly striking a chord, it
Speaker 2: is hitting a mark with her. And I mentioned the
Speaker 2: whiskey bottle because it's it's changing hands and it's it's
Speaker 2: moving around in this scene. I would I would recommend
Speaker 2: to any actors or actresses out there, any performers out there,
Speaker 2: if you need a scene study and you're doing anything
Speaker 2: about how to incorporate props and do a scene, watch
Speaker 2: the watch this scene and watch how the whiskey bottle
Speaker 2: is used, because it it's a key part of the movie.
Speaker 2: She hands it to him at this point, but Josh,
Speaker 2: the moment of the scene, the moment the dagger, it's
Speaker 2: Nicholson's best moment, but it doesn't work without Keaton's response.
Speaker 2: I I focused on this during the Nicholson Top five
Speaker 2: when he says to her, it's it's still just maybe
Speaker 2: honestly one of the best, one of the best written
Speaker 2: lines in all of movies, because it's romantic as hell,
Speaker 2: it's sexy as hell, but it's also mean.
Speaker 3: If you were mine. I wouldn't share you with anybody
Speaker 3: or anything. It would be just you and me. You'd
Speaker 3: be at the center of it all, you know, I
Speaker 3: would feel a lot more like love than being left
Speaker 3: alone with your work.
Speaker 2: And you see her still face and Keaton's eyes are glistening.
Speaker 2: You can tell what she's trying to hold back. And
Speaker 2: when he gets to that word center, she does this.
Speaker 2: Here's this gesture, Josh. She does this, just little thing
Speaker 2: with her mouth and eyebrow, as if what it says
Speaker 2: to me, I'd love for one hundred people to watch
Speaker 2: it and tell me what you think she's saying with
Speaker 2: her mouth and eyebrow. To me, it's like she's saying
Speaker 2: back to him, oh, oh, that's what you would do, right,
Speaker 2: because love's that easy. Sure, But it's almost like that
Speaker 2: gesture in Baby Boom in the hallway, just this silent,
Speaker 2: small moment that you feel like, somehow only she could deliver.
Speaker 2: And here, at this point in the scene, it's the
Speaker 2: most wounded this character has been and the most vulnerable
Speaker 2: the character has been. And then she's back to rustling
Speaker 2: papers and trying to act like she's in complete control.
Speaker 2: The difficulty it would have been or how difficult it
Speaker 2: would have been to play Louise Bryant. I can see,
Speaker 2: I can see why she might have struggled with this character.
Speaker 2: But you watch scenes like this and you feel like
Speaker 2: you feel like Keaton was in control of the character somehow.
Speaker 1: It's funny you mentioned the whiskey bottle. I've got a
Speaker 1: pick involving not centering around, but does involve her use
Speaker 1: of a wine bottle, which came to mind. We'll get
Speaker 1: that into that in a bit, and we'll get to
Speaker 1: Reds in a bit. I'd love to reshuffle things so
Speaker 1: that we could continue talking about Reds, because you're right.
Speaker 1: I did kind of in love with it when I
Speaker 1: caught up with it, but so much to the point
Speaker 1: that I've got it higher on my list, and I
Speaker 1: need to get to a few other picks first. So
Speaker 1: at number three, I'm going with this line from The
Speaker 1: Godfather Part two. At this moment, I feel no love.
Speaker 2: For you at all.
Speaker 1: If people tend to forget or downplay that Diane Keaton
Speaker 1: is in the Godfather films, it's no fault of her.
Speaker 1: She is terrific in the few scenes she has, and
Speaker 1: working mostly in a different register than what I think
Speaker 1: we're used to, and so as a nod to her
Speaker 1: performance performances as Kay Adam's wife of al Pacino's Michael Carlyon,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go with this scene from The Godfather
Speaker 1: Part two. So this is shortly after the movie's intermission,
Speaker 1: and it's a meeting between Kay and Michael where she
Speaker 1: tells him she's leaving and she's taking the children. Kay,
Speaker 1: as many people know, is essentially the conscience of these movies,
Speaker 1: but often in the background, right and just she's the
Speaker 1: observer here. Finally, she directly calls him out, telling him
Speaker 1: he's become blind to his own moral decay. And I
Speaker 1: want to talk about stillness too, Adam in terms of
Speaker 1: the performance, and focus on how still she is in
Speaker 1: this scene, because, as we've touched on, very common to
Speaker 1: think of her as being in motion verbally in motion,
Speaker 1: physically in motion, something with her arms, or even just
Speaker 1: just circling the room in a scene. She's frequently walking
Speaker 1: around a room.
Speaker 2: In the scene. To use another f word.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, maybe yeah yeah. Here No, it's totally different.
Speaker 1: It's totally that Michael tries to shut her down at
Speaker 1: one point, just just screams over at her and you
Speaker 1: know in most of his meetings, that is the end
Speaker 1: of it. But she just gets very still, very focused,
Speaker 1: very quiet, and delivers just that brutal line with calm precision.
Speaker 1: At this moment, I feel no love for you at all.
Speaker 1: But her control doesn't last last that long. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of as the red scene you just described, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of fluctuations and variations and up and ups
Speaker 1: and downs in this long scene. So he brings up
Speaker 1: their lost baby, which he thinks was a miscarriage, and
Speaker 1: she just goes fierce at this point.
Speaker 3: Michael, you are blind.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a miscarriage.
Speaker 3: It was an abortion.
Speaker 2: An abortion, Michael, just like our marriage is an abortion,
Speaker 2: something that's unholy, an evil.
Speaker 1: You get a sense that Kay was not planning to
Speaker 1: bring this into her confrontation, but he went there. So
Speaker 1: that's when she tells him she had an abortion because
Speaker 1: she wouldn't bring another one of your sons into this world.
Speaker 1: And there is a real nastiness to the performance here
Speaker 1: because this is where Kay is hitting Michael absolutely where
Speaker 1: it hurts, because he has this mythological, reverential idea of
Speaker 1: the family right, completely hypocritical, we all know, but to
Speaker 1: him in his mind, it's all about the family, and
Speaker 1: she's she's used what power she had to obliterate that.
Speaker 1: So I do think Keaton has asked to use very
Speaker 1: different tools in the Godfather films. I just think she
Speaker 1: does it incredibly well. So wanted to go with a
Speaker 1: scene from one of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get it with The Godfather. In the book,
Speaker 2: she speaks of it reverentially and talks about how important
Speaker 2: it was, of course, but she spends almost no time
Speaker 2: talking about the making of it or portraying Kay And
Speaker 2: she is a little bit dismissive of it, Josh, because
Speaker 2: she based says she doesn't know why she was cast
Speaker 2: as that character. She was nothing like that character, and
Speaker 2: she does admit that the character doesn't kind of exist,
Speaker 2: that there's very little to that character, and that does
Speaker 2: seem fair based on what we see in the movie.
Speaker 2: That said, the moments that she gets like this one
Speaker 2: Keaton delivers. Keaton makes up for that in moments Yeah,
Speaker 2: like this one for sure. And you know, it's funny
Speaker 2: about Keaton. We were talking about how maybe when you
Speaker 2: look at the totality of her filmography, you don't see
Speaker 2: it's top heavy. You see a couple of amazing movies
Speaker 2: and amazing performances, and maybe not as much depth as
Speaker 2: you would really like. But I think about iconic moments,
Speaker 2: and I think about memorable lines, and maybe this is
Speaker 2: only really memorable to me. But to go back to
Speaker 2: your Manhattan scene, forget, you know, Van Gock. I will
Speaker 2: always hear in my head, Mary, I'll always hear Keaton
Speaker 2: saying I loved it at Radcliffe, but you get over it,
Speaker 2: You absolutely get over it, you know, just the way
Speaker 2: she says it, her cadence, and I will always hear, like,
Speaker 2: I can't see. Here's where we're different, Josh. Here. I mean,
Speaker 2: we're different in a lot of ways, but we've talked
Speaker 2: about this. Here's where we're very different. You just talked
Speaker 2: about that scene and you did not, at any point
Speaker 2: feel compelled to go it was an abortion, Michael. I
Speaker 2: would have had to say it that way. I would
Speaker 2: have had to try gen mimic why ruined? Why would
Speaker 2: I read because the great because trying to mimic it.
Speaker 2: Because I can't. I can't have those words in my
Speaker 2: head and not try to say them that way. That
Speaker 2: they that sentence can't be said any other way. That's
Speaker 2: that's how it sticks with me. Right, So there's another
Speaker 2: one of these coming up. So she's given us some great,
Speaker 2: great line readings. But for my number three, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go back. I'm gonna go back to Jack and Diane.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna I'm not gonna call it a great movie, Josh,
Speaker 2: but this is the homework that I did that I
Speaker 2: did find the most rewarding, especially because I found out
Speaker 2: a few days later in the book that it's the
Speaker 2: movie she calls her favorite of all of her movies.
Speaker 2: It is Something's got to Give Now. Context is a
Speaker 2: major part two thousand and three. She was fifty seven
Speaker 2: and by her own words, she was washed up. This
Speaker 2: movie brought her back, that's part of it. But working
Speaker 2: with Nicholson again, she talks about as this magical energizing
Speaker 2: experience and which you can feel, you can feel, and
Speaker 2: she goes into great detail about how difficult it was
Speaker 2: for her. In one one key scene, it's that it's
Speaker 2: a scene where they come back in from where you
Speaker 2: really see them connecting and you see the romance really
Speaker 2: spark and they come in from the storm, and it's
Speaker 2: when they have their first kiss. She talks about how
Speaker 2: it was almost impossible for her. She kept screwing up
Speaker 2: lines because it was impossible for her to separate Diane
Speaker 2: and Erica the character from her. So that's that's what
Speaker 2: it felt like for her to make that movie. Now
Speaker 2: there is another part of it. It's I think, just
Speaker 2: a great story to mention and speaks to the generosity
Speaker 2: of Nicholson. She said that on the last day of
Speaker 2: the shoot, Nicholson came up to her. They have this
Speaker 2: great time together. Nicholson came up to her and whispered
Speaker 2: something in her ear, a sentence, a phrase or something,
Speaker 2: and she didn't really understand it. She kind of heard
Speaker 2: a word or two, but really didn't get it, and
Speaker 2: just kind of, you know, laughed or whatever. And they
Speaker 2: embraced and he went on his way, and then the
Speaker 2: movie came out and it's a big hit. And a
Speaker 2: year later, or however long it is later, she goes
Speaker 2: to the mail and a check shows up and the
Speaker 2: checks goot as she you know, I think she described
Speaker 2: that the checks got all these zeros after it. And
Speaker 2: the thing that Nicholson whispered to her on the last
Speaker 2: day of the shoot was that when he was negotiating
Speaker 2: his contract for the movie. He gave her some of
Speaker 2: his points on the movie that weren't in her contract,
Speaker 2: So instead of just getting a salary for the movie,
Speaker 2: he gave her at least a point on the movie.
