Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Movie Crush. Friday Interview Edition. Casey's in
Speaker 1: his house. Hello, how's it going. It's going good man.
Speaker 1: The weather is cooled down, so it feels like the
Speaker 1: appropriate time to talk about this movie. Yeah, wasn't that
Speaker 1: weather thing weird? It was? It was like two saturdays ago,
Speaker 1: or knows it was Halloween. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, when
Speaker 1: the temperature dropped like thirty degrees and degree swing's crazy.
Speaker 1: It was so fast, it was crazy. It was really
Speaker 1: really um it provided for a spooky Halloween. It did.
Speaker 1: It's kind of perfect, kind of unique, strange atmosphere. And
Speaker 1: you do mention the weather in this movie and we're
Speaker 1: talking about the ice storm the to Me classic film
Speaker 1: from Angle based on Rick Moody's novel screenplay by James Shamas,
Speaker 1: and the weather in this movie is so important. It's
Speaker 1: like another character. It's kind of a cliche, but it
Speaker 1: really is true. Yeah, and it's kind of the this
Speaker 1: is jumping ahead, but it's it's like the unifying thing
Speaker 1: because everybody is so alienated and disconnected and kind of
Speaker 1: talking past each other and trying their best to kind
Speaker 1: of stay in their bubbles of isolation and not kind
Speaker 1: of like you know, reach the surface of like polite conversation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're icy relationships and um and the ice storm kind
Speaker 1: of is the thing that finally forces everyone to kind
Speaker 1: of deal with each other as like real human beings.
Speaker 1: And you could you could find kind of similar I
Speaker 1: was thinking in terms of like you know, shortcuts. There's
Speaker 1: like the earthquake at the end Magnolia. There's the frogs.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, they're they're these ideas, like the
Speaker 1: idea of like the an ensemble cast that's kind of
Speaker 1: all brought together by this unifying kind of natural event. Yeah, totally. Um.
Speaker 1: I saw this in the theater in when I was
Speaker 1: living in New Jersey and went to the Angelica Film
Speaker 1: Center in New York, one of my favorite places, which
Speaker 1: is where I saw The Lighthouse recently, and um it
Speaker 1: really like really moved me at the time and has
Speaker 1: become one of my favorite films. Um And I've said
Speaker 1: this before and I'll say it again. It's somehow angle
Speaker 1: and it shows what a great director he is. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, of Asian descent, somehow captures America in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies better than any American director that I've ever seen. Maybe, yeah,
Speaker 1: well maybe I mean that might be because it's not
Speaker 1: firsthand knowledge so much to him. Maybe it's not in
Speaker 1: you have to find it in in research and reference
Speaker 1: and and really like studying hard. And of course, I
Speaker 1: mean he has the benefit of amazing production design and
Speaker 1: so on. But um yeah, I mean I think I
Speaker 1: think sometimes the best films about America are made by
Speaker 1: non Americans. You think of like Paris, Texas by ven
Speaker 1: vendors or something. Um it's the idea of like shooting
Speaker 1: America kind of as a foreign country, And um yeah,
Speaker 1: I think people I think when you're from a place,
Speaker 1: obviously you have a high degree of like intense familiarity
Speaker 1: with it that can almost blind you in a way,
Speaker 1: but maybe not the fascination that someone like angle exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's everything is kind of new again
Speaker 1: when you're coming with a different perspective. So yeah, boy,
Speaker 1: this movie just nailed it. I mean, I grew up
Speaker 1: when was the set seventy Yeah, And they make a
Speaker 1: lot about you know, there's there's a lot of emphasis
Speaker 1: put on it being seventy three. In particular, the yeah, Nixon,
Speaker 1: and just kind of the idea that it's only a
Speaker 1: few years after the sixty and yet it feels like
Speaker 1: we've entered this new age is kind of malaise, the
Speaker 1: sense of like the revolution didn't come, you know, and
Speaker 1: and the kind of like the the dream is sort
Speaker 1: of dead, and now it's just this like lost time
Speaker 1: where people feel kind of you know, they they're they're
Speaker 1: just not sure what they're doing. Everybody's a little bit lost. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's that that post sixties malaise, like you said,
Speaker 1: when everyone I think in the late sixties there was
Speaker 1: so much hope, yeah for change, and then I think,
Speaker 1: i mean historians point to the Democratic National Convention that's
Speaker 1: sort of the turning point when things started to to
Speaker 1: go bad. And of course you have like sixty nine,
Speaker 1: you have Sharon Tate murder, you know all that manson Um,
Speaker 1: And I think at the time the seventies were sort
Speaker 1: of we we look back at them now, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, with great glee, But I think at the
Speaker 1: times everyone everyone was like the seventies, you know, it sucks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think to like, um, the first few years
Speaker 1: of any given decade is always like a weird blend
Speaker 1: where there's so much holdover from the decade prior and
Speaker 1: and it's still you're still kind of feeling your way
Speaker 1: into what this thing is going to be. And it's
Speaker 1: really not until I think later in the decade that
Speaker 1: you kind of solidify like what even is this decade?
Speaker 1: You know? Yeah, I'm fascinated with that stuff, man, because
Speaker 1: of of time, the arbitrary nature of a person and
Speaker 1: man saying well, this is our calendar and this is
Speaker 1: the end of something and this is the beginning of something.
Speaker 1: When it's like, no, that was just yesterday. It's very
Speaker 1: arbitrayday is no different. But what it is is is
Speaker 1: forget the calendar numbers forgetting months and years and decades.
Speaker 1: It's the passage of time and the sun rising and
Speaker 1: setting over a long enough period which we call years. Uh,
Speaker 1: that does mean something. And it's kind of like, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's almost a chicken and egg thing. Do we
Speaker 1: have decades because we have the system that we think
Speaker 1: in terms of tens and like we just categorized, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we categorized. But then also like, do we feel an
Speaker 1: obligation almost to switch up what we're doing when it
Speaker 1: becomes like another decade. I think that's definitely true, and
Speaker 1: especially when you see things like Boogie Nights when goes
Speaker 1: into eight and it feels like a switch is flipped.
Speaker 1: It's like it's a brand new thing for everyone. They
Speaker 1: introduced it and to help you can start over. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, I think also the something on the on
Speaker 1: the commentary track that that Angley talks about a lot,
Speaker 1: and James Jamis, who's also on the commentary, um there
Speaker 1: there they were conscious that, you know, in a year
Speaker 1: like nineteen seventy three, there's still going to be people
Speaker 1: dressed like it's still the sixties and so on. They
Speaker 1: didn't do that so much in this film. They really
Speaker 1: went for everything to feel like up to the minute
Speaker 1: kind of and they're they're sort of, Um, rationale for
Speaker 1: that was that they're not creating necessarily something that feels
Speaker 1: like a camera dropped into nineteen seventy three and started filming.
Speaker 1: It's more about the memory of that period and what
Speaker 1: we associate with it, and so it's almost more nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three than nineteen seventy three. You know, it's a
Speaker 1: more perfect version of nineteen seventy three. Yeah, although it's
Speaker 1: it feels like someone dropped a camera. Yeah, because your
Speaker 1: memory of it probably you know, probably yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because so you know, I was two years old and
Speaker 1: seventy three, so obviously you don't have memories of that,
Speaker 1: but have very distinctive memories of, um, seventy five, seventy six,
Speaker 1: seventy seven and what life was like then. Uh. And
Speaker 1: this really very evocative for me, Like it hit a
Speaker 1: lot of not nostalgia, buttons, because there's not anything in
Speaker 1: this movie that's happy. The closest the closest they get
Speaker 1: is like that that shodow Wendy's foot when she's got
Speaker 1: the multicolored like toes on the sock. Um, they're a
Speaker 1: little hinds and just like, yeah, just like a little
Speaker 1: kind of kind of funny things like that, but they're
Speaker 1: they're few and far between. Buy and Large is not
Speaker 1: a nostalgia movie. It's not a sort of like, look
Speaker 1: at how funny everybody was dressed back then sort of No,
Speaker 1: and no one feels um And this is a testament
Speaker 1: to the set design in the in the costumes and wardrobe,
Speaker 1: but no one ever feels like they're in a costume. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: just feels very real. Um, even the way over the
Speaker 1: top seventies and nous of the Sigourney Weaver and Jamie
Speaker 1: Sheridan's house, which, by the way, like I want to
Speaker 1: live in that house, even the colonial uh Kevin Klein's,
Speaker 1: like those picture windows by that river in the backyard,
Speaker 1: Like this forested suburb was just like it was because
Speaker 1: this is sort of how I grew up. I grew
Speaker 1: up in the woods on a house with a street
Speaker 1: with eight houses. It wasn't like some big suburban neighborhood.
Speaker 1: And we had a creek in the woods behind our house,
Speaker 1: and we lived on like two acres. So this in
Speaker 1: the wintertime in my home, it reminded me very much
Speaker 1: of what was going on here. Yeah, I know for me,
Speaker 1: like watching um watching the film the first time I
Speaker 1: saw it, I didn't get to see it in theaters,
Speaker 1: but I saw it on DVD like probably the next year,
Speaker 1: ninety eight or so. How old are you. I would
Speaker 1: have been fifteen, so you know, interesting age to see
Speaker 1: this watching it at that age. My obviously, my most
Speaker 1: intense identification was with Tobey Maguire, Paul Hood and Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: something about watching it, I think I watched it, you know,
Speaker 1: during the winter, during the cold months, and um, it's
Speaker 1: not a summer film, no no. And I was, you know,
Speaker 1: upstairs my parents house, in my room, and I just
Speaker 1: had this sense of you know, it's it's when you're
Speaker 1: especially when you're a teenager. At least a lot of
Speaker 1: teenagers get this way. They kind of isolate from their
Speaker 1: families a little bit. They wanted to find themselves separately
Speaker 1: and um, and so you're kind of it's weird because
Speaker 1: you're you're sort of with your family because you're still
Speaker 1: living under their roof. You're still seeing them for meals
Speaker 1: and you know, interactions and so on, but you're also
Speaker 1: kind of tucking yourself away, like creating a separate thing.
Speaker 1: And I have this feeling of, yeah, watching that film,
Speaker 1: knowing that you know, my parents are like downstairs, but
Speaker 1: I kind of up here and I'm having this experience
Speaker 1: and so on. We'll meet up a couple of times
Speaker 1: a day. Yeah, yeah, and just like you know, it's
Speaker 1: like like like Kevin Klein says in the movie to
Speaker 1: to Paul, he's, um, he's like, you know, the whole
Speaker 1: point of view coming home so that your mother and
Speaker 1: I can wait on your hand and foot, and you
Speaker 1: can grunt at us and we can give you more food,
Speaker 1: and it's like we enjoy that kind of thing, you know,
Speaker 1: And and um, you know it. At the time, that
Speaker 1: idea seems very strange and and kind of like he
Speaker 1: must not mean it or something, but of course he does,
Speaker 1: you know. He misses that that sense of just like
Speaker 1: being a parent and caring for somebody. UM. So yeah,
Speaker 1: now watching it, gosh, how many years later, like twenty
Speaker 1: two years later, Um, it's a very different experience for
Speaker 1: me because like in the novel, Uh, didn't you read it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well sort of. I I took a class in college
Speaker 1: where every every um film that we were signed was
Speaker 1: an adaptation of a book, and so we were assigned
Speaker 1: the book and the film and one I didn't really cheat.
Speaker 1: I just kind of, Um, I read enough of the book,
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, I read enough of the book
Speaker 1: to it's really funny. I took it out again to
Speaker 1: uh to look over for for this episode, and I
Speaker 1: found like my bookmark from two thousand four where it
Speaker 1: was a page. So I made I made it most
Speaker 1: of the way through, but I bailed at some point.
Speaker 1: And so then for this, I just went back and
Speaker 1: reread like the very first chapter. Um, where was I
Speaker 1: going with all that? Oh? So watching it now. So
Speaker 1: in the book it mentions that Benjamin Hood, the Kevin
Speaker 1: Klein character, is thirty nine. I'm thirty six now, and
Speaker 1: so I know he's I mean, he's he plays a
Speaker 1: little bit, maybe slightly older in the film. I think
Speaker 1: I feel like they all felt like they were four Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so definitely like mid forties, I think so. In the
Speaker 1: in the book, he's just slightly younger. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, in the book he's described as kind of
Speaker 1: like having lost his hair already, just just feeling extremely
Speaker 1: like over the hill kind of and sort of like
Speaker 1: past it. And you know, in the in the film,
Speaker 1: Kevin Klein is still very like, you know, handsome and
Speaker 1: you know, virile, viril exactly. So there's there's a slight
Speaker 1: difference there, but in terms of like his own kind
Speaker 1: of midlife crisis and everything, that's I think that's more
Speaker 1: or less the same in both. Yeah, man, it's a boy.
Speaker 1: This is a movie about I've seen this movie a
Speaker 1: bunch of times, but it had been a minute. It's
Speaker 1: a it's such a movie about people seeking connections and
Speaker 1: not ever getting missing. I mean sometimes, but rarely. And
Speaker 1: I just kept counting so many instances where it's a
Speaker 1: husband trying to connect with a wife, or or a
Speaker 1: parent trying to connect with a child, or children trying
Speaker 1: to make connections with each other. They kind of become
Speaker 1: more connected than anyone. I guess, yes, I think I
Speaker 1: think Windy and Sandy you know, end up having like
Speaker 1: the best genuine connection that um, you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: they're like in bed together as far as we can tell.
