Speaker 1: What kind of a show you guys putting on here today?
Speaker 1: You're not interested in art?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: No, Look, we're going to do this thing. We're going
Speaker 1: to have a.
Speaker 3: Conversation from Chicago. This is Film Spotting. I'm Adam Kempinar.
Speaker 1: And and for Josh Larson this week, I'm Michael Phillips.
Speaker 2: I thought, against my better judgment, my family's expectation, the
Speaker 2: inferiority of your birth, my rank and circumstances, all these
Speaker 2: things that I'm wanting to put them aside and ascue
Speaker 2: you through end my agony. I didn't understand Hello.
Speaker 3: You despite the inferiority of my birth. Michael, thank you
Speaker 3: for joining me this week to talk about Joe Wright's
Speaker 3: pride and prejudice, which, like Film Spotting, turns twenty this year.
Speaker 1: Between my sense and your sensibility, this should be a
Speaker 1: really good show.
Speaker 3: There you go, plus our top five rain scenes and
Speaker 3: film Spotting Madness best of the twenty first century so far,
Speaker 3: it's all ahead on Film Spotting.
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Speaker 3: Welcome to Film Spotting, and welcome back Michael Phillips. I
Speaker 3: think the last time we saw you was the OSCARS special.
Speaker 3: How did your oscar prognostications turn out?
Speaker 1: Worst ever in my life? I think, worst ever for
Speaker 1: any recorded human in the oscar history. No, I did terrible.
Speaker 1: I did great last year, like at twenty one out
Speaker 1: of twenty three, and this was like negative five for
Speaker 1: twenty three.
Speaker 3: I mean, you're just slipping.
Speaker 1: I got stuff wrong that wasn't even up. I mean
Speaker 1: it wasn't even up. You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, better luck hopefully tonight. I did put it in
Speaker 3: the really fine print of your contract, so it's okay
Speaker 3: if you missed it. We are going to have to
Speaker 3: talk a little film spotting madness tonight. Best of the
Speaker 3: twenty first century so far, sixty four films in only
Speaker 3: one survives. We are down to the elite eight. Can
Speaker 3: you guess one of the films? One film from the
Speaker 3: past twenty five years that you think remains among those.
Speaker 1: Eight A parasite.
Speaker 3: For God's sake, well done, Parasite is among the elite eight.
Speaker 3: We will give you the rest of that group a
Speaker 3: bit later in the show. Also later the indie baseball
Speaker 3: movie Ephis and Seabeams will Glitter in the Dark with
Speaker 3: our top five rain scenes. A big show this week, Michael,
Speaker 3: Before we get to our twentieth anniversary review of Joe
Speaker 3: Wrt's Pride and Prejudice, we did want to take a
Speaker 3: moment to acknowledge the passing last week of Val Kilmer,
Speaker 3: sixty five years old. Who is the first character you
Speaker 3: think of when you think about or just tell us
Speaker 3: how you first encountered Bell Kilmer as an actor.
Speaker 1: Michael, Yeah, talk about snobbery. This sounds like I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to tone the show up desperately. But the first
Speaker 1: thing I think I was seeing Val Kilmer when I
Speaker 1: was in college at the Guthrie Theater doing Orlando and
Speaker 1: As You Like It. He was straight out of Juilliard
Speaker 1: and he was doing As You Like It at the
Speaker 1: Guthrie with Patty Lapone in the lead, and they were
Speaker 1: kind of tearing it up. I mean they were terrific.
Speaker 1: They were terrific, and he had they had this sage,
Speaker 1: he had the stage chops to fill that Guthrie, the
Speaker 1: old Guthrie Theater. So yeah, yeah, Yet it was not
Speaker 1: it was not hard to detect that he had a
Speaker 1: modicum of talent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't know how much I
Speaker 3: want to say, because a lot of times when great
Speaker 3: actors pass, we like to pay tribute to them here
Speaker 3: on Film Spotting, as we recently did with Gene Hackman,
Speaker 3: and do our top five scenes by that actor, or
Speaker 3: maybe our top five characters. And though Val Kilmer's filmography
Speaker 3: may not be quite as esteemed as someone like Gene Hackman,
Speaker 3: there are more than enough great scenes and moments to
Speaker 3: do such a top five. And here's what I also know, Michael,
Speaker 3: with a hat tip to the respective screenwriters in these cases,
Speaker 3: Bell Kilmer is responsible for two of the movie characters
Speaker 3: I still quote the most to this day. Chris Knight
Speaker 3: from nineteen eighty five's Real Genius, Yes, Real Genius really,
Speaker 3: one of my first screen heroes. Brilliant, hilarious, but edgy,
Speaker 3: a rebel at his nerdy college. And then, of course
Speaker 3: the brilliant, hilarious, edgy and rebellious Doc Holiday in Tombstone.
Speaker 1: I'm with you, but I'm both, I'm both of them.
Speaker 1: I think Real Genius is a really good that's Martha Coolidge.
Speaker 3: Just yes, it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I mean she's I mean you can
Speaker 1: just tell you had you had you had a different
Speaker 1: refreshing perspective on what could have been just sort of
Speaker 1: brow humor all the way. And I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: to the degree a director can deal with the script.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I know he's really good in that. And
Speaker 1: I mean I think that Doc Holiday before Mormans is
Speaker 1: one of the two of his that I treasure the most.
Speaker 1: In fact, what is the other one? Oh, you want
Speaker 1: me to tell you the other one? This is controversial. Okay,
Speaker 1: you could say top Gun either top Gun he's the
Speaker 1: best thing in both whom he's probably you could say
Speaker 1: any number of things. I am a mysteriously vulnerable fan
Speaker 1: to the craziness that is the Saint. You know, I love.
Speaker 1: I love the movie doesn't work at all, it's not,
Speaker 1: but I love seeing a guy who just can't give
Speaker 1: two f's at about like playing along with the Blockbuster game.
Speaker 1: You know, he's just he's got twelve disguises, twelve characters
Speaker 1: to play within that character, and he is having a ball.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I think the work he does not
Speaker 1: just the cheap dialect humor of which the movie. That's
Speaker 1: why the movie exists, for vealkim or to have a
Speaker 1: cheap dialect real when he's done with it. But he's
Speaker 1: that's it. But it just is he's got kind of
Speaker 1: a kind of a you know, he's such a blithe,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of bluesh you know presence, you know
Speaker 1: in a in a movie that you know is preposters
Speaker 1: who asked for a reboot of the Saint anyway, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean the character goes back to the
Speaker 1: twenties and the literary roots, and then of course the
Speaker 1: Roger Moore series in the sixties, which had a great theme. Actually,
Speaker 1: but this movie, I mean, do you do you remember
Speaker 1: that film?
Speaker 3: I remember it, but you know what, never bothered to
Speaker 3: see it.
Speaker 1: Well, wait a minute, I guess when I say do
Speaker 1: you remember.
Speaker 3: That, I remember seeing scenes from it, I remember it
Speaker 3: being a thing. I remember it being largely dismissed, and
Speaker 3: I never felt felled to watch the entire film.
Speaker 1: I just so I know going forward at him. So
Speaker 1: when I when I say, did you see this, and
Speaker 1: you say, oh, yes, I remember that one? Well, okay,
Speaker 1: well that.
Speaker 3: It was actually I'm aware of the Saint Michael.
Speaker 1: Yes, do you recall that? Do you recall that it
Speaker 1: was filmed and then released? Okay? Okay, good? But I
Speaker 1: mean felt honestly, it's just it's just dumb as dirt
Speaker 1: in a way. But but it's Kilmer is just a
Speaker 1: gas in that. And I hadn't seen it since the
Speaker 1: nineties until last week again, and uh, and I remembered
Speaker 1: it well actually yeah, and uh, and I do I
Speaker 1: love he's he's such a mercurial talent, and and it's
Speaker 1: hard to see him go because he never really got
Speaker 1: the career. I don't know if I don't know what
Speaker 1: kind of career he wanted or made or or went after.
Speaker 1: I get the feeling he didn't really chase any of
Speaker 1: the usual you know it to stardom dreams or anything.
Speaker 1: But I'm just glad he was around while we had him,
Speaker 1: and and it was a thrill to see him when
Speaker 1: I was in college, just just kind of having a real,
Speaker 1: u vivid, easy going, kind of delightful turn in Shakespeare.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so sad to see him go.
Speaker 3: Mercurial is a good word for him, because he just
Speaker 3: seems so preternaturally comfortable on screen and uncalculated. And the
Speaker 3: night that I came home after hearing of his passing,
Speaker 3: I decided to just throw on Tombstone. And it had
Speaker 3: been several years since I had seen it, but I
Speaker 3: just kind of wanted it on in the background. It
Speaker 3: was okay if I got distracted by the kids or
Speaker 3: whatever was happening. I just wanted it on and I
Speaker 3: just wanted to hear that drawl. And I ended up
Speaker 3: paying pretty close attention to it Michael and throughout and
Speaker 3: really lingering after it. I could sum up for you
Speaker 3: intellectually why that character is such a beloved character. Why
Speaker 3: on the page almost anybody playing him would have been
Speaker 3: a whot. We would have had some fun with him.
Speaker 3: But I, honestly, after finishing the movie, still can't tell
Speaker 3: you or articulate exactly what it is that Kilmer is
Speaker 3: doing that makes that character one of the most memorable
Speaker 3: screen characters and what is otherwise? And I really do
Speaker 3: like the film I considered a favorite movie of mine,
Speaker 3: but I wouldn't argue with anyone who said it's a
Speaker 3: pretty mediocre Western, but that character is one of the
Speaker 3: most memorable characters in a Western or any other genre
Speaker 3: film of the last twenty five thirty years.
Speaker 1: You must be Dae Holiday. That's the rum you retired too,
Speaker 1: not me. I'm in my prime. Yeah, you look at
Speaker 1: I think when you look at the Westerns that have
Speaker 1: real reasons to revisit them now that were made let's say,
Speaker 1: since nineteen eighty eighty five, you know, so that includes
Speaker 1: a lot of Eastwood stuff and a lot of other things.
Speaker 1: But that performance is any ensemble that Kilmer joined and
Speaker 1: was part of. I think probably created on set this
Speaker 1: feeling of like, well, he's doing that, and why I
Speaker 1: can't try to do anything like that, because that's just,
Speaker 1: you know, literally not going to work if more than
Speaker 1: one person is trying that sort of eccentric, very sly
Speaker 1: verbal humor, just kind of getting getting strange line readings
Speaker 1: out of some good lines, I mean actual Actually it's
Speaker 1: a pretty good script in tunestim I love I love
Speaker 1: the way at the poker table. I said that must
Speaker 1: be a preach of a hand.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And those are good lines and he's got them
Speaker 1: and he knows, he knows what to do with them,
Speaker 1: and it's not Kurt Russell has a similar thing, and
Speaker 1: that's that kind of like twinkle in his eye. Not
Speaker 1: not necessarily in that in his part in that film,
Speaker 1: but Russell in many films is kind of that sort
Speaker 1: he serves that sort of uh, I don't want to
Speaker 1: say a gesture role, but it's kind of like a gester,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like the court jester just having a
Speaker 1: little fun with everybody else, kind of messing with and
Speaker 1: keeping all the actors on their toes and and to
Speaker 1: the audience's delight.
Speaker 3: Yeah. In the film Spotting Archive, there are a few
Speaker 3: films we've reviewed that Val Kilmer appeared in, but surprisingly
Speaker 3: disappointingly few. We talked about Bad Lieutenant port of called
Speaker 3: New Orleans. He is in that. He's in Terrence Malick's
Speaker 3: Song to Song. Michael, you were actually on that show
Speaker 3: episode six twenty eight. That was the same episode we
Speaker 3: talked about Casablanca, gave that the Sacred Cow treatment, and yes,
Speaker 3: Top Gun Maverick appears very briefly episode eight seventy five.
Speaker 3: I will say this as a tease for content coming
Speaker 3: up later this year. I have been hounding Josh and
Speaker 3: Sam because it is thirty years to do a sacred
Speaker 3: cow review of Heat. I don't know how we have
Speaker 3: gone this long and not talked about that great Michael manfilm,
Speaker 3: but this is the occasion it seems to do it.
Speaker 1: I like it. I like it. I think that the
Speaker 1: bonus content and that would have to be just the
Speaker 1: hair of Heat, the guy's hair. Absolutely no, because the
Speaker 1: hair is I can't even Actually, I don't have words.
Speaker 1: I would be a terrible guest on that one. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just don't have words. I say, you asked me
Speaker 1: a question, I just say I have no words. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: There you go, Okay. Pride and Prejudice the two thousand
Speaker 3: and five adaptation of Jane Austen's eighteen thirteen novel directed
Speaker 3: by Joe Wright, starring Kiera Knightley as Austin heroin Naplus Ultra,
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Bennett, Matthew mcfatty and Is mister Darcy Donald Sutherland,
Speaker 3: mister Bennett, Brenda Bluffin is Missus Bennett. We did review
Speaker 3: this on the show way back in two thousand and five,
Speaker 3: and to answer the question some of you may be
Speaker 3: asking why revisit it now, Well, it is coming back
Speaker 3: to theaters. We'll talk a little bit more about that
Speaker 3: at the end. But it could be because of its
Speaker 3: four Oscar nominations back in six including one for Nightly,
Speaker 3: or to honor Donald Sutherland who passed away last year,
Speaker 3: Maybe to remember that McFadyen of succession fame was once
Speaker 3: pretty hot. Or maybe because if you go to Letterboxed
Speaker 3: and filter it by ranking of all films released in
Speaker 3: two thousand and five by popularity, the number one title
Speaker 3: isn't Batman Begins or Broke Back Mountain or even Harry
Speaker 3: Potter and the Goblet of Fire Michael or Star Wars
Speaker 3: Episode three Revenge of the Sith. It's Joe Wright's Pride
Speaker 3: and Prejudice, Yes kidding. That either tells you something about
Speaker 3: the movie or about Letterboxed, maybe both. I wanted to
Speaker 3: revisit it because when I's all it was coming back
Speaker 3: to theaters, I knew this was an occasion to reconsider
Speaker 3: a movie that I liked back in two thousand and five,
Speaker 3: but would never have envisioned that twenty years later it
Speaker 3: would be a top such a ranking, and my cost
Speaker 3: at the time, Sam adored it. My daughter, Sophie, who
Speaker 3: is now as old as this film, loves this film
Speaker 3: and I thought, you know, she's on the payroll now,
Speaker 3: Michael as our production assistant. Why not employ her then
Speaker 3: to tell us a little bit about why she loves
Speaker 3: the movie so much and see if she can set
Speaker 3: us up for our conversation.