Speaker 2: She got a percentage because of Nicholson, and so she
Speaker 2: got very rich off of Something's Got to Give, which
Speaker 2: was another reason why she was eternally grateful to Nicholson
Speaker 2: in that movie. Now I have to say, Keanu Reeves
Speaker 2: is the younger doctor who's madly in love with her.
Speaker 2: He might actually be my favorite performance in the movie.
Speaker 2: But the scene that I'm going with the scene that
Speaker 2: really stuck with me. And you know, so far, I
Speaker 2: have largely picked scenes where her heavier emotional side comes through,
Speaker 2: even though she is largely known as this comedic actress.
Speaker 2: But the Baby Boom scene is one where we watch
Speaker 2: her transform kind of from comedy to drama before our eyes.
Speaker 2: And I think this scene is also so full of
Speaker 2: pathos that I really identify that with with Keaton. It's
Speaker 2: the scene right after they have finally slept together, and
Speaker 2: this this night together has been incredible everything she and
Speaker 2: it seems he could have hoped that it would be.
Speaker 2: But then you have the awkward moment of where do
Speaker 2: we go from here? What do we do now? And
Speaker 2: Nicholson's character says, I think I should go back to
Speaker 2: my room, and she has to take that in and
Speaker 2: process what that means, what he's really saying when he
Speaker 2: says that, because he's he's staying at her house, he
Speaker 2: was initially just a guest at her house. Long story
Speaker 2: if you haven't seen the movie. He's saying, I think
Speaker 2: I should go back to my room, and she says,
Speaker 2: all right, you usually send the girl home, but I
Speaker 2: am home. The realization the moment Keaton has to realize
Speaker 2: what he's really saying, that he is, as he describes himself,
Speaker 2: an old dog who can't be taught new tricks, and
Speaker 2: and she has to think about what what could she
Speaker 2: have expected? You know, every everything she is expressing without
Speaker 2: expressing it literally is how could I? How could I
Speaker 2: have been so stupid? Right? But also she can't help
Speaker 2: the way she feels, and and that's the conflict that
Speaker 2: you just see in every in everything she's doing here
Speaker 2: in this scene. She's trying to be so mature about
Speaker 2: it because she is mature. She is this mature, intelligent woman.
Speaker 2: But but she has feelings for this man that are
Speaker 2: almost like, you know, a teenage girl, you know, or
Speaker 2: almost like she feels like she's falling in love for
Speaker 2: the first time, and she's so wounded by this. And
Speaker 2: and here again, I'm drawn to gestures and pauses. She says, hey,
Speaker 2: it's perfectly whatever, perfectly whatever. She suddenly tilts her head
Speaker 2: and smiles just for a flash, like it reminded me
Speaker 2: of I don't know, I'm gonna really date myself, even
Speaker 2: though I wasn't. I wasn't alive when these movies were on.
Speaker 2: I'm just aware of them. But it reminds me of
Speaker 2: like a Nette Funicello or something like Beach Blanket Bingo.
Speaker 2: Like she does this quick gesture with her head, like
Speaker 2: a bob of her head and kind of you know,
Speaker 2: bobs her hair, like she's trying to express it's fine,
Speaker 2: everything's great. Let's let's just move on with our lives.
Speaker 2: But Josh, just as quickly as she does it, it's over,
Speaker 2: you know, and she's back to the reality of the
Speaker 2: devastation of the moment. It's such a clear contradiction of
Speaker 2: how she's really feeling, an expression of who she knows.
Speaker 2: She's supposed to be in the moment who she wants
Speaker 2: to be, that she's a big girl, that she can
Speaker 2: take it, but but she can't and and I can't
Speaker 2: do it justice anymore. Just just watch the scene. Just
Speaker 2: watch the scene, and then and then after that, watch
Speaker 2: her say, Watch Keaton say, this was a great night
Speaker 2: for me. It's heartbreaking. That scene. It's it's funny, it
Speaker 2: has elements of humor. I even think that that bob
Speaker 2: of her head is kind of funny. But then it goes,
Speaker 2: it goes right from that instantly into heartbreak. And that's
Speaker 2: what Keaton can pull off in a scene without it
Speaker 2: feeling ever like that. It's inconsistent at all. I really
Speaker 2: like something. It's got to give.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad it made your list. And the thing
Speaker 1: about Keaton and Nicholson, you know, having that magic too,
Speaker 1: it's not always. It doesn't just happen when I'm sure
Speaker 1: the casting was this will be great, right, and the
Speaker 1: instinct that it'll be great is right on. But they
Speaker 1: also have to bring something and make it work in
Speaker 1: the moment I can't think of I don't know. Wasn't
Speaker 1: there like a George clooneya Julia Roberts Reunite Reunion in the.
Speaker 2: Last couple of years.
Speaker 1: That yet I caught up with and just kind of
Speaker 1: fell flat, and you would think, no brain are there, right, so,
Speaker 1: but that's not always the case. And so I think
Speaker 1: they are doing the work as well as individual actors
Speaker 1: in each of those scenes, including the one you picked.
Speaker 1: So so, yeah, good movie. You glad you caught up
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: I'm going at number two with one that I think
Speaker 1: pretty much everyone has seen, Annie Hall.
Speaker 2: It is one I.
Speaker 1: Revisited for this list because it had been quite a
Speaker 1: while since since I'd seen it. It's sort of her
Speaker 1: definitive iconic character. This is where we'd have to go
Speaker 1: if we had done the character's list.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was maybe a little disappointed by it, Adam, And
Speaker 1: I'm not just talking about the Alan Ick factor. I
Speaker 1: mean that's kind of built in for me with these things.
Speaker 1: I did appreciate again, the meta stuff, you know, addressing
Speaker 1: the camera, the Marshall McLuhan cameo, very clever, very inventive.
Speaker 1: A lot of groaners here, though, I gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: from Allen and maybe more pertinent to this list, maybe
Speaker 1: not enough of the title character. I mean, she and
Speaker 1: Allen have great repartee. They're very much working you know,
Speaker 1: as co equals as a team in their scenes. But
Speaker 1: there's not a ton of moments where the spotlight is
Speaker 1: just on Annie, which just you know, she is the
Speaker 1: title character. So you would have thought, maybe I expected
Speaker 1: in my memory that there were more of those. We
Speaker 1: get one, though that works that way at least one.
Speaker 1: There's probably more than one. But there's this brilliant scene
Speaker 1: that I'm picking.
Speaker 2: Which does this.
Speaker 1: And this is not long after Annie and Alan's eldie
Speaker 1: Singer have met for the first time, and she's telling
Speaker 1: him this winding story about her family, including she's basically
Speaker 1: introducing him to her family members. There are some pictures
Speaker 1: on the wall, so that gets her going just about
Speaker 1: all her extended family, including this narcoleptic uncle George, whose
Speaker 1: final bout of narcolepsy, well it's his last while while
Speaker 1: he's in line for a free turkey.
Speaker 2: So George is standing in line, oh dude, getting his turkey.
Speaker 1: But the thing is is that he falls asleep and he.
Speaker 2: Never wakes up, so he's dead. He's did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a darkly funny story, but this is all
Speaker 1: about the delivery for me. I mean, Keat not only
Speaker 1: makes it funny because of the beats she gives to it,
Speaker 1: the pauses, and again the motion, which I'll get to.
Speaker 1: What I love about this is she uses this story
Speaker 1: again early on to give us a full sense of
Speaker 1: who Annie is. She's instinctively amused by things She's instinctively amusing.
Speaker 1: She's also self aware in a way that say, an
Speaker 1: early Greta Gerwig character who had to have been influenced
Speaker 1: those characters by any Hall. I think of those characters
Speaker 1: by Gerwig. As delightful as they are, they're not always
Speaker 1: self aware. But you get a sense that Annie is
Speaker 1: as she's telling this story, she's realizing that, yes, this
Speaker 1: is a silly story, but it's not. It's dark, and
Speaker 1: I'm kind of silly for handling it that way, but
Speaker 1: I don't care.
Speaker 2: This is who I am.
Speaker 1: And now the movement that I was talking about, here's
Speaker 1: where the wine bottle comes in, because she's been looking
Speaker 1: for a bottle of wine. Throughout this sequence, she's offered
Speaker 1: Alvi a bottle or a glass of wine, and the
Speaker 1: camera has to pan to keep her in the frame.
Speaker 1: At one point, her arms her hands, they're all a
Speaker 1: twirl as she's telling this story. And then the faces
Speaker 1: she pulls, and the different faces when she's again amusing herself,
Speaker 1: realizing she shouldn't be amused by herself and she shouldn't
Speaker 1: be laughing.
Speaker 2: But it is funny.
Speaker 1: I mean, the gyrations, the facial gyrations are incredible. And
Speaker 1: what I do love about is that she's not covering
Speaker 1: up her giggling at all, because, above all, Annie's not
Speaker 1: putting on a performance for Alvi. Here, she just is
Speaker 1: who she is, unapologetically and and yeah, in the process,
Speaker 1: you know, she's putting out a great Keaton's putting out
Speaker 1: a great performance for us. So I'm going at number
Speaker 1: two with the Uncle George story from Annie Hall.
Speaker 2: Okay, the only surprise there is that Annie Hall's at
Speaker 2: number two. I'm gonna hold off. I'm gonna hold off
Speaker 2: on any more Annie Hall talk for now my number two.
Speaker 2: I guess if I needed an apotheosis, I needed I
Speaker 2: needed some way to cap off my list or as
Speaker 2: we're nearing the top, I needed a choice that that
Speaker 2: really spoke to the expressive power of Keaton's face and
Speaker 2: her use of silence. This this had to be it okay,
Speaker 2: and I want to say I love her in this scene.
Speaker 2: But if we are, if we are doing top five
Speaker 2: Diane Keaton scenes, it's great and all. If we can
Speaker 2: sit here and try to find, like we always do
Speaker 2: with these top five, top five lists, these little personal
Speaker 2: moments that speak to us that quite honestly, very few
Speaker 2: people listening may actually be able to immediately recall when
Speaker 2: we mention them. How about including a moment that is
Speaker 2: one of the most memorable cinematic moments of the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to give you, Josh, because it's short.
Speaker 2: I'm going to give you the scene as it appears
Speaker 2: in at least the screenplay version I found online. Kay
Speaker 2: Anthony say goodbye. Your mama loves you, Anthony, Goodbye. She
Speaker 2: restrains any tears. She's become too strong for tears. Kay
Speaker 2: starts to go, picks up Mary, kisses her, and starts
Speaker 2: to go. New view. She steps out the kitchen door.