Speaker 1: They're not doing anything sexual. They're just kind of like
Speaker 1: each other. Review said something about, like, you know, one
Speaker 1: of them loses their virginity. I'm like, no, no, I
Speaker 1: don't even I think. I think I mean the kid,
Speaker 1: you know, the Sammy, he passes out drunk, like almost immediately. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they just kind of like they're they're just keeping
Speaker 1: each other warm basically, and their kids they're playing adult Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: all the adults are playing kids and all the kids
Speaker 1: are playing adults. But they're they're doing you know, they're
Speaker 1: drinking the vodka and then they take up their clothes
Speaker 1: and get in bed together because that's what they see
Speaker 1: all around. That's what their parents do. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: what they've kind of been taught. That's that's the model
Speaker 1: that they've kind of learned. So it's all very innocent though,
Speaker 1: like that age, that adolescent age, where you don't know
Speaker 1: what the funk is going on in your body, You
Speaker 1: don't know what these feelings are, you don't know how
Speaker 1: to do any of this stuff physically. Um, it's just
Speaker 1: so awkward in this movie. And it doesn't like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I feel like a lot of movies like
Speaker 1: Coming of Age play it play it too broad. Um,
Speaker 1: with the lack of awareness about sex, how to do things,
Speaker 1: it can be way over the tops. And this is
Speaker 1: just so real man. It's just like I remember having
Speaker 1: these feelings and fumbling around and being like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's and I had parents who like they didn't tell
Speaker 1: me about any stuff, never had like the talk. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't know what was going on. You're picking all
Speaker 1: this stuff up second hand off the playground, some of
Speaker 1: it blatantly wrong. That's how Yeah, I mean, that's how
Speaker 1: you learn. You learn it from like the older kids,
Speaker 1: you know, or maybe like someone that's your age who
Speaker 1: heard it from their older sibling or yeah, like a
Speaker 1: fourteen year old is learning about sex from a sixteen
Speaker 1: year old, which you find it funny. Find a playboy
Speaker 1: in the woods or whatever, you know, that old that
Speaker 1: old move. It's like, I wonder what's in that tree house,
Speaker 1: but it's it's funny. Sigourney Weaver has that great speech
Speaker 1: to Wendy where she's like, you know, in adolescence, our
Speaker 1: bodies betray us, and your body is your temple and
Speaker 1: you only get one in this life. It's your first
Speaker 1: and last possession. And I know it's int thing that
Speaker 1: takes that the parents have on this stuff, because they're
Speaker 1: all different. She has that funny thing where she says, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and like she calls it like developing countries
Speaker 1: or something. She's like, you know, they just when the
Speaker 1: kids reach a certain age, they send them off into
Speaker 1: the woods without any weapons or anything, and they don't
Speaker 1: come back until you've learned a thing or two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't really you know, you kind of know what
Speaker 1: she's getting at, but to the kid is just like,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? Well, and that was Christina
Speaker 1: Recchi is so good and all the acting is just
Speaker 1: off the charts in this movie. I mean the cast
Speaker 1: is insane, like the number of people. Yeah, Katie Holmes,
Speaker 1: I don't think even gets like billing up front. It
Speaker 1: was her first film. Yeah, it was her film debut. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so when she pops up, you know, first time around anyway,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh my gosh, it's you know, Toby McGuire.
Speaker 1: Of course, Joan Allen will just take through the cast.
Speaker 1: Kevin Klein are the are the married couple of Christina
Speaker 1: Reachie and Toby McGuire, their kids. Sigourney Weaver, who was
Speaker 1: I think kind of steals the movie in a lot
Speaker 1: of way. If you can steal this movie. Jamie Sheridan
Speaker 1: is great, and then Elijah Wood and Adam han or
Speaker 1: han Bird yeah as Sandy who was so good in
Speaker 1: this movie. Yes, and forget like David crum Holtz. Crum
Speaker 1: Holtz in he's one of my favorite act Oh my god,
Speaker 1: just like the the ultimate asshole. Like I feel like
Speaker 1: we all knew that that guy. Of course, like your
Speaker 1: back is turned and he's moving in on your girl. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: like your best friend right right totally. Yeah, So um,
Speaker 1: that was a good overview. We'll kind of go in order,
Speaker 1: but we can go all over the place. But the
Speaker 1: movie opens with that great through line of the Fantastic
Speaker 1: Four stuff. Yeah, so effective in a kind of a
Speaker 1: funny Um, I don't know, irony of history or something
Speaker 1: that You've got Toby McGuire who goes on to play
Speaker 1: Spider Man, got Angley who goes on to direct Hulk.
Speaker 1: You've got you know, yeah Holmes, this is not Marvel,
Speaker 1: but Katie Holmes who's in Wondering Boys and Wonder Boys too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What was the first one he said was in What
Speaker 1: Batman Begins? You know, comic book adaptation. Um, and I
Speaker 1: think Pleasantville was Joan Allen and Toby is a lot
Speaker 1: of weird cross a lot of a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of criss crossing in that period in like you know,
Speaker 1: semi independent film. Yeah, although it's backed by a larger studio.
Speaker 1: It's you know, very much like in that mold. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and didn't do well. Um, yes, it was kind of
Speaker 1: a commercial flop. Well, they say um on the on
Speaker 1: the commentary. The first one of the first things Jim
Speaker 1: Shamus says, Angle is like sowing here. It is like
Speaker 1: your worst tested movie ever, like, you know, just just
Speaker 1: the worst feedback that was ever given. And because he's
Speaker 1: made some pretty bad movies yeah, over the last like
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen years, I know, and confounding from yeah
Speaker 1: he's he's, he's um, he's he's hard to pin down.
Speaker 1: He swings between so many different genres and yeah, something
Speaker 1: like Life of Pie was really good, but this new
Speaker 1: movie just is getting atrocious. I've used some I've seen
Speaker 1: some positive you know words written about it by like
Speaker 1: cinephile type people. But there's a certain thing that happens
Speaker 1: with some cinephiles where it's almost like a contrarianism or
Speaker 1: or or or sort of um like fetishizing the film
Speaker 1: that's rejected by a mass audience and rediscovering like something
Speaker 1: good about it. Everyone hates this, so let me take
Speaker 1: a yeah, yeah, let's so, um it is valid And
Speaker 1: of course only is like a director that's worth making
Speaker 1: that kind of investment in and and sort of taking
Speaker 1: a closer look and saying like is this really as
Speaker 1: bad as people are saying, etcetera. But yeah, he's he
Speaker 1: is somebody that. I mean, I feel like he's never
Speaker 1: made another film remotely like in this mold, you know,
Speaker 1: like a domestic drama or even just yeah, really really
Speaker 1: anything that that um comes close to the feeling that
Speaker 1: the film gives him. Maybe it's better that he doesn't,
Speaker 1: because how where how are you gonna improve? How are
Speaker 1: you gonna you know? Yeah, and this movie was a
Speaker 1: real throwback to um, I mean said in seventy three,
Speaker 1: but a throwback to a time when they were making
Speaker 1: these adult dramas um that they certainly don't feel like
Speaker 1: they make anymore. And I don't even think they were
Speaker 1: making that much, right, Yeah, I mean already it was,
Speaker 1: it was starting to it. I mean, it had been
Speaker 1: turning whatever you want to say, like Star Wars and
Speaker 1: and all the rest of it late seventies, but um, certainly,
Speaker 1: like by the nineties there was that that kind of moment,
Speaker 1: that resurgence of the independent film and sun Dance and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff was happening. But yeah, the
Speaker 1: kind of like big budget adult drama that we used
Speaker 1: to see all the time in the seventies. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: was an eighteen million dollar budgeted film. This would be
Speaker 1: made for like five dollars today. Yeah, it would imagine
Speaker 1: they paid the cast pretty well. Yeah, yeah, because I
Speaker 1: can't imagine what else they were spending on. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: m I know, it was a bunch of interiors and
Speaker 1: with a few locations. Yeah, they did shoot it in
Speaker 1: like the real New Canaan, which is interesting, which which
Speaker 1: maybe that could have added to the budget if it
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily like a film friendly or film ready type
Speaker 1: city kind of. But yeah, not not that much. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're I guess you're paying to have the
Speaker 1: casting crew stay there because you're not shooting in like
Speaker 1: La or New York. Location is always a bit more,
Speaker 1: But we'm on commercial eighteen million dollar is worth it? Yea,
Speaker 1: certainly not. But what's your take on the Fantastic Four stuff?
Speaker 1: It's I love this kind of narration. It's a little
Speaker 1: on the nose, but to to say sort of explicitly
Speaker 1: say like sort of this is the theme of this film.
Speaker 1: I think it. I think it really it really uh
Speaker 1: ties everything together in an important way. And there's it's
Speaker 1: it's funny because when the movie starts, is that in
Speaker 1: the book? First of all, I believe it is. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: I could be wrong about that. I'm pretty sure it's
Speaker 1: in the book that But there's only really like three
Speaker 1: kind of main chunks of voiceover in in the film.
Speaker 1: That's sort of like beginning, middle end, everything else is
Speaker 1: without voiceover, but each time it comes in, it just
Speaker 1: has this way of really connecting and really kind of
Speaker 1: um reinforcing the themes of the film, Like you said,
Speaker 1: amost outright stating them in terms of the idea about
Speaker 1: family and um, family like fighting with itself. Um. The
Speaker 1: the idea of like the negative zone, that that this
Speaker 1: this place where you know, life doesn't quite work out
Speaker 1: the way you think it should and it almost feels
Speaker 1: like a mistake has been made and like you've entered
Speaker 1: into the bad timeline or something, you know, and I
Speaker 1: we've all had that feeling. Um. But um, and yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea that some people go all the way into
Speaker 1: it and maybe never come back out again. UM. I
Speaker 1: think that's very interesting. I think it's interesting to pull that,
Speaker 1: you know, from a comic book. Um. And it just
Speaker 1: goes to show that that these these themes, I mean,
Speaker 1: they can be communicated in so many different mediums, and
Speaker 1: comic books can can take on like serious adult themes too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's worth pointing out too because I remember at
Speaker 1: the time and when I saw this was prey All
Speaker 1: the superhero movie, right, So when he was talking about
Speaker 1: The Fantastic Four and relating it to like everyday life.
Speaker 1: It was really really cool. Yeah yeah, and you would
Speaker 1: you'd never see it done today, I don't think by
Speaker 1: a drama because it would just kind of be like, well,
Speaker 1: why are you referencing something that's like so so ubiquitous. Um?
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean I I think that's It's also
Speaker 1: interesting because Paul Hood is like sixteen years old, so
Speaker 1: while he's he's reading like Dostoyevsky in in school and
Speaker 1: he's idiot, Yeah, the idiot. Um. He's like, if you
Speaker 1: love Notes from Underground, you will love the idiot. The
Speaker 1: idiots like the idiot yea. Um. But yeah, so he
Speaker 1: it reminds you in a way he's still a kid too,
Speaker 1: but but he's he's beginning to have more of an
Speaker 1: adult perspective on these things from childhood that he's able
Speaker 1: to see what maybe the writers are are really getting at,
Speaker 1: whereas a younger, you know, reader might just think about
Speaker 1: the fights and the cool superpowers and that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: you know. But he's he's really starting to kind of
Speaker 1: realize that they're they're lay years to this and that
Speaker 1: family is this really complicated, like love it or hate
Speaker 1: it or both kind of thing. Yeah, and it's it
Speaker 1: also does that thing that I love is when a
Speaker 1: movie starts at the end. Yes, it's just it's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite devices. When I've written screenplays, I've tried
Speaker 1: to use it. I've tried to force it in there. Uh,
Speaker 1: and when it works, it really works. There's something really
Speaker 1: satisfying about um because it's sort of like you almost
Speaker 1: forget that beginning when you're in the flow of the movie,
Speaker 1: and then when it comes up again to realize, oh,
Speaker 1: the movie has been building back up towards itself and
Speaker 1: now it's going to kind of finish out. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: not in the way because it can be done in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. It can be done in like
Speaker 1: an action film where someone is like dying or something.
Speaker 1: And this is not that. This is a very small
Speaker 1: little thing, which is a kid being picked up at
Speaker 1: the train station. Uh, but it's as you learn to
Speaker 1: find out, there's a lot more going on in that
Speaker 1: scene than you certainly know at the beginning, even in
Speaker 1: terms of whether the train has power or not. And
Speaker 1: you think about how that relates to what happens with uh,
Speaker 1: the Alijah Wood character, you know. Yeah, and boy, that's
Speaker 1: that shot of the of the train creaking to a halt.
Speaker 1: And you've been around like storms the silence, yes, either,
Speaker 1: and snow does the same thing. It just dampens everything.
Speaker 1: And that early you know, the lights went dark and
Speaker 1: the train goes and it's just dead quiet. Were you
Speaker 1: here when the when the blizzard happened? Were you like
Speaker 1: out west at that point? I was where was my
Speaker 1: nine three? I was in Athens. I was in college. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you do you remember that blizzard that winter? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's kind of the strongest association I have, um,
Speaker 1: for those in or not from Georgia, Like there was
Speaker 1: a kind of like freak blizzard that happened, I want
Speaker 1: to say around like March or something, maybe February, but
Speaker 1: I feel like it was like you know, later in
Speaker 1: the season, and um, it was a big party in Athens,
Speaker 1: of course, yeah, of course. In in in suburban Rosal, Georgia,
Speaker 1: it was a little more like the ice storm. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, no power for for multiple days and yeah,
Speaker 1: ice storms are weird looking too, Like it's different than
Speaker 1: a snowstorm. Well, they were like thunderstorms happening. So you
Speaker 1: couldn't really even like go play outside the snow it
Speaker 1: was it wasn't like a fund snow. It was just
Speaker 1: sort of like the elements, you know. Um, and when
Speaker 1: the trees freeze over, it's just everything there's a weight everything,
Speaker 1: Everything feels burdened and fragile, right, and and there's there's
Speaker 1: something real beautiful about it, but there's also like, you know,
Speaker 1: some danger to it, and and it's kind of Yeah,
Speaker 1: the movie does such a great job of of of
Speaker 1: conveying that silence. It's just like the wind chimes and
Speaker 1: kind of the the crackling of the ice and the
Speaker 1: trees as the wind blows them. It's the title of
Speaker 1: the film, yeah, for a reason. Yeah, it wasn't called
Speaker 1: you know, the what was the name of the family,
Speaker 1: the Hoods, Yeah, it was it called the Hoods or
Speaker 1: anything like that. It was called the Ice Storm. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it. The name of the other family,
Speaker 1: the Carvers, and the book there the Williams is so
Speaker 1: they change to the Carver, which I imagine as a
Speaker 1: reference to Raymond Carver. Could be wrong, but I mean
Speaker 1: I think he he's certainly this film and his short
Speaker 1: stories share a lot of the same DNA kind of
Speaker 1: in terms of the themes of you know, suburban alienation
Speaker 1: and and sort of every day Yeah, the every day
Speaker 1: Carver is a little more working class, and I think
Speaker 1: this film is is set to more like kind of
Speaker 1: upper middle class milieu, but you know, the same same
Speaker 1: underlying feeling that, Um, you know, America is kind of
Speaker 1: a sad place with a lot of people that are
Speaker 1: lonely and alienated and so on and so forth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about some of these characters Kevin Klein, and
Speaker 1: you know, we'll we'll do it as we go to,
Speaker 1: but I want to talk about him for a minute. Yes,
Speaker 1: Ben Hood is he's such a dope. He's so dopey,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't he's not a dummy, and those are
Speaker 1: two different things. Um, he never he's always trying to
Speaker 1: force something to happen unnaturally, whether it's you know, the
Speaker 1: perfect Thanksgiving dinner or asking Wendy to say grace, which
Speaker 1: is like she didn't want to say grace, And if
Speaker 1: you knew your daughter, you would know she doesn't want
Speaker 1: to say great. Yeah, like he should have known what
Speaker 1: was coming. They on the commentary, they say that he's
Speaker 1: basically proceeding as if it were almost the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1: He has that kind of like father knows best thing
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, he's checked out, but he's also at
Speaker 1: the same time he himself is doubting and skeptical about that.