Speaker 2: Hey, film spotting it is a new PA. Sophie currently
Speaker 2: calling in from a train to Vienna. I'm trying to
Speaker 2: live my before Sunrise dreams. I still have time between
Speaker 2: Oxford terms and looking around right now, I don't see
Speaker 2: Ethan Hawk quite yet, but I'm sure he'll be here soon. Otherwise,
Speaker 2: I'm mean, whats the point of him being here? But anyway,
Speaker 2: no distance could keep me from calling in. When the
Speaker 2: topic is two thousand and five Joe Wright, Pride and Prejudice,
Speaker 2: I mean, how app this year's mat and this theme
Speaker 2: is best of the century so far, just in time
Speaker 2: to discuss this movie one of the great cinematic works
Speaker 2: of our age. For the selection committee's sake, I'll assume
Speaker 2: its absence on the bracket was just an unfortunate oversight.
Speaker 2: Now also act that the film is celebrating its twentieth
Speaker 2: year alongside the show. It got an original review back No.
Speaker 2: Five on Cinecast number fifty eight. Listening back, I was
Speaker 2: struck by Sam's comment that Wright's greatest triumph was his
Speaker 2: success in bringing language to cinema. Sam credits the sharp,
Speaker 2: witty screenplay with making him more articulate even hours after
Speaker 2: viewing Now. If you are like me, knee deep into
Speaker 2: niche Austenite infighting, you are familiar with the forever raging
Speaker 2: battle over which pride and prejudice screen adaptation is superior
Speaker 2: This or the nineteen ninety five BBC mini series starring
Speaker 2: Jennifer E. Lee and Colin Firth. Sam's praise echoes a
Speaker 2: central point of contention in that debate the value of
Speaker 2: historical accuracy and loyalty to the original book. Writes detractor argue,
Speaker 2: he took too many creative liberties with his overly sentimental
Speaker 2: romantic world, one that is incongruous with the restraint the
Speaker 2: story demands. In their view, the language Sam found so
Speaker 2: illuminating is instead a bastardized imitation of Austin's text. Various
Speaker 2: characters dress and hair is often misaligned with the period
Speaker 2: and or their status. The iconic hand flex isn't in
Speaker 2: the book at all. Wright brings language to cinema with
Speaker 2: his choice of subject, but he also presents this story
Speaker 2: with an entirely new cinematic language, to the delight and
Speaker 2: derision of many. So, Adam and Michael, I ask you,
Speaker 2: did Joe write sparkling vistas, hand flexes and rain soak proposals?
Speaker 2: Have you swooning? Or should he have dialed the drama back?
Speaker 2: Or should I say, will Adam follow Lizzie and Darcy's
Speaker 2: example and reevaluate his tepid first impression from twenty years ago?
Speaker 2: Or are the shades of film Spotting to be thus
Speaker 2: polluted once more?
Speaker 3: Thank you Sophie for that. To tease my reaction to
Speaker 3: the film on this revisit, I'll say that film Spotting,
Speaker 3: like Pemberley, is now pristine. It's unpolluted. Michael, But what
Speaker 3: say you? What was your reaction back in two thousand
Speaker 3: and five, if you got a chance to revisit it
Speaker 3: before this conversation, how did you take to it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I did, and I hadn't seen the thing for
Speaker 1: a long time, and I went back and read the
Speaker 1: review from two thousand and five, and I loved it good.
Speaker 1: I loved it then it was you know, three and
Speaker 1: a half start. I liked it more than you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to undermine you in front of Sophie,
Speaker 1: but I deserve it. You know, well who knows, But
Speaker 1: I will say this, what I remembered from the first
Speaker 1: viewing and from the most recent is still held to.
Speaker 1: It takes about fifteen twenty minutes to kind of just
Speaker 1: adjust your maybe your expectations or your preconceptions about the material,
Speaker 1: because there is, as I wrote back in five, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of barnyard mud and cackling geese. In this version,
Speaker 1: it's very boisterous and the boisterousness and sort of the
Speaker 1: comic uh, kind of the bumptious comic quality in the
Speaker 1: first twenty to thirty minutes just to kind of establish
Speaker 1: that this family is not, of course it's in the lace.
Speaker 1: Really it's more like, you know, they are, you know,
Speaker 1: middle class, you know, living with far it's you know,
Speaker 1: on the farm, and you don't get the oh, kind
Speaker 1: of the exquisite high toned edge to all the language.
Speaker 1: It's it's a little more conversational and it's if you
Speaker 1: can get into that rhythm. Though, as the film also
Speaker 1: kind of finds its rhythm after fifteen minutes. It is
Speaker 1: completely intoxicating anything And it's all Joe writes, camera work
Speaker 1: is so fluid and and so and it's not showing off.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily He's done plenty of that in his career,
Speaker 1: with like the the Dunkirk sequence and a toonement and
Speaker 1: I mean this, this is there's a little of that
Speaker 1: what I what I loved the first time. And on
Speaker 1: the rewatch where the just the way he'd sweep you
Speaker 1: into a ball a ball a party. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: another scene with all these you know, all these family members. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's got a real activating quality. And and then you
Speaker 1: get you get shifts visual and otherwise that really really
Speaker 1: really catch up short in a great way. Like I
Speaker 1: love the scene where Rosamund Pike and Kira Knightley are
Speaker 1: under the sheets having that late night talk and it's
Speaker 1: it's just it's just beautiful, uh, framework and just you know,
Speaker 1: really really felt again all over again, like you're hearing
Speaker 1: a conversation in that in that kind of really really
Speaker 1: lovely intimate feeling that you just don't get in a
Speaker 1: lot of Jane Austen. So there I'm I'm well, what
Speaker 1: about you.
Speaker 3: I I had such a different reaction this time around.
Speaker 3: I'd love to attribute it to being maybe just a
Speaker 3: better critic at this point, Michael, I was just so
Speaker 3: wrong about this movie, and Sophie and Sam back in
Speaker 3: two thousand and five, who gave it five stars out
Speaker 3: of five, Hello, they're just so right about it. And
Speaker 3: I didn't re listen to that episode because I tried
Speaker 3: to never go into the archive and re listen to myself.
Speaker 3: I also couldn't track down any notes from that far back.
Speaker 3: So I do want to point out that the only
Speaker 3: thing I carried into this viewing was the recollection that
Speaker 3: I found Nightley's performance to be limited. I agree, agree,
Speaker 3: That's all I remembered about my reaction. Then. Fortunately Sophie
Speaker 3: listened to episode fifty eight and took notes, which meant
Speaker 3: I could check twenty twenty five Atam against two thousand
Speaker 3: and five ATOM through her. Turns out two thousand and
Speaker 3: five Adam was a dummy there. There wasn't a single
Speaker 3: criticism I made then that holds now. Not only was
Speaker 3: I down on Nightly way too much, it turns out
Speaker 3: I called mcfaddy in a drip liked him so much
Speaker 3: better this time. I railed against Brenda Blafin for crying
Speaker 3: out loud as Missus Bennett, who I think is quite
Speaker 3: good in the film. I wasn't moved by it much
Speaker 3: as a romance at the time, and while I thought
Speaker 3: the filmmaking was fine, I wasn't stirred by Right's formal choices,
Speaker 3: certainly not the way I would be a few years
Speaker 3: later with the tonement, leading me to wonder, now, Michael,
Speaker 3: as if possible I didn't actually watch Pride and Prejudice
Speaker 3: back in two thousand and five because I think about
Speaker 3: the filmmaking now. Right's approach is elegant, vibrant, and prudently ostentatious.
Speaker 3: I'll explain why I say that, because he does he
Speaker 3: does take some very bold steps with the material. But
Speaker 3: that opening following Elizabeth back home from her walk with
Speaker 3: the book, tracking along the clothesline and picking up and
Speaker 3: introducing us to all the other Bennetts there within long
Speaker 3: burn the piano that's playing the score, it seems, of course,
Speaker 3: to be non diegetic, or is it because the younger
Speaker 3: sister we see is actually playing the piano forte when
Speaker 3: the camera stops on her and so maybe for a
Speaker 3: second we think there's a little bit of playfulness, Oh,
Speaker 3: is that actually emanating from her Elizabeth then watching her
Speaker 3: mother and father through the window, listening to them, kind
Speaker 3: of eaves dropping on them, placing her like an observer
Speaker 3: to the drama that is about to all play out
Speaker 3: the same way we are as viewers. And Right does
Speaker 3: something similar later in the film, moving along the windows,
Speaker 3: revealing all the Bennetts, some separation, some sharing spaces, they're
Speaker 3: all united by the camera. And there's another move like
Speaker 3: it that comes in the middle very intentionally, I think,
Speaker 3: where that roving camera sneaks around and just spies on
Speaker 3: all the conversations. I think this might even be I
Speaker 3: could be wrong, but that might even be where we
Speaker 3: see and hear Jane and Elizabeth, as you said, the
Speaker 3: under the covers, but just kind of sneaking us into
Speaker 3: all the conversations and those storylines. It's just it's just
Speaker 3: so again, elegant is the only way I can describe it.
Speaker 3: And the lighting, even Michael harnessing natural light the way
Speaker 3: Right does in so many of these scenes, which feels
Speaker 3: like it could be very appropriate to the period, using candles.
Speaker 3: Then later to really dramatic effect in darker scenes. How
Speaker 3: about that great confrontation where I think, I think Knightley
Speaker 3: absolutely holds her own against even the likes of Dame
Speaker 3: Judy Dench as Lady de Burgh, with those candles just
Speaker 3: lighting their faces and giving her giving Dench a little
Speaker 3: bit of extra viciousness there and that scene adding real
Speaker 3: tension to it.
Speaker 5: Has my nephew made you an offer of marriage? Your
Speaker 5: ladyship has declared it to be impossible. That may be understood,
Speaker 5: mister Darcy is engaged to my daughter. Now what have
Speaker 5: you to say?
Speaker 1: Only this?
Speaker 5: If that is the case, you can have no reason
Speaker 5: to suppose he would make an offer to me, You
Speaker 5: selfish girl. This union has been planned since their infancy.
Speaker 5: Do you think it can be prevented by a young
Speaker 5: woman of infery of birth whose own sister's elopement resulted
Speaker 5: in a scandalously patched up marriage only achieved the expense
Speaker 5: of your uncle and earth are the shades of Pemberle
Speaker 5: little bit that's polluted? Now tell me once and for all,
Speaker 5: are you engaged to him leaving Netherfield?
Speaker 3: When when Bingley is departing, and thus it seems dashing
Speaker 3: all of Jane's hopes for marriage right just employs a
Speaker 3: little bit of slow motion, the servants throwing the sheets up,
Speaker 3: covering the furniture. It's so lovely and subtly grandiose, right
Speaker 3: where the doors even close on us who are outside,
Speaker 3: kind of like curtains going down in the theater, like
Speaker 3: this chapter, this act has ended, and I just think
Speaker 3: that's such a beautiful touch. And I'll give you one more,
Speaker 3: even though I'm gonna go on and give you some
Speaker 3: of those ostentatious ones. Here in a little bit the
Speaker 3: not so obvious but really lovely match cut, we get
Speaker 3: where Elizabeth at one point blows on a feather in
Speaker 3: her hand and it cuts to a flame, as if
Speaker 3: as if she could be blowing out the flame or
Speaker 3: she's kind of igniting the flame with her breadth. There
Speaker 3: are so many lovely moments like that, and including one
Speaker 3: more quick one, Michael, the one that inspired our top
Speaker 3: five this week, the rain scene, that proposal and post
Speaker 3: rain scene, that shot of her just ensconced in darkness.
Speaker 3: There are so many great choices like that in this film,
Speaker 3: and again I'll say it, I don't know how I
Speaker 3: missed them. In two thousand and five, they're there.
Speaker 1: It's always worth listening to your first reaction, just you know,
Speaker 1: just to see how it's changed and all that. But
Speaker 1: there is I think I would actually address both atoms
Speaker 1: in this case, the twenty twenty five version of especially,
Speaker 1: but I think there is something it Maybe it relates
Speaker 1: a little bit to my sense the first time and
Speaker 1: on the rewatch that the movie does push it pretty hard,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of sort of comic and visual
Speaker 1: style in that first you know, in the introductions and
Speaker 1: in some of the key scenes in the first fifteen
Speaker 1: twenty minutes. So yes, yes, that is when you see Nightley,
Speaker 1: who was all of twenty at the point sort of
Speaker 1: sort of working you know, a little hard, and she
Speaker 1: doesn't all the way through. She does, I think, find
Speaker 1: many more kind of like range, you know, points along
Speaker 1: the range or her natural range to find, you know,
Speaker 1: the real emotional range in the role in the material.
Speaker 1: I think you're actually right about Brenda Blevin. I think
Speaker 1: I wrote back in five and I like this film
Speaker 1: health a lot, you know, I wrote that she is
Speaker 1: pitched like she's auditioning for a music hall review. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's you know, it's a little like she's
Speaker 1: unfortunately auditioning for you know, Madame Frendre and Le Miz
Speaker 1: and I don't ever want to see anyone sing Master
Speaker 1: of the House again, so you know that I had
Speaker 1: a little bit of a bad reaction to that. But
Speaker 1: the I think it's just it was bled and who
Speaker 1: was in an extremely technically skilled actor, you know, I
Speaker 1: think again she was just I think I think the
Speaker 1: directive from Joe Wright, I'm guessing is to like this,
Speaker 1: we have to just pay this has to be pacy
Speaker 1: at the beginning, and we're just going to really kind
Speaker 1: of swirl, uh, you know, swirl the audience in to
Speaker 1: this sort of mailstrom that is this family and in
Speaker 1: this place and in this kind of gorgeous, little muddy
Speaker 1: little corner of England, and you know, some things work
Speaker 1: better than others. But yes, it's hard to look at
Speaker 1: Kira Knightley and mcfaddy and Matthew mcfaddy and in direct
Speaker 1: relation to the pride and prejudice that was on everybody's
Speaker 1: mind when this came out in No Fi, which was
Speaker 1: ten years earlier. The British television series adaptation with Jennifer
Speaker 1: Eally and Colin Firth, which is sort of Olympian level casting.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean they are just sublime, I think.