Speaker 2: Then she cannot help herself, crouches down outside and calls
Speaker 2: to her son. Kay Anthony kiss me once. Then she
Speaker 2: looks up and slowly rises her view. Michael has stepped
Speaker 2: into the dining room. He seems older somehow, as though
Speaker 2: some sickness has taken more years away from him. View
Speaker 2: on Ka looks at him instinctively, she takes a step back.
Speaker 2: View on Michael slowly steps toward her. View on Ka
Speaker 2: another step back. The door is still open. View on Michael.
Speaker 2: He moves closer to the door, stops, looks at her,
Speaker 2: and then closes it, obscuring any view of her. Minute
Speaker 2: a little bit over a minute, Pacino and Keaton just
Speaker 2: looking at each other, no dialogue heavy, and it's sad
Speaker 2: enough that she that Kay has to sneak in to
Speaker 2: see her kids because of the scene that you talked
Speaker 2: about Josh and what she admitted to there, what she
Speaker 2: confessed to. Then you've got her son Anthony taking his
Speaker 2: emotional cues from daddy with holding his love and affection
Speaker 2: for his mother. I don't know if this line from
Speaker 2: the script was ever really meant to be translated to
Speaker 2: the screen, the line he seems older some how, as
Speaker 2: though some sickness has taken more years away from him.
Speaker 2: We're gonna see that with Michael and with Pacino. I'm
Speaker 2: going to counter and say, if you rewatch this moment,
Speaker 2: at least for me part of what makes the scene
Speaker 2: extra tense and emotional is that I don't know if
Speaker 2: al Pacino actually has ever looked hotter in any movie ever.
Speaker 2: Like when he's walking towards the door, he's wearing that
Speaker 2: maroon shirt. Is that camel hair, Josh, I don't know.
Speaker 2: You're a scarf guy. He's wearing like a camel hair
Speaker 2: scarf and jacket. Yeah, he's He's still put together. He's
Speaker 2: pretty dapper.
Speaker 1: What I think about in that scene is how he
Speaker 1: almost floats into it, like like he has this supernatural quality.
Speaker 1: Is what comes to mind for me.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's part of it. The jet black hair. He
Speaker 2: doesn't look old at all. And in fact, I don't
Speaker 2: remember exactly what point in the movie this takes place.
Speaker 2: It's it's fairly late. He's he's returning home from either
Speaker 2: Miami or probably Cuba. He looks well tanned. And then yes,
Speaker 2: the gliding to the door, his lips pierced, his face,
Speaker 2: betraying neither love nor hate. It's completely neutral. So the
Speaker 2: stakes of the scene are such that we are in
Speaker 2: the same position as viewers that Kay is in, where
Speaker 2: we are not sure. We are not one hundred percent
Speaker 2: sure how this is gonna end where this is going
Speaker 2: to go. Whether or not Michael in this moment might
Speaker 2: actually show some compassion for her, the possibility is there,
Speaker 2: and honestly, something about how how great they both look,
Speaker 2: how beautiful they are, And with some passage of time
Speaker 2: between the scene that you described in this one, you
Speaker 2: think about this, this crevice between them. We know it
Speaker 2: can never be breached. We know that because of what
Speaker 2: she's done, Michael's never going to forgive her. But somehow,
Speaker 2: like I said, in this moment, just for this fleeting
Speaker 2: few seconds, it seems like it's possible. And Josh, it's
Speaker 2: really only like three seconds of screen time, all just
Speaker 2: with her eyes and her face, Kay expresses that hope.
Speaker 2: She expresses the hope that he might he might invite
Speaker 2: her in, or he might say something with any hint
Speaker 2: of warmth towards her, and then the hope is completely
Speaker 2: drained from her. And of course the way she expresses
Speaker 2: the fear of him initially too, the hope is completely drained.
Speaker 2: You see the death of that hope, and the despair
Speaker 2: sink in because you know, even if she and Michael
Speaker 2: can never heal, you think maybe there's some room for
Speaker 2: her and her kids. You see that, you see that
Speaker 2: dissipate completely. And then of course you've got the symbolic
Speaker 2: echo of this scene to the door closing on Kay
Speaker 2: at the end of Godfather One, when Michael has made
Speaker 2: the dawn makes the scene even more impactful. It's it's
Speaker 2: it's just an incredible bit of acting from from those
Speaker 2: two heavyweights in that moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I was thinking about, you know, that gap
Speaker 1: between these two scenes that you just described. If I'm
Speaker 1: remembering correctly, there's a long amount of screen time. But
Speaker 1: this might be the the next time we see k
Speaker 1: after the argument. This might be the next time she appears, believe,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think it is. I think it is
Speaker 1: like maybe within the last ten minutes of the movie,
Speaker 1: perhaps that she's dismissed in that way, which which Yeah, Keaton,
Speaker 1: Keaton handles brilliantly. All right, my number one, And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's coming, it's coming from Reds. I just watching Reds
Speaker 1: the entire movie. I really went for, but Keaton in
Speaker 1: particular here as as you said, the activist and writer
Speaker 1: Louise Bryant not a quintessential Keaton performance. I'd put it
Speaker 1: up there. Maybe overall, taking the movie in totality, not
Speaker 1: just considering scenes, but maybe her best. Fascinating to hear
Speaker 1: you describe how she described it in her memoir and
Speaker 1: that experience, and you know, just sometimes what an actor's
Speaker 1: experiences compared to what we end up getting on the screen,
Speaker 1: how those things can differ. I honestly I wrestled with
Speaker 1: what scene to go with here, Adam, which is why
Speaker 1: I do think this might be her best performance. I
Speaker 1: definitely considered because I was familiar with it from your
Speaker 1: pick in our top five Jack Nicholson moments, the ones
Speaker 1: you talked about, she is, you know, Nicholson's equal in
Speaker 1: making that scene work. As you said, I love this
Speaker 1: is just a moment, so it wouldn't count as a scene.
Speaker 1: But very early on, this is when Louise is in Portland.
Speaker 1: She's still married to you know this, this kind of
Speaker 1: dismissive husband, and he's trying.
Speaker 2: To direct her.
Speaker 1: I think this is at a party or something, and
Speaker 1: she just kind of instinctively the moment he puts his
Speaker 1: hand near her, she kind of just wipes it away.
Speaker 1: And it's just a beautiful character touch of who she is,
Speaker 1: even if she can't be who she is yet in
Speaker 1: this scenario, So a little hint there she gives us.
Speaker 1: And then the other one comes early on too, So
Speaker 1: this is at the point she's met John Reid. She
Speaker 1: has this little art studio she goes to and they're
Speaker 1: hanging out there and she has to juggle his flirtation
Speaker 1: with her, which she's open to but also wanting to
Speaker 1: be taken seriously as an artist. And so watching Keaton
Speaker 1: juggle all of that, there's a great moment. And here's
Speaker 1: where Bedia's director, you know, helps out. The camera is
Speaker 1: on them and she's on a couch. They're on a couch,
Speaker 1: I think, and then she leans over to pick up
Speaker 1: her portfolio away from him, and the camera kind of
Speaker 1: slides with her and her arm and kind of like
Speaker 1: pushes him away visually, just to catch that tension. But
Speaker 1: she's so good in that scene as well. I'm going
Speaker 1: to go with another one though, between Keaton and Beattie,
Speaker 1: who you know, as you said, here director star and
Speaker 1: you know, just really making this his magnum opus. This
Speaker 1: scene is early on in their relationship and she's trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what sort of writer she actually wants
Speaker 1: to be at this point, and he's moving to New York,
Speaker 1: So he invites her to move with him.
Speaker 2: That's where all the writers.
Speaker 1: Are, he says. And they go back and forth about
Speaker 1: this until she finally just you know, comes out with
Speaker 1: what she really is thinking about this proposal and asks him,
Speaker 1: what as all right, wait, let.
Speaker 2: Me get this straight. You want me to come with
Speaker 2: you to New York?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: What is?
Speaker 1: What is?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: I mean?
Speaker 3: What is your girlfriend?
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 2: What as your girlfriend? Your mistress, your paramour, your concubine.
Speaker 1: And I think answering that question, like what am I
Speaker 1: going to New York City with you as? What does
Speaker 1: he think of her? How does he regard and respect her?
Speaker 1: That's sort of the crux of their shared life together,
Speaker 1: which is really what Reds.
Speaker 2: Is all about.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily a read biopic or a historical document.
Speaker 1: This is what kind of took me by surprise. It's
Speaker 1: it's their relationship is really at the center. It's about
Speaker 1: these historical figures, yes, who are trying to balance the
Speaker 1: personal and political in this tumultuous moment. And you know,
Speaker 1: in some ways, I think be to crack the biopic
Speaker 1: code with Reds in a lot of ways, a lot
Speaker 1: of formal ways.
Speaker 2: So Keaton.
Speaker 1: You know, again, we've talked about her as a you know,
Speaker 1: stellar comedian, as a performer, maybe that's how she comes
Speaker 1: to mind for people first.
Speaker 2: But this scene, you.
Speaker 1: Know, we get is of just of a woman pushing
Speaker 1: back against her time and place in a way that
Speaker 1: feels absolutely of the period yet also thoroughly modern. And
Speaker 1: I think that's what Keaton brings to this part. There's
Speaker 1: a way she balances the historical setting which is a
Speaker 1: necessity and that thoroughly modern woman that we see sort
Speaker 1: of at the forefront in something like Annie Hall or
Speaker 1: even Manhattan. And yeah, I put Reds at number one
Speaker 1: because here's here's something else I like about it. It
Speaker 1: seems to me that the best of Keaton's career has
Speaker 1: come while she's had to juggle a male co star expertly,
Speaker 1: of course, Woody Allen, al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, and then
Speaker 1: Warren Batty here And to be clear, I do think
Speaker 1: Baty is an especially generous collaborator on Reds. Did not
Speaker 1: know that what you shared about, you know, is perfectionist
Speaker 1: tendencies as a director, but I think, you know, you
Speaker 1: can also see this generousness as a fellow performer and
Speaker 1: as a director too. Yeah, I mean kind of goes
Speaker 1: back to what we were saying about and what you
Speaker 1: mentioned about these maybe gaps in her filmography or long stretches.
Speaker 1: You know, she didn't get the chance to be the
Speaker 1: focus of a film very often, but man, when she was,
Speaker 1: when she was clicking, she proved she didn't need that
Speaker 1: focus to rab our attention or our affection. And you
Speaker 1: see that in this performance as as read. She may
Speaker 1: not have had a lot of affection for Louise Bryant,
Speaker 1: but but she managed to get me to have it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you know, I agree it worked. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: do love that scene, and it's it's funny because as
Speaker 2: you talk about it and you focus on that question
Speaker 2: from Louise Bryant, what as it brings me back to
Speaker 2: my number three and something's got to give? And what as?
Speaker 2: What am I to you? Is essentially the same question Erica,
Speaker 2: her character is asking Jack Nicholson's character in that movie
Speaker 2: after they've slept together. Yeah, what am I to you? What?