Speaker 1: So sometimes he tries to play the stern father, but
Speaker 1: he immediately kind of gives in. It's all an act. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he is not. He's always playing something. It's like when, um,
Speaker 1: you know, when Wendy is on the telephone in her
Speaker 1: room and he pulls the cord and she calls him
Speaker 1: a fascist and uh, and he goes, if I were
Speaker 1: a fascist, I would say need a military school somewhere
Speaker 1: down south, you know. Yeah, he slams the door, go
Speaker 1: to bed, and then maybe a one beat later he
Speaker 1: opens that door a kid, sorry, you know, and I
Speaker 1: love there, like he's such a dopey character. But there
Speaker 1: are a couple of great moments where that one and
Speaker 1: then obviously the one where he carries her home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just like the yeah, and again like the way he
Speaker 1: does that stern like you come with me right now,
Speaker 1: a young lady, you know, it really puffs his chest out. Well,
Speaker 1: he has to do that in front of Mikey. I think,
Speaker 1: and then on the way home, as soon as he's
Speaker 1: walking home, he's like, look it, I don't really care.
Speaker 1: He's like, I don't really care about I just don't
Speaker 1: think he's right for you. Like there's there's pragmatic. That
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite exchanges in the movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I really don't care. I just don't think
Speaker 1: he's right for you. And then he says, when you
Speaker 1: get older, you have a certain sense about whether or
Speaker 1: not things are going to work out with someone and
Speaker 1: whether the mess is worth it. Yeah. Yeah, And and
Speaker 1: he's fucking right, man is He's totally right there, but
Speaker 1: he is a mess. Like for him to be giving
Speaker 1: advice on relationships is a joke because he's having an affair.
Speaker 1: B he's so checked out that he thinks he's getting
Speaker 1: away with it. Yeah, you know, he's he's not noticing
Speaker 1: all all the signs and clues, and it's so obvious
Speaker 1: to anybody that's really observant. And when he's any when
Speaker 1: he's finally busted, it's such a it's such a real
Speaker 1: moment because it's not a big fight, it's not a
Speaker 1: I got you and he denies it. It's very quiet
Speaker 1: and just sad because she has that she she could
Speaker 1: have had that moment with with the cup the mug.
Speaker 1: You know, she could have confronted him and said whatever,
Speaker 1: like the mug still here, or I took the mug back,
Speaker 1: or however it is that she knows that he's lying,
Speaker 1: which they don't even reveal, which is kind of perfect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all she says is like that stupid fucking mug. You know,
Speaker 1: she's kind of like I thought she was going to
Speaker 1: run and get it out of the exactly, Like that's
Speaker 1: what I think more obvious for done. But it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you mean this mug exactly. Yeah, It's just yeah. And
Speaker 1: I love that they never really even use the word affair.
Speaker 1: I don't think, at least not you know, within uh,
Speaker 1: just Benjamin and Elena. It's it's like she's she's doing
Speaker 1: the dishes. I mean, I love um. I love that
Speaker 1: there's in that scene, it's not just two characters standing
Speaker 1: in a room, back and forth conversation. They're both kind
Speaker 1: of they're getting ready to go out to this party.
Speaker 1: She's doing the dishes. They're emptying the dishes into the
Speaker 1: into the trash can. He like drops the plate when
Speaker 1: he's scraping food off because he's on edge. And um, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so much, so much that's revealed through behavior, and
Speaker 1: it just feels so true to life that these situations
Speaker 1: never play out in like a vacuum. There's always life
Speaker 1: going on in the background. And sometimes it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know what we're gonna do. We're gonna have this
Speaker 1: big argument right now. She says to him, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: don't don't start. Um, you know, I don't think this
Speaker 1: is this is not gonna be a good conversation. I
Speaker 1: don't think you want to have it right now or
Speaker 1: something like that. They both they both know exactly what's
Speaker 1: going on, but uh, they just they just kind of
Speaker 1: sold drawing through it. Yeah, man, and without getting too personal. Um,
Speaker 1: a lot of this movie mirrors what I grew up with,
Speaker 1: and um it is astounding and profoundly sad and depressing.
Speaker 1: What what some people can accept and live with for years.
Speaker 1: Oh it's yeah, it's terrifying actually that that that you think.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I mean I have that feeling a lot
Speaker 1: when I, um, when you know, for instance, when I
Speaker 1: read like the lives of artists and so on and
Speaker 1: so many that that go on to succeed. They have
Speaker 1: these moments where they kind of make a really forceful
Speaker 1: break with the thing that they're from or the life
Speaker 1: they're living. Maybe it's a job that they quit or
Speaker 1: you know, they take like that really big shot. But
Speaker 1: then there's so many other people that don't do that
Speaker 1: that just kind of say, oh what if, or oh
Speaker 1: there's all these other reasons not to and so on,
Speaker 1: and it's yeah, that's that's kind of where that's how,
Speaker 1: you know, Benjamin Hood, that's how he ends up where
Speaker 1: he is by just kind of not having the courage
Speaker 1: of his own convictions, kind of just kind of um
Speaker 1: muddle his way through his life and to not really
Speaker 1: listen to, you know, what his heart is telling him.
Speaker 1: You know, this is not right, I don't feel this
Speaker 1: anymore whatever. He Um. There's that moment early on when
Speaker 1: they're having the dinner party and um, and he's almost
Speaker 1: bragging that they're not going to couples therapy anymore, and
Speaker 1: that he's like, you know, the only real big fight
Speaker 1: we've had in years was about couple of therapy. It's
Speaker 1: a couple of therapy itself. Yeah, they're not fighting, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's like you should be a little bit. You know,
Speaker 1: they're dead, Yeah, exactly exactly, it's a funeral. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: worse than it's much worse than fighting. It's just kind
Speaker 1: of there's like a range when when you look at this, uh,
Speaker 1: these lives that some of us grew up with in
Speaker 1: some play out in a film, from an abusive relationship
Speaker 1: that you stay in all the way to just this
Speaker 1: stage play that you can manage to do for years.
Speaker 1: And it is sad because like, you know, get those
Speaker 1: years back. And also the the really interesting thing that
Speaker 1: the movie shows us is that you know, the parents
Speaker 1: almost think that they're they're keeping up a facade. Maybe
Speaker 1: they're staying you know, they're quote unquote staying together for
Speaker 1: the kids. And and that's the thing is that the
Speaker 1: kids know everything. The parents don't think the kids know,
Speaker 1: but they know. They don't miss a beat. You know,
Speaker 1: when when Wendy's you know, sitting there watching Nixon on
Speaker 1: the TV, but she hears the fight happening in the
Speaker 1: kitchen and there's shots of her and you can tell
Speaker 1: that she knows. Maybe she's not hearing every word, but
Speaker 1: she hears the tone of voices and it's and she
Speaker 1: just knows mom and dad are fighting. Yeah, and the
Speaker 1: way like that's like one of the first things that
Speaker 1: she talks about with his with her brother when he
Speaker 1: comes home. It's like, how are the parents doing? Do
Speaker 1: you think they're headed for divorce? Like yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah that uh yeah. This movie really hit home for me.
Speaker 1: And I mean, yeah, the I mean I remember that
Speaker 1: so much too from from growing up, Like my parents
Speaker 1: had a pretty good relationship, but there are times when
Speaker 1: there were fights and and you know, I remember like
Speaker 1: standing at the top of the stairs and hearing like
Speaker 1: and just like that feeling of like that. That's also
Speaker 1: I think part of growing up in a way is
Speaker 1: realizing like, oh, this isn't picture perfect sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: good people can disagree and and there can be tension
Speaker 1: and so on. Um, it's part of that, like you're
Speaker 1: losing that that sort of idealized childhood view of the
Speaker 1: world and you're you're coming into something much more complex
Speaker 1: and scary. Yeah, I will say this, uh, and again,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get into my history too much
Speaker 1: because it's just sad. But what it does is it
Speaker 1: leaves a child feeling very unmoored. Yeah. Yeah, because because
Speaker 1: those those rock solids are not so solid anymore so solid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a bad feeling. Um. I love the uh,
Speaker 1: the nix and stuff and the character of Wendy how
Speaker 1: she's Um, it's a time where she's developing. It's a
Speaker 1: time in America with the e Coal Rights Amendment and
Speaker 1: um feminism. I guess is this which wave with this
Speaker 1: have been second way second way feminism in the early
Speaker 1: seventies and her coming into her own as a woman
Speaker 1: because she's always the one calling the shots with the boys.
Speaker 1: She's the one that's saying I'll show you mine if
Speaker 1: you show me yours, or let's get into bed together,
Speaker 1: or I'm gonna take my pants down and you can
Speaker 1: look at it, but you can't touch it. And like
Speaker 1: she's setting the rules and it's sort of this little
Speaker 1: proto feminist. She's the one railing against the establishment and
Speaker 1: Nixon and like Kevin Klein, just like what he's got
Speaker 1: on his hands is this great daughter that is going
Speaker 1: to be a fully realized woman. And I don't think
Speaker 1: he even realizes that. Yeah he um, I mean he
Speaker 1: loves his daughter. You can tell he has a genuine
Speaker 1: affection and cares for her, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: he's a little bit i rolly when he sees you
Speaker 1: know sure, it's like it's like he's not really listening now.
Speaker 1: He's like, all right, can we cut it with a
Speaker 1: you know, presidential assassination talk or yeah it's it's again.
Speaker 1: He's playing. He's like, this is what I should say? Yeah, yeah, not.
Speaker 1: I don't think he ever really speaks from his heart
Speaker 1: except in moment a couple of moments, will drop the
Speaker 1: facade once in a while. But he but then he
Speaker 1: kind of maybe because he feels exposed, he kind of
Speaker 1: puts that armor back up again and he's back into
Speaker 1: you know, robot Dad. Well when he when he finally
Speaker 1: gets busted for real again, you know, we talked about
Speaker 1: it a second ago that it's not some big fight,
Speaker 1: and he very just sadly just says, I don't even
Speaker 1: feel good about it. Yeah, He's like, it's not it's
Speaker 1: not what you think. It's not some big plot because
Speaker 1: she thinks that they've coordinated this whole thing, the keys
Speaker 1: and so on, and it's not. It's not satisfying. It's
Speaker 1: just like he's just like, no, it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: just it's just a dumb thing that happened really and
Speaker 1: and but that's the truth. Yeah, he doesn't have a
Speaker 1: relationship with with Sigourney Weaver's Garrett. But it's funny because
Speaker 1: he Angley makes this observation on the commentary that, you know,
Speaker 1: the kind of stereotypical midlife crisis, a guy like Benjamin
Speaker 1: Hood might date a much younger woman, for instance, in
Speaker 1: this case, he's dating like someone around his age from
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. I think it convenient, Yeah, exactly, it's the
Speaker 1: convenience is the biggest thing. But when they are in bed,
Speaker 1: he's actually he starts talking about like the guy his
Speaker 1: work that's taking private golf, dope thing. He's so unaware,
Speaker 1: but he's he's kind of he's slipping into that almost
Speaker 1: like marriage, Like territory was like unloading about his day
Speaker 1: to day boring shit, and she's just like boring me.
Speaker 1: I've got a husband, I don't particularly need another. So
Speaker 1: it's interesting that he is almost trying to connect in
Speaker 1: a way, in his dopey way, he's trying to make
Speaker 1: a connection. It happens all over this film ham Fisted
Speaker 1: Lee unsuccessfully. Almost always people are trying to make connections.
Speaker 1: Joan Allen I mean, what a what a role, and
Speaker 1: what an acting job she does. You know, she is
Speaker 1: in a loveless marriage, she's going through the motions of
Speaker 1: this stage play that she lives every day, and that
Speaker 1: moment when she sees Wendy on the bicycle is it's
Speaker 1: almost like dreamlike or something. It's kind of there, you know,
Speaker 1: she's sing this like it's like she's time traveling, you know,
Speaker 1: back to when she was that young and that free
Speaker 1: and everything. And she immediately she just can't help herself.
Speaker 1: She says, I haven't been on a bike in years.
Speaker 1: It's like instinct took over and she just had to
Speaker 1: say that out loud. And going to shoplift, you know,
Speaker 1: the drug store. There's so many moments like that bike
Speaker 1: scene that are so small but so impactful. And this movie,
Speaker 1: like more than many movies I've seen, do a lot
Speaker 1: with a little Yeah, the the minimalist kind of approach
Speaker 1: is so important. The restraint, the fact that these these
Speaker 1: moments are just allowed to to unfold, you know, without commentary,
Speaker 1: without kind of emphasis. Even that that we're in a
Speaker 1: way because reading the first the first chapter of the
Speaker 1: book again, you you have it's basically it's the scene
Speaker 1: where where Benjamin Hood is in the guest room at
Speaker 1: the Carver's he's waiting for Sigourney Weaver to come back,
Speaker 1: and which is hysterical because again he's so dope and
Speaker 1: unaware she ain't coming back. Everyone in the theater, no,
Speaker 1: she's not coming back, and he's like, well, I guess
Speaker 1: she just stepped out for a minute. Yeah. In the
Speaker 1: in the book, you know, you're you're sort of inside
Speaker 1: the perspective of his mind, his thoughts and so on
Speaker 1: and um, and so you're you're getting these these little
Speaker 1: vignettes from all throughout his life and he's thinking back
Speaker 1: in the book he's had a previous affair with somebody
Speaker 1: from like the office Christmas party where they had really
Speaker 1: bad sex in a car one time. I think that's
Speaker 1: probably the model for Yeah, Um, I believe they kind
Speaker 1: of transpose that a little bit. But it's a great device. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But but I think, um, it's so interesting because the
Speaker 1: novel is so interior facing in terms of you're just
Speaker 1: in somebody's thoughts in a stream of conscious the way
Speaker 1: they're thinking, and it's it's it's something that is would
Speaker 1: be nearly impossible to adapt. You would think and and
Speaker 1: the way that it's adapted here is so different because
Speaker 1: the film is much more about surfaces and about being
Speaker 1: being somewhat distant and outside the thing, but being able
Speaker 1: to see enough inside to know what's happening. But it's
Speaker 1: it's sort of like the tip of the iceberg that
Speaker 1: we're seeing, you know, and there's so much submerged beneath
Speaker 1: that we don't see that we only can kind of
Speaker 1: into it from what we are seeing, but it is
Speaker 1: in the book, it's it's kind of him just feeling
Speaker 1: like thirty nine, I'm losing my hair, like I'm in
Speaker 1: this marriage. We haven't at sex in in two years. Um.
Speaker 1: Just he's thinking about, you know, when when he first
Speaker 1: met his wife back in college, and even then he
Speaker 1: kind of it's so sad because they meet it like
Speaker 1: a college party. He's really drunk. He starts talking to her,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like he wants to stop talking, but
Speaker 1: through like social awkwardness or pressure something, he just continues.
Speaker 1: And that's almost how their relationship starts. Was his almost
Speaker 1: like inability to to act or to do something. He
Speaker 1: just kind of like sleepwalks his way through his entire life.
Speaker 1: You know, he just bumbles into this marriage and kids
Speaker 1: and the job and everything else. Is just kind of
Speaker 1: He's he's not somebody that's acting with any kind of intention.
Speaker 1: He's just kind of, oh, I guess this is what
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to do, right, no intention, no awareness. It's
Speaker 1: really interesting. Um the speaking of subtle moments and the
Speaker 1: fact that Angle just plays it all so like real.