Speaker 1: And they're both wonderful, wonderful performers and weren't particularly well
Speaker 1: known to most Americans then. And this is a very
Speaker 1: different feeling here in Joe Wright's version, it does. It
Speaker 1: all feels very much friskier and younger and more a
Speaker 1: little more kind of comically petulant and different kind of
Speaker 1: you know, kind of spirit of the comedy. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think in the key scenes, even when
Speaker 1: I remember thinking the first time that Sutherland, well, is
Speaker 1: he really is he? Is he doing a dialect?
Speaker 6: Is he?
Speaker 7: You know?
Speaker 1: I was just kind of fussing with like little things
Speaker 1: like is the dialect right, the emotional well spring he
Speaker 1: brings to the to the key scenes when his heart's breaking.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like that guy was born for close ups,
Speaker 1: you know, And uh, that's it's really I think. I
Speaker 1: think the reason Sam uh and I haven't talked to
Speaker 1: Sam about this, but I would bet money that the
Speaker 1: reason Sam really went for this is he knew somehow
Speaker 1: that just by instinct that Joe Wright, I remember hearing
Speaker 1: this story, Joe Wright did something that was not completely novel,
Speaker 1: but it was somewhat unusual, and that he convened the
Speaker 1: entire cast for something like three weeks of rehearsal in
Speaker 1: a country house. They all lived together, ate together, drank together,
Speaker 1: rehearsed together, and so by the time they actually filmed
Speaker 1: on day one, it was pretty loose in the best way.
Speaker 1: And that's why the movie like it does.
Speaker 3: Is he amiable?
Speaker 6: Who is he handsome?
Speaker 3: Year?
Speaker 2: It would not matter if you had warps and DELI
Speaker 2: I will.
Speaker 6: Give my heart to consent to his marrying whichever the
Speaker 6: girls he chooses.
Speaker 5: Somebody come to the bolt, mar Papa, I.
Speaker 3: Believe about blood, and I'll say yes. Her character is
Speaker 3: meant to be overbearing, meant to be uncouth. People note
Speaker 3: that throughout the film, and I got then that that
Speaker 3: was intentional, but as you described it, I felt as
Speaker 3: if it was just pushing the comedic sensibility a bit
Speaker 3: too far. But what was clearer to me this time, Michael,
Speaker 3: is that before she even says it, that idea that
Speaker 3: it really is all about her sacrifice as a mother,
Speaker 3: and maybe this is just something that comes from maturity
Speaker 3: myself right in being a parent myself. That line she
Speaker 3: does say would you have five daughters, Lizzie, tell me
Speaker 3: what else will occupy your thoughts, and then perhaps you
Speaker 3: will understand when Lizzie calls her out for seeming to
Speaker 3: only think about marriage. I just keyed in earlier to
Speaker 3: the notion this time, Michael, that with missus Bennett, it's
Speaker 3: always coming from a place of love and a place
Speaker 3: of fear, basically the condition of being comparent. She's not
Speaker 3: overally greedy, she's not overly entitled, she's not overly concerned
Speaker 3: with public perception. She is just worried about her family.
Speaker 3: And as I said, that was clearer to me on
Speaker 3: this viewing with Knightley the thing that hung me up
Speaker 3: last time, and I feel a little bit silly about
Speaker 3: it now having rewatched the film, I noted that she
Speaker 3: seemed to have this kind of go to move. It
Speaker 3: suggested to me that she didn't have the depth at
Speaker 3: the time to play this character, and that I sometimes
Speaker 3: felt like she was in fact playing a character. Playing
Speaker 3: at the character of Elizabeth Bennett. She would recurringly whenever
Speaker 3: she was delighted. Whenever Elizabeth was delighted about something, and
Speaker 3: she was often delighted, especially early in the film, she
Speaker 3: would do this thing where she would thrust her tongue
Speaker 3: up against her teeth. She'd give you this toothy grin,
Speaker 3: and you would see her tongue touch the back of
Speaker 3: her teeth. And I just felt like, is that what
Speaker 3: she thinks? Delightedness? Looks like, why does she keep doing that?
Speaker 3: And I watched it this time, and at first I
Speaker 3: got nervous, Michael, because we're five minutes in and I
Speaker 3: saw it, And then we're eight minutes in and I
Speaker 3: saw it again. And then we're like fifteen minutes in
Speaker 3: and I saw it again, and you know what, I
Speaker 3: just didn't see it again after that moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's just all part of I'm just
Speaker 1: guessing that Joe Wright's priority was just to let these
Speaker 1: people go a little bit, let the actors kind of
Speaker 1: go big, and then we'll kind of calm it down later.
Speaker 1: But I think he just really wanted to kind of
Speaker 1: create this kind of ferment, even if it was a
Speaker 1: bit of squirrely, somewhat overripe acting touches here and there.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, I, I think all you
Speaker 1: have to do is look at what night Lea's up
Speaker 1: to two years later with atonement, Uh, and and that's
Speaker 1: and that's Joe Right too, and and those are his
Speaker 1: two best films. And I guess, I guess if there's
Speaker 1: if I have any sadness about revisiting this and seeing
Speaker 1: how good it is like Kenneth Branna as a director,
Speaker 1: and in a way, Joe Wright is nothing like Kenneth Branner.
Speaker 1: But the one thing they have in common is I
Speaker 1: wonder I fear that their best film was their first film.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, although Atonement's just just about as good,
Speaker 1: I think, and I've liked some of Wright's work since,
Speaker 1: But but I thought, I don't know, it might it
Speaker 1: might have just been that lucky moment where they got
Speaker 1: the right people, they had the right amount of time,
Speaker 1: and and Right working with that cinematographer Roman Ausin or Osin.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm sorry. I apologize for the mispronunciation of
Speaker 1: I made it. I think that was a really a
Speaker 1: learning experience for Right. It would have been a learning
Speaker 1: experience for Right working on any first feature, working with
Speaker 1: any cinematographer. But I think for him he clearly learned
Speaker 1: and collaborated and really really used all the right information
Speaker 1: about how to how to you know, kind of keep
Speaker 1: the camera as a dancing partner, but not let it
Speaker 1: get too crazy. You know it too. It was too much.
Speaker 1: It always will be. This film will always be a
Speaker 1: little much for a lot of people, especially diehard Austin fans,
Speaker 1: who have certain adaptations in their head, and anything sort
Speaker 1: of outside those lines feels like it's wrong or out
Speaker 1: of character or out of period or something. And I
Speaker 1: admit I have a little bit of that feeling with
Speaker 1: the performances of the Jennifer e Lee Colin Firth version
Speaker 1: on television, because those are sterling. But I think just
Speaker 1: as cinema, there's no contest.
Speaker 3: You may not recall, but I think the first ever
Speaker 3: top ten films of the year show that you appeared
Speaker 3: on here on Film Spotting two thousand and seven. Atonement
Speaker 3: was my number two film of that year, and I
Speaker 3: never would have imagined, based on how much I love
Speaker 3: that film, though I haven't seen it in many years,
Speaker 3: how much I love that film, that I could revisit
Speaker 3: this film, and even if I did change my mind,
Speaker 3: as I've changed my mind, I never would have thought
Speaker 3: I'd sit here and say that you might be right,
Speaker 3: that pride and prejudice might actually be Joe Wright's best film.
Speaker 3: I do feel that way now after seeing it, even
Speaker 3: though I would definitely watch Atonement again before I would
Speaker 3: fully declare that I do want to go back to
Speaker 3: Nightly real quick and just say not only did I
Speaker 3: no longer see her employing that same tactic after the
Speaker 3: first fifteen or twenty minutes of the film, I just
Speaker 3: appreciated the fearlessness with which she tackled this character, the way,
Speaker 3: as I said, she holds her own in scenes against
Speaker 3: an actress like Dench. I think the way she matches
Speaker 3: the grace of Sutherland. She certainly doesn't back down a
Speaker 3: ninch at all from mcfaddyen and what right does And
Speaker 3: this is I'm sure in the screenplay too, but Writes
Speaker 3: choices the way he builds that character and really gets
Speaker 3: us as viewers to attach to her. It's little moments
Speaker 3: that are little moments but are nevertheless inspired, Like that
Speaker 3: shot when she's with her relatives, I believe, when she's
Speaker 3: traveling and they end up by accident almost at Pemberley
Speaker 3: and she sees Pemberley for the first time and I
Speaker 3: and if I'm remembering the sequence correctly, we see it
Speaker 3: in a very long shot and we've seen some glorious
Speaker 3: English countryside manners in this film already. But when we
Speaker 3: see Pemberley from a distance, we are mouths agape in
Speaker 3: awe of it, and we don't see her carriage pull up.
Speaker 3: We just see the shot of her standing up getting
Speaker 3: out of the carriage, and it's a close up and
Speaker 3: she just lets out this giggle, so just giggle at
Speaker 3: the pure audacity of this location in front of her.
Speaker 3: And again, I just think it's a wonderful, little but
Speaker 3: inspired touch that attaches us to that character and gets
Speaker 3: us really inside her head. And speaking of being inside
Speaker 3: her head, right has the good sense as well when
Speaker 3: she gets lost in Pemberley amidst all the art in
Speaker 3: the statues, even before she sees the statue of him
Speaker 3: and is drawn to that, or her attention is drawn
Speaker 3: to that. She's just lost in the art and it
Speaker 3: feels for a second like she's the only person in
Speaker 3: the world there in that scene, which again just really
Speaker 3: brings us into her mindset. And I want to go
Speaker 3: back to some of those flourishes that really do set
Speaker 3: up something like the Dunkirk scene. They're not on that level,
Speaker 3: they're not drawing attention to themselves on that level. The
Speaker 3: Dunkirk sequence in Atonement that incredible, long take.
Speaker 1: But incredible, but that does well wear well anyway.
Speaker 3: I swoon forward at the time, I'll at least say
Speaker 3: incredible at minimum. Hopefully we can agree from a technical standpoint.
Speaker 3: From a technical standpoint, it's a it's a marble, but
Speaker 3: those ostentatious moments and the way he prudently employs them,
Speaker 3: Michael having everyone at the ball, this is a very
Speaker 3: naturalistic film otherwise, and yet we get a moment when
Speaker 3: they dance, they finally dance together, and everyone at the
Speaker 3: ball disappears, as if Elizabeth, Bennett and Darcy are the
Speaker 3: only inhabitants of this space sharing this moment together.
Speaker 1: He does something it's the West Side Story moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he does something similar. That's a good point.
Speaker 3: He does something similar though, where he suspends time and
Speaker 3: place with her on the swing. That sequence on the
Speaker 3: swing where I believe there's even a line right before
Speaker 3: it where someone says something to her about being or
Speaker 3: she may say it, something about being crossed in love.
Speaker 3: And then she sits down on this swing and she's
Speaker 3: a little forlorn, and she's she's deep in her thought.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of conflict inside her, and she starts
Speaker 3: getting crossed up in the swing as she twirls on it,
Speaker 3: and then the world sort of just passes by for
Speaker 3: a bit. Michael, it's not entirely clear. Is she on
Speaker 3: that swing for five minutes? Is she there for five days?
Speaker 3: Have five weeks passed? And that happens, I think too,
Speaker 3: as I mentioned amongst the artwork at Pemberley. But the
Speaker 3: other great example of that is after the proposal and
Speaker 3: after that fight with mister Darcy, when she goes and
Speaker 3: stares at herself in the mirror, and she stands there
Speaker 3: from daylight into nighttime, and he appears to her at
Speaker 3: some point. With the letter and the Waywright showcases her
Speaker 3: in that scene, and her stillness, and the fact that
Speaker 3: we have seen this trick, if you will, employed before,
Speaker 3: in terms of time and space, you almost wonder, or
Speaker 3: I did, on this viewing, is this even really happening?
Speaker 3: Is he there or is she imagining this? And how
Speaker 3: long has she been standing there? It all just reflects
Speaker 3: how unsettled she is mentally in that moment, how undone
Speaker 3: she is by all of this. And you noted this earlier.
Speaker 3: I think as bold as those choices are, none of
Speaker 3: it calls undue attention to itself. It all seems perfectly
Speaker 3: functional organically within those scenes and for the characters. It's
Speaker 3: in support of the characters and their wants and desires
Speaker 3: and and shows us or or allows us access to
Speaker 3: deeper access to their their states of mind at the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think you do. He's got a good
Speaker 1: instinct and the actors certainly sees the day when he's
Speaker 1: got he's got a good instinct for for making sure
Speaker 1: that it's not all on that sort of bright presentational level.
Speaker 1: We have to we have to feel that there are
Speaker 1: real feelings here or otherwise all every everything falls apart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so in that regard, you know, anybody who touches
Speaker 1: Jane Austen on film has to has to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: and figure out a way to fold it into the
Speaker 1: style and all the rest of it. And otherwise it's
Speaker 1: just a bunch of theatrics, really, And you know, when
Speaker 1: you look ahead to another Cure Knightlyy Joe Wright collaboration,
Speaker 1: the Ana Karren and adaptation, I mean, that's that's frankly,
Speaker 1: completely utterly kind of theatrical and really just a theatrical
Speaker 1: deconstruction of the novel, and even it's almost playing with
Speaker 1: the idea of just adaptation in general. And I found
Speaker 1: that film fairly interesting. I've never gone back to it,
Speaker 1: so it's you know, and I think I've seen an
Speaker 1: awful lot of theater work that did the same thing
Speaker 1: with other very famous novels that presume a certain familiarity,
Speaker 1: so they can kind of start jacking with the narrative
Speaker 1: a lot, and sometimes that can be really bracing and
Speaker 1: kind of alive. That was like, okay, I thought, but this,
Speaker 1: I do think that you get a rapidly maturing director
Speaker 1: at who start, you know, with those first two films
Speaker 1: with Pride and Prejudice, and then Atoman, who just really
Speaker 1: knew how to put his technique to a more refined,
Speaker 1: more and more refined and judicious purpose without drying it out.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean this, this came out, This film
Speaker 1: came out the same year that Roman Polanski adapted Oliver Twist,
Speaker 1: and that film is just dead on a rival, and
Speaker 1: I mean very uncharacteristic for Polanski, which is like it
Speaker 1: literally looks like, you know, his mission was like I
Speaker 1: just need to direct this as if nobody directed it
Speaker 1: or even had ever seen a film. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like perfectly, perfectly respectable bore and that is not this film.