Speaker 2: What does this mean? She's she's processing and trying to
Speaker 2: navigate in the aftermath of it, what she thinks she
Speaker 2: is or what she should be and having to face
Speaker 2: that it's uncertain and that he's going to get to
Speaker 2: define it for her and go back to something like
Speaker 2: Baby Boom. Josh, that's all about what role do you
Speaker 2: decide to play? Are you the tiger lady executive or
Speaker 2: are you the domesticated mom? Right? And you have to
Speaker 2: pick between them. It's funny how in movies and in
Speaker 2: real life men don't ever have to choose between those roles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's the incisive thing I will say about
Speaker 1: Baby Boom is like, I think it's under underlying message
Speaker 1: if you want to say that is dead on about
Speaker 1: hyper capitalism and the corporate environment. And to your point,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a self inflicted wound that really was
Speaker 1: mostly placed on women. But you can see how that
Speaker 1: environment that her character in Baby Boom is in it
Speaker 1: really negates fruitful parenthood for men and women. Like it's
Speaker 1: just that the women are expected in the movie, right
Speaker 1: to make it, to make it work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that could be its own marathon. As soon as
Speaker 2: I put Baby Boom on, I was like, nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: seven Baby Boom, you got Working Girl coming out the
Speaker 2: next year. There was this whole space movies and they
Speaker 2: weren't all with women there's a whole spade of these capitalistic,
Speaker 2: you know, corporate environment movies like that, and and and
Speaker 2: a lot of them were about can women have it?
Speaker 2: All from that that you had, mister mom, you did
Speaker 2: a little bit earlier, but you had it. You're absolutely right. Okay,
Speaker 2: So number one, I am going with Annie Hall and
Speaker 2: you not only have in common with The Godfather and
Speaker 2: The Godfather Part two of movie movies that that star
Speaker 2: or feature Diane Keaton and that were Best Picture winners,
Speaker 2: but also shot by the great Gordon willis one of
Speaker 2: the reasons that Annie Hall is elevated from your average
Speaker 2: romantic movie of the time or what we you know,
Speaker 2: think of as a romantic comedy. It's funny what you
Speaker 2: said about your reservations watching it. Any Hall for me
Speaker 2: was a transfer normative film. It's a film I don't
Speaker 2: even know how many times I've seen and have always
Speaker 2: had the same experience loving it. According to Letterbox, the
Speaker 2: last time I saw it was nine years ago. It
Speaker 2: didn't feel like it was that long ago. Was nine
Speaker 2: years ago. That was the first time where I'll borrow
Speaker 2: your word, that was the first time where I actually
Speaker 2: noticed some groaners, where I actually noticed some jokes not
Speaker 2: landing with me the way they used to land with me.
Speaker 2: That said, when I was watching scenes from Anny Hall
Speaker 2: in preparation for this list, I'm watching Alan and Keaton
Speaker 2: together cooking lobster. I'm watching Keaton inviting Alan over to
Speaker 2: kill the spider in her apartment. I'm watching the great
Speaker 2: Honest subtitles scene right where after they've met. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: a nice having a drink and you know, am I
Speaker 2: smart enough for him? And he doesn't know if he's
Speaker 2: smart enough for her? As he keeps you know, all
Speaker 2: those all those things. Every scene I watched was like, well,
Speaker 2: I could, I could pick this scene. These are all fantastic.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna keep the theme going of iconic seventy scenes.
Speaker 2: I think it. I think it does qualify. We may
Speaker 2: meet Annie for the first time on the tennis court,
Speaker 2: but we don't really meet Annie Hall until she and
Speaker 2: Alvie meet in the lobby after the round of tennis.
Speaker 2: You want a lift? Oh? Why? Uh? You got a car? No,
Speaker 2: I'm I was gonna take a cam. Oh no, I
Speaker 2: have a car.
Speaker 3: Do you have a car?
Speaker 1: So I understand what if you have a car, So
Speaker 1: then then why why did you say, do.
Speaker 2: You have a car like you want a lift?
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't.
Speaker 2: I geez, I don't know. I wasn't. It's an iconic
Speaker 2: seventy scene because of an iconic character in an iconic outfit,
Speaker 2: the pan, the vest, the tie, the Boalero hat. And
Speaker 2: in the book she gives credit to Alan for every
Speaker 2: choice that was made in that movie. She's very clear
Speaker 2: about that. But she does also say that he largely
Speaker 2: gave her freedom. There wasn't really like a costume budget
Speaker 2: or someone who imposed that on her. He gave her
Speaker 2: freedom to wear what she wanted to wear, and she
Speaker 2: brought those clothes. But she was just stealing the look,
Speaker 2: she says, from women she saw who she thought look
Speaker 2: cool on the streets of New York. And the hat
Speaker 2: was actually stolen from the wife of the production designer
Speaker 2: of The Godfather, Dean Tavalius The Godfather Part two. I'm
Speaker 2: presuming his wife showed up on the set one day
Speaker 2: and was wearing the hat and she thought it looked great,
Speaker 2: and she always remembered it, and that was, you know,
Speaker 2: the final thing she needed to complete the ensemble. And
Speaker 2: it becomes then this this classic look that even you
Speaker 2: see some people where even today is like Halloween costumes, right,
Speaker 2: or some people just just wear it because they like
Speaker 2: they like the look. And rewatching this scene if you
Speaker 2: go back, what's so great about it, Josh, is you
Speaker 2: see Alan or we will see Alan in a second,
Speaker 2: like zipping up his bag and he's turned away from
Speaker 2: the camera. But the way it starts is that she
Speaker 2: actually kind of emerges out of frame left, like she ducks.
Speaker 2: She's not completely out of the frame, but she kind
Speaker 2: of ducks her head into the frame and is saying hi.
Speaker 2: And it just immediately sets the tone that that it's
Speaker 2: just a little bit she's she maybe is just a
Speaker 2: little bit clumsy and just a little bit goofy. You know,
Speaker 2: there's something weird about her entering the frame with a
Speaker 2: with a complete lack of confidence. It's not like she
Speaker 2: walked in. It's almost like she knows or feels like
Speaker 2: she might be imposing on someone else's scene somehow, you know.
Speaker 2: And then when she says when she says by in
Speaker 2: a little bit, she doesn't turn and walk away to
Speaker 2: the door like a normal person. She says bye and
Speaker 2: then backs away to the door, which clearly suggests that
Speaker 2: she's hoping he's going to continue the conversation and won't
Speaker 2: say bye back, and all of that just stuff out
Speaker 2: like makes her feel like a character, like a character
Speaker 2: on a stage, like backing into a curtain or something,
Speaker 2: or entering from stage left or something about it that
Speaker 2: I just love. And I do think it's one of
Speaker 2: the great rom com meet cutes. And it's because of
Speaker 2: the wit of the dialogue, the undeniable chemistry between Keaton
Speaker 2: and Allen that's on display here but was on display
Speaker 2: in films prior to this as well. And it is
Speaker 2: about Keaton's ability to play a character who could be
Speaker 2: played if you just were going off the page, could
Speaker 2: be played as dumb and maybe annoying, and make her
Speaker 2: just a little awkward and make her charming. And I
Speaker 2: think it's because you actually helped unlock this for me, Josh.
Speaker 2: It's because of the word you used, self awareness. It's
Speaker 2: because of her self awareness. It's actually built into the character.
Speaker 2: I think Keaton implicitly brings it as a performer, but
Speaker 2: it's built into the character, right, the great dialogue, you know,
Speaker 2: the way she's constantly questioning herself, going oh, oh, of
Speaker 2: course that was dumb, or why did you say that.
Speaker 2: You know, she's she's saying those things to herself, those asides.
Speaker 2: That's what makes her extra charming, that's what makes you
Speaker 2: find her, find her adorable in that moment and that
Speaker 2: back and forth between them. The banter is what makes
Speaker 2: it work. But her self awareness is I think what
Speaker 2: elevates that scene and that that character. Oh God, what
Speaker 2: a dumb thing to say, right, I mean, you say
Speaker 2: you play well, and then right.
Speaker 1: Away I have to say you play well.
Speaker 2: Oh oh god, Annie, well, oh well, Ladi da laid.
Speaker 2: In terms of the auto biographicalness of it all, she
Speaker 2: does point out, I mean it's evident from the beginning
Speaker 2: of the book that you know her real name is
Speaker 2: Diane Hall, so die Annie Hall Keaton was her mother's
Speaker 2: maid name. She had to change her name for sag reasons,
Speaker 2: you know, as that often happens, and so she went
Speaker 2: with she went with Diane Keaton, so that that comes
Speaker 2: you know, Alan wrote the script based on based on
Speaker 2: her and based on her name, and yeah, based on
Speaker 2: her family to some extent. And she says about the
Speaker 2: character when she or the role, when she started getting
Speaker 2: the accolades and everything that was coming in, she kind
Speaker 2: of couldn't see what all the fuss was about, because
Speaker 2: she did see herself as to some extent, playing herself.
Speaker 2: She's seeing her face, her voice, her mannerisms, all these
Speaker 2: things that kind of bothered her on screen. And you know,
Speaker 2: everyone assumed, well, this must be the relationship between the
Speaker 2: two of them just being translated to the screen, especially
Speaker 2: because she wanted to be a singer in real life,
Speaker 2: that they really did have a romance. That she was
Speaker 2: someone who was insecure and and that kind of her
Speaker 2: own word was like groping for words. She was someone
Speaker 2: who groped for words. And there you see it in
Speaker 2: her character. We see it in a lot of her characters, right, Well,
Speaker 2: that's because that's that's a naturalness that she brings to some,
Speaker 2: not all of her characters. And her mom, in one
Speaker 2: of her journals after seeing the premiere of Annie Hall said,
Speaker 2: Annie's camera in her hand, her gum chewing, her lack
Speaker 2: of confidence, pure Diane the Hall scenes. Josh, you know,
Speaker 2: Diane says, you know, their their comic relief. It was
Speaker 2: this generic wasp family, you know, sort of obvious caricature
Speaker 2: that she didn't pay a whole lot of attention to
Speaker 2: and no one really got offended by even though it
Speaker 2: was clearly modeled in some way off the actual Hall family,
Speaker 2: including even and you know, Dwayne is model off her
Speaker 2: brother Randy, who who did end up being a pretty
Speaker 2: sad story. You know, he's someone who suffered from mental
Speaker 2: illness his entire life, and and that may have not
Speaker 2: been fully diagnosed when when the script was written, but
Speaker 2: with someone who dealt with mental illness and bipolar disorder,
Speaker 2: and so those elements have some truth to it. But
Speaker 2: I just have to point this out because it did
Speaker 2: make me laugh. She kind of she doesn't handwave it off,
Speaker 2: but she just kind of says what is undoubtedly true.