Speaker 1: Is the moment early on at the dinner party when
Speaker 1: the wine is spilled on Kevin Klein's lap and there's yeah,
Speaker 1: there's that really quick thing where Sigourney Weaver is the
Speaker 1: one that jumps up, yeah to dab his pants pants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it didn't even have to be the crotch um
Speaker 1: just kind of down down somewhere low and and and
Speaker 1: ye Joan Allen has that moment where she leaves where
Speaker 1: she sees like they're a little they're a little familiar,
Speaker 1: they're a little comfortable. Yeah, but I get the feeling
Speaker 1: that she already knew and this was just further confirmation. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so too. That's what I thought. That's definitely
Speaker 1: not the first sign of trouble. I love that scene.
Speaker 1: Also a little bit later on when um, uh, Kevin
Speaker 1: Kline leans into kiss Joan Allen tell her he's going
Speaker 1: to go to bed early, and she notices his aftershave
Speaker 1: is different, and he tries to play it off. He's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it is a new after show. I mean
Speaker 1: it's called Musk and uh, and he just kind of
Speaker 1: like wanders off, you know, and her if you just
Speaker 1: like really sit on her reaction, which the you know,
Speaker 1: the camera does sits on her reaction, and just if
Speaker 1: you just look at the subtle changes in her face,
Speaker 1: like you can see everything that she understands completely, that
Speaker 1: everything that's going on. But she's like balancing her checkbook
Speaker 1: and she just tears out a new check and kind
Speaker 1: of like shoves it all down, just moves on, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: because the bills still have to get paid and the
Speaker 1: dishwasher sells to get loaded, and that's like that brutal
Speaker 1: thing that you know, life has to go on. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: in the face of this just void unbearable. You know
Speaker 1: when it when it kind of you know, when the
Speaker 1: void kind of exposes itself in that way, like we've
Speaker 1: become aware of it. As as an audience member, you
Speaker 1: you're you so want someone maybe because you're conditioned in
Speaker 1: films to see this, but you still want her to
Speaker 1: smash the plate and to start screaming at him. And
Speaker 1: that's not the reality of it though, man, Like this
Speaker 1: is how it goes a lot of times, the lives
Speaker 1: of a quiet desperation, you know. Um. So Elijah Wood's character, Mikey, Um,
Speaker 1: seeing it again as an older person, I was like,
Speaker 1: does he have a diagnosis? I think, um, because when
Speaker 1: I was before, I was just like, oh, he's just
Speaker 1: a weird kid. But like Sigourney Weaver even has that
Speaker 1: uh well, the Mikey has been out of it since
Speaker 1: he was born. The father says, I guess he kind
Speaker 1: of takes after his dad, you know. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: also light and I think I think it might be
Speaker 1: like maybe Asperger exactly. Yeah, yeah, I could definitely see that,
Speaker 1: which you would play it in nineteen seventy three for
Speaker 1: like just a quirky kid. He's out of it back then.
Speaker 1: To look for those signs or to kind of recognize
Speaker 1: is um that football moment on the field where he
Speaker 1: just like, yeah, he z owns out in the ball
Speaker 1: falls and um. But then you know, and perhaps it
Speaker 1: is Asperger's because he's very smart and very into, uh,
Speaker 1: the idea of geometry when he's explaining and that's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite scenes actually, when he's explaining to Sandy
Speaker 1: why he loves geometry and math and about space and
Speaker 1: he's trying to make a connection and what is Sandy's responses,
Speaker 1: I just need to do my homework. Yeah, I just
Speaker 1: needed help with my math. Like it's such a like
Speaker 1: real moment between it's like exactly how it would go down. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think, Um, I think it's very telling that he
Speaker 1: is interested in in geometry because it's this kind of
Speaker 1: abstract thing that's not really related. I mean, it is
Speaker 1: related to the material world, but it's also not because
Speaker 1: it's kind of there's perfection in geometry and there's no
Speaker 1: perfection in the world, you know, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean he says as much. He's like, you know,
Speaker 1: you can't really have like a perfect a for a
Speaker 1: perfect cube in you know, in terms of space in reality,
Speaker 1: but but you can in your mind. And so he's
Speaker 1: he's interested in this kind of other world where, you know,
Speaker 1: mathematics is kind of a it's like a self contained
Speaker 1: perfect system, like everything adds up and and everything there's
Speaker 1: there's no like ambiguity per se. I mean obviously once
Speaker 1: you get higher into like theoretical stuff and is about
Speaker 1: proofs exactly, and and life is all about gray zone
Speaker 1: and you know, uh ambivalence. So um, yeah, it's very
Speaker 1: interesting that that he has this kind of um. It's
Speaker 1: almost like he's he's he's looking for something he's finding
Speaker 1: maybe that that sense of security or or or stable
Speaker 1: stability permanence um in in this kind of you know,
Speaker 1: mathematic form. But but it's ultimately um, you know, it
Speaker 1: can't be reconciled with with reality. And he kind of
Speaker 1: pays like the ultimate price for that. Yeah. And in
Speaker 1: that scene, uh, I felt so much empathy for both
Speaker 1: of those boys. Is trying to trying to connect. But
Speaker 1: I felt bad from Mikey because he's, uh, he's not
Speaker 1: able to connect with his brother on this thing that's
Speaker 1: important to him. And I felt bad for Sandy because
Speaker 1: he's just this kid. He didn't know what he's talking about.
Speaker 1: He's talking about this abstract time and space and geometry,
Speaker 1: and Sandy just wants help with this map. There's just
Speaker 1: a few too many years apart at that point to
Speaker 1: to make that connection and then of course the dad
Speaker 1: comes home right in the middle, you know, immediately following
Speaker 1: that that brutal, horrible like remember the line from Mikey
Speaker 1: He's like he were gone, Yeah, you were gone. Yeah
Speaker 1: I'm backfellas you were gone. And then he just kind
Speaker 1: of laughs like yeah yeah, And and man talks about
Speaker 1: you know, Sumi conductors and silicon and trying to make
Speaker 1: a connection. And then again can't do just zero interest
Speaker 1: on on the part of the kids because it's pretty
Speaker 1: boring to a kid, I'm sure, and um, just an
Speaker 1: awkward silence and like, well, see you later, you know, right,
Speaker 1: it's just oh god, damn, this movie is fucking devastating, brutal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the clandestine love it mean, Wendy and Mikey is so sweet. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know, I remember those those early days, like
Speaker 1: you know they when they met in the empty the
Speaker 1: pool pool to like kiss each other and make out.
Speaker 1: Funny because it's not even really romantic what they're doing.
Speaker 1: It feels like they're trying to learn, they're experimenting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're just sort of like you're curious, I'm curious,
Speaker 1: Let's try this and see what this is. Because it
Speaker 1: seems like adults are doing this, and it seems like
Speaker 1: something that older people care about a lot, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's in movies and so on. So let's let's see
Speaker 1: what this is all about. I was too scared to
Speaker 1: do that stuff, Casey. Yeah, oh yeah, same, so it was,
Speaker 1: you know, but there's almost something mechanical about the way
Speaker 1: they're going about it, the way they're kind of like
Speaker 1: making out um, and then the way the camera kind
Speaker 1: of booms up in cranes and and and you yeah,
Speaker 1: the leaves on the you know, the bottom of the
Speaker 1: swimming pool and um. Again, the sense of isolation, the
Speaker 1: fact that it's an empty pool and and all that
Speaker 1: just kind of hammers home that again, these are people
Speaker 1: looking for connection. And I mean, so much of of
Speaker 1: of what the movie is about is, you know, on
Speaker 1: one level, it's about sex, but on a deeper level,
Speaker 1: it's about people using sex to try to connect and
Speaker 1: and and sort of not getting that result from it,
Speaker 1: you know, instead just kind of having experiences that that
Speaker 1: don't really ultimately achieve any kind of true connection or yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean Paul, you know, eventually, when they get to
Speaker 1: the parallel stories of Paul in the city trying to
Speaker 1: connect with libits Libits, libits. The name is libits. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: the same thing, miss connections. Oh yeah. That that that
Speaker 1: that painful, painful moment where you know he's he's trying
Speaker 1: to He's saying, like, I feel a real connection to you,
Speaker 1: and she's like, I do too, and he can say
Speaker 1: it before she says it, you know, she's like like
Speaker 1: a like a like a brother. You know, He's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not alone in that opinion. God, it's just the worst.
Speaker 1: And then one of the my favorite lines in the movie,
Speaker 1: in a really clever line, is when he goes, you
Speaker 1: want to take it back together. I love that. I
Speaker 1: love that he almost kind of pulls it off there almost. Yeah, everybody. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: Before we get into more of the movie itself, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the score. Oh yes, Michael Dana Who is it?
Speaker 1: Michael Dana who who works a lot with Adam mcgoyana, Uh,
Speaker 1: you Canadian filmmaker. Yeah? And like The Sweet Hereafter by Chance,
Speaker 1: which is a beautiful score and also an equally crushing film,
Speaker 1: if not more even Yeah another was that a wintertime film? Yes?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because it's a school bus and you know,
Speaker 1: sort of sort of reminds me of this two different
Speaker 1: movies for sure, But but it could be a good
Speaker 1: double feature. You just want to be insanely depressed if
Speaker 1: you want to wreck yourself. Um. But yeah, Michael Danna,
Speaker 1: he's worked with also like Terry Gilliam, um Mire and
Speaker 1: their Um he's he's but but Adam mcgoyan like he
Speaker 1: he works with him over and over and over. What
Speaker 1: is going still doing stuff? He is? Yeah, he's kind
Speaker 1: of Um, he used to be one of my favorites man,
Speaker 1: and I kind of lost track he I mean, he
Speaker 1: has a film every every couple of years. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: but he's kind of like I haven't seen one pile.
Speaker 1: They're much more low profile. Um, I think you know,
Speaker 1: they play festivals, but they don't really play like the
Speaker 1: first run of like Ken Venice, Toronto, et cetera. They're
Speaker 1: kind of like second Yeah, it's you know, but I
Speaker 1: really need to catch up because he is somebody that um,
Speaker 1: you know, even even presweetter after he has a whole
Speaker 1: like eighties and he's like, you know, very very kind
Speaker 1: of bold, strong stuff and I'm sure he's kept at it.
Speaker 1: So what was the one about the missing girl? Mm hmm,
Speaker 1: is that Exotica? I don't know, Yes, yeah, okay, that's
Speaker 1: the only one I've seen, and but um uh it's
Speaker 1: been a really long time. I barely remember that movie
Speaker 1: other than like the Strip Club and Elius Cotaius and yeah,
Speaker 1: who was one of his guys? Yeah you go back
Speaker 1: to but you have a score in this movie is
Speaker 1: just so great. Um. I mean there's sort of some
Speaker 1: lush string stuff, but what really stands out to me
Speaker 1: is that I don't even know what instrument that is
Speaker 1: called gamelan. I mean it's not the name of the instrument,
Speaker 1: but the genre of music, the drums, the kind of
Speaker 1: percussion percussion, Yeah, and there's some there's some wind instrument. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's that's a Native American flute, yeah, being being
Speaker 1: played by like a you know, somebody who practices that tradition,
Speaker 1: an American guy. Oh yeah, it's got it's got a
Speaker 1: real like soulfulness to it. I mean it's kind of
Speaker 1: like in a way, it's like the most the movie
Speaker 1: exposes that kind of yeah emotion. You know, it's dark
Speaker 1: and it's sad in in Uh, it just somehow fits
Speaker 1: that there's like a belonging to it forest of and
Speaker 1: maybe that's part of it in a Native American with
Speaker 1: the with the forest and the tree setting natural settings. Well,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know what Wendy says that Thanksgiving, you know,
Speaker 1: and what what even Thanksgiving is about? Yeah, or versus
Speaker 1: what we think it's about, versus what the reality was
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. That great so um yeah,
Speaker 1: in a way, it's it's not something that the film
Speaker 1: hammers home, but there is that that slight subtext of like,
Speaker 1: these people are living you know, the the American Experiment
Speaker 1: has been around for a couple of well they're coming
Speaker 1: up on the bi centennial for three years and um,
Speaker 1: you know two hundred years of this country and everything
Speaker 1: that that that transpired for this country America to be here.
Speaker 1: Um yeah. And in the way that that Wendy brings
Speaker 1: it up at Thanksgiving and they're just like alright, alright, alright,
Speaker 1: you know, never mind past the turkey or whatever, would
Speaker 1: you like a role? Yeah? Um. It's amazing how quickly
Speaker 1: they're all able to brush and go back to the
Speaker 1: stage exactly exactly. It's like, come on, don't, don't, don't
Speaker 1: make this any harder than it is. You know, let's
Speaker 1: just get through this because this is supposed to be
Speaker 1: the easy Thanksgiving because even says Grandma's not yea, even
Speaker 1: though we miss her, I love that. Yeah, it's like,
Speaker 1: of course, of course we still miss her. But because
Speaker 1: he feels like he needs to say that again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Christina Ricci is so good in this movie. Like I've
Speaker 1: been a fan of hers her whole career, off and on.
Speaker 1: Things she's made have been really good. But like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if she got her do as an actor. No,
Speaker 1: really she didn't. Um. I mean I love Buffalo sixty six.
Speaker 1: That's that's another one I could do for the show. Um,
Speaker 1: but she's so good performance and in that one, and yeah,
Speaker 1: she she just Um, I don't know what it is
Speaker 1: about her. She has such a compelling kind of presence
Speaker 1: on on screen. Her her face can do so much,
Speaker 1: you know, can of mote so well, and she has
Speaker 1: this intensity and um, and I mean she it's so
Speaker 1: good to play kind of like the smarter beyond her
Speaker 1: years kind of teenager character. Um. She she's just Um,
Speaker 1: I think she was maybe sixteen when they're filming this,
Speaker 1: and she's playing like maybe fourteen or so. Um. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's completely believable. Um but um, yeah, she's
Speaker 1: she's certainly one of the highlights of the film. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But the the scene, you know, we mentioned it before
Speaker 1: when he carries her home, like how she can kind
Speaker 1: of go from you know, playing at adult burgeoning sexuality
Speaker 1: ing back to year old childhood of adden. She wraps
Speaker 1: her legs around him and the reverse of that, they
Speaker 1: do that great reverse on on both her faces when
Speaker 1: their necks are cradled into one another, and it's just
Speaker 1: like fucking heartbreaking, because I mean, you know, I hope
Speaker 1: you have kids one day. There's the constant from the
Speaker 1: second they're born you immediately start fearing them going away, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that push pull between like I wanted to see
Speaker 1: them flourish and foundingly fast I've grown up and at
Speaker 1: the same time, no, wait, come back. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: amazing how fast it sets in of oh, no, you're
Speaker 1: gonna leave me one day? Yeah yeah, God, can't even
Speaker 1: go there case Jesus Christ, be weepy mess on this
Speaker 1: fucking show. But that scene, to think of that Beatles
Speaker 1: song She's leaving home or something, Yeah, stop it, what
Speaker 1: are you trying to do to me here? Um? But
Speaker 1: you know, they're able to in that brief moment to
Speaker 1: make that connection. Um. I feel like Joan Allen never
Speaker 1: gets to make that connection. Uh. She with Wendy, and
Speaker 1: Wendy tries to connect with her mom. There's that scene,
Speaker 1: um where she says to her mom there in the
Speaker 1: kitchen and she goes, Mom, are you all right? And
Speaker 1: she goes, no, it's fine. You know. Well, however, though,
Speaker 1: in that scene, um, she's trying to explain to Wendy
Speaker 1: the feeling that she got when she saw her on
Speaker 1: the bike. Yes, and she's saying this deep thing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's her geometry conversation. Yeah, and when did you sort
Speaker 1: of like are you all right? Yeah? Like there's no like,
Speaker 1: oh man, mom, that must have felt really special. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they are. They're kind of missing each other. They're both
Speaker 1: trying to connect and everyone's missing each other through this
Speaker 1: whole fucking movie. It's so frustrating. But that that line
Speaker 1: that she has, mom, are you all right? This concept
Speaker 1: that they talk about on the commentary of you know,
Speaker 1: children raising their parents, you know of of especially back then, yeah,
Speaker 1: of of you know this this like you said that
Speaker 1: the parents are kind of playing it being children and
Speaker 1: the children are playing it being adults and this generation
Speaker 1: you know, um, kind of fell weirdly in between, like there,
Speaker 1: it's not fully the seventies yet, it's not the sixties anymore.