Speaker 1: And thank god. Yeah, I will say that there's one
Speaker 1: line that to me captures the spirit you're talking about about,
Speaker 1: just kind of the feeling of it, the spontaneity of it,
Speaker 1: the naturalism. It's not entirely naturalistic, but largely there's that
Speaker 1: moment at the you know, near the end, when mister
Speaker 1: Collins list he would be suitor tells mister Bennett that
Speaker 1: he likes to affect quote as unstudied an air as possible.
Speaker 1: And I love that line because that's exactly why this
Speaker 1: movie works. It has that unstudied air which only comes
Speaker 1: from a lot of careful planning, a lot of rehearsal.
Speaker 1: And maybe it did. Maybe what did The trick is
Speaker 1: putting all these people together in a nice house together
Speaker 1: and letting them rehearse and eat meals and you know,
Speaker 1: drank wine and all the rest of it. And man,
Speaker 1: it just feels like the party. They just kept the
Speaker 1: party going and said action.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, No, I think that's that's an astute point.
Speaker 3: And I want to close by acknowledging. Yeah, you know what,
Speaker 3: the hand flex, the yearning of the hand flex, it
Speaker 3: got me. You know what else got me this time? Michael,
Speaker 3: That Darcy approach coming out of the midst the fog
Speaker 3: that morning when they meet at dawn, that worked. I
Speaker 3: love love love you with the sun shining, just beaming
Speaker 3: and between them as they finally embrace. All of the
Speaker 3: romance of this film did hit me this time, and
Speaker 3: maybe the most emotional part. And we've talked a little
Speaker 3: bit about Sutherland. I really think we get near the
Speaker 3: end of this film one of the all time great
Speaker 3: father daughter exchanges on screen. Ever, when she says when
Speaker 3: she Lizzie says that yes she does love mister Darcy,
Speaker 3: and we get Sutherland's tears there where you know that
Speaker 3: he is just so happy. He is rejoicing because this
Speaker 3: special girl, his special girl, has found happiness.
Speaker 6: I cannot believe that anyone can deserve you. It seems
Speaker 6: I am over ruled, so I hotily give my consent.
Speaker 6: I could not have parted with you, mind ISSI do
Speaker 6: anyone less worthy.
Speaker 3: It absolutely did level me this time. I don't know
Speaker 3: what was wrong with me. I'll say it for the
Speaker 3: last time back in five. Pride and Prejudice is a
Speaker 3: wonderful film, and I'm so glad that it is coming
Speaker 3: back to theaters for its twentieth anniversary. April twentieth, Michael
Speaker 3: is the date where it's going to be back on
Speaker 3: some screens. Focused Features is re releasing the film. Tickets
Speaker 3: are on sale now, so if you need to revisit
Speaker 3: it or you need to see it for the first time,
Speaker 3: seeing it on the big screen would be a great
Speaker 3: way to do that, Or you can check it out
Speaker 3: via Netflix, also widely available vod If you agree or
Speaker 3: disagree with any of our takes, we'd love to hear
Speaker 3: from you feedback at filmspotting dot net. Listening, of course,
Speaker 3: Michael is the number one thing someone can do to
Speaker 3: support an independently produced show like ours. A couple more
Speaker 3: things you can do. Take a minute to give us
Speaker 3: a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Speaker 3: Whether you're a first time listener or you've been listening
Speaker 3: lo these twenty years, every new review helps us reach
Speaker 3: new listeners. Another way you could support us is to
Speaker 3: join the film Spotting Family at film spottingfamily dot com.
Speaker 3: We have family members from all over the world, Michael,
Speaker 3: including Melbourne, Australia. Shane Adam is out there and is
Speaker 3: a family member. His letterbox handle, if you're interested in
Speaker 3: following him, is Shane Adam. One word though, that's Shane
Speaker 3: with a why. I just want to say I read
Speaker 3: this earlier today, Michael. I don't pick these. I do
Speaker 3: not pick these. Sam does, and maybe he thought I
Speaker 3: needed a little bit of a pick me up because
Speaker 3: I recognize how delusional I was twenty years ago as
Speaker 3: a co host of this show. I must have started
Speaker 3: listening just post cinecast days, I reckon. I was looking
Speaker 3: for a film podcast to keep me saying on my
Speaker 3: long car journeys as a Masls esque traveling salesman of sorts,
Speaker 3: and found it in Film Spot. What hooked me and
Speaker 3: my wife were the marathons. There were a few film
Speaker 3: podcasts tackling new films, but only one that was boldly
Speaker 3: going where no other podcasts had gone before nineteen seventies
Speaker 3: sci Fi. Yes, that was an early marathon, A favorite
Speaker 3: reviewer segment. So here we go. Well, there was that
Speaker 3: time I had the guy's review sallow for me. But
Speaker 3: I'm going with Fargo. Adam's insights into that film changed
Speaker 3: the way I appreciate the Cones, although I was already
Speaker 3: a huge fan and cinema in general. Specifically, his deconstruction
Speaker 3: of the scene were Marge Gunderson blatantly but convincingly is
Speaker 3: lied to by Mike Yanagita, which leads to the requestioning
Speaker 3: of Jerry Underguard and the unraveling of the entire plot,
Speaker 3: which seemingly was a disposable scene with another wacky Cone
Speaker 3: character to laugh at, was in fact the crux of
Speaker 3: the film. That moment she realizes she was lied to,
Speaker 3: her whole mindset changed, and Adam pointing that out so
Speaker 3: eloquently on the pod kind of changed mine. Look at
Speaker 3: the work.
Speaker 1: We're going all right, all right.
Speaker 3: Occasionally I get one right, I can.
Speaker 1: Get oh hey, there's no right or wrong in this business,
Speaker 1: you know, there's just Stummer and Smarter.
Speaker 3: A review speaking of that, a review we got wrong.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of parentheticals here. So I've got
Speaker 3: to try to do this justice because Shane's giving us
Speaker 3: some good comedy. I'm admittedly in camp Adam sorry, Josh,
Speaker 3: so it would be easy for me to point out
Speaker 3: what Josh, sorry, Josh got horribly, horribly wrong. I'm really sorry, Josh,
Speaker 3: but honestly, they would be all easy shots Crystal Skull,
Speaker 3: Phantom Menace, et cetera. And I give him kudos for
Speaker 3: defending his position on all of these so fervently and
Speaker 3: well courageously.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, Josh, so I'll pick on Adam for a second.
Speaker 3: He was a tad harsh on Don't Worry Darling and
Speaker 3: the Northman. I guess maybe one of those, Maybe one
Speaker 3: of those, I was a tad harsh I'm not going
Speaker 3: to apologize for Don't Worry Darling the Letterbox. Top four
Speaker 3: from Shane is Glengarry, Glenn Ross, The Godfather, Seven, Samurai,
Speaker 3: and Back to the Future. Not bad. Shane a random
Speaker 3: list film or filmmaker he loves see. This is where
Speaker 3: he truly is Team Adam Locke. I'm a sucker for
Speaker 3: low budget, beautifully acted and perfectly written one location films.
Speaker 3: What else can I say? A movie he credits with
Speaker 3: becoming a cinophile man bites Dog. Having an older brother
Speaker 3: certainly helped speed up my cinematic learnings. I should probably
Speaker 3: credit all the Hong Kong martial arts films we watch
Speaker 3: or Eraserhead, which he may have shown me slightly earlier
Speaker 3: than this, or even Halloween, which he showed me when
Speaker 3: I was a lot younger than I was when this
Speaker 3: came out in nineteen ninety two. I won't explain the
Speaker 3: movie for those who haven't seen it, safe to say
Speaker 3: it's French shot cinema verite style is about a serial
Speaker 3: killer and is a comedy. To say I didn't know
Speaker 3: films like this existed at age fifteen is an understatement. Finally,
Speaker 3: a book about movies or movie making, He Loves the
Speaker 3: Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans. There are
Speaker 3: undoubtedly more educational books on cinema, but he says few
Speaker 3: more entertaining.
Speaker 1: Michael, I agree, I agree, Yeah, good word, Thank aye.
Speaker 1: All the truth comes from down under.
Speaker 3: I mean, let's go absolutely. Thank you Shane for joining
Speaker 3: the family and for all those years of listening. In
Speaker 3: addition to keeping us doing what we're doing, your support
Speaker 3: comes with perks. You get to listen early and ad free.
Speaker 3: You get our weekly newsletter, you get exclusive opportunities like
Speaker 3: being part of the film Spotting Family Discord, you get
Speaker 3: monthly bonus shows, you get to participate in trivia Spotting,
Speaker 3: and if you're so lucky, to be very good at
Speaker 3: film Spotting Madness. You get a chance to be part
Speaker 3: of our April bonus show where we will do a draft.
Speaker 3: The winner of Film Spotting Madness gets to decide the topic.
Speaker 3: You can learn more at film spottingfamily dot com. It
Speaker 3: may throw the Ephis pitch is a type of curveball
Speaker 3: so unnaturally slow that it confuses the batter, makes it.
Speaker 1: Lose track of time. It's kind of like baseball. I'm
Speaker 1: looking around for something to happen paint.
Speaker 3: That's from the trailer for Ephus, a low budget baseball
Speaker 3: movie currently playing in limited release. It's set in early
Speaker 3: nineties New England, and it's about the last game to
Speaker 3: be played on a cherish field before it's demolition. I
Speaker 3: do know, Michael, that you're not a huge sports guy.
Speaker 3: But to paraphrase a line from Brad Pitt and Moneyball,
Speaker 3: can you really not be romantic about baseball or at
Speaker 3: least about baseball movies? And what was your reaction to efus?
Speaker 1: I like that, and I resent the implication that I'm
Speaker 1: not a huge sports guy. I'm not a huge sports guy,
Speaker 1: but but I don't but to be called out as
Speaker 1: not a huge sports guy is a little harsh to hear,
Speaker 1: but no, you know what I actually love. I love
Speaker 1: minor league ball. I love I've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: minor league ball in the Midwest, and I do think
Speaker 1: the baseball movie genre is unusually rich. I think I
Speaker 1: may be the best sport for like very good or
Speaker 1: even great sports movies. I you know, so I know,
Speaker 1: and I enjoyed Ephie. It's a hell of a good
Speaker 1: first film from Carson Lund, and I love that he
Speaker 1: and his co writer really didn't force a single conventional
Speaker 1: plot element onto what is a daringly plot free reverie
Speaker 1: about a bunch of middle age guys just you know,
Speaker 1: trying to make the best of their last game of
Speaker 1: not just the season, but in that particular physical space
Speaker 1: where the middle school for this small town. I think
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be in Massachusetts, and in fact it
Speaker 1: was in Massachusetts, because I think that's where the real
Speaker 1: Soldier Field I'm sorry, Soldier's apostrophe, Yes field is and
Speaker 1: they call it out by name. I think that's where
Speaker 1: it is, and it I just love that it's it's
Speaker 1: both a goodbye to a season but also to kind
Speaker 1: of this this tradition, this physical place and and what
Speaker 1: I also love is that in interviews Carson Lund has said,
Speaker 1: I've wanted to make my version of Goodbye Dragon in
Speaker 1: the Taiwanese film that I'll be mentioning later in the show,
Speaker 1: in fact, under a different you know, meteorological context, but
Speaker 1: the but you know, I love that. That was his
Speaker 1: that was his guy post. It was like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is I want to make a film. It's saying goodbye
Speaker 1: to something meaningful and all any sort of marginalized in
Speaker 1: the culture a little bit, so I know, I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: It's also got the kind of a peculiar visual wit
Speaker 1: in that it is all this sort of minutia being
Speaker 1: sort of discussed under the breath of all these guys
Speaker 1: and just sort of like the smallest of small talk.
Speaker 1: A lot of it very funny, but none of it
Speaker 1: stressed or kind of leading anywhere hugely dramatic or any
Speaker 1: of it. And yet it is this wide screen sort
Speaker 1: of epic treatment. If you see it in the theater,
Speaker 1: it's a you know, it's it's kind of beautifully was
Speaker 1: composed in this wide screen format, and it's the it's
Speaker 1: the smallest movie with with kind of the least fraud
Speaker 1: and thesis driven dialogue given sort of this epic VistaVision
Speaker 1: sort of treatment. So I don't know, I can't wait
Speaker 1: to see what this guy does next. It's it's you know,
Speaker 1: you don't want to. I don't want to overpraise the movie.
Speaker 1: It's it is the size it is, it's playing in
Speaker 1: the league it is, but it's playing it well.
Speaker 3: I said a couple of things there that make cleared
Speaker 3: this movie should be up for Golden Brick consideration this year,
Speaker 3: not only the praise you gave it, but it is
Speaker 3: Carson LUN's first film, and I can't wait to see
Speaker 3: what he does next, which is usually one of those
Speaker 3: tests we apply to the Golden Brick. And I referenced
Speaker 3: the Moneyball line earlier. This is one of those films
Speaker 3: that really isn't overly romantic, overly romantic about baseball. And
Speaker 3: I like what you said in relation to Goodbye Dragging
Speaker 3: In meaningful, Yes, but meaningful you added the marginalized part.
Speaker 3: It's all about the fact that it is really meaningful,
Speaker 3: but only to a select few, and to most of
Speaker 3: the world outside of those few, it doesn't seem to
Speaker 3: matter at all, which is what gives it its heft, actually,
Speaker 3: which is what makes it even more profound to those
Speaker 3: people who care about it and thinking about the golden brick.
Speaker 3: We're talking usually about ambition in a first film or
Speaker 3: second film, and really showing incredible vision to hear us
Speaker 3: talk about this low budget baseball movie that almost could
Speaker 3: be like a play. It could be on a stage
Speaker 3: if not for the fact that you would miss you
Speaker 3: would miss the details that you need, the baseball details
Speaker 3: of the diamond and the park and the atmosphere. I
Speaker 3: grant you that, But at times it feels like a play.
Speaker 3: How inventive and how risky can this film really be?
Speaker 3: It's kind of the slice of life. It's very low
Speaker 3: stakes drama. It's almost a real time baseball game that
Speaker 3: we're watching play out. Yeah, but every baseball movie asks
Speaker 3: us to believe the game is a metaphor for life.
Speaker 3: Lund isn't asking. He's not asking. I actually think what's
Speaker 3: so distinct and daring about his approach is that he
Speaker 3: has no interest in trying to sneak a curveball bias.
Speaker 3: He's like, make no mistake or sneak the ethis pitch bias.
Speaker 3: Right where the film it states the thesis. It tells
Speaker 3: you why it's called Ethus right about halfway through, and it,
Speaker 3: like the film as a whole, is a metaphor for life.