Speaker 2: Of course it's based on it's not meant to be
Speaker 2: one to one. He doesn't line up one to one
Speaker 2: with all of the characters. That said, there is a
Speaker 2: part later in the book where she's describing her grandmother.
Speaker 2: I swear to you there's a part where she's describing
Speaker 2: her grandmother and some scene that's taking place and somebody
Speaker 2: they know is mentioned. And and you know, I may
Speaker 2: be misremembering some of the exact details, but someone they
Speaker 2: know is mentioned, and the first thing out of the
Speaker 2: grandmother's mouth is something like, did you know he was
Speaker 2: a jew? Okay, so it's not it's not too far off.
Speaker 2: It can't be too far off at some point, yea,
Speaker 2: he may have. But but back to the movie, you know,
Speaker 2: the the boldness of it as as a romantic comedy
Speaker 2: it was, it was his first and and what she
Speaker 2: loves about it, and I think one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why this movie does still linger in our consciousness, one
Speaker 2: of the reasons why we may still revisit this movie. Right.
Speaker 2: She talks about in terms of being a movie where
Speaker 2: he had the courage to write a film, a romantic
Speaker 2: movie where ultimately the message is love fades. She says,
Speaker 2: what do you let the audience feel the sadness of
Speaker 2: goodbye in a funny movie? And so for me, you
Speaker 2: know that that kind of ties into why any Hall
Speaker 2: had to be Number one why I do think it's
Speaker 2: the defining Keaton performance. I think what we all did
Speaker 2: understand watching it, that we knew anything at all about
Speaker 2: her real life or not, how closely it seems to
Speaker 2: capture Diane Hall, with all of her quirks and her humor,
Speaker 2: but also getting at some pathos, some underlying sadness that
Speaker 2: Tinge of sadness, and I just think it's expressed more
Speaker 2: forcefully in some of the other scenes that I chose,
Speaker 2: but it is at the core of Annie Hall as well.
Speaker 2: And Lotti Da Josh, the expression where you try to,
Speaker 2: you try to with words wash away whatever might be
Speaker 2: meddling in your life at that moment. Lotti Da Lotti
Speaker 2: Da La La. That is my number one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you almost admire the performance more learning as
Speaker 1: you're describing that it was that close to her I
Speaker 1: mean to be, to not just play yourself, but to
Speaker 1: bring some of these subtleties that are distinct that we've
Speaker 1: been touching on in both of our picks, you know,
Speaker 1: makes it just another reason why it's such an impressive performance.
Speaker 2: Those are our top five Diane Keaton scenes. We hope
Speaker 2: we paid appropriate tribute to a great performer. You can
Speaker 2: send your picks two feedback at Film Spotting dot Nette.
Speaker 2: We would love to hear them. Do you have any
Speaker 2: honorable mentions you'd like to throw in, Josh.
Speaker 1: I would have for my number six, try to narrow
Speaker 1: down something from something's got to give. It's just her
Speaker 1: with Nicholson. You know, I do think I'm glad as
Speaker 1: I said you recognize it. I do think it stands
Speaker 1: out among her filmography. And then I'll share one from
Speaker 1: a listener. Chad Camello subscribes to my larsen On Film newsletter.
Speaker 1: He sent me an email with this pick. As a
Speaker 1: certified defender of the family Stone, my pick for favorite
Speaker 1: Diane Keaton scene comes from that modern Christmas classic where Keaton, Sibyl,
Speaker 1: the matriarch of the Stone family, finally hashes it out
Speaker 1: with her eldest son played by Dermott Maroney, about both
Speaker 1: the drama with his fiance and coming to terms with
Speaker 1: Sybyl's cancer diagnosis. The way Keaton maneuvers from playful banter
Speaker 1: to emotional sincerity is a masterclass in range and grounding
Speaker 1: a character in the moment.
Speaker 2: For me, I could have found scenes from some of
Speaker 2: those other Allen films, the earlier ones like Sleeper played
Speaker 2: against Sam, Love and Death, or just after Annie Hall
Speaker 2: even Interiors, which, to go back to Mary and her
Speaker 2: disliking mar Bergman is very much Diane Keaton in a
Speaker 2: woody Allen slashing mar Bergman film. If I was going
Speaker 2: to go with another Alan choice, though it would be
Speaker 2: in Manhattan, I definitely would have considered the Academy of
Speaker 2: the overrated, or it probably would have been the Queensboro
Speaker 2: Bridge sequence, the night they spend out together where they
Speaker 2: really get to know each other and spend all night,
Speaker 2: and of course the iconic shot that everyone thinks about
Speaker 2: with that movie. The others I've mentioned other scenes from
Speaker 2: Anny Hall. Other scene or two I mentioned Boom, I
Speaker 2: go with one in my top ten from The First
Speaker 2: Wives Club. I really like the scene. And here's where
Speaker 2: we get that character, especially Josh that she plays. Annie
Speaker 2: is very flighty, and part of the character that the
Speaker 2: other two women you know, played by Goldie Han and
Speaker 2: Bett Miller, they give her so much grief for is
Speaker 2: how nice she is and and she's kind of gullible
Speaker 2: and can be taken advantage of. And so when that
Speaker 2: character finally does get fierce, when that character Annie finally
Speaker 2: stands up for herself and gets back at her husband
Speaker 2: by buying out her husband's advertising business, it's it's kind
Speaker 2: of a it's kind of a relative a spiritual successor
Speaker 2: scene to the boardroom scene in Baby Boom, just a
Speaker 2: smaller version that with just her and her husband buying
Speaker 2: her husband out. It's really good. So I go with
Speaker 2: that from First Wives Club again. Email tell us your choices,
Speaker 2: feedback at film spotting dot net, and you can go
Speaker 2: to film spotting dot Net see all of our picks
Speaker 2: see links to our clips just click on film spotting
Speaker 2: dot Net slash list.
Speaker 1: Before we move on, Adam, we want to thank our
Speaker 1: Film Spotting family members who help support the show. Thanks
Speaker 1: to advisory board member Bob Taylor from Lakewood, Ohio, Bob
Speaker 1: gets to make the big decisions as a Film Spotting
Speaker 1: Advisory board member. He wrote that he found the show
Speaker 1: back in twenty twenty two, episode eight seventy, when we
Speaker 1: did our top five Nicholas Cage performances. Bob said, Cage
Speaker 1: is a truly singular performer who will go down as
Speaker 1: one of the great legendary American actors.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to argue with him, and if I
Speaker 2: remember correctly, the guy who who literally wrote the book
Speaker 2: on Nicholas Cage, Keith Pipps, joined us for that top
Speaker 2: five A favorite show segment of Bob's hard to pick one.
Speaker 2: So many insightful episodes with wide ranging titles, directors and artists.
Speaker 2: Did Sam write that I absolutely love the annual Top
Speaker 2: ten episodes so wonderful to hear the diverse perspectives. It
Speaker 2: truly is an annual highlight from which my wife and
Speaker 2: I line up for our weekly Sunday night movie nights.
Speaker 2: Great ooh love that idea, Bob.
Speaker 1: We asked if there was a review we got wrong,
Speaker 1: and Bob said a split review for A Nightmare on
Speaker 1: Elm Street, Come On, Adam. Undoubtedly one of the greatest
Speaker 1: horror films of all time, exploring the ultimate realm of fear,
Speaker 1: the subconscious.
Speaker 2: And maybe maybe your subconscious. Maybe Josh's This.
Speaker 1: Next comment from Bob maybe explains why he went that way.
Speaker 1: Here's what he credits with becoming a sinophile, sneaking out
Speaker 1: of bed and down the hall to sneak a peek
Speaker 1: at Texas Chainsaw massacre from the kitchen steps. I don't
Speaker 1: think we want to know how young, inappropriately young Bob
Speaker 1: might have been for watching that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as longtime listeners know, I was traumatized by every
Speaker 2: horror movie moment of my childhood, so that might explain
Speaker 2: why I didn't fully embrace A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Speaker 2: His favorite book about movies or movie making. It's a
Speaker 2: good one. Also on my bookshelf, a Cinema of Loneliness,
Speaker 2: pen Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman by Robert P. Kolker. We
Speaker 2: thank Bob for being an advisory board member. We have
Speaker 2: our next Film Spotting Advisory Board meeting coming up. We're
Speaker 2: going to discuss and ultimately decide our next Film Spotting
Speaker 2: Marathon topic. That's coming up February twelfth, very soon. We
Speaker 2: are looking forward to that. And in addition to keeping
Speaker 2: us doing what we're doing her on Film Spotting, being
Speaker 2: a Film Spotting Family member does come with perks. You
Speaker 2: get to listen early in ad free, you get our
Speaker 2: weekly newsletter, you get to be part of the great
Speaker 2: Film Spotting Family discord, you get monthly bonus shows. And
Speaker 2: in February, Josh, we are going to do blind Spotting.
Speaker 2: We're gonna find three titles, probably nineteen forties madness titles
Speaker 2: that we haven't seen that we need to catch up
Speaker 2: on some homework, and we'll ask our family members to vote,
Speaker 2: and that's the movie we'll see and talk about. Should
Speaker 2: be fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got to get rolling on that madness nineteen
Speaker 1: forties comed around the Corner.
Speaker 2: Indeed. More about joining the Film Spotting Family is available
Speaker 2: at film, Spottingfamily dot Com and don't forget. You can
Speaker 2: also help us just by rating us Apple Podcasts or
Speaker 2: Spotify rating us giving us a review. It does help
Speaker 2: us reach new listeners.
Speaker 1: I'll talk what's it like to be with a circumcised man?
Speaker 1: Because when Ron had his surgery, all right, all right,
Speaker 1: all right, Ron had a surgery, I said, hey, circumcise
Speaker 1: it while you're at it, you know, just because I
Speaker 1: had never been with anyone else.
Speaker 2: Just as we're in the final stages of preparing for
Speaker 2: this tribute show to Diane Keaton, one of the great
Speaker 2: screen comedians, we get the news that Catherine O'Hara has
Speaker 2: passed away age seventy one, and Josh when we inevitably
Speaker 2: we haven't talked about it yet, but when we inevitably
Speaker 2: paid tribute to her, we could do scenes. But with
Speaker 2: Catherine O'Hara, it's almost like lines or individual words. I mean,
Speaker 2: what do you do with Catherine O'Hara when when almost
Speaker 2: everything she did on screen was comedic gold?
Speaker 1: You could go that granular with her, you could, actually,
Speaker 1: but then the choices are endless. I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: almost I think characters might be the way we go
Speaker 1: with her the point, Yeah, I would love to do
Speaker 1: this at some point. I mean, I could give you
Speaker 1: a quick riff top five. But if we think we're
Speaker 1: doing it, no, I think we'll do it, I will
Speaker 1: pocket that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, I will. Here's what I'll do.