Speaker 1: They're just kind of like they're stranded in the middle
Speaker 1: sort of. And and it seems like they have, um,
Speaker 1: they're going to they're going to revert or not revert,
Speaker 1: but they're going to go towards the more. They're going
Speaker 1: to want more stability. They're going to grow up to
Speaker 1: be maybe more like traditional sort of parents, let's say,
Speaker 1: a little more strict, a little bit more like um,
Speaker 1: watchful of their kids, let's say, because their their childhoods
Speaker 1: are coming out of this like permissiveness and indifference almost difference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so they're going to kind of the pendulum is
Speaker 1: gonna swing in the other direction for them. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: this is sort of again something that I can relate to,
Speaker 1: and I think it was sort of of the time,
Speaker 1: is that parents can be so consumed with their own ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah back then especially Uh, it's probably swung too far
Speaker 1: in the other direction now, but the whole helicopter thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that that these kids are sort of on their own, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that was that's coming from. It's
Speaker 1: sort of like the zeitgeist at that moment. There's all
Speaker 1: the New agey stuff, the self help, the kind of
Speaker 1: like you know, quote unquote spirituality that's not necessarily religious
Speaker 1: per se, especially for the women of that era, because
Speaker 1: they're coming out of the fifties and sixties where women
Speaker 1: were truly you know, subjective to their husbands. And the
Speaker 1: early seventies and I think probably late sixties was when
Speaker 1: some of that first started, some of these that's when
Speaker 1: all those books. And there's that great shodow when she's
Speaker 1: looking at the table when there were so many books
Speaker 1: for women to like reclaim your life basically reclaim your
Speaker 1: life person exactly and and and sort of, um, give
Speaker 1: give proper attention to all these things that you've put
Speaker 1: aside for all these years, at the at the behest
Speaker 1: of your husband or at the behest of your children
Speaker 1: or whatever. So it's it's this kind of thing where
Speaker 1: they are they are trying to grow as people. They're
Speaker 1: trying to become more fully rounded adults and so on.
Speaker 1: Full yeah, equal and just have have like a full
Speaker 1: rich life, not just the life of servitude and um.
Speaker 1: But but at the same time there is like this,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe the pendulum going too far in terms
Speaker 1: of the parents. Like you know, when Wendy mentions in
Speaker 1: passing that she's like in band and both, you know,
Speaker 1: her mom is just sort of like, oh, I thought
Speaker 1: you weren't in band anymore. She's like, well, you know, um,
Speaker 1: they don't even they don't, it's not a big deal.
Speaker 1: And you know, I only play a few notes anyway,
Speaker 1: like because she doesn't hear rehearsing practicing anymore, but it's
Speaker 1: because she just plays like the same three notes over
Speaker 1: and over. And yeah, just just that since that, uh
Speaker 1: that you would be unthinkable today, certainly for most parents
Speaker 1: to not know, um what what kind of extracurriculus our
Speaker 1: kids are involved in? And so yeah, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, um, I think I do know that there
Speaker 1: are there are people from that generation that are certainly
Speaker 1: nostalgic for that that style of childhood. That kind of
Speaker 1: there was a recent uh um kind of an article
Speaker 1: or trend about this, like the the idea of like
Speaker 1: free range parenting. Ye that okay, yeah, so it's the
Speaker 1: idea that, for instance, you know, a kid that's maybe
Speaker 1: no older than like ten to twelve or something could
Speaker 1: like live in New York City, take the subway, go
Speaker 1: to like you know, some CD theater and like watch
Speaker 1: like an R rated movie, or that you would let
Speaker 1: your ten year old walk to the playground in your neighborhood. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So just and the fact that, um, you know, they
Speaker 1: were way pre cell phone. There's there's there's there's not
Speaker 1: this constant line of communication that can be opened up
Speaker 1: between the parent and child. So it's like, um, you
Speaker 1: know in that scene where Kevin Klein is is leaving
Speaker 1: the house to go pick up Paul at the and he,
Speaker 1: you know, he says to Wendy, what are you even doing?
Speaker 1: She does nothing, you know, typical teenager answer. But um,
Speaker 1: it's like they just they don't know. They don't want
Speaker 1: to know necessarily. I mean, they make the effort in
Speaker 1: a way at least they kind of yeah, they play
Speaker 1: at it, um, but they just don't know what's going
Speaker 1: on in their kids lives. Really. Yeah. Well, and when
Speaker 1: he does pick him up in the car, you know,
Speaker 1: on the way home, that that conversation between yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean and at first though it's just no, yes, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you know, well it's probably a good time
Speaker 1: to have that talk self self abuse, self abused self
Speaker 1: abuse front. Yes, oh man. And again it's just there's
Speaker 1: no connections being made. But it's a funny. It's a
Speaker 1: funny button on that scene where they pull into the
Speaker 1: driveway and he's like, Paul, could you give me a
Speaker 1: favor and pretend I never said any of that to you?
Speaker 1: And yuh and you get you know, it's not like
Speaker 1: it's a movie you can look at and say, like
Speaker 1: they don't have a good relationship Paul and Ben. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's not that, it's just they just don't have much
Speaker 1: of anything. Yeah, you know, which is maybe the saddest
Speaker 1: thing of all. Absolutely, they're just kind of thee oh
Speaker 1: they're they're they're two strangers. Basically, you would think they
Speaker 1: were acquaintances or something rather than like you know, father
Speaker 1: and son. Yeah, and then you know, they don't have
Speaker 1: many funny moments. There are a couple of, uh, like
Speaker 1: the waterbed. They play that for laughs, but aside from that,
Speaker 1: they kind of just played the seventies fairly straight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's it's certainly not like going over the top with
Speaker 1: like just the kind of cliches that we associate with
Speaker 1: that period. It's not Yeah, it's not a cartoon version
Speaker 1: of the seventies, not at all. It's it's a very
Speaker 1: lived in There are still some of those familiar signposts.
Speaker 1: I think we see a lava lamp in somebody's room
Speaker 1: at some point, but it's like it's not like you
Speaker 1: know underlined during that. Yeah, yeah, exactly. What is your
Speaker 1: take on the Let's talk about the preacher for a minute.
Speaker 1: Who I didn't look up that actor. Yeah I didn't either.
Speaker 1: Very good I've ever seen him, but he was really
Speaker 1: good at this. You know, the sort of long haired
Speaker 1: you know that's a wig too. They when they're when
Speaker 1: they're when they're talking in the um, when when she's
Speaker 1: at that table of books, Um, there's a you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a windy day and so like the
Speaker 1: wind kind of blows his hair back, and um, Angley
Speaker 1: is talking about he just like during the scene he
Speaker 1: kind of reaches up and brushes his hair back behind
Speaker 1: his ear, which to Angley anyway, was like a great
Speaker 1: performance choice because it kind of shows that he's like
Speaker 1: this he's had, this has this kind of vanity to him. Um,
Speaker 1: that he's he's kind of like posing, you know, he's
Speaker 1: sort of aware of of of how he's coming off,
Speaker 1: and he has this kind of cockiness to him, even
Speaker 1: though he's trying to also present himself as like the
Speaker 1: enlightened one. Yeah, I thought that was a really himself. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thought like just having him in the film at
Speaker 1: all was an interesting choice, and and there was more
Speaker 1: of him it was apparently in the film. Yeah, the film.
Speaker 1: Apparently there was another scene between um, between him and
Speaker 1: Eleanor where they're like in a cafe and they're talking
Speaker 1: and um, you know, from from their description, you know,
Speaker 1: it was a good scene, but it just kind of
Speaker 1: the tone maybe deviated a little too much from the film.
Speaker 1: They talked a lot about on the commentary about how
Speaker 1: there were there were sort of numerous scenes and moments
Speaker 1: that on their own are really great and funny, but
Speaker 1: it just, you know, in their words, it kind of
Speaker 1: made the ending too unbearable to to to vacillate from
Speaker 1: these moments of levity and then still in so darkly.
Speaker 1: I thought they really nailed the tone whatever they was
Speaker 1: kind yeah, it stays pretty well in that in that
Speaker 1: mood and um, but yeah, the Preacher character, it's all
Speaker 1: over this movie. Oh yeah, he um he feels probably
Speaker 1: is lost is or maybe more I mean the people
Speaker 1: that he's he's he's so so desperate to to kind
Speaker 1: of connect her, to to find something that's meaningful to him,
Speaker 1: that he's kind of oriented his whole life towards that,
Speaker 1: you know, towards this kind of life of being a
Speaker 1: new age, spiritual right grew whatever you wanna call it,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, And in the end, he's, uh, it's
Speaker 1: such a great payoff for that character. He ends up
Speaker 1: at the key party, which we'll get to in just
Speaker 1: a second or um, and ends up shamed into leaving.
Speaker 1: But you know that line when he says, even the
Speaker 1: shepherd needs the company of the flock from time to
Speaker 1: time or whatever, and boy, she just eviscerates him. You're
Speaker 1: gonna try very hard not to understand the implication of
Speaker 1: that statements, like like, I didn't see that coming yet.
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I saw that, I thought
Speaker 1: she would have understood, maybe because she's in a similar
Speaker 1: place where she needs a connection and she has gone
Speaker 1: without sex clearly in her own marriage. Um, although they
Speaker 1: do do it it. Yeah, that is true. There's Um
Speaker 1: there's the first scene where Kevin Klein tries to initiate.
Speaker 1: He has that great performance where his hand kind of
Speaker 1: reaches over her in bed and she goes, Ben, yeah,
Speaker 1: and he just pulls it back in his hand kind
Speaker 1: of trembles and you know, rolls back over and goes
Speaker 1: to sleep. But they do make love, Yeah, they do. Well,
Speaker 1: it's implied at least, but they do it. They do
Speaker 1: it at a moment where they're about to say something
Speaker 1: and and she actually says to him like, Ben, maybe
Speaker 1: no talking right now, and then they almost have sex
Speaker 1: as a way of diffusing whatever was about to transpire.
Speaker 1: But absolutely, so you know the it's it's not really
Speaker 1: I mean they are. They're making a sort of connection,
Speaker 1: but they're not really they're using it to, you know,
Speaker 1: to to to stave off like whatever big blow up
Speaker 1: is gonna Yeah, you definitely get the picture that afterward.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like, oh my god, we're we reconnected again
Speaker 1: and we're on the right track. But I love that
Speaker 1: moment when when Wendy's coming up the stairs, you know,
Speaker 1: her her dad's come down the stairs and he's kind
Speaker 1: of doing up the last button on his and um,
Speaker 1: then she sees the must up bed, yeah exactly, and
Speaker 1: and there's there's no spoken words or anything, but again,
Speaker 1: it's one of those moments where, um, you know you
Speaker 1: really it's like, oh, my parents do kind of have
Speaker 1: like a sexual relationship, and that's weird and uncomfortable, you know,
Speaker 1: all that, all those conflicted feelings you have. Well, speaking
Speaker 1: of weird and uncomfortable, nice transition into the bathroom scene
Speaker 1: with Sandy and Wendy. It's just like, has there ever
Speaker 1: been a more real, brutal depiction of like young adolescent
Speaker 1: hormonal like confusion exactly not not knowing. I mean, he
Speaker 1: says to her, He's like, what do you want? What
Speaker 1: do you want? You know? Well, because he's neither one
Speaker 1: of them know what they want really, and his little
Speaker 1: hands are trembling at hisself, like I wanted to yank
Speaker 1: him out of there and just give him a hug.
Speaker 1: I know. It was so brutal to see this kid
Speaker 1: so scared. Um, and then that's when you get the
Speaker 1: great exchange with Succordingly. Yes, but yeah, the just like
Speaker 1: the the look on both of their faces. I don't
Speaker 1: know how they got that performance out of that kid.
Speaker 1: And yeah, little man Tate because because they have to
Speaker 1: um too. That was yeah, because I think Um, I
Speaker 1: mean this is this is a common thing. And and
Speaker 1: and movies that have like really adult themes but have
Speaker 1: to involve like very young actors, oftentimes there will be
Speaker 1: like a parallel scene that the kid thinks they're playing
Speaker 1: that is you know, that diverges wildly from the real
Speaker 1: substance of the thing. Yeah. I know, like in particular,
Speaker 1: like in The Shining Danny, you know, he in a
Speaker 1: lot of those scenes, he was kind of enacting a
Speaker 1: different scenario than because you you just need a reaction.
Speaker 1: It's believable. Yeah. I always wonder in movies like this,
Speaker 1: like at the premiere when these kids, like when that
Speaker 1: little kids goes to the premieres, Like, what does he
Speaker 1: think of the ice storm? Can you even watch it?
Speaker 1: You know? Does till he's older sometimes they can't? Yeah, um?
Speaker 1: Or does he have to see like a you know,
Speaker 1: just a highlight reel or something. These are the scenes
Speaker 1: of yours that are okay, yeah, although I mean there's
Speaker 1: nothing overtly. I mean there's the bad sex scene in
Speaker 1: the car, and there's some, but there's not there's no
Speaker 1: explicit sex going No, there's like no no real like
Speaker 1: nudity or anything. Um. There's just kind of people fumbling around.