Speaker 3: The later and darker it gets, the more the sun
Speaker 3: is truly setting on these characters literally and figuratively, the
Speaker 3: more almost surreal it becomes. Michael, the Field takes on
Speaker 3: this sense of a spiritual limbo. And I don't know
Speaker 3: if I was entertained by Eva's I certainly was fascinated
Speaker 3: by vas.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's well, it's a rhythm, that is. It takes
Speaker 1: an internal adjustment, you know, just like any I mean,
Speaker 1: just like most of what Robert Allman made Good and
Speaker 1: Less Good does not really behave like a typical narrative feature.
Speaker 1: It's just not where his interests lie. I think I
Speaker 1: like a film like Field of Dreams. If I I
Speaker 1: don't love it because it's the piety of it makes
Speaker 1: me a little makes me irp a little bit, you know, occasionally.
Speaker 1: But I also like the experience I had at the
Speaker 1: music Box seeing that with four hundred people a few
Speaker 1: years ago, a good print, and we did a discussion afterwards,
Speaker 1: and it was it was wonderful to just feel it
Speaker 1: working with the audience all over again. But there are
Speaker 1: baseball films that have kind of that sort of secremonious
Speaker 1: approach a little bit. The tone is just a little
Speaker 1: it's it's so it's so metaphor driven and all the
Speaker 1: rest of it. I mean, they didn't even get the
Speaker 1: film version of The Natural, right, that's a good novel
Speaker 1: and a tough minded, pretty hard nosed novel, and that
Speaker 1: that's just a big piece of cheese. I think it's
Speaker 1: good looking, good looking, and I loved I could have
Speaker 1: hung out with Richard Farnsworth and Wilford Grimley in the Dugout.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's the movie that should have been made.
Speaker 1: They should have called it The Natural and not cast Redford,
Speaker 1: but simply just redirect the narrative to those guys and
Speaker 1: then they you know, that's that's the Ephis effect, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, That's that's why Ephis works as
Speaker 1: the way it does, because it has that sort of
Speaker 1: just you know, off center conversation going on here in
Speaker 1: the less important part of baseball mythology.
Speaker 3: I was so immersed in the mythology of baseball, and
Speaker 3: it was the only sport I ever played in, the
Speaker 3: only sport when I was very young. I was any
Speaker 3: good at it all, Michael. I was so immersed in
Speaker 3: that that when I saw the Natural and I saw
Speaker 3: that ending, the bomb, bast of that ending. I remember
Speaker 3: finding out later when I, you know, I was trying
Speaker 3: to be a little edgier and artistic and becoming a
Speaker 3: pseudo intellectual. I heard about the mallow Mood story it's
Speaker 3: based on, and how it's grittier and it's it's more real,
Speaker 3: and it's what the movie should have been, and I
Speaker 3: just refused to accept that. And I'm still at this
Speaker 3: age of refusing. I didn't end up reading it too,
Speaker 3: And I still want to watch that ball sail into
Speaker 3: the lights and the sparks rain down on Robert Redford
Speaker 3: as he runs around the bases. As he trots along, Michael,
Speaker 3: I can't help it. Yeah, I'm a sucker. I like cheese,
Speaker 3: is what.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm saying, Well, we should we should probably go.
Speaker 3: I think I agree we have that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we do, we do, we do, we do. And
Speaker 1: there's plenty of others I love. I mean, I really
Speaker 1: love Moneyball. I really love movies like Sugar. I love
Speaker 1: Bingo Along. I mean, I love that the music poks
Speaker 1: here in Chicago recently did a baseball series called Playball,
Speaker 1: and they had a lot of the hits, but a
Speaker 1: lot of films that weren't you know, we weren't in
Speaker 1: the circulation and sort of in the same kind of
Speaker 1: people don't have the same reverence for it. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a great you know, I love it,
Speaker 1: and I do love minor league ball. You know, have
Speaker 1: you seen the Joliet Jack.
Speaker 3: Amberon's by the way, I've never been to a game. No, oh,
Speaker 3: well worth the Trep.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay. For first of all, you can take
Speaker 1: a train down there, Amtrik. Yeah that's Chicago. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and you get off at the station and you walk
Speaker 1: about ten feet into the ball field. Okay, Yeah, it's great. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Ethis currently out in limited release, distributed by Music Box Films.
Speaker 3: It is a Golden Brick nominee officially now. If you'd
Speaker 3: like to learn more about our Golden Brick Awards, see
Speaker 3: a few other candidates, at least one other so far
Speaker 3: this year and past nominees and winners. You can go
Speaker 3: to filmspotting dot net slash bricks next week here on
Speaker 3: film Spotting. Some content is still up in the air
Speaker 3: We do, though, plan to kick off our first marathon
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty five and maybe our only marathon of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five. It may just take all the life
Speaker 3: out of us, but it's gonna be worth it. We're
Speaker 3: finally going to cross off all the blind spots for
Speaker 3: one of the all time legendary filmmakers, and we're going
Speaker 3: to become Andre Tarkovsky completest excellent. That is going to
Speaker 3: eat like a media definitely only seven features in his filmography,
Speaker 3: slightly more imposing, certainly from a reputation standpoint. We have
Speaker 3: five movies in the marathon, which we will do over
Speaker 3: four shows. A couple of them I've already seen, a
Speaker 3: couple of Josh has seen. By the end of it,
Speaker 3: we will have seen them all. We're starting with a
Speaker 3: double feature, nineteen sixty one's The Steamroller and the Violin.
Speaker 3: That's his student film. It's a little on the shorter side,
Speaker 3: so we're pairing that.
Speaker 1: Haven't seen it, haven't seen it?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Really, it's on Criterion Channel, as is nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: two's Ivan's Childhood. They're also available vod or, at least
Speaker 3: Ivan's Childhood is, so we're pairing those together. For next
Speaker 3: week if you'd like to learn more about that marathon
Speaker 3: and the other films that are part of the lineup
Speaker 3: filmspotting dot net slash marathons. We also wanted to acknowledge
Speaker 3: the anniversary of a Chicago cinema institution, Facets Film Forum,
Speaker 3: turns fifty this year, Michael, and to celebrate, they've got
Speaker 3: a couple of special series going on Chicago on screen,
Speaker 3: including Work in Progress with Lili Wachowski, a discussion about
Speaker 3: Wachowski's Showtime series set and shot in Chicago, and another
Speaker 3: series called five Films, Five Decades, Five Critics coming up
Speaker 3: this Sunday. You can see Werner Herzog'sagira The Wrath of
Speaker 3: God at Facets. Belatar's Damnation with Jonathan Rosenbaum that's coming
Speaker 3: up in May. Other films to be announced. You can
Speaker 3: learn more at facets dot org. Any kind words you
Speaker 3: would like to share for Facets Michael, My.
Speaker 1: God, I mean that was, you know, the first time
Speaker 1: I saw that first FACETS catalog back in the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties and early eighties at the college paper in Minnesota,
Speaker 1: and people already knew that the film. People at the
Speaker 1: college paper who were older than me you know, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you got to look at this thing and
Speaker 1: it was just like you know, you just couldn't believe.
Speaker 1: Back in the day where you could not get films,
Speaker 1: a lot of thousands and thousands of films from the
Speaker 1: rest of the world, and half of the stuff I
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about came straight out of the America,
Speaker 1: whether it was earlier, you know, along in cinema history
Speaker 1: and whatever. It just meant everything. The mail order facets thing,
Speaker 1: just to send away for these things and ship them.
Speaker 1: It was marvelous, and I'm glad to see it's still
Speaker 1: around and remaking itself in many ways. But I have
Speaker 1: to say it felt like a an incredibly bittersweet privilege
Speaker 1: to write a couple of pieces on milosch Stalek, one
Speaker 1: just before he died and one after just about the
Speaker 1: influence and sort of his place in Chicago exhibition history,
Speaker 1: which is huge. So yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad they
Speaker 1: fifty years Manny, any organization like that, in any realm
Speaker 1: of the arts and cinema, hats off to figuring out
Speaker 1: a way to try to get to the point where
Speaker 1: you can say on to the next fifty.
Speaker 3: We would also like to give a plug to the
Speaker 3: Next Picture Show. Looking at Cinema's present via It's past.
Speaker 3: Our friends there, Scott Tobias, Genevieve Koski, Tasha Robinson, and
Speaker 3: Keith Phipps. They have part two of their Mister and
Speaker 3: Missus mystery pairing. So, Michael, they've taken Steven Soderberg's Black
Speaker 3: Bag and they're juxtaposing it with nineteen thirty four Is
Speaker 3: the Thin Man with William Powell and Myrna Loy seems
Speaker 3: like it inspired pairing, though I'll say it again, I
Speaker 3: still somehow have not been able to catch up with
Speaker 3: a black Bag, which Josh and Roxanna Hadadi both we're
Speaker 3: so favorable on a few weeks back on this show.
Speaker 3: I can't wait to finally see it. I can't wait
Speaker 3: to then listen to The Next Picture Show. New episodes
Speaker 3: drop every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: This lasting, This is madness, This is absolute madness.
Speaker 3: This is madness, madness, madness.
Speaker 1: But this is absolute madness.
Speaker 6: I'm Massis, why should you build such a thing mad news?
Speaker 3: That is hot off, Michael. This time of year, early April,
Speaker 3: we're getting to the climax of film spotting madness Josh
Speaker 3: is off at Ebert interrupt us in Boulder. You're usually
Speaker 3: here sitting in his spot, and that means I have
Speaker 3: to bore you with the inanity of our annual bracket
Speaker 3: style movie elimination tournament. But look at it this way.
Speaker 3: At least we're down to eight films right over. Well,
Speaker 3: don't you much?
Speaker 1: Don't feel body? You know it's okay. I'll never get
Speaker 1: fully in the spirit of this cockamnything, but I'm willing
Speaker 1: to give it a look. I already have my picks.
Speaker 3: Okay, sixty movies, only one will survive. We are doing
Speaker 3: the best films of the twenty first century so far,
Speaker 3: so if it was released between two thousand and twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four, it was eligible. We've got the Sweet sixteen
Speaker 3: results in the Elite eight matchups. Those Lead eight polls
Speaker 3: are open right now. If you're listening to this, you
Speaker 3: can go to Film spotting dot net slash madness and
Speaker 3: participate the Sweet sixteen. The eight matchups, Michael were decided
Speaker 3: pretty early and pretty decisively. There were no blowouts, but
Speaker 3: there were also no upsets. In fact, our Elite eight
Speaker 3: are the Elite eight. They're the eight films that the
Speaker 3: selection committee, myself and Sam. It turns out seeded as
Speaker 3: the eight films we thought would be left standing at
Speaker 3: this point, and it has turned out that way. So
Speaker 3: from the largest to smallest margin, we will tell you those.
Speaker 3: We had David Fincher's Zodiac up against George Miller's Mad
Speaker 3: Max Fury Road, and Fury Road took it sixty six percent,
Speaker 3: Zodiac thirty four percent.
Speaker 1: Okay, incorrect result, Go ahead?
Speaker 3: Really okay? I like it. I like it. Wes Anderson's
Speaker 3: The Royal Tenembombs up against the higher seeded, the number
Speaker 3: one seeded. There will be blood from Paul Thomas Anderson,
Speaker 3: and there was blood sixty five percent for the PTA film,
Speaker 3: taking down the Wes Anderson film with only thirty five.
Speaker 3: What about this one? Are you on board?
Speaker 1: Sensible result? Yeah? Sensible.
Speaker 3: Hyomiyazaki spirited away up against the higher seeded Coen Brothers
Speaker 3: No Country for Old Men, No Country, taking it sixty
Speaker 3: three percent to thirty seven percent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, clearly a cleric lerror, Yeah, mistake.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're not as high as that film as me
Speaker 3: and others. We've talked about it here on the show.
Speaker 3: Alfonso Koran's Children of Men up against the I believe
Speaker 3: number four seeded overall Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Speaker 3: from Michelle Gondry, and Eternal Sunshine moves on to the
Speaker 3: Elite eight, winning sixty one percent to thirty nine percent.
Speaker 1: I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that.
Speaker 3: I'm glad to hear that. With Wes Anderson's the Grand
Speaker 3: Budapest Hotel, will Wes Anderson be knocked out of the
Speaker 3: tournament officially up against David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, Yeah, goodbye, Wes.
Speaker 3: Mulholland Drive advances sixty percent to forty percent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not you know, I keep thinking, what is
Speaker 1: it better? Parallel? You can't. You can't use apples and oranges.
Speaker 1: It's like apples and one of the rings of Saturn.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't make any sense at all now.
Speaker 1: But yeah, small Holland over Budapeste.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well that's why we call it madness. Michael Jordan
Speaker 3: Peel's Get Out against one car Wise in the mood
Speaker 3: for Love and in the Mood for Love wins a
Speaker 3: little closer, but in the mood for Love wins fifty
Speaker 3: eight percent to forty two percent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ballo way ball away.
Speaker 3: The Cinderella, the tournament cinder Ava, as I was calling her,
Speaker 3: Alex Garland's ex Machina up against David Fincher's the Social
Speaker 3: Network Zodiac's already gone. Will Fincher be out of the tournament? No,
Speaker 3: he will not, because the Social Network advances fifty six
Speaker 3: percent to forty four percent.
Speaker 1: Yep, all the way, all the way.
Speaker 3: What about this one? Michael Peter Jackson in our last
Speaker 3: Sweet sixteen matchup, his Fellowship of the Ring versus the
Speaker 3: Best Picture winning Parasite from Bong June Ho, the closest
Speaker 3: one we had, but not that close. Parasite fifty five
Speaker 3: percent takes it over Fellowship of the Rings forty five percent.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, you can sleep at night with that one. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Complete Sweet sixteen results are available over at film spotting
Speaker 3: dot net slash Madness, and that is, as I mentioned,
Speaker 3: where you can vote in the Elite eight. There's only
Speaker 3: four of them, so we can be pretty quick about it.
Speaker 3: We're going to take them one by one. That means
Speaker 3: it is there will be blood versus the Social Network.
Speaker 3: You've got to be going. There will be blood, yes, Michael.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah right, yeah, yeah yeah. And I wouldn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say. I mean, this is this is why
Speaker 1: I'm leaving. That's it. I don't like this. I don't
Speaker 1: like these decisions.
Speaker 3: Isn't tough? Is that a tough one for you?
Speaker 1: No? Not really. But I do think Fincher, who I've
Speaker 1: completely lost interest in as a filmmaker, the two films
Speaker 1: I still really really revera is are Zodiac and The
Speaker 1: Social Network.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can see that, and that's it, and that's it.