Speaker 1: I will encourage people to Debbie and I have started
Speaker 1: rewatching Shit's Creek, the recent TV series she did with
Speaker 1: Eugene Levy. It's on Netflix right now, So if you
Speaker 1: have not checked that out for whatever reason, it is
Speaker 1: hilarious and she is maybe the funniest part of it,
Speaker 1: though that's there's comp tition for that. So really, if
Speaker 1: you never got around to Shit's Creak, now is the
Speaker 1: time as you're thinking about Katherine O'Hara. And yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: seventy one, maddeningly too young, surely had chances to do
Speaker 1: a lot more great work. She was incredibly active as
Speaker 1: Shits Creak shows still And you know, Adam, we sometimes
Speaker 1: talk about character actors supporting you know, actors, However, you
Speaker 1: want to classify someone who's had the roles like she
Speaker 1: has had, Sometimes we'll say, you know what, one of
Speaker 1: those people when they showed up on the screen, you
Speaker 1: just immediately got excited.
Speaker 2: I think it was.
Speaker 1: Different with Catherine O'Hara. I think when she came on
Speaker 1: the screen, you were rooting for her character, whoever it was,
Speaker 1: to just become the focus of the movie. It's like,
Speaker 1: I don't care what we were watching or what I
Speaker 1: paid to come see. Can we just follow her now?
Speaker 1: She just brought that level of unpredictability and comic chaos
Speaker 1: that you just wanted to ride with her the rest
Speaker 1: of the film. So yeah, we incredible loss in the
Speaker 1: world of comedy.
Speaker 2: And Shit's Creek is so good and she's so good
Speaker 2: as moy were in that show that you could almost
Speaker 2: see breaking a rule. Oh we're breaking it. You're you're already,
Speaker 2: you're already dictating the boy res eligible. I'm just telling
Speaker 2: you what.
Speaker 1: I'm breaking it, and you know we can see what
Speaker 1: happens when I do.
Speaker 2: I'm calling it a gray Hawk ten. Here we go.
Speaker 2: I'm calling in the gray Hawk ten.
Speaker 1: Already bust out before comra, Josh, come on.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, some other choices, actual movie choices that Josh
Speaker 2: will consider. Christopher Guest waiting for Guthman, best in show
Speaker 2: A Mighty Wind. Of course, there's some Tim Burton choices,
Speaker 2: Beetle Juice, last year's sequel, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Home Alone,
Speaker 2: Away we Go, Where the Wild Things Are Other TV options, Josh,
Speaker 2: you want to go back to sc TV while we're
Speaker 2: at it. You could do that with John Candy, Eugene Levy,
Speaker 2: Martin Short, Rick Moran, Andrew Martin, Dave Thomas, Joe Flaherty
Speaker 2: the original cast members there and Yeah, five time Emmy
Speaker 2: nominee for acting, most recently just last year for the network,
Speaker 2: and she did win for the final season of Shit's
Speaker 2: Creek and that show. We don't need to say more
Speaker 2: about it, but I don't know. I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's one of those things. It feels to me like
Speaker 2: one of those shows that I hope it doesn't happen,
Speaker 2: if it hasn't happened already. There that there almost should
Speaker 2: be a backlash too, because it's too universally loved. I
Speaker 2: know people who are our age, so many people our
Speaker 2: age who love it. I know people who are in
Speaker 2: their twenties and thirties that love it, yeah, and then
Speaker 2: I and then I know plenty of people that are
Speaker 2: our parents' age, right, Yeah, who love it. And so
Speaker 2: it's just one of those things that crosses generations.
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: delightful things about it. All I can tell you is
Speaker 1: I know it holds up I mean, and it has that,
Speaker 1: you know. I think sitcoms in particular can have this
Speaker 1: where you've lived with characters so long, you know them
Speaker 1: so well. You start on a second watch, you start
Speaker 1: to end anticipate how they're going to react to any
Speaker 1: given situation. Yeah, and then that becomes part of the
Speaker 1: fun as well.
Speaker 2: That will be a fun top five. We'll have to
Speaker 2: discuss the timing of that, but you can look forward
Speaker 2: to that down the road, and you can check out
Speaker 2: future episodes. We do have planned filmspotting dot Net slash
Speaker 2: episodes next week on the show. An anniversary review we
Speaker 2: could not overlook again because we've done it plenty. We
Speaker 2: did not talk about it for its tenth anniversary, or
Speaker 2: it's fifteenth, or its twentieth, or it's twenty fifth. Now,
Speaker 2: to be fair, I don't think we actually discussed it
Speaker 2: at any of these points. It's not like we rejected it.
Speaker 2: We just just overlooked it. For it's thirtieth. We've decided
Speaker 2: we can't overlook it any longer, we are going to
Speaker 2: give our namesake finally the sacred cow treatment. Now, to
Speaker 2: be clear for any new listeners of the show, we
Speaker 2: did not call the show Film Spotting because at the
Speaker 2: time we were necessarily myself and Sam, we were so
Speaker 2: such gigantic fans of the movie Train Spotting. We both
Speaker 2: liked the movie Train Spotting. We thought it was a
Speaker 2: pretty cool movie, and we certainly thought it was cool
Speaker 2: enough that if our name referenced that that movie, that worked.
Speaker 2: But the reference wasn't necessarily what what drove us to
Speaker 2: the name, and and quite honestly, what drove us to
Speaker 2: the name is we needed to finally pick a name,
Speaker 2: and it was the best of all the options we had,
Speaker 2: which is sometimes where you end up.
Speaker 1: I think, I think it's worked out. I think, he
Speaker 1: later Josh, just fine, we haven't changed it. Yeah, really,
Speaker 1: you know why we've been waiting so long to do
Speaker 1: this review.
Speaker 2: We were waiting for me to move to Scotland.
Speaker 1: And and now that I'm regularly taking the train into Edinburgh,
Speaker 1: I will be able to be the authenticity judge for
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm just kidding. I've been there maybe
Speaker 1: eight times now I've seen nothing like what we what
Speaker 1: goes on in Train Spotting, and I'm I'm grateful for it.
Speaker 2: Okay, this does say a letterboxed I should say says
Speaker 2: that I last watched train Spotting eight years ago, and
Speaker 2: that would correspond with the rewatch for T two Train Spotting.
Speaker 2: But yeah, more than that, I didn't watch it necessarily
Speaker 2: because I felt like I had to to watch the sequel.
Speaker 2: I felt like I had to for the top five
Speaker 2: list that we did with Danny Boyle, the top five
Speaker 2: Danny Boyle characters with Danny Boyle here on the show.
Speaker 2: That's why I rewatched it, And that was only the
Speaker 2: second time I had seen it since watching it originally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'm in and in the same place
Speaker 1: and enjoyed that rewatch, and yeah, happy to have this
Speaker 1: chance to take another look and then really dig into
Speaker 1: it with you.
Speaker 2: Okay. Also next week our twenty twenty six I have
Speaker 2: not thought about this at all. I have so much
Speaker 2: work to do for next week our twenty twenty six
Speaker 2: Pantheon nominees. It is time to put two more films
Speaker 2: into the film Spotting Pantheon. Who knows, maybe Trainspotting will
Speaker 2: be among them, you me, producer saying, over the course
Speaker 2: of the next few weeks, well, actually next week, you
Speaker 2: will hear us nominate three films. Each one of them
Speaker 2: has to be a former Marathon title, one of them
Speaker 2: has to be a film that's already gotten the Sacred
Speaker 2: Cow treatment, and then one has to be a title
Speaker 2: that's never been reviewed on the show. It's not a Marathon,
Speaker 2: it's not a Sacred Cow. It wasn't discussed when the
Speaker 2: movie came out, so it can't be something from the
Speaker 2: last twenty years that was talked about on the show.
Speaker 2: It is just a movie that one of us thinks
Speaker 2: is really great and pantheon worthy but has never gotten
Speaker 2: its due. Here on the show, we come with three
Speaker 2: of those, and we try to will down those nine
Speaker 2: choices eventually to two with the help of Film Spotting Nation.
Speaker 2: Everybody gets a vote, two of those go into the pantheon.
Speaker 1: Okay, I have not thought about this at all either.
Speaker 1: Question for comrade Adam, do you think we should be
Speaker 1: disallowed from repeating previous nominations or maybe no?
Speaker 2: Maybe no at all. Okay, I was.
Speaker 1: Gonna say, maybe we should be disallowed from repeating what
Speaker 1: we nominated last year, but we could go back further,
Speaker 1: or it's all fair game.
Speaker 2: All it's all fair game. I think that is something
Speaker 2: we we did talk about last year that if you
Speaker 2: if you had a movie last year that you nominated
Speaker 2: that did not get chosen, especially if it was a
Speaker 2: movie that came close to getting chosen, you feel really
Speaker 2: strongly about, don't worry about it sounding like boring content.
Speaker 2: We have nine films to talk about, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: we will fill the time somehow. So bring bring whatever movies.
Speaker 2: Three movies you genuinely think I deserve to go into
Speaker 2: the pantheon, even if you have previously nominated them. I mean,
Speaker 2: look at it this way. Last year, the movies that
Speaker 2: went in were Singing in the Rain in Sherlock Junior.
Speaker 2: Sherlock Junior was Sam's nominee. It was going to be
Speaker 2: my nominee, but he beat me to it, so I
Speaker 2: had to pivot and go with another silent film, and
Speaker 2: I nominated Sunrise, a Song of two Humans. I think
Speaker 2: I nominated Singing in the Rain. So the two the
Speaker 2: three films you nominated are all three available, right? Yeah,
Speaker 2: okay from last year? All right, you could revisit them.
Speaker 2: Feel free that's good. If you have a film you
Speaker 2: think should be in the film spotting pantheon, or you
Speaker 2: have any thoughts on train spotting, you could write us
Speaker 2: feedback at film spotting dot net, or you know, send
Speaker 2: us an audio or video message feedback at film spotting
Speaker 2: dot net. And now we get to everybody's new favorite
Speaker 2: recurring segment on film spotting. Where in the world is Josh.
Speaker 1: Well, Josh is in Scotland at the moment, but I
Speaker 1: will be heading. Bizarrely, our program, the spring Break is happening,
Speaker 1: you know, in a couple of weeks here, So Debbie
Speaker 1: and I are going to take that opportunity to do
Speaker 1: a little traveling and I'd love to have another film
Speaker 1: spotting meet up as part of that, as we did
Speaker 1: in Spain. I'm looking to meet with any listeners who
Speaker 1: might be in Copenhagen. So we're going to be in
Speaker 1: Stockholm first. But actually while we're there, Adam, it'll be
Speaker 1: once again a double remote film spotting recording, so away
Speaker 1: from home, away from home, I'll be lugging the mic
Speaker 1: in my suitcase and recording in Stockholm, so not as
Speaker 1: much free time there. But when we get to Copenhagen,
Speaker 1: we'll have a couple of open nights, so this is
Speaker 1: the first week of March.