Speaker 1: But a kid certainly wouldn't understand this, yeah, yeah, way
Speaker 1: above it might be it might be kind of lost
Speaker 1: on Yeah. Um again to the relationship with with the siblings. Uh,
Speaker 1: with Wendy and Paul, it's just like when they call
Speaker 1: each other Charles and that's such a nice little touch,
Speaker 1: you know, this little thing that they have together, and Uh,
Speaker 1: I have siblings, and again with my upbringing, like there's
Speaker 1: a there's a definite connection that happens with siblings. When
Speaker 1: you grow up in a house with parents that are
Speaker 1: not yeah in love, you're you're you're more bonded. It's
Speaker 1: sort of like, yeah, there's a thing that happens. And then, uh,
Speaker 1: the saddest thing ever. And of course this movie can't
Speaker 1: cover it. Well, it sort of does because he's gone
Speaker 1: to prep school. Is especially when you're the youngest and
Speaker 1: my sister aged out and then it was me and
Speaker 1: my brother and he aged out and went to college
Speaker 1: and there was just me and my worst years were
Speaker 1: after my brother left. And that's no coincidence. Yeah, Wendy,
Speaker 1: when you has that feeling, it's almost like, um, there's
Speaker 1: there's like a moment um, where Paul has left to
Speaker 1: go to the you know, to go to Manhattan to
Speaker 1: go to the party, and and now it's just Windy
Speaker 1: and the two parents and they don't even talk, and
Speaker 1: she gets up from the table without asking to be
Speaker 1: excused or anything. She just you know, walks off into
Speaker 1: the kitchen kind of vaguely piste off looking, grabs like
Speaker 1: a snack from the fridge, and then just like walks
Speaker 1: past again, zero interaction, acknowledgement, nothing, And um, yeah, you
Speaker 1: have that, you really have that sense that she feels
Speaker 1: like stranded and that she's just waiting, counting down the
Speaker 1: days until she can get out. Yeah. And there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of use of popular music in this film,
Speaker 1: but there's a couple of key ones. Um, the Manhattan
Speaker 1: scene when leave on by Elton John play Yes, And
Speaker 1: then in the scene we're just talking about with when
Speaker 1: when Paul first gets home. Yeah, Jim coaches I've Got
Speaker 1: a Name is in the background, and they had that
Speaker 1: great moment at the end of the scene after they've
Speaker 1: set everything, the record skips yeah, and he goes, Charles,
Speaker 1: is that my record? You've been touching my sheep, been
Speaker 1: touching my shop? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's not adversarial.
Speaker 1: It's like very loving. He's just like, I knew you
Speaker 1: were coming in my room because it's fine, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's there. Really, it's it's her way of, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of kind of connecting with her brother, being around
Speaker 1: her brother. He's not there in a way because he
Speaker 1: still has his things there. Um. I also thought it
Speaker 1: was interesting to how the when um kind of one
Speaker 1: of the next things is when Kevin Klein bust the
Speaker 1: kids and we've already talked about the wall come and
Speaker 1: all that, but when he gets home, he's just like
Speaker 1: he's got his chest puffed out, brushing his teeth, telling, uh,
Speaker 1: telling his wife about it. Well, here's what happened, and
Speaker 1: I took care of it. And he doesn't realize that
Speaker 1: he's fucking busting himself because the whole time so oblivious.
Speaker 1: She's going, why the funk were you at there? You know,
Speaker 1: she finally says in the end, what were you doing
Speaker 1: in their basement? Yeah? Oh, you know the mug, the mug,
Speaker 1: the coffee mug. And he's just so oblivious that that's
Speaker 1: a really really uh interesting shot the way it's framed
Speaker 1: because in the middle of the shot you have like
Speaker 1: a you know, door frame looking into the bathroom. The
Speaker 1: cameras in the bedroom they have like a you know,
Speaker 1: Florida ceiling mirror on the right side of the door frame,
Speaker 1: and that's where you see Joan Allen in that reflection.
Speaker 1: But it's very interesting because you're seeing both of their
Speaker 1: faces and they're looking at each other, and you know
Speaker 1: they're on opposite planes. But most of the scene plays
Speaker 1: out with her in that reflection. It's not until later
Speaker 1: on that she steps in where you can see her shoulder,
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, the camera's kind of going over his
Speaker 1: shoulder a little bit. Um, just just showing I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many um places in the film where he
Speaker 1: plays with you know, uh, people being separated and and
Speaker 1: and kind of left alone in the frame or disconnected
Speaker 1: somehow or um. There's so much like glass, you know,
Speaker 1: and and kind of these these surfaces that are like
Speaker 1: transparent but do separate and and and are not really
Speaker 1: like broken through. Yeah, it's it's preventing the connection. Um.
Speaker 1: The It is a very quietly sort of beautiful film
Speaker 1: cinematography wise, because it's not flashy at all, and they
Speaker 1: don't even have you know, even a movie that's not
Speaker 1: flashy can have these beautiful sunsets or something, right like,
Speaker 1: there's really none of that, but there's a lot going on.
Speaker 1: There's there's like a very thoughtful I think there's there's
Speaker 1: like a handful of shots that that I consciously notice
Speaker 1: in the film, Like one would be that crane coming up,
Speaker 1: you know, when they're kissing. Another one that's probably my
Speaker 1: favorite shot of the film is where Elijah Wood is
Speaker 1: wearing that red um coat what are you gonna call it? Um?
Speaker 1: And he goes to leave the house and there's a
Speaker 1: shot from inside the house um focused on a window
Speaker 1: with rain drops, and you just see this red blob
Speaker 1: move in the background. It's the frozen window. Yeah yeah, man, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that shot. But there's not there's not too
Speaker 1: many shots like that in the film. It's it's very
Speaker 1: very sparingly used. It's not a film where I'm thinking
Speaker 1: from scene to scene, man, this is so well shot
Speaker 1: or like that. But when you when you force yourself
Speaker 1: to kind of look at it in that way, you
Speaker 1: do realize there's a whole lot going on on that
Speaker 1: level as well. It just works so well that you
Speaker 1: don't even consciously notice it. Yeah, and those it's that
Speaker 1: window is starting to freeze. It's the moment where and
Speaker 1: and this is the moment where we are in the film.
Speaker 1: Is that great um part where the weather lady talks
Speaker 1: about the impending storm and it's all very you know,
Speaker 1: obviously metaphorical, but that really just sets up that whole
Speaker 1: last part of the movie. Paul sets off for New York. Um,
Speaker 1: the weather is coming in that brutal cold, wetness and
Speaker 1: silence that like everyone who's ever certainly have you lived
Speaker 1: in the Northeast, but anyone who's ever been on like
Speaker 1: a storm like this. It's just so evocative. And that
Speaker 1: leads right to the key party. And right before we
Speaker 1: get to the key party, I just want to I
Speaker 1: do just want to say. The cinematographer the film, Frederick Elms,
Speaker 1: great cinematographer in his own right. He begins his career
Speaker 1: with David Lynch. He shoots a razor head and even
Speaker 1: pre eracer head, which took them five years to make.
Speaker 1: So that's it wasn't like a traditional film. It was
Speaker 1: like they were living in that said and you know,
Speaker 1: just spending years and years of their lives to make
Speaker 1: this this film. But Even before that, he had shot
Speaker 1: one of David Lynch's very first UM short films, experimental
Speaker 1: short film called The Amputee and and he but he
Speaker 1: goes on to shoot like Blue Velvet and wild At
Speaker 1: Hard and on and on and on. So he's also
Speaker 1: worked with like Jim Jarmush, Todd Solon's and Charlie Kaufman.
Speaker 1: He shot senecta Key, New York, which is one of
Speaker 1: my all time favorites. That film too, That movie confounded me.
Speaker 1: Have you do you only see it one time? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh man, I need to see it again. Huh Yeah,
Speaker 1: talk about depressing movies, that one. That one might be
Speaker 1: the uber depressed movie. But anyway, he Um. He also
Speaker 1: shot a film called River's Edge. Well you know that film? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I love that film, kind of kind lynch in in
Speaker 1: its own way. Yeah, who directed that? Tim Hunter? What
Speaker 1: else has he done? He did a film called Text
Speaker 1: with um Matt Dylan Dylan okayo, and um he directed
Speaker 1: some episodes of twin Peaks. Um it's a lot of teenangs.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, that was. I think that's kind of his wheelhouse.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure what he's really done. What. Riversedge
Speaker 1: was so good Rivers is fantastic, very underrated too. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. So now you know, once you
Speaker 1: get to the Key party, you start cross cutting and um,
Speaker 1: and it's such a great editing job. And editing, you know,
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be flashy to be like super effective.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a great example of that of
Speaker 1: great editing is the cross cutting between the Key party,
Speaker 1: the Manhattan Party and then Wendy and Mikey and Sandy's
Speaker 1: story what's going on? And that's one of my favorite
Speaker 1: thing in movies when you have these parallel storylines and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, you know how it is the
Speaker 1: editing room, Like how long you stay in each place
Speaker 1: is can vary, and it's it's like, yeah, it's not math,
Speaker 1: it's like it's gut and it's emotional, like when you
Speaker 1: decide to leave each place to go to the next.
Speaker 1: When you're watching it, just as a like as a viewer,
Speaker 1: you're you're not necessarily appreciating even how difficult that is
Speaker 1: to find the rhythm, the right rhythm, how long to
Speaker 1: stay in these places, because I'm sure they had no
Speaker 1: shortage of great material from that party especial, and and
Speaker 1: how to um, how to just like focus in on
Speaker 1: what is essential and what can be cut, you know,
Speaker 1: and what's slowing the movie down and so on. You know,
Speaker 1: a more indulgent filmmaker could have just let that stuff
Speaker 1: run and run and run and all would have been
Speaker 1: very entertaining, I'm sure, but at a certain point it
Speaker 1: would have been working at cross purposes with the film itself,
Speaker 1: what he's saying. And so, yeah, just the it does.
Speaker 1: It's one of those films that does feel like it's
Speaker 1: paced just right. It never has that moment really where
Speaker 1: I feel like things of slow down or um or
Speaker 1: it's or it's just kind of stuck. It just kind
Speaker 1: of it's always progressing and um, the urgency with the
Speaker 1: storm and everything, it's like a ratcheting up, but it's
Speaker 1: still languid. It manages like it's a bit of a
Speaker 1: magic track that this movie doesn't drag, but it's very languid,
Speaker 1: but it's still moving. It's it's like deliberate. It's kind
Speaker 1: of slow the way you know, um, I mean the
Speaker 1: way the way you imagine something like freezing over gradually. Um.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, yes, it is, it's always moving,
Speaker 1: it's always changing and it almost takes you by surprise
Speaker 1: how far it goes, and and and just where where
Speaker 1: you find yourself by the end of it, you know,
Speaker 1: compared to where you started out. Yeah yeah. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting too because each of these storylines, they're all sort
Speaker 1: of mirror one another, Like there's uh drinking and and
Speaker 1: you know, the desire for physical connection at the key
Speaker 1: party of the Manhattan Party, and then with ultimately you know,
Speaker 1: Sandy and wind end up in bed together. Well, everybody's
Speaker 1: kind of quote unquote experimenting. You know, everybody's like taking
Speaker 1: this opportunity of being kind of like frozen in together
Speaker 1: to kind of um, you know, break beyond the normal
Speaker 1: boundaries of what would be acceptable behavior, let's say. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there's something too that about the weather in this
Speaker 1: storm that like it's foreboding. And you even though there's
Speaker 1: nothing in the movie that really because it's not like
Speaker 1: a thriller or anything at all, but I remember even
Speaker 1: the first time I saw it, I felt like someone's
Speaker 1: gonna die. Yeah, you just had this something like some
Speaker 1: something Yeah, all this tension that we're feeling, something exploding
Speaker 1: is going to happen. And when you see Mikey the
Speaker 1: first time you see this movie and you see him
Speaker 1: on that frozen diving board, you know, everyone is thinking like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, this is it. I cringe every time that
Speaker 1: scene comes up when he's jumping slippy almost slipped. What
Speaker 1: are you doing? You're gonna fucking die out there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like out in the middle of the woods, Zack. And
Speaker 1: then when he makes it off, I remember thinking, oh
Speaker 1: he made it okay, yeah, a little like little do
Speaker 1: you know what's coming? Of course, like the worst thing
Speaker 1: of all um. But let's talk about the key party, yea,
Speaker 1: like one of the great man one of the great sequences. Yeah, yeah, good,
Speaker 1: oh man, last There's so much going on. When I
Speaker 1: watched it last night, I was just appreciating the casting
Speaker 1: of everybody at that party. Everybody is so memorable and
Speaker 1: distinctive and has their own little personality that they established,
Speaker 1: maybe with just a handful of lines or not even Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's a tense, fraught situation um from Kevin Klein
Speaker 1: and how they play that at the beginning for it,
Speaker 1: with Ben and Elena um leaving going into the car
Speaker 1: and like they're out of there, and he's like, so,
Speaker 1: but but maybe we should just stay for a minute
Speaker 1: and that she's like, fuck, this throws her keys too,
Speaker 1: I mean, Alison Janny, she aggressively throws the keys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great shot too. Yeah. And uh and right
Speaker 1: down to the guy. Um, who's the guy from the
Speaker 1: Mission and Pas movies. I know you're talking about the
Speaker 1: the guy that is there that he's a free agent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's on his own because his wife's oude of town
Speaker 1: and he ends up with the overweight lady and he's
Speaker 1: just kind of like, hey, let's do it. Yeah, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of great. Yeah, he's like, all right, that's
Speaker 1: my number exactly. Oh man. The the creepiest guy is
Speaker 1: the guy who's um. He points out that the one
Speaker 1: woman has brought her son, and then he has that
Speaker 1: a sideline to Kevin Klein where he says, I wish
Speaker 1: some of the fathers have brought their daughters. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he just kind of like, you know, SLINKs away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Klein is just like, I'm in the wrong place.
Speaker 1: Something I've gone off tracks and was like whoa. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the guy, the the guy the sun Um, he's
Speaker 1: in one of my plays, one of my favorite roles
Speaker 1: in one of my favorite movies. And flirting with disaster.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Ronnie, Okay, it's been it's been a long
Speaker 1: time since I've seen that. He plays Alan all the
Speaker 1: and Lily Tomlin's son, who is the Quail with I
Speaker 1: Love Man. That's a great movie. Oh man, that's one
Speaker 1: of my all time favorites. Um, Emily and I movie
Speaker 1: You Can't Catch the Whigs so good. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he plays the sun who Sigourney Weaver clearly knows his key.
Speaker 1: You kind of get the sense when she pulls that
Speaker 1: thing out this it's got that long. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: the whip. Yeah, the way she kind of like twirls
Speaker 1: her finger around, she makes like a show of the thing,
Speaker 1: like she knows exactly what she's doing. Yeah, and she
Speaker 1: just you know, gathers it in her hand. And he
Speaker 1: cuts to the to the kid and he's just like
Speaker 1: a rock and roll let's go, you know. But you
Speaker 1: know what's so interesting, I think, and so true to
Speaker 1: this film is she sees this younger guy. She she
Speaker 1: isn't satisfied in her marriage, She isn't satisfied with Kevin Klein,
Speaker 1: so fair. Um, and she she goes after this young boy.
Speaker 1: And what happens at the end of this is she
Speaker 1: comes home and she gets in the fetal pause Asian
Speaker 1: on that water bed, and that shot is just so
Speaker 1: like again another great silent shot that just says so much.