Speaker 3: That's it. Okay, Well, I'm higher on Fincher than you,
Speaker 3: but I don't think he's going to stand much of
Speaker 3: a chance up against Daniel Plainview and company. Mad Max
Speaker 3: Fury Road versus No Country for Old Men. I, of
Speaker 3: course am going No Country, but you are not.
Speaker 1: I would go Fury Road of those two because I
Speaker 1: want to be correct.
Speaker 3: Yes, we'll Holland Drive versus in the Mood for Love.
Speaker 3: Why do I have to pick between Lynch and Wankar.
Speaker 1: WHI that's one of the closest I mean that is yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, what do you think?
Speaker 3: Here's the way I'm looking at it. If I go
Speaker 3: back to the last twenty five years, think about who
Speaker 3: probably my three favorite filmmakers are They're Paul Thomas Anderson,
Speaker 3: the Coen Brothers, and I was going to say David Lynch,
Speaker 3: though now the math is getting me because I have
Speaker 3: to go back into the eighties and nineties to really
Speaker 3: reflect on how much I love Lynch. But my three
Speaker 3: favorite filmmakers forget of the past twenty five years, just
Speaker 3: in general, Pta, the Coen Brothers, and David Lynch, somulhalland
Speaker 3: Drive for Me over in the mood for love.
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, I think I like the line from the
Speaker 1: musical seventeen seventy six, is I abstain courteously.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that's allowed in Film Spotting Madness, but Michael,
Speaker 3: you can do it. We'll see if you will take
Speaker 3: the fifth on this one eternal sunshine of the spotless
Speaker 3: mind versus parasites. So we've got the runner up for
Speaker 3: Film Spotting Madness Best of the two thousands of the
Speaker 3: decade the early two thousands versus the winner of Film
Speaker 3: Spotting Madness of the twenty tens. Do you have a
Speaker 3: clear favorite here?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Just by a whisker parasite.
Speaker 3: Okay, I think I'm going just slightly the other way
Speaker 3: and it's just because I want to be true to
Speaker 3: my gen X brethren. I suppose I can't help but
Speaker 3: go with a film that's just lingered in my mind
Speaker 3: for so much longer, Michael. It's part of my life
Speaker 3: for so much longer, and that's probably not the right
Speaker 3: way to approach it, but I can't help it.
Speaker 1: I'm overdue to see that one again too, and I'm
Speaker 1: eager to revisit that one Internal Sunshine. So you know,
Speaker 1: I'll call you late at night sometime and leave a
Speaker 1: message and say I was all wrong.
Speaker 3: We did that a few years ago for whatever anniversary
Speaker 3: it was, and absolutely held up. I think I liked
Speaker 3: it even more than I did originally, which was quite
Speaker 3: a bit. Those are our Madness Elite eight, only four matchups.
Speaker 3: You can vote now one more time, Filmspotting, dot Nets,
Speaker 3: Slash Madness. The polls will close at five pm Central
Speaker 3: Time sharp on Tuesday, April fifteenth, so you have until
Speaker 3: April fifteenth at five to get those picks in. Those
Speaker 3: of you who submitted brackets and our bracket contest, this
Speaker 3: is a barn burner of a competition so far, Michael,
Speaker 3: with great prizes including a limited edition film Spotting Fest
Speaker 3: poster signed by Coganata and Ryan Johnson. Eight hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty five people filled out brackets and at the top
Speaker 3: of the leader board for the second week in a row,
Speaker 3: the guy who won last year, Michael looks like he's
Speaker 3: on the verge of winning it again. His name's Ricky Kendall.
Speaker 3: My god, he's in the UK. He titled his bracket
Speaker 3: uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Apparently no,
Speaker 3: it sits quite easy upon his head.
Speaker 1: Because second season of the Crown for this guy.
Speaker 3: He might be the champ once again. Number two for
Speaker 3: the second week in a row, our friend family member
Speaker 3: Ross Bratton. He got seven out of eight right in
Speaker 3: this last round. He did have Zodiac advancing over mad Max.
Speaker 3: That could prove to be a problem moving forward. We
Speaker 3: will see tied for second someone we saw along with
Speaker 3: Ross at Film Spotting Fest, Carl Bjorkman. We have an
Speaker 3: internal competition, Michael, between myself, Josh Sam and the film
Speaker 3: Spotting Madness godfather, the originator of the idea, Mike Merrigan
Speaker 3: in Dover, New Hampshire. Josh has dropped to fourth place,
Speaker 3: and this is one of those competitions where really there's
Speaker 3: no prize for winning, there's only punishment for losing. So
Speaker 3: just don't want to finish fourth, which I've been in
Speaker 3: up until now. Josh is now in fourth. He got
Speaker 3: seven of eight right though in this round, but he's
Speaker 3: tied for seventy second. He's down from fifty fifth. He
Speaker 3: did have get out advancing to the elite eate, So
Speaker 3: tough one.
Speaker 1: There, Josh. Josh is tied to the dow. It looks like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, about about that. Sam, producer Sam was in fourth
Speaker 3: place over all out of eight hundred and twenty five.
Speaker 3: He's now dropped to tide for forty ninth. He only
Speaker 3: got six out of eight right. He thought get out
Speaker 3: would prevail. He also thought fellowship would prevail over parasite.
Speaker 3: So look what's happened here, Michael. I'm up to second place.
Speaker 3: I'm up from ninety seventh to thirty fourth. I got
Speaker 3: all eight right. But you know who else got all
Speaker 3: eight right in this round, Mike Merrigan, and he now
Speaker 3: is tied for fourth overall in the tournament. Mike always
Speaker 3: does well, Yes, in this competition.
Speaker 1: They're making him nervous though.
Speaker 3: It's maybe we'll see, we'll see how it goes. It
Speaker 3: should be noted that that Parasite Eternal Sunshine matchup really
Speaker 3: could be the decider here because Mike, Josh and I
Speaker 3: all have parasite advancing. Sam has Eternal Sunshine. Hmmmm, He's
Speaker 3: the only one. He's the only one, and I have
Speaker 3: I think I have looked, Michael, I have taken a
Speaker 3: gander early on in the voting. At this moment, as
Speaker 3: you and I are recording, the vote is separated by
Speaker 3: only four votes. That's how close it is. It's gonna
Speaker 3: it's gonna come down to the wire.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Sam's gonna I think Sam's gonna advance here, you.
Speaker 3: Do, yeah, giving it to Eternal Sunshine.
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that could happen once again. Everything film
Speaker 3: Spotting Madness is available at film spotting dot net slash Madness.
Speaker 2: Sing in the Rain, Yes, sing in the Rain, What
Speaker 2: a glorious feed.
Speaker 3: I'm we come into our top five rain scenes. Yes,
Speaker 3: inspired by mister Darcy's reluctant rainy day proposal to Elizabeth
Speaker 3: Bennett in Pride and Prejudice with some singing in the rain.
Speaker 3: What else now, Michael, You've been coming on the show
Speaker 3: for almost twenty years. I'm sure I don't need to
Speaker 3: remind you that there are some titles that are ineligible
Speaker 3: for top five consideration. Those are the movies that are
Speaker 3: in the film spotting pantheon. And Singing in the Rain
Speaker 3: was just inducted bad timing for Gene Kelly and Donald
Speaker 3: O'Connor and Debu Rent can't make the top five. It's
Speaker 3: in the pantheon. Now it hurts, Yeah.
Speaker 1: It hurts. It hurts. But I'm a rule follower. I
Speaker 1: like the rule of watch sounpopular right now we're gonna stick.
Speaker 3: But yeah, a couple other titles that are ineligible then
Speaker 3: because they are in the film spotting pantheon, with Singing
Speaker 3: in the Rain some memorable scenes when we played a
Speaker 3: bit of last week on the show paying tribute to
Speaker 3: Gene Hackman, Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven pother Ponchalie, a film we
Speaker 3: saw at Film Spotting fest wangkar Wise in the Mood
Speaker 3: for Love, advancing to the Elite eight in Film Spotting Madness,
Speaker 3: and also a movie that should be up for consideration
Speaker 3: in any list of the top five rain scenes, but
Speaker 3: not ours. And another movie that's in the film spotting
Speaker 3: pantheon that I didn't consider. And this sets up another category.
Speaker 3: I excluded Michael Glengarry Glenn Ross, and that's because it's
Speaker 3: a movie. Sam reminded me of this line. I knew
Speaker 3: this movie was a good example of what I'm going
Speaker 3: to describe, but I certainly didn't consider this film. The
Speaker 3: line Sam noted is Eric Draven Brandon Lee saying in
Speaker 3: The Crow, it can't rain all the time. There's some
Speaker 3: movies where it just seems to rain all the time.
Speaker 3: Glenn Garry's one of those films. A couple others, and
Speaker 3: we'll see maybe these ended up making your list, or
Speaker 3: one of them did. But a couple of Kurosawa films
Speaker 3: like Raschoman seven Samurai certainly, but it's raining all the time.
Speaker 3: It's raining all the time in Blade Runner. Even though
Speaker 3: it's hard to overlook a moment like Rucker Howard's tears
Speaker 3: in rain speech is one of my favorite moments, one
Speaker 3: of my favorite speeches in all of movies. David Fincher's
Speaker 3: seven Yeah Full of Rain, bon Juno's Memories of Murder
Speaker 3: seems to be NonStop rain. So I left out movies
Speaker 3: where it just seems like it's raining all the time.
Speaker 1: So you don't like like Blade Runner, which is a
Speaker 1: rain scene. I mean it's like the whole movie is
Speaker 1: a rain station. Yeah, the whole.
Speaker 3: Movie is a rain scene. So that's I tried to
Speaker 3: go with examples where it really felt like the filmmakers
Speaker 3: were using rain in an interesting way, something maybe different
Speaker 3: than what we're used to seeing in movies, and something
Speaker 3: that we're used to seeing in other movies, and something
Speaker 3: that we're seeing differently within their own movie.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a film that I've had a substantial
Speaker 1: about face on over the last well most of my life. Okay,
Speaker 1: I saw a Blade Runner in eighty two. Right eighty two,
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, you know, I thought that, and I
Speaker 1: still don't love that Rutger Hower drivel. No, not crazy
Speaker 1: about it. I think the film is but but but
Speaker 1: but he's up there, you know, on every time I've
Speaker 1: seen it since, you know, I've seen it every few
Speaker 1: years or so. You know. It's also a very kind
Speaker 1: of a hilariously and decisive series of like, no, this
Speaker 1: is this is the fault, the final cut. No, no,
Speaker 1: this one's really the final But every time the visual
Speaker 1: kind of wonder of it, the real the real brilliance
Speaker 1: of the design work carries me over my feelings about
Speaker 1: story limitations or whatever. So yeah, all right, I may
Speaker 1: have a little bit of call on that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, at some point we're going to have to
Speaker 3: devote an entire show the next time you appear, maybe, Michael,
Speaker 3: to just our top five movie disagreements. Tears of Rain's
Speaker 3: going to be on the list. No Country for Old
Speaker 3: Men's going to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there.
Speaker 3: Are a few of them. For all that we seem
Speaker 3: to share when it comes to cinema, there are some
Speaker 3: things we are definitely not on the same page on.
Speaker 3: But let's talk about some great rain scenes. Did you
Speaker 3: have any special criteria here that you applied other than
Speaker 3: you know, it's raining, and what's your number five?
Speaker 1: Okay? I started with like, well, I make sure that
Speaker 1: some of it's like legitimate, real rain and it's not
Speaker 1: all studio stuff. And after a while I thought, really,
Speaker 1: the hell with that? And and you know, rain is rain,
Speaker 1: fakery is fakery, and the trial a la, you know.
Speaker 1: So then that's my highly scientific reasoning for picking what
Speaker 1: I picked. But and then final I found out did
Speaker 1: not quite make my list. Saw not the whole film,
Speaker 1: but I saw the key ten twelve minutes again The
Speaker 1: Freaking's Sorcerer from nineteen seventy seven. Very rainy, also not real.
Speaker 1: I thought, I wasn't sure. It looked like kind of legitimate,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of tropical rainstorm weather there, and that
Speaker 1: is well faked, convincingly fraudulent rain going on. They couldn't
Speaker 1: they couldn't even film in the country they wanted to
Speaker 1: because the rains the rainy season was so dry the
Speaker 1: river itself looked wrong, so they had to move it
Speaker 1: all to Mexico. I mean, that scene alone costs something
Speaker 1: like three million to film. Took a month to film
Speaker 1: that scene, and I mean straight, and it's a strange
Speaker 1: suspense sequence. And of course the rain makes it, you know,
Speaker 1: this stunningly expensive, convincing looking rain makes it all all
Speaker 1: the clammier and more memorable. But anyway, it didn't quite
Speaker 1: make it so but fake rain in a real setting,
Speaker 1: So you know whatever, You know all that, But my
Speaker 1: number five, you want to hear it?
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 1: It's good bye dragging in. I mean, what's good enough
Speaker 1: for Carson? The lun is good enough for me? And
Speaker 1: that for those who have not seen it, this is
Speaker 1: the two thousand and three film from Malaysian born Taiwan
Speaker 1: East director Simon Lang, and it's set in woods one night,
Speaker 1: the last night in the temporary they say, closing of
Speaker 1: a movie theater in Taipei which has sort of turned
Speaker 1: into this low key cruising spot. And it's really just
Speaker 1: about a ticket taker, I mean to the degree it's
Speaker 1: about anything. It's very very light on plot, deliberately a
Speaker 1: ticket taker and a projectionists sort of routine on this
Speaker 1: last night while they show the nineteen sixty seven King
Speaker 1: who film the Wusha film dragging in you know who
Speaker 1: did a great work. And I just caught up with
Speaker 1: Nick Pinkerton, the critic and works at Metrograph. I believe
Speaker 1: now he is a very good video. I say on
Speaker 1: behalf of the Metrograph for the re release of Goodbye
Speaker 1: Dragon Him that's on YouTube. And just about how the
Speaker 1: closing of this theater, Yes it's yes, it's a metaphor
Speaker 1: for a lot of things, but it's really dealing with
Speaker 1: kind of how movie going is about two in some
Speaker 1: way they couldn't quite put their finger on in two
Speaker 1: thousand and three, really about to go through a serious
Speaker 1: sudden maybe slow and then sudden transformation it's also in
Speaker 1: Pinkerton's view, I like this. It's also just about urban
Speaker 1: social space and how people, you know, people's relationship to cities,
Speaker 1: and what is available and on offer for entertainment in cities,
Speaker 1: and how that's all kind of dissolving along with analog
Speaker 1: filmmaking around this time anyway, what we see is just
Speaker 1: you know, it's really just the last five minutes or
Speaker 1: so that I'm pointing to from my scene is, you know,
Speaker 1: what has to happen at this final screening. Well, the
Speaker 1: two employees we spend the time with, the rain buckets
Speaker 1: still have to be emptied. We got leaky roofs, so
Speaker 1: you know, we got leaky, leaky ceilings all over the place.