Speaker 2: About if you're.
Speaker 1: A listener in nearby Denmark and might want to meet up,
Speaker 1: either email the show at feedback at filmspotting dot net,
Speaker 1: raise your hand, or you can find me on social too.
Speaker 1: If you're on Blue Sky or Instagram or Facebook, you
Speaker 1: can find me at Larsen on film and yeah, hopefully
Speaker 1: we can hang out.
Speaker 2: I'm not convinced, Josh, that you've spent any time in Scotland.
Speaker 2: I think you've been traveling this entire time, and I
Speaker 2: think that that is one of those fake zoom backgrounds.
Speaker 1: Well, you should be familiar with the academic calendar at
Speaker 1: this point, Adam.
Speaker 2: You know, so your seems like gets way more open
Speaker 2: than mine. Well I was. It's a little different exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we had the month off over
Speaker 1: the holidays, and yeah, took advantage of that while you
Speaker 1: were in your you know, little hovel grating. So I
Speaker 1: don't know what to tell you.
Speaker 2: Okay, moving on, all right.
Speaker 1: Our sister podcast, The Next Picture Show, wanted to give
Speaker 1: your heads up on their programming because they have a
Speaker 1: new pairing going on right now. It is part two
Speaker 1: actually of their both sides of the aisle pairing.
Speaker 2: That's I S. L E.
Speaker 1: So they paired Lena Vert Muellers Swept Away from nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four with Sam Raimis Send Help and you can
Speaker 1: catch those episodes every Tuesday and you can find the
Speaker 1: next Picture show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Like you never told me you knew Giant? Come, hey,
Speaker 2: you want to meet him?
Speaker 3: Oh, my father helped him in his career.
Speaker 2: He did. Hell to the song. It is time for
Speaker 2: poll results. A couple of weeks ago, we asked you
Speaker 2: to choose one and only one Diane Keaton character, the
Speaker 2: character we were thinking that best represented all of Keaton's
Speaker 2: many talents. We probably framed it that way, but you know,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, you can vote however
Speaker 2: you want to vote your options, which did not include
Speaker 2: the film that we think would have won unanimously any
Speaker 2: hall were these Kay Adams, The Godfather, Erica Barry, Something's
Speaker 2: Got to Give, Louise Bryant, Red's J. C. Wyatt Baby Boom.
Speaker 2: All four of those made our list. Josh five an
Speaker 2: a parody, The First Wives Club an honorable mention for
Speaker 2: me six Mary Wilkie on your list or seven. You
Speaker 2: could go other and write in your choice. How did
Speaker 2: it come out?
Speaker 1: Josh a tie for last place between other and Anna
Speaker 1: Parody from The First Wives Club.
Speaker 2: J C.
Speaker 1: Wyatt from Baby Boom came in at thirteen percent, Louise
Speaker 1: Bryant from Red's with fourteen percent, moving up to a
Speaker 1: fifteen percent vote for Erica Berry from Something That's Got
Speaker 1: to give Mary Wilkie in second place here with eighteen
Speaker 1: percent of the vote. But taking this, taking this, and I, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm a little this is perplexing. Kay Adams from The Godfather.
Speaker 1: I know you were perplexed by by the way the
Speaker 1: vote was trending. Adam, and I hadn't done a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, revisiting of scenes or thinking about this.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of with you now that I see the result.
Speaker 1: And yeah, curious how Kay Adams took this vote.
Speaker 2: In terms of character, yeah, it does not feel like
Speaker 2: the best representation of all of Keaton's talents, she thought.
Speaker 2: And here again, this is kind of separate from the
Speaker 2: point I just made. She thought there wasn't much of
Speaker 2: a character there. Apparently our listeners think there's an incredible
Speaker 2: character there, and we certainly saw many great moments from
Speaker 2: powerful moments from that character, like we talked about in
Speaker 2: the film, and those must be resonating Josh with the
Speaker 2: audience because twenty nine percent, and of course that movie,
Speaker 2: that movie is one that's resonating with our audience. We
Speaker 2: have Michael Brandner. He is echoing a choice on my list.
Speaker 2: Kay looking at her husband through the half open door
Speaker 2: at the end of The Godfather Ie is one of
Speaker 2: the most memorable shots in movie history. How could I
Speaker 2: pick anything else? So he's going with the first part
Speaker 2: of my mirror door shots.
Speaker 1: And maybe I mean maybe Michael was thinking of character,
Speaker 1: but here describing a specific scene. You know this, If
Speaker 1: he had done a Keaton scene list, maybe this would
Speaker 1: have been on it for him. We also heard from
Speaker 1: Abby Woslawek. Admittedly I haven't seen all of these, but
Speaker 1: watching Meek and Insecure Annie Parody discover self love was
Speaker 1: inspiring and fun, judging from many social after her passing,
Speaker 1: the First Wives Club rendition of you Don't Own Me
Speaker 1: remains an empowering anthem for many.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fun. It's a fun scene and we get
Speaker 2: I think two versions of that in the movie. Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Overstreet says, I'm voting other, and it's a toss up
Speaker 2: between Keaton's Luna Schlosser in nineteen seventy three's Sleeper and
Speaker 2: her Sonya in seventy five's Love and Death. These were
Speaker 2: the characters that made me love Keaton in the first place,
Speaker 2: and both characters are endlessly quotable. Woody Allen did not
Speaker 2: cast her to merely set him up for his signature
Speaker 2: punch lines. He cast her as his hilarious equal. While
Speaker 2: I have to clench my teeth now whenever I press
Speaker 2: play on a Woody Allen film for reasons that should
Speaker 2: be obvious by now, I quickly remind myself that there
Speaker 2: are so many great performances in these films to make
Speaker 2: them worthwhile, and Keaton's contributions are my favorites.
Speaker 1: One more common here from Hollyboyd. I voted for Looking
Speaker 1: for Mister Goodbar as it was one of my favorite
Speaker 1: discoveries of twenty twenty five, partly due to Keaton's fearless performance,
Speaker 1: which showcases the independence and originality that made her one
Speaker 1: of the all time greats. Keaton shown at bringing complexity
Speaker 1: and fully realized personality to all her characters, always elevating
Speaker 1: every film with her presence and goodbar provides her material
Speaker 1: worthy of her talents.
Speaker 2: We do think everyone who voted and left a comment
Speaker 2: it's time for a new poll next week. As we mention,
Speaker 2: we're giving Trainspotting another look for its thirtieth anniversary. Another look, Josh,
Speaker 2: and with that movie it really means another listen. The
Speaker 2: Danny Boyle film is full of memorable music moments, Iggy Pops,
Speaker 2: Lust for Life, lou Read's Perfect Day, Born, Slippy from Underworld,
Speaker 2: all of it captured on one of the relics of
Speaker 2: the nineties, the original motion Picture Soundtrack on compact disc.
Speaker 2: The deeply flawed poll that producer Sam and with a
Speaker 2: little contribution from me, that he is concocted for you,
Speaker 2: and by you we mean apparently you young adults of
Speaker 2: the nineties, not so much of the nineties. Kids choose life,
Speaker 2: choose only one nineties movie soundtrack deathmatch rules apply, and
Speaker 2: that that pretty much goes for any poll question here
Speaker 2: on film Spotting. So that means that whichever ones you
Speaker 2: don't choose, they go into the nineties landfill. You can't
Speaker 2: get them back. They're gone forever.
Speaker 1: You take that compact disc in one hand and you.
Speaker 2: Just crack it. That's it. That's it. No one hears it,
Speaker 2: including you ever again, Josh, give them their options.
Speaker 1: All right, clueless, which includes the muffs kids in America, radioheads,
Speaker 1: fake plastic trees, and Jill oh Man. I didn't have
Speaker 1: this one out, Jill Sobuel, so Bull. You didn't listen
Speaker 1: to enough radio back then. She was on all the time.
Speaker 1: Oh so Radio. I listened to the radio in the nineties.
Speaker 1: Come on, Jill Sobule's Supermodel. I'm sure I'd recognize it.
Speaker 1: Didn't buy that one, though, Dazed and confused. Aerosmith's Sweet
Speaker 1: Emotion of course, Alice Cooper School's Out of Course, Dylan's Hurricane.
Speaker 1: How about the Crow? Loved hearing in Sam's newsletter for
Speaker 1: family members that he was a big crow soundtrack guy,
Speaker 1: the Cure, nine inch nails, rage against the Machine, that
Speaker 1: there's a side to Sam.
Speaker 2: I need to know. Yet he was a drama guy, Josh,
Speaker 2: I keep that in mind. Okay, okay, he was always
Speaker 2: a theater kid. Pull fiction.
Speaker 1: I mean everyone can hear it already, Jungle Boogie, son
Speaker 1: of a Preacher Man.
Speaker 2: How about Boz.
Speaker 1: Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet Garbage ever clear, the Cardigan's Love
Speaker 1: Fool reality bites. I did have this one, Lisa Lobe stay,
Speaker 1: I missed you, My Sharona, You Twoe. Lenny Kravitz singles
Speaker 1: all right, getting into some grunge here, Pearl Jam Alison
Speaker 1: Chains sound Garden.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I wasn't all that into grunge. Do those last two
Speaker 1: counts Adam as grunge Alison Chain's sound guards.
Speaker 2: They yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I mean not just
Speaker 2: hard rock. Some people listening might really take issue with that,
Speaker 2: but they're they're part of that Seattle scene, so theyently
Speaker 2: be grunge adjacent.
Speaker 1: Okay, Trainspotting we mentioned, is your last option aside from
Speaker 1: other and do you have any others you want to
Speaker 1: throw in the hat at him?
Speaker 2: You've been part of the doule, so you're probably they
Speaker 2: don't for me. A couple ones that I would consider
Speaker 2: are are in there for sure.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Sam suggested here under other Empire records gross
Speaker 1: point blank above the rim I'm with him on Empire Records.
Speaker 1: We owned that one. Yeah, As listeners can already tell,
Speaker 1: the nostalgia runs deep for all three of us on
Speaker 1: this one. This was prime CD by in years I think,
Speaker 1: you know, right in the mid nineties W and I
Speaker 1: got married and merged. Are can I say, quite impressive
Speaker 1: CD collections. So here's what I'm going to throw in
Speaker 1: as other options.
Speaker 2: Not that this is how I'd vote.
Speaker 1: I just want to bring us back to the era
Speaker 1: and let people consider them as right ends. We had
Speaker 1: the soundtrack for Jim Jarmush's ghost Stock The Way of
Speaker 1: the Samurai had no Adam have because we got rid
Speaker 1: of I'd still regret this. All of our CDs with
Speaker 1: the move we had to downsize. The one we kept
Speaker 1: was ghost Dog The Way of the Samurai. Well, it
Speaker 1: was stuck in our cair CD player, so so we
Speaker 1: still have it and it turns on over in a while.