Speaker 1: And I always wondered, like, what what happened between the
Speaker 1: two of them. I think she had sex that wasn't sad,
Speaker 1: It's just just and she's kind of come home and
Speaker 1: she's like, this isn't working, you know, like I think
Speaker 1: nothing that I think is going to help is helping.
Speaker 1: And you didn't see that coming because throughout this whole film,
Speaker 1: she is the ice Queen, and she's untouchable and steely
Speaker 1: and and emotionless. And what you learned and that that
Speaker 1: one shot is that no, she too is in pain.
Speaker 1: She's suffering too. She just has a you know, a
Speaker 1: stronger facade that she's putting forward to really discourage anybody
Speaker 1: from trying to get too close in there. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: by the way she dumps him at that party is
Speaker 1: sold well. It's like, you know, even even when she
Speaker 1: leaves him in the bedroom earlier on um and just
Speaker 1: you know, drives off in her car, Um I had
Speaker 1: somewhere to be. That's when he confronts her about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but where then did you go? It's like, I think
Speaker 1: the reason that she just so quickly detaches from him
Speaker 1: is because he's starting to, you know, try to establish
Speaker 1: like more of a relationship. He's telling her about he's
Speaker 1: kind of like Quotitian nonsense, and um, and I think
Speaker 1: I think at that point she can't really see him
Speaker 1: as just like a fun sexual thing anymore. It's not
Speaker 1: that anymore. He's like a person, and he's kind of boring,
Speaker 1: and he's kind of reminds her her husband anyway, And
Speaker 1: so it's it's just like flipping a switch. It's just
Speaker 1: like immediately she's done. And then he has a moment
Speaker 1: where he's he's sitting next to on the bed and
Speaker 1: he kind of kisses her neck and he's trying to
Speaker 1: you know, initiate, and and she's just like glancing off,
Speaker 1: completely unmoved, cold, you know, not feeling anything other than
Speaker 1: I wish this guy wasn't here. Probably yeah, and and
Speaker 1: this was a dumb idea and I'm over it, you know.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, the way, um, well when when she
Speaker 1: dumps him so unceremoniously, and he's just like, how can
Speaker 1: you just like be this he didn't even finish the sentence.
Speaker 1: He might say, I can't you could just believe yeah
Speaker 1: that cold about her maybe just so dot dot dot ye,
Speaker 1: And she just kind of glances out the window and
Speaker 1: until he goes away, and then he starts drinking heavily,
Speaker 1: and it's that great moment when um, when she does
Speaker 1: pick the key. It could have been this big thing
Speaker 1: where he's drunkenly makes a huge scene about like wait
Speaker 1: a minute, you can't bring your kid in here, and
Speaker 1: like this isn't how this works. But what do they do?
Speaker 1: He stands up and just goes no, no, and trips
Speaker 1: over the table, and everyone like it's just so brutal
Speaker 1: for Joan Allen, and especially because you know what's going on. Also,
Speaker 1: Jim Carver looking on, has this real look of like
Speaker 1: he's just put the math together in his head. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because yeah, he might not have known before that. He's
Speaker 1: just like, oh, I see, you know, not only not
Speaker 1: only is my wife going off with this young kid,
Speaker 1: but there's this other grown up here who I'm friends
Speaker 1: with the family and neighbor. There's clearly a thing going
Speaker 1: on between them as well. So he's just kind of
Speaker 1: like he says, to Joan Allen later, he's like, it's
Speaker 1: been a pretty thoroughly discouraging evening, you know, discouraging or
Speaker 1: disheartening something. He is, Uh, he's so good. He really
Speaker 1: liked Jamie Sheridan. Yeah, he's he's so um. The way
Speaker 1: he really shows up for that third act, you know,
Speaker 1: like you you because throughout the film he's been this
Speaker 1: kind of like yeah, yeah, he's he's so um, so distant,
Speaker 1: so removed from everything that that um, there's there's kind
Speaker 1: of like a flatness to the character. And then you
Speaker 1: know when when they start to talk to each other
Speaker 1: and he's like, you know, I'm not that confident that
Speaker 1: my keys are still in that bowl, and it seems
Speaker 1: a bad idea to leave your keys in the bowl.
Speaker 1: Like that scene is great because that's when she she
Speaker 1: just breaks it down for him. She says that brutal line.
Speaker 1: She's like, my husband, you know, I've been married seventeen years.
Speaker 1: He's either passed out or he wishes he was, and
Speaker 1: I have no intention of going in there and getting him. Uh.
Speaker 1: And she kind of, I mean, she says like, let's
Speaker 1: just spend some time together, and that's when he's like,
Speaker 1: fuck it. Yeah, like let's go for a drive, which
Speaker 1: is in this weather broad not a good idea, but
Speaker 1: that car love and call it love making. That that
Speaker 1: car sex scene is just like it's just one of
Speaker 1: the most brutally awkward, like film encounters you can see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so uncomfortable, so so just um, he apologizes, Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: immediately regressed. Was awful. Yeah, Well, and I think he
Speaker 1: means himself yeah, yeah, but I don't think he's talking
Speaker 1: about her. Yeah, I think he's just like this, this
Speaker 1: is awful. Well he's like, yeah, I mean, it's sorry.
Speaker 1: I think he's apologizing in a way. He's just like, sorry,
Speaker 1: that was so awful. And he I think he's still
Speaker 1: he still feels like kind of a protectiveness or something
Speaker 1: towards her. Yeah, but but he also feels, you know,
Speaker 1: probably very ashamed of himself in that moment and just
Speaker 1: kind of um, yeah, it's just it's just unfortunate, the
Speaker 1: whole the whole thing. Yeah. But the implication is that
Speaker 1: they're going to go do it right right. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: she goes into she says like will you wait here
Speaker 1: for yeah, and she goes in that great scene in
Speaker 1: the bathroom Jerker. Yeah, like she kind of strokes his hair.
Speaker 1: It's like you stay here on the couch. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: we'll talk in the morning. Yeah. You just you know,
Speaker 1: get some rest and yeah I can drive. Yeah he
Speaker 1: wants to drive and she's just like no, yeah, even
Speaker 1: in it's like you're too drunk to drive. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I got the picture that like she's going to do
Speaker 1: this right and go to a house, to to the
Speaker 1: Carverge house. Maybe so maybe maybe her own house yeah,
Speaker 1: uh and really have sex. Could be? Could be? I
Speaker 1: had not thought about it that way, but yeah, certainly
Speaker 1: certainly could um. I to me, it kind of felt
Speaker 1: like they they sort of woke up from that, you know,
Speaker 1: that that that kind of idealized version they had in
Speaker 1: their minds and what that might be like. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe they just go have coffee and talk. That's That's
Speaker 1: more where where I kind of figure it went to
Speaker 1: is just that, um, yeah, they're they're back to kind
Speaker 1: of being neighbors and friendly and and they just to
Speaker 1: two adults that just want to spend a little time together,
Speaker 1: kind of past this crappy nie you know, until it's
Speaker 1: the morning, make a connection. Yeah, and they have that
Speaker 1: great low speed car wreck. Oh yeah, Yeah, I've been
Speaker 1: in those before where you're gonna like four miles an hour,
Speaker 1: but you're slipping and you're like, I can't control. There's
Speaker 1: something to do right now. There's a there's a shot
Speaker 1: in UM a film that I think probably influenced this film. Uh.
Speaker 1: An Antonioni film called Leone the Night UM, which is
Speaker 1: part of his trilogy of kind of you know, alienation
Speaker 1: and isolation and so on, starts with Lavantara and ends
Speaker 1: with Lake Lie, and UM is in the middle of that.
Speaker 1: In that film, the third act is also like a
Speaker 1: just basically a party scene where all these people are
Speaker 1: gathered together. UM. There's a husband and wife, their relationships
Speaker 1: not going well, and the husband is kind of like
Speaker 1: flirting and pursuing this younger woman and UM, so he
Speaker 1: eventually leaves. Uh. There's there's like a big rainstorm that happens.
Speaker 1: Everybody has a run inside, and the party kind of
Speaker 1: breaks up, and he gets in the car with this
Speaker 1: woman that he's kind of pursuing, and they have this
Speaker 1: long ride in this car. Um as like the rain
Speaker 1: kind of covers the windows and you can't really see
Speaker 1: out the windows because it's raining so hard. UM. Just
Speaker 1: the way the way some of those shots are framed
Speaker 1: are are very very similar to the way it's shot
Speaker 1: in this film. Um, and I think it's you know, thematically,
Speaker 1: it makes sense that that that would be a reference point. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. Um. Then you know, then we are back
Speaker 1: with Mikey playing in this storm and it's a it's
Speaker 1: so tragic what happens because he is, uh, he's so innocent,
Speaker 1: and he's so so child like, he's really being a kid.
Speaker 1: He's almost kind of regressed to like that that pure
Speaker 1: childhood's storm and he's he's sliding down the street. The
Speaker 1: way he's like jumping at that one point was really
Speaker 1: really beautiful. And uh, I did not see what you know,
Speaker 1: I did have a sense of foreboding the first time
Speaker 1: I saw it, but I said that was going to happen,
Speaker 1: but it certainly did not see this uh yeah, this
Speaker 1: this electric Q Yeah, and even you know when it
Speaker 1: happens and it's you know, and he seems like he
Speaker 1: has time to move, yeah for a second, because the
Speaker 1: line is snaking around for a minute, it's flopping around
Speaker 1: before it lands on the on the rail. It might
Speaker 1: be like a little bit of slow motion or something.
Speaker 1: Maybe but it's definitely like there's a moment where he
Speaker 1: goes like, oh no, and then yeah and uh. The
Speaker 1: way they play that too is just brutal. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's not a big thing. He doesn't even move and
Speaker 1: you're not even sure what happens at first, and then
Speaker 1: when he confessed, that shot of his body sliding down
Speaker 1: brutal like and and it's almost I think on the commentary, um,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like, I don't know, maybe not on
Speaker 1: the commentary. I think it might have been an interview
Speaker 1: with Rick Moody where he talked about that scene, um,
Speaker 1: where he was basically saying like, I didn't even know
Speaker 1: if they're going to show it to that extent, that
Speaker 1: it's so brutal. There's there's there's no likee quote restraint
Speaker 1: in that moment. Yeah, but it's not graphic. It's graphic,
Speaker 1: but it's it's definitely looking right at the thing, you know,
Speaker 1: which is a dead kid sliding on the ice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you could have you probably could have cut the
Speaker 1: scene right after he falls over something and you would
Speaker 1: have known that he was dead at that point or
Speaker 1: at least been fairly certain. But the way that it
Speaker 1: stays there yeah, I am too. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: cut punch, but it's it is like a really really harsh,
Speaker 1: you know moment in the film that that is necessary
Speaker 1: for it to work. But um still, it's it's a
Speaker 1: little surprising that that the tone shifts so um strongly
Speaker 1: in that direction. Well, yeah, because it's so it's already
Speaker 1: like there's so much turmoil and it's such a sad
Speaker 1: movie and then like at the end, they fucking killed
Speaker 1: this kid. It's just like, what is going on? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's you know. The thing I've often kind
Speaker 1: of debated with myself about this movie is whether in
Speaker 1: some sense you could say it's kind of a fundamentally
Speaker 1: conservative movie in the way that it's suggesting that all
Speaker 1: this kind of permissiveness and in these kind of like
Speaker 1: leftover ideas from the sixties, you know, extending into the seventies,
Speaker 1: extending into parents being absent from their kids lives and
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. If if Mikey is not
Speaker 1: in some ways sort of like the sacrificial lamb or
Speaker 1: like the the he's he's sort of like paying the
Speaker 1: price for all this kind of social permissiveness in a
Speaker 1: way that that um in the same way that in
Speaker 1: like Forrest Gump, Jenny is kind of like she receives
Speaker 1: like all the kind of um backlash. Let's say from
Speaker 1: the sixties that that ultimately she dies very famously been
Speaker 1: you know, championed. Is very conservative. And I think the
Speaker 1: reason that this is not ultimately conservative film is that
Speaker 1: it has no illusions about the past being any better.
Speaker 1: Let's say it's it's really not saying, um, we went
Speaker 1: too far in the seventies. Let's turn the clock back
Speaker 1: twenty years to the fifties and all will be good again.
Speaker 1: It's kind of saying that these people have become disillusioned
Speaker 1: with that setting the fifties, you know, that kind of
Speaker 1: um much more you know, leave it to beaver kind
Speaker 1: of style of life and um. And they're looking for
Speaker 1: something and they haven't found it yet. And the thing
Speaker 1: that they have found is kind of a false like ideal.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like, um, it's the wrong answer, you know,
Speaker 1: the way they're going about it. But they are trying
Speaker 1: to find this new thing. They just haven't found it
Speaker 1: yet and um, and their their generation kind of doesn't
Speaker 1: find it necessarily. UM. But it's ultimately it is I
Speaker 1: think a more forward looking movie that is you know,
Speaker 1: it's just saying that the search for meaning is is difficult,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, but it's it's certainly not saying we
Speaker 1: should go back to this, that or the other thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I totally agree. Yeah, that's an interesting take and never
Speaker 1: really thought about that. Um. So you know, Mikey's gone
Speaker 1: and that you know, the last like six minutes of
Speaker 1: this movie or just like if you thought you were
Speaker 1: depressed before, it's just like keeping it on top of
Speaker 1: your of your brain. At the end of this when
Speaker 1: he carries Mikey home and uh, you know, and and
Speaker 1: the and Mr Carver meets him outside. Well, first the
Speaker 1: you know, his his wife and daughter were the first
Speaker 1: to see. Yeah, and it's sort of like immediately it's
Speaker 1: the three of them, and then Jim kind of you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you think that he like hit him with his
Speaker 1: car or something, right, because there are no words being spoken.
Speaker 1: He he says, Um. He finally says to his dad
Speaker 1: like I found him over on Silver Lane. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think line. Yeah, that's that's about all he can say.
Speaker 1: And it was the way they shot at it was
Speaker 1: just so brutally real. Yeah. Um, because now it's morning,
Speaker 1: everything is exposed. It's daylight. It's sort of like that
Speaker 1: feeling of they've all been up all night. Yeah, they've
Speaker 1: all been up all night, and like in the night,
Speaker 1: things drop off into shadow. It's hard to see, you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to get an objective view of the whole situation.
Speaker 1: And then in the brutal, harsh reality of like daylight
Speaker 1: this morning probably still kind of drunk. Yeah, now suddenly
Speaker 1: everything is made clear and things that I mean, it's weird.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like the nighttime the storm being frozen
Speaker 1: in all that kind of affects them psychologically and it
Speaker 1: it drives them into, you know, ways of behaving and
Speaker 1: crossing certain boundaries that they would never think to do,
Speaker 1: like in in just like a warm, normal day, right,
Speaker 1: But it's it's because they've they've been caught up in
Speaker 1: this thing. And now it is like there's there's like
Speaker 1: another shot of like the tree line with like the
Speaker 1: ice kind of like maybe starting to melt a little
Speaker 1: bit and uh, and like the sun and the clouds
Speaker 1: and everything, and it's also very beautiful, but it's at
Speaker 1: the same time it's intensely sad, and it is this
Speaker 1: kind of realization of like, what have we done? What?