Speaker 1: We have you know, just a kind of as a
Speaker 1: ritual of hooky closing up, you know, in this sort
Speaker 1: of soggy situation, and we just spend the last you know,
Speaker 1: two and a half minutes I think outside the theater,
Speaker 1: a little curve in the road with the ticket taker
Speaker 1: who may or may not ever see the film projectionist.
Speaker 1: She's clearly sweet on again, walking home in the rain
Speaker 1: outside the theater, as the song with the lyric about
Speaker 1: Can't Let Go Can't Let Go plays on the soundtrack
Speaker 1: after the scene cuts the black, and to me, it's
Speaker 1: it's not as heavy as that makes it sound. The
Speaker 1: film is really kind of a if you want a
Speaker 1: US corollary just to the kind of this minimalist comic tone.
Speaker 1: It's Jim Jarmers probably in that. But I love the
Speaker 1: I love that use of the rain. It's not like
Speaker 1: a staggering, dramatic amount of rain. It's just a rain
Speaker 1: that kind of this is rain as bittersweet Farewell. That's
Speaker 1: kind that's kind of the message here. So that's my
Speaker 1: number five.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm gonna say it's a great choice, even though
Speaker 3: I'm going to have to confess something I was hoping
Speaker 3: I could get through this show without having to confess,
Speaker 3: which is that I've long regretted having not seen Goodbye
Speaker 3: Draggon In and our film spotting family members would know, Michael.
Speaker 3: It was one of only three or four movies on
Speaker 3: the Film Spotting Madness Best of the Quarter Century So
Speaker 3: Far shortlist that I hadn't seen, and that shortlist had
Speaker 3: like one hundred and ten films on It almost was
Speaker 3: able to fit it in before Madness began. Our family
Speaker 3: members will know that Sam brought it up on a
Speaker 3: bonus show. He thought he had to squeeze it in
Speaker 3: before madness began, and instantly went crazy for it. Gave
Speaker 3: it five out of five stars. It's called it a masterpiece.
Speaker 3: So I would love to say that I've seen it,
Speaker 3: but I am admitting that I haven't seen Goodbye Dragon
Speaker 3: In and now I want to see it even more.
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't get the rhetorical change here. Didn't we
Speaker 1: learn at the beginning of this taping that all you
Speaker 1: need to say is I remember it well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm familiar with that. I've heard of the title.
Speaker 1: Okay, doesn't that count? The quote was I remember it well, Yes,
Speaker 1: I remember I remember. How about you? Let's hear the
Speaker 1: number five.
Speaker 3: My number five is a scene where the rain is
Speaker 3: decidedly not real. It stands out amongst my picks because
Speaker 3: it's an animated film. It stands out in another way too.
Speaker 3: The rain is unlike most of my choices, if not
Speaker 3: all of them. The rain is not an oppressive natural force,
Speaker 3: but it's a part of nature that seems to be
Speaker 3: adding a sense of serenity. The movie is my neighbor
Speaker 3: Totoro from Hoyomia Zaki. The scene is waiting for the
Speaker 3: cat Totoro coming up upon May and Setsuki as they
Speaker 3: wait for their father. It's a rain, Michael, where it's constant,
Speaker 3: but it's quiet, it's peaceful, it isn't tormenting at all.
Speaker 3: They have their umbrella and that's all they really need.
Speaker 3: They're fine otherwise in the rain and the umbrella and
Speaker 3: the rain allows for the great point of view reveal
Speaker 3: that we get where Setsuki kind of just peaks underneath
Speaker 3: her umbrella to see Toto's to see this furry creature
Speaker 3: appear next to them, and just kind of see we
Speaker 3: see the giant hairy leg before we see anything else.
Speaker 3: And I love how the rain is employed in the
Speaker 3: sound design, where it isn't just kind of that nice
Speaker 3: white noise like some people may go to sleep too
Speaker 3: at night, but it recurs in that the rain will
Speaker 3: fall down on Totoro's nose and we get that little
Speaker 3: plinking sound, and so that compels Satsuki to help this
Speaker 3: creature who obviously exists out in nature. She has such
Speaker 3: natural empathy and care and compassion that she gives Totoro
Speaker 3: an umbrella.
Speaker 7: Oh wait a minute, here, try this I just love
Speaker 7: something about this, this little man made device protecting them
Speaker 7: from nature, and this is something that this creature is
Speaker 7: now going to try to use.
Speaker 3: But then we get more great sound, the rain that
Speaker 3: is plinking down against the umbrella, and that gives Totoro
Speaker 3: the brilliant idea to stomp and make the rain crash
Speaker 3: down on top of them. It's just such a lovely scene.
Speaker 1: It is that is lovely, and the sound is so
Speaker 1: part of nature really in every one of his films,
Speaker 1: and that's a great pick. Yeah. Actually I have an
Speaker 1: umbrella for you, actually for my number four. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: or several. Actually my number four is Foreign Correspondent, the
Speaker 1: Hitchcock film from nineteen forty. I think every great film,
Speaker 1: not just Hitchcock's great films, has at least one and
Speaker 1: usually several not so secret collaborators that help make it grade.
Speaker 1: And with this Hitchcock film, I think it's one of
Speaker 1: his most sheerly enjoyable movies, especially in his early Hollywood period.
Speaker 1: This is the This is the right after he moved
Speaker 1: over from England and got a contract with Selznik and
Speaker 1: made Rebecca and the film won the Oscar for Best
Speaker 1: Picture of Rebecca, although Hitchcock did not even get nominated,
Speaker 1: I believe for a Best Director. But this is the
Speaker 1: second film. It's just a gas. I mean, I love
Speaker 1: Foreign Correspondent. It's it's not as well known as some,
Speaker 1: although it's I think it's got a pretty pretty good reputation.
Speaker 1: Is a great time. Have you seen that film Foreign Correspondent?
Speaker 3: Well, Michael, remember well, I have heard of it. I
Speaker 3: was hoping, you know, we could get through your top
Speaker 3: five with without more embarrassment, and yet here corresponds what
Speaker 3: I haven't seen.
Speaker 1: Check it out. I mean, it's it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: the greatest B plus movie he ever made. And this
Speaker 1: not so secret kind of ringer in the in the
Speaker 1: design team that I referred to is William Cameron Menzies,
Speaker 1: who are really, you know, a real giant of visual
Speaker 1: design and production design, special effects. You know, he's responsible
Speaker 1: for the Burning of Atlanta and Gone with the Wind.
Speaker 1: He directed Things to Come, you know, he's he's just
Speaker 1: a great Hollywood legend. And what he creates in this
Speaker 1: scene I Love for the Rain, among other things, is
Speaker 1: just kind of a great example of peak Hollywood back loot,
Speaker 1: avocation of another place with a slightly fanciful kind of
Speaker 1: air of fraudulents, which I love in Hollywood, you know,
Speaker 1: just like I referred to, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: charms that Cosablanca is backlot Morocco, my kind of place,
Speaker 1: you know. And here we have a scene where we
Speaker 1: have Joel McCrae playing the New York reporter Johnny Jones,
Speaker 1: who's chasing Nazis in Europe and there's a peace conference
Speaker 1: in Amsterdam and he's over there. He gets embroiled with that,
Speaker 1: and we have in this great establishing shot of of suddenly, okay,
Speaker 1: cut to Amsterdam, right, and it's a backlock crane shot
Speaker 1: up up up pivots about ninety one hundred degrees, covers
Speaker 1: a very lovely kind of city square in Amsterdam. Street
Speaker 1: cars working street cars is dozens and dozens of Dutch
Speaker 1: folk on bicycles in the rain, moving around many many cars.
Speaker 1: And then over there there's a huge crowd waiting to
Speaker 1: see these key political figures showing up for this peace conference,
Speaker 1: luting the Dutch diplomat named Van Mihir, and okay, he
Speaker 1: poses for a picture. Photographer comes up. He's got a gun.
Speaker 1: It's a very famous assassination sequence. I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: sort of this grand kind of like almost a peaceful
Speaker 1: kind of city scene. Oh that's very bustling and very crowded.
Speaker 1: And then there's this brief shot with a startling amount
Speaker 1: of blood in it where he is shot in the
Speaker 1: face for and you see it for two seconds, because
Speaker 1: that's all I think you could probably get away with Hitchcock.
Speaker 1: That is in nineteen forty and it's a major incident
Speaker 1: in the plot. But right for that, Joel McCrae shocked, stunned,
Speaker 1: he sees he's hey, he's got the gun, run get him.
Speaker 1: And the assassin hides underneath this sea of umbrellas held
Speaker 1: by the people in the crowd. So this is rain
Speaker 1: as a murderer's best friend. That's what this scene is.
Speaker 1: And there's a great it's just about a ten to
Speaker 1: fifteen second bit. I don't mean like comic bit, but
Speaker 1: it is sort of like a weirdly kind of just
Speaker 1: kind of like horrifyingly funny just to see that. You
Speaker 1: know that we see the umbrellas kind of jostle and move,
Speaker 1: but we see no people even holding them because they're
Speaker 1: being hidden by the umbrellas, as is the Murderer, and
Speaker 1: it's just a great it's a great combination of production
Speaker 1: designed by Menzies, you know, a wonderful kind of you
Speaker 1: know shot designed by Hitchcock. And it's a six minute scene,
Speaker 1: that's all it is. And they took the usual amount
Speaker 1: of big budget for the time, you know, it kind
Speaker 1: of a budget, major studio care in getting the look
Speaker 1: right for you know, a fake version of Amsterdam with
Speaker 1: a lot of wonderful fake rain and it's just a
Speaker 1: I love the film anyway, so check it. Check it out.
Speaker 3: Good scene, I definitely will, and I look forward to
Speaker 3: catching up with that scene. In particular. Hitchcock be his
Speaker 3: last appearance on this list, my number four, Michael. You know,
Speaker 3: Josh isn't here. So even though I said there are
Speaker 3: rules to our top fives, I like to break this
Speaker 3: one from time to time. I've got a tie. I
Speaker 3: couldn't help it, because breaks their prison breaks a pair
Speaker 3: of joint escapes in the Cone Brothers raising Arizona and
Speaker 3: Frank Darrabannce the Shawshank Redemption. So the Cone Brothers staging
Speaker 3: Gale and Evil's escape like they're emerging from some primordial ooze.
Speaker 3: It's this rebirth almost John Goodman head first, popping up.
Speaker 3: It's like popping up from below the mud. And just
Speaker 3: like most babies come into the world, Michael, he's screaming
Speaker 3: his head off, covered in goose, screaming his head off.
Speaker 3: Bevel Well he comes out breach. Goodman has to reach
Speaker 3: down and grab William Forsyth by the legs and pull
Speaker 3: him out upside down, and at no point does the
Speaker 3: screaming cease. If you think about all the conventional, boring
Speaker 3: ways this could have been staged. Oh, we need these
Speaker 3: guys to break out of jail. You know. The Cone
Speaker 3: Brothers just take it to the cartoonish level that that
Speaker 3: whole movie functions on. And Gail and Evil, they're not
Speaker 3: so unlike Randal Tech Cobs, Lone Biker The Apocalypse, you
Speaker 3: know who h I McDonough says, But I feared that
Speaker 3: I myself had unleashed him, for he was the fury
Speaker 3: that would be as soon as Florence Arizona found her
Speaker 3: little Nathan gone. They get Nathan Junior home and what
Speaker 3: happens Hi's pass drudges itself up from the slime in
Speaker 3: the form of the Smoke Brothers is just so so
Speaker 3: good and if it hadn't come out seven years prior
Speaker 3: to shawshank Redemption, you might think the Cones were having
Speaker 3: some fun at the expense of Shawshank in the portentousness
Speaker 3: of this moment. But it's one I still love, and
Speaker 3: I loved again when I revisited the film with Josh
Speaker 3: here on the show and we gave it a sacred
Speaker 3: cow review for its anniversary. Another sort of rebirth. Andy
Speaker 3: dufrayin head First, emerging from the sewer tunnel after crawling
Speaker 3: to freedom through five hundred yards of shit smelling foulness.
Speaker 3: I can't even imagine, or maybe I don't want to,
Speaker 3: into the river where he strips away the stink and
Speaker 3: filled the sewer of his life in the hell hole
Speaker 3: that was Shawshank, all culminating with that Roger deacons iconic
Speaker 3: bird's eye view shot of Tim Robbins and his outstretched arms.
Speaker 3: Two very similar uses of rain. It couldn't be more
Speaker 3: tonally different.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's great. I'm glad that we got at
Speaker 1: least one because I don't think I have any comedy
Speaker 1: in mind, but like I love, Yeah, it was just
Speaker 1: sort of the grandiose operatic comedy of low comedy of
Speaker 1: raising Arizona. But yeah, if I had a longer list,
Speaker 1: I'd probably just for a really cheap one off rain gag.
Speaker 1: I love them, you know, I like like any number
Speaker 1: of lines in Young Frankenstein. I love could be worse?
Speaker 1: What how could be? Raining? Come on? You know, I
Speaker 1: mean pretty just perfect. So yeah, you know that's that's
Speaker 1: not a halft the moment, but it's just it's literally
Speaker 1: just a bit of bump, you know. But but but
Speaker 1: it's great and so anyway, but I'm glad we got
Speaker 1: I'm glad we got an epic example of comic use
Speaker 1: of rain. Very good.
Speaker 3: Indeed, you're number three.