Speaker 1: I'm also also gonna throw in their Batman Forever, PJ. Harvey,
Speaker 1: Mazzie Star, Sunny Day Real Estate. Okay, bad Rushmore? Come
Speaker 1: on all those British invasion classics.
Speaker 2: You know what Josh right right? See this could rush
Speaker 2: pull sucks.
Speaker 1: Could Rushmore win it?
Speaker 2: This whole question the other vote. Come on, Rushmore, you
Speaker 2: just nailed it. You just nailed one more. Why why
Speaker 2: aren't you in the slack, Josh pointing this out earlier,
Speaker 2: I mean on air.
Speaker 1: I just I was trying to keep up with everything
Speaker 1: going on in the slack and couldn't couldn't get to
Speaker 1: this them vendors Until the End of the World. This
Speaker 1: is where I might actually vote in terms of the
Speaker 1: like Rushmore's soundtrack is just a blast, great songs on it,
Speaker 1: so much fun. But in terms of like how it
Speaker 1: worked with the movie, and I think just the artistry
Speaker 1: of the bands included here and what they contributed. Irim
Speaker 1: lou Reid talking heads, you two depeche Mode. If you've
Speaker 1: never heard the Until the End of the World soundtrack,
Speaker 1: this is your impetus to go check it. Okay, so
Speaker 1: haven't I think we've made the case, Adam. But with
Speaker 1: all these options for the nineties as the definitive movie
Speaker 1: soundtrack that decade, right.
Speaker 2: I think it is. I think that's fair. Of course,
Speaker 2: I haven't given a lot of thought to what other
Speaker 2: options would be there, but the nineties seems definitive. And
Speaker 2: I thought this was an easier pull than now it
Speaker 2: turns out to be. And I say easy because for
Speaker 2: me it came down to only two options. I only
Speaker 2: owned two of these. There are songs scattered through here
Speaker 2: that I liked, some maybe that I even loved, and
Speaker 2: there are some uses in the films that I quite enjoyed.
Speaker 2: I could probably say that The Days Did in Confused soundtrack,
Speaker 2: in terms of how the music is employed, might even
Speaker 2: be the most essential. But I got burned out on
Speaker 2: classic rock before I was even out of college, just
Speaker 2: having had to consume so much of it growing up.
Speaker 2: We didn't have a lot of great radio stations growing
Speaker 2: up in Iowa. It was a lot of classic rock.
Speaker 2: And even though I played some of that stuff, I
Speaker 2: played Schools Out in my band. I played Sweet Emotion
Speaker 2: in my band. More reasons why I got burned out
Speaker 2: on classic rock. So love how it's used in the movie.
Speaker 2: Don't need to listen to The Days Did in con
Speaker 2: View soundtrack maybe ever, and I didn't. I never bought it,
Speaker 2: so for me, the only two that I owned on
Speaker 2: here and the only two that I would still put
Speaker 2: in my CD player, and I did keep almost all
Speaker 2: my CDs, so maybe I have them somewhere if I
Speaker 2: can find them in the boxes. Josh were pulp fiction
Speaker 2: and singles, and my initial instinct was to go singles.
Speaker 2: But the thing is, it's not because of it's not
Speaker 2: because of the Seattle stuff, which is ironic, because that's
Speaker 2: that's what the soundtrack is full of, and the movie
Speaker 2: is said in Seattle, and that's what's so essential to
Speaker 2: the movie. But the reason why I love I like
Speaker 2: the par you know, state of Love and Trust is good.
Speaker 2: The reason why I love the single soundtrack so much
Speaker 2: is the Paul Westerberg tunes, and that that has nothing
Speaker 2: to do with Seattle, right talking about it. Yeah, So
Speaker 2: I don't know if I can justify keeping the single
Speaker 2: soundtrack on there just for Paul Westerberg, which is the
Speaker 2: primary reason why I would keep it. Pulp fiction. You
Speaker 2: think about the eclectic assortment of tunes and good songs
Speaker 2: that you you've never heard, that I had never heard
Speaker 2: but but are so damn catchy, and that we're fun
Speaker 2: to listen to, both in the context of the movie
Speaker 2: but also out of context, that that were fun to
Speaker 2: just put on your CD player and listen to, and
Speaker 2: then you know, suffused with the little moments from the film.
Speaker 2: I was all set to say that that pulp fiction
Speaker 2: is the answer, and and I guess once I ruled
Speaker 2: out singles. Pulp fiction was the clear answer. But Josh,
Speaker 2: you know, if the Royal Tenebombs was made in the nineties,
Speaker 2: it would it would be competition with with Rushmore, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't. So you know now that you mentioned Rushmore
Speaker 2: and I completely blanked on it that that might be
Speaker 2: my pick. That might mean, but it hits that because
Speaker 2: it hits the sweet making time with creation.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, pulp fiction did this too, but not
Speaker 1: that these were unknown songs but they didn't. Yes, you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't get radio play in the in the eighties
Speaker 1: or nineties necessarily, right, And they're gems and they're employed
Speaker 1: so effectively in the movie. They're not wallpaper at all, right,
Speaker 1: and you can listen to it all the way through.
Speaker 1: It has that quality. I do think that's the standard
Speaker 1: we should consider. What you were describing with pulp fiction,
Speaker 1: is that it works on those two levels. I would
Speaker 1: say of the choices, yeah, I mean, for the record
Speaker 1: of our options, what we owned were pulp fiction, reality bites, singles,
Speaker 1: and train Spotting. I would seriously consider pulp fiction or
Speaker 1: train Spotting. Honestly, I think that's that's worth considering. That
Speaker 1: it hits on these couple of levels and then until
Speaker 1: the end of the world. As I said, but yeah,
Speaker 1: might be Rushmore for me. I might have to use
Speaker 1: that right in.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm really glad you thought about that one. I
Speaker 2: will close with this, and some people may vote this way,
Speaker 2: especially after I pointed out. One thing that Sam and
Speaker 2: I discussed, and this was the conundrum of this poll,
Speaker 2: is that he really wanted to go with and I
Speaker 2: understand this inclination. He really wanted to go with nineties
Speaker 2: soundtracks that were comprised primarily of nineties music, so they
Speaker 2: felt like they felt like they were truly of the nineties.
Speaker 1: That's trans spotting, right, That's that's where.
Speaker 2: But kind of but kind of because when you really
Speaker 2: look at Trainspotting, and I don't have the track list
Speaker 2: in front of me, and I'm not going to do
Speaker 2: an exact breakdown, but even when you look at train Spotting,
Speaker 2: what you think of is like iggy pop, you think
Speaker 2: of you think a lot of the classic hits, not
Speaker 2: some of the newer stuff. Right, And so this is
Speaker 2: where singles would have an advantage because it feels of
Speaker 2: its time, right. Yeah, pulp fiction doesn't feel of its time.
Speaker 2: It has it has one song by a current band,
Speaker 2: and it's a cover of an old song. Days and
Speaker 2: Confused is all seventies stuff. Rushmore is is other than
Speaker 2: Mark Mothersboss stuff. It's all the Kinks and you know
Speaker 2: it's it's it's British pop. So it's not stuff that
Speaker 2: you you would equate with the nineties. Now that said,
Speaker 2: it was then very hard to field a poll. Clueless
Speaker 2: would be one that felt of its time, but it
Speaker 2: would be hard to feel the poll with a lot
Speaker 2: of choices, enough choices. If you were just going by,
Speaker 2: it had to be all nineties music. That's what's us anyway.
Speaker 1: What you're saying is Batman Forever for the win.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe maybe we would love to hear how you vote.
Speaker 2: We'd love to get the results, but we'd also like
Speaker 2: to hear your explanation. You can vote and leave a
Speaker 2: comment at film spotting dot net. I think this could
Speaker 2: be one of our more engaging polls, Josh.
Speaker 1: We actually we actually owned Batman Forever too.
Speaker 2: Of course you did, of course you did. We will
Speaker 2: share results and you'll feedback in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: Once again, you can vote at filmspotting dot net. Josh,
Speaker 2: that is our show.
Speaker 1: If you want to find Adam and the show on
Speaker 1: social media, you can look for film Spotting at Instagram, Facebook, letterbox,
Speaker 1: and YouTube. You can find me at those places. As
Speaker 1: Larsen on film. We are independently produced and listeners supported.
Speaker 1: You can support the show by joining the film Spotting Family.
Speaker 1: You can do that at film Spotting family dot com.
Speaker 1: That way you'll listen early in ad Free. You'll also
Speaker 1: get Sam's weekly newsletter, monthly bonus episodes, and.
Speaker 2: Access to the entire show archive.
Speaker 1: For show t shirts another merch go to film spotting
Speaker 1: dot Net.
Speaker 2: Slash Shop out in limited release this weekend. Alexander Scarsgard
Speaker 2: takes Henry Melling On as his submissive in Pillion. Okay,
Speaker 2: you piqued my curiosity? In wide release lup Besson's Dracula
Speaker 2: with Caleb Landry Jones as the Count Kevin James in
Speaker 2: the Italian set romance solo Meo and The Strangers Chapter three, No,
Speaker 2: you're not imagining things The Strangers Chapter two, which Rennie
Speaker 2: Harlan also directed, that that did just come out last September.
Speaker 2: Are we going to do like a fast and furious
Speaker 2: type visiting of all the Strangers movies Josh a marathon.
Speaker 1: No, but no, but we are going to do a
Speaker 1: a you know, make Adam choose. You know, usually we
Speaker 1: do this to each other, but I think this week
Speaker 1: is particularly painful for you. Are you going to see
Speaker 1: Luke Beason's Dracula for the Kevin James Italian romance? So
Speaker 1: or I'll give you I'll let you out a little bit.
Speaker 1: You don't have to go see Strangers chapters one and
Speaker 1: two to do your homework.
Speaker 2: You can just go to chapter three if you're leaving
Speaker 2: out the limited release Pillion and I just have to
Speaker 2: choose from the three wide Relily, I would definitely, I
Speaker 2: would definitely go see Dracula. Okay, yeah, I think I
Speaker 2: go see I think i'd join you. Perhaps perhaps we'll
Speaker 2: have a review next week. Maybe you never know, next week,
Speaker 2: maybe we'll have that Dracula review. We are definitely planning
Speaker 2: that train Spotting at thirty conversation and to share our
Speaker 2: nominees for this year's induction into the Film Spotting Pantheon.
Speaker 1: Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Toso and Sam
Speaker 1: Van Halgren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go.
Speaker 1: Our production assistant is Sophie Kempenar Special thanks to everyone.
Speaker 2: At wbeazy S Chicago.
Speaker 1: More information is available at wbez dot org. For film spotting,
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Larson.
Speaker 2: And I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: This conversation can serve no purpose anymore but bine