Speaker 1: You know, it's almost like the morning after the horror
Speaker 1: movie Night Ends. Yeah, you know, it has weirdly has
Speaker 1: the same feeling. Um, and we we should mention to
Speaker 1: the uh the great part where Joan Allen walks in
Speaker 1: on Sandy and Wendy and Bed and she just she
Speaker 1: takes a beat and then she goes get dressed like
Speaker 1: it's not this big show like Ben would have done
Speaker 1: and did. Yeah, it's just this very quiet get dressed.
Speaker 1: And immediately after that is when when they show up
Speaker 1: with Mikey and man the scene with with Mr Carver
Speaker 1: when he brings his son in the sun that he
Speaker 1: is just fairly estranged from even and then when Sandy
Speaker 1: walks in, it's just like brutal, man, God, it's hard.
Speaker 1: Well there there's that moment first where Kevin Klein um
Speaker 1: is almost like giving the body to Jim and um
Speaker 1: the way he he lifts the body up and and
Speaker 1: Kevin Klein almost goes to help him. Yeah, and there's
Speaker 1: this look back and forth between them like you better
Speaker 1: not fucking touch my kid. Yeah him from Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like I don't need your help. Yeah, well don't lay,
Speaker 1: don't lay a finger on him. Um, there's just like
Speaker 1: this moment, you know, where they're looking at each other
Speaker 1: and Um, he kind of like braces him into his
Speaker 1: chest and brings him inside. And then I mean the
Speaker 1: saddest thing is that he he starts taking off the
Speaker 1: gloves and I'm doing and he's listening for a pulse,
Speaker 1: even though it's it's completely evident to everyone that he's gone, um,
Speaker 1: but he still has to do it like it's just
Speaker 1: a very human thing. And then as soon as you
Speaker 1: realize that, he just sobbing, you know. And the way
Speaker 1: Sandy Windy comfort Sandy well because she she takes a
Speaker 1: step forward to him and he backs off like he's
Speaker 1: kind of scared at first, and then you know, she
Speaker 1: she just kind of goes in and they really do embrace,
Speaker 1: and you know, the camera kind of like spins around
Speaker 1: and you see like tears streaming down his face, which
Speaker 1: is interesting because you haven't really seen that kind of
Speaker 1: overt emotion from him. Kids. He's sort of the weird kid.
Speaker 1: He's he's like blowing things up and shoots the g
Speaker 1: I Joe at her and you're kind of wondering, like,
Speaker 1: hiss his kid like on the road to like a
Speaker 1: school shooter or something. I mean, before that, you know,
Speaker 1: we he has that, he has that moment where he says, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna put a firecracker on
Speaker 1: a plane and fly it into miss and so is classic. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't think he is. So. I think he's just
Speaker 1: just a little weird, weird kid trying to figure it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but um, so you even you even't see him kind
Speaker 1: of getting broken down by this. Who wouldn't And then yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you know, cutting to Sigourney Weaver upstairs as
Speaker 1: she wakes up. Yeah, and you never even she never
Speaker 1: even makes it downstairs as far as what we see,
Speaker 1: you don't need to see that. Yeah, but I get
Speaker 1: a sense from her even when her eyes open and
Speaker 1: she's just hearing her husband crying, I think she probably
Speaker 1: intu it's basically what has happened anyway, Well, you know,
Speaker 1: something has happened that that one of the kids is
Speaker 1: dead or or something really really bad you know has
Speaker 1: has happened. Yeah, and it's interesting they don't show her
Speaker 1: seeing that because she has not shown much love to
Speaker 1: either of her boys in the movie. Um, and I
Speaker 1: think it might have read a little false if she
Speaker 1: came downstairs and broke down sobbing and he's just been redundant,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, well that's true for sure. Um and
Speaker 1: then you know the end, one of my favorite favorite
Speaker 1: endings and one of my favorite shots in the movie
Speaker 1: is uh and and certainly Paul knows something is up,
Speaker 1: like his whole family doesn't show up, that they come
Speaker 1: up the morning after he goes into Manhattan. He takes
Speaker 1: he takes that beat where he's smiling, he's glad to
Speaker 1: see them, but he's also like, why are you? Why
Speaker 1: are you here? And they have that great shot man
Speaker 1: of the three of them standing there and the train
Speaker 1: station just solemn, and the score kind of building, And yeah,
Speaker 1: it always affects me because it's it's that moment where
Speaker 1: you realize this family is still intact, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of yeah, sort of studo, but they're all safe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah, you feel like this might be the moment
Speaker 1: where they all kind of wake up and and things
Speaker 1: are gonna be different from now on. But it's just
Speaker 1: that sense that is it hopeful m It's it's ambiguous,
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, but um, but yeah, just just that
Speaker 1: that that that thought that that that occurs to me
Speaker 1: every time I see it. Of just you know, ultimately
Speaker 1: he has his family still, um at least they're they're
Speaker 1: around so that they can mend things, so they can
Speaker 1: fix things. The Carvers don't have that luxury anymore. You know,
Speaker 1: there's things that I think everyone had taken each other
Speaker 1: for granted exactly. It's just that since that, Wow, we
Speaker 1: are actually a family, We're not just these alienated individuals
Speaker 1: that we can actually still you know, love each other
Speaker 1: and help each other, connect with each other. And maybe
Speaker 1: maybe if there's like a silver lining in any of this,
Speaker 1: it is that they have that epiphany where they're like,
Speaker 1: it's not too late, we can still do something. It's
Speaker 1: but they don't say it. They don't say anything. Well,
Speaker 1: like the the the whole last like you know, ten
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes are practically word free. Yeah, especially just that
Speaker 1: car scene like that, It certainly would have changed. That
Speaker 1: gets me. Every time you could have had dialogue there,
Speaker 1: you could have had him say what happened, Like Paul
Speaker 1: doesn't even say what's going on. It's just the perfect
Speaker 1: use of no diet. Kevin Klein starts crying and Joan
Speaker 1: Allen just says Jim, like, you know, that's that's the
Speaker 1: only thing she says, and and then the rest of
Speaker 1: it is just um bouncing around, you know, everybody, everybody
Speaker 1: looking at everyone else. Um, you know. He turns back
Speaker 1: around to his son like he's maybe going to break
Speaker 1: the news. You can't even do it, and he turns
Speaker 1: back around to the stream when he starts crying, you know,
Speaker 1: to me a wire. At this point, it has got
Speaker 1: to be like something horrible has happened. We're all here,
Speaker 1: but but nevertheless, something really terrible must have happened. And
Speaker 1: I love that the last shot of the movie, it
Speaker 1: ends on Toby McGuire's face just like not quite grasping yet.
Speaker 1: He doesn't know, he doesn't know what what what went down,
Speaker 1: but it's it's this uneasy sense of like something really
Speaker 1: heavy has happened and I don't know yet what it is.
Speaker 1: And then and then you kind of realize, because he's
Speaker 1: also the voice of the film, this is sort of um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's another whatever you wanna call it.
Speaker 1: It's it's an other like key moment in his life
Speaker 1: that's going to inform the rest of it, and that
Speaker 1: has informed the film we've just seen, you know, his
Speaker 1: fantastic He's he's looked back on. Yeah, he's he's looking
Speaker 1: back on this really important moment in his life. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and Kevin Klein, it's a lovely thing in a
Speaker 1: movie where like he's he's not crying for Mikey no,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, that's part of it probably, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: like he's weeping for his life and what he's done
Speaker 1: and just that he's he's taken it so um like
Speaker 1: casually and thoughtlessly, you know, and it's really at least
Speaker 1: for the moment, it's it's shaken him out of that.
Speaker 1: But but whether you know, whether things what do you
Speaker 1: think happens. Where's his family in six months? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really tough to say. Summertime, they could they could, um,
Speaker 1: they could kind of just like go back, you know,
Speaker 1: fall back asleep. I mean that's what I think. Paul's
Speaker 1: got a couple more years left to high school, but
Speaker 1: he's already away when he's going to be gone, and
Speaker 1: you know, similar time frame if if if she's going
Speaker 1: to like a boarding school type thing as well. So
Speaker 1: and then you know, maybe especially once the kids around
Speaker 1: the house, maybe they do get divorced or something. You know,
Speaker 1: so maybe maybe this is like, you know, one last
Speaker 1: hurrah of like hey, we're a family. But ultimately, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's too late, it's I don't know. I do
Speaker 1: probably lean in that direction as well, rather than not helpful.
Speaker 1: Everybody lived happily ever after and and kind of like
Speaker 1: nothing nothing really says that they're going to turn it
Speaker 1: all around. Uh man, what a great movie, New Canaan Connectic. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that I the setting it a New Canean. Also interesting
Speaker 1: to me that that is where Rick Moody grew up,
Speaker 1: and and the fact that they were shooting the movie
Speaker 1: in that town and people from that town of course
Speaker 1: had read the book and we're not happy with the
Speaker 1: book because it doesn't exactly reflect positively on didn't really
Speaker 1: show new canon and shows a couple of houses in
Speaker 1: the woods. No, but just like the kind of people
Speaker 1: who live there, let's say, are the kind of lives
Speaker 1: they lead. They they felt maybe like a little bit
Speaker 1: you know, like slandered by that. Um and so but
Speaker 1: the New Canaan um Canaan being like a biblical idea
Speaker 1: um and uh yeah, just the like the in the Bible,
Speaker 1: there's like the whole story about like the false idol,
Speaker 1: the Canaanites and you know, Moses going up on the
Speaker 1: mountain coming down with the tablet and everything. Um, I
Speaker 1: always wondered. I mean, I guess it's not a it's
Speaker 1: not a conscious choice, because that is literally where he's from.
Speaker 1: But it did kind of make me wonder at a
Speaker 1: certain point, is he saying that, um, everybody in this
Speaker 1: town is kind of worshiping a certain false idol, Like
Speaker 1: they're they're, they're, they're they're kind of yeah, yeah, um
Speaker 1: they're they're, they're sort of um, they're they're, they're they're
Speaker 1: receiving these second hand um ideas from the sixties that
Speaker 1: have like filtered out finally into the suburbs, you know,
Speaker 1: and so they're all kind of playing catch up with
Speaker 1: what was happening in more like urban centers let's say,
Speaker 1: you know, five or ten years earlier. But the whole
Speaker 1: idea of like free love and and kind of um,
Speaker 1: these these kind of freewheeling sexual you know things, and um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's just interesting. Um the I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's if that's what the film is
Speaker 1: driving out, but certainly the the idea of like the
Speaker 1: ice storm itself being like, uh, kind of like this
Speaker 1: active nature act of God, whatever you wanna call it.
Speaker 1: There's there's a sense again in in these films we
Speaker 1: were mentioning at the beginning, like shortcuts like Magnolia, that
Speaker 1: there is this kind of omniscient thing that is looking
Speaker 1: on and that is in a way punishing these characters,
Speaker 1: but at the same time as also trying to um
Speaker 1: wake them up out of slumber, you know, and unite
Speaker 1: people again. Yeah, boy, this is one of my favorite movies.
Speaker 1: Casey same, absolutely talk about it. Yeah. So one last thing, um,
Speaker 1: just you know, more more thematic stuff that's kind of
Speaker 1: buried in the film. Um. When Sigourney Weaver is in
Speaker 1: bed earlier on, she's on the waterbed, she's reading her
Speaker 1: husband's come home. She's reading a book by Philip Roth.
Speaker 1: And then if you look on their their bookshelf by
Speaker 1: the bed, there's also like John Updyke and you know
Speaker 1: again the family being named the Carver's. This film is
Speaker 1: kind of it belongs to like that tradition of sixties
Speaker 1: disillusionment with say the American Dream, you know, the picket
Speaker 1: fence and the and the two kids and the dog
Speaker 1: and all that go. Yeah, yeah, and so it it's
Speaker 1: tapping into that, um. And it's interesting that it that
Speaker 1: it's so deliberately references that in the context of the film. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's sort of tucked away at least. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's tucked away. Um, but it's just it's um in
Speaker 1: in a way. I also think about, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of years later, like American Beauty for instance, that
Speaker 1: that similar kind of feeling of from again suburban disenchantment
Speaker 1: and um, you know, set set in a contemporary you
Speaker 1: know setting, but very much the same idea. Um that
Speaker 1: you know that there's there's beauty in the world. You know.
Speaker 1: We could say the same for the Ice Storm, that
Speaker 1: it's very beautiful, but at the same time it's also
Speaker 1: there's a there's a sadness there. Yeah, we'll finish on this.
Speaker 1: So do you like Radiohead? Sure? Love Radiohead? Do you
Speaker 1: like the album In Rainbows? I Love in Rainbows? I
Speaker 1: love them all? Do you like the song House of
Speaker 1: Cards them All? So? All right? The lyrics to House
Speaker 1: of Cards are are more or less inspired by this film. Um.
Speaker 1: Probably the the most direct gesture towards it the infrastructure
Speaker 1: will collapse from voltage spikes, Throw your keys in the bowl,
Speaker 1: kiss your husband good night, Um, forget about your house
Speaker 1: with cards and I'll do mine. Forget a out your
Speaker 1: house with cards and I'll do mine. Fall off the table,
Speaker 1: get swept under, denial, denial. There you go? All right?
Speaker 1: Do you think that's what they were thinking? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: because the even the idea of the key party, I
Speaker 1: kind of assumed it was a thing that really happened
Speaker 1: in the seventies. But it's I feel like our our
Speaker 1: our cultural awareness of it is almost like it's more
Speaker 1: due to this film. Maybe I'm wrong, but um, I
Speaker 1: had the understanding anyway that that it's almost like a
Speaker 1: you know, it's the kind of thing people talked about
Speaker 1: going on. There may not be so many like firsthand
Speaker 1: accounts of it, but I think certainly Radiohead here um
Speaker 1: is thinking like explicitly of this film. When they say
Speaker 1: fall off the table, get swept under, it's like Benjamin
Speaker 1: Hood standing up banging his knee on the table. Um,
Speaker 1: three keys in the bull, kisse your husband a night.
Speaker 1: You know, the infrastructure will collapse, the voltage bike. All
Speaker 1: that stuff, I think is is pretty pretty consciously evoking
Speaker 1: this film. Have to do a little digging on that,
Speaker 1: all right, man, Well that was great, and uh, we'll
Speaker 1: figure out what we're gonna do next time. Yeah. This
Speaker 1: has been um kind of two pseudo mainstream movies in
Speaker 1: a row, if you want to call it that. So
Speaker 1: for the next one, we'll try to try to find
Speaker 1: something really far out, all right, that sounds good? Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, thanks man, thank you. Movie Crush is produced, edited,
Speaker 1: and engineered by Ramsey Hunt here in our home studio
Speaker 1: at pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.