Speaker 1: Number three. I'm a no mode for comedy on this list, apparently,
Speaker 1: uh you know. So my number three is The Bridges
Speaker 1: of Madison County, Okay, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood,
Speaker 1: based on the terrible Robert Weller bestseller. The film is
Speaker 1: not terrible. It's very good. In fact, it maybe adam
Speaker 1: the best improvement of a terrible novel on screen period,
Speaker 1: one of them, very very It could very well be
Speaker 1: the one. But uh, you know, the script of the
Speaker 1: film follows the events of the book, you know, fairly
Speaker 1: faith fully chance meeting after the four day affair for
Speaker 1: the ages is over between Francesca played by Meryl Streep,
Speaker 1: the Iowa, the unfulfilled Iowa housewife. It's a word farewell
Speaker 1: between her and Robert Kinkaid, the photographer played by Eastwood,
Speaker 1: just before Francesca's lunkhead farmer husband gets the driver's seat
Speaker 1: of the pickup. But just like everything in this movie,
Speaker 1: just about everything, and there we see outside the truck,
Speaker 1: Eastwood's character is simply standing in the rain looking at
Speaker 1: her from a distance. You know, out of context, it
Speaker 1: would look like a stalker or a killer waiting to strike.
Speaker 1: And Eastwood's range as an actor has always been not expansive,
Speaker 1: you know. He's always had a very kind of like
Speaker 1: comfortable groove in a very narrow kind of range. But
Speaker 1: there are things that he does at this scene in
Speaker 1: the rain that partly because the character has to have
Speaker 1: a ponytail that is now sort of like he's a
Speaker 1: long hair, you know. That's how he's described, I think
Speaker 1: by the husband character. Oh yeah, it looks like some hippie, right,
Speaker 1: you know, so he just looks like kind of a wet,
Speaker 1: you know, aging hippie, you know, but just truly heartbroke
Speaker 1: and crushed. And Eastwood is doing things in that shot.
Speaker 1: It's just a series of shots of him just looking.
Speaker 1: This is a wordless scene between these two characters saying goodbye,
Speaker 1: and there's a little smile that thanks change sort of
Speaker 1: after you know, ten seconds go by. And this is
Speaker 1: just this is you know, the last one was Rain
Speaker 1: as a murderer's best friend and foreign correspondent. Rain is
Speaker 1: a bittersweet farewell and goodbye dragging in this in Bridges
Speaker 1: of Madison County. It's Rain crying the tears that this
Speaker 1: man cannot and that's you know, and you definitely believe
Speaker 1: that Eastwood is somebody who is not dying to do
Speaker 1: a crying scene ever, so the rain must you do it.
Speaker 1: But it's it's all handled so well. And this film
Speaker 1: is just part of this great trifecta of excellent work
Speaker 1: that Eastwood did behind the camera in the early nineties.
Speaker 1: I mean it was unforgiven a perfect world and Bridges
Speaker 1: of Madison County and that that's you know, that's that's
Speaker 1: an for anybody to kind of rest their laurels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's my number three.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a perfect number three. As we transition to
Speaker 3: my choice. Not only do I not have any comedy, yeah,
Speaker 3: a present in my choice here, Michael. But this is
Speaker 3: certainly one of the most famous uses of rain in
Speaker 3: movie history. And it is exactly what you said, a
Speaker 3: case where the rain has to do the crying for
Speaker 3: the character. It's the only thing Perry will miss. In
Speaker 3: In Cold Blood Richard Brooks nineteen sixty seven adaptation of
Speaker 3: the Truman Capoti bestseller, Perry's partner in crime, Dick Hickock,
Speaker 3: has been executed. At this point, Perry, played by Robert Blake,
Speaker 3: is waiting his turn, and he's talking about his troubled childhood,
Speaker 3: his relationship with his father, a disturbing relationship with his father,
Speaker 3: harrowing story. He recounts of his father attempting to kill him,
Speaker 3: and he's effectively giving his testimony, his final testimony to
Speaker 3: the prison chaplain. It's a three and a half minute scene.
Speaker 3: There's two cuts in the first minute from Blake in
Speaker 3: a medium shot to the chaplain and then back to Blake,
Speaker 3: and then the camera just holds on Blake in a
Speaker 3: tight close up for the next two and a half minutes,
Speaker 3: and Brooks and his cinematographer, the legendary Conrad Hall. They
Speaker 3: stage the whole black and white scene so that Blake's
Speaker 3: face fills the left side of the frame, and the
Speaker 3: right side is the window where we have the pattern
Speaker 3: of constant rain hitting it, providing the only sound that
Speaker 3: we hear other than Blake's voice. And the key part
Speaker 3: beyond the sound is the shadow of the rain. There's
Speaker 3: just enough light coming through that is the rain hits
Speaker 3: the window, it creates this effective tears rolling down Perry's
Speaker 3: cheek from his left eye. I've read a few things
Speaker 3: over the years about this scene, Michael, where Conrad Hall
Speaker 3: has said it was mostly fortuitous. Everyone thinks his line
Speaker 3: is even people think you're a genius for planning something
Speaker 3: like that, but he says, in reality, you were just
Speaker 3: smart enough to notice it and exploit it. The way
Speaker 3: they had set it up that effect was occurring, he said, okay,
Speaker 3: we have to keep this. We have to do everything
Speaker 3: we can to maintain this. It wasn't as if they
Speaker 3: necessarily plan that when they were approaching shooting that day,
Speaker 3: but it's fortuitous for all of us that he did
Speaker 3: have that eye and he and Brooks decided to exploit
Speaker 3: it for what they did although the character's delivery isn't
Speaker 3: robotic at all, he's also not overwhelmed with emotion, and
Speaker 3: as he says about his father, I hate him and
Speaker 3: I love him. Rather than pouring on sentimentality and asking
Speaker 3: us to weep for Perry, which I don't think any
Speaker 3: of us at this point are prepared to do, it
Speaker 3: only heightens his very fractured, confused psyche. The layering of tears,
Speaker 3: in this case over his face.
Speaker 1: God, I love to see that again, and I really
Speaker 1: love to see Bennett Miller's Capoti just to kind of
Speaker 1: get I mean, it's silistically visually completely different, but fascinating,
Speaker 1: kind of like example, looking at the same set of
Speaker 1: just tragic, tragic and awful, you know, hollowed out human beings,
Speaker 1: and how you can sort of tell a story around. Yeah, no, good, excellent,
Speaker 1: pick good pick Who picked these for you? Is it good?
Speaker 3: Thank you? Number two?
Speaker 1: By number two? Well, I Know where I'm going. I
Speaker 1: know where I'm going with this one. It's a film
Speaker 1: called I Know Where I'm Going by Michael Power and
Speaker 1: Emeric Presberger, filmed in late nineteen forty four. One of
Speaker 1: my favorite films in any genre, absolutely singular romance, Wendy Hiller,
Speaker 1: for those who don't know it, plays the fiance of
Speaker 1: one of the richest men in Britain who owns the
Speaker 1: factory where she works. And she's off to the Hebrides
Speaker 1: Islands off the coast of Scotland where they are to
Speaker 1: be married. And she gets to the little village on
Speaker 1: the coast where she's supposed to catch a boat to
Speaker 1: the island, but there's terrible weather causes her and a
Speaker 1: British naval officer leave played by Roger Livesey to bide
Speaker 1: their time among the locals. Well sparks fly subtly, i
Speaker 1: would say, but then simply to flee her own intense,
Speaker 1: increasingly intense attraction to this navel man. She sort of
Speaker 1: bullies the local boatsman to take her across the water
Speaker 1: in this awful rangetorm, terrible dangerous weather, and there's this dreaded,
Speaker 1: practically mythical whirlpool doing its thing, and you know it's
Speaker 1: all studio bound, rear projection, the rain, all the rest
Speaker 1: of it. But this is, you know, near the end.
Speaker 1: It's a really effective climax. It's very it's very exciting,
Speaker 1: and you're also at this point so utterly beguiled by
Speaker 1: how this film is working its magic for what is
Speaker 1: essentially a meat cute rom com but treated in a
Speaker 1: way that no other romantic comedy or screen romance, let's
Speaker 1: just call it, has ever been treated. It was so
Speaker 1: much interesting folklore and music, and you get Petula Clark
Speaker 1: at age fifteen and these heart shaped glasses, and I mean,
Speaker 1: it's this fantastic. There's so many great things in it,
Speaker 1: and Wendy Hiller is just wonderful. You just buy every element,
Speaker 1: and there's I think this is Rain as kind of
Speaker 1: a supernatural matchmaker, you know. I mean, there is a
Speaker 1: hint of the supernatural in many elements of the story
Speaker 1: of I Know where I'm Going, and the weather itself
Speaker 1: is actually conspiring to keep these two together and Wendy
Speaker 1: Hiller and her fiance whom we never meet, and the
Speaker 1: rain is keeping them apart, as they should be because
Speaker 1: it is destined to go the other way. So I
Speaker 1: love the film, and you know, it's it's it's there's
Speaker 1: a lot of it in the film, but it also
Speaker 1: is a film that really really lives for the sunshine.
Speaker 1: And my people are Scottish and Irish, and I know
Speaker 1: exactly what that's like. And also, if you've ever been
Speaker 1: to the this is on a fictional Hebrides Island, but
Speaker 1: that is a gorgeous part of the world. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is great. And but I love the film,
Speaker 1: And honestly, Adam, even if this film were taking place
Speaker 1: completely in sunshine, I still would have put it on
Speaker 1: the list for the rain scenes because I love the
Speaker 1: film so much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really good film. It's one I just
Speaker 3: caught up with last year because of the Powell Presburger
Speaker 3: documentary that came out, and before I saw that, I
Speaker 3: wanted to make sure I filled it a couple blind
Speaker 3: spots because I otherwise love what I've seen from the Archers.
Speaker 3: Really good film, and I knew exactly where you were
Speaker 3: going when you said I know where I'm going. It
Speaker 3: had to be that sequence. I remember watching that in thinking,
Speaker 3: you know, they're going to be okay, but it is
Speaker 3: so hard to watch. It feels so dangerous that sequence
Speaker 3: that you are thinking they are doomed. There is no
Speaker 3: way they are getting out of this alive. I remember
Speaker 3: very vividly viscerally feeling that watching that sequence. So well, yeah,
Speaker 3: you told.
Speaker 1: Me that you know who didn't see that movie until
Speaker 1: he was almost something like forty five or fifty, and
Speaker 1: he loved all the other Archer stuff that he'd seen
Speaker 1: all Martin Scorsese.
Speaker 3: No kidding, possibly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, so he sees it and he wrote
Speaker 1: something back of some either Criterion edition or something. If
Speaker 1: you just say the quote is hilarious, it's just it's
Speaker 1: so right. It's so because we all feel that way.
Speaker 1: It's like, just when I thought I had run out
Speaker 1: of masterpieces, I saw this one, you know, and it's
Speaker 1: just it's an unassuming film. It's not a huge epic,
Speaker 1: it's not it doesn't have that kind of you know,
Speaker 1: self serious romantic half of a lot of like great
Speaker 1: screen romances. But man, I I just it is unlike
Speaker 1: any other film I know and love. So yeah all
Speaker 1: the way, do you know if And it's a story
Speaker 1: about the Norwegian prince who does had broke What happened
Speaker 1: to the one made in the hair of faithful maidens?
Speaker 5: It held until the tight nothing is stronger than trueller,
Speaker 5: no nothing, No, I'm more go on.
Speaker 2: But one Maiden was untrue.
Speaker 3: To And I thought you might be going with Scorsese
Speaker 3: because he's kind of the featured player. He's the narrator
Speaker 3: of that film made in England. It's all about his
Speaker 3: experience with the films of Powell and Presberger. Another great transition.
Speaker 3: We didn't plan this into my number two pick, as
Speaker 3: we're talking a little bit about Rain as a supernatural
Speaker 3: force and maybe I'm breaking the rules a little bit
Speaker 3: here again, Michael, But did anyone say that Rain had
Speaker 3: to be exclusively of the liquid variety? Because I think
Speaker 3: Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia question that with the Frogs. We
Speaker 3: talked about this film back during our nine from ninety
Speaker 3: nine series, I think in twenty twenty I talked then
Speaker 3: about the line of that film, one of them for
Speaker 3: me being I'm not through asking questions. And I think
Speaker 3: it's not only a great question, a great line, but
Speaker 3: a great line delivery in the film speaks to its
Speaker 3: inquisitive nature about these characters having to confront some really
Speaker 3: harsh truths and having to confront the reality within all
Speaker 3: of this randomness that seems to be occurring around them,
Speaker 3: accepting narratives or abandoning accepted narratives by them or those
Speaker 3: around them. And here you've got pt Anderson taking something
Speaker 3: that feels biblical, but isn't really. I mean, there's the
Speaker 3: tail of the plague of the frogs emerging from the nile,
Speaker 3: but not so much dropping from the sky. But of
Speaker 3: course we instantly go to that in our minds. It
Speaker 3: feels apocalyptic. Undoubtedly, we have a movie about the possibility
Speaker 3: or impossibility. Perhaps I think I would go with possibility
Speaker 3: based on what occurs after the frogs fall from the sky,
Speaker 3: of people being redeemed, and it plays out on such
Speaker 3: an intimate but epic scale that it somehow isn't totally
Speaker 3: shocking when it all culminates, not with a downpour, a
Speaker 3: rain that washes away everyone sees, but the absolute chaos
Speaker 3: of frogs just thudding down repeatedly to the ground. Like
Speaker 3: the movie itself, the visuals and the sound of them
Speaker 3: thumping is intense and it's kind of distressing. But you know,
Speaker 3: we were just talking about comedy, and you don't really
Speaker 3: have a comedic choice. I had won and raising Arizona.
Speaker 3: Michael rewatched this scene. It's hilarious, complete with an ambulance
Speaker 3: flipping on its side and skidding to a stop right
Speaker 3: in front of the emergency room, and there's the vera
Speaker 3: shot tracking a frog from the sky, the camera falling
Speaker 3: along with the frog as it drops onto the ceiling
Speaker 3: where Jimmy Gator is preparing to kill himself. But we
Speaker 3: also get the beauty of the tracking shot moving in
Speaker 3: on the movie's true innocence, Stanley, the young boy who's
Speaker 3: actually shielded, and that tracking shot that just kind of
Speaker 3: neatly pushes in on him, and that look of awe
Speaker 3: and really joy and that line this happens, This is
Speaker 3: something that happens. Indeed, it is happening. Frogs are falling
Speaker 3: from the sky, just further connecting these disparate stories and
Speaker 3: these characters who are all experiencing it together. And it
Speaker 3: does compel change, It compels the Catharsis in these characters.
Speaker 3: And I think it's fitting with the film subject matter,
Speaker 3: because the type of catharsis if we're lucky enough to
Speaker 3: find it, or certainly we all, whether we want it
Speaker 3: or not, end up experiencing great change. It often happens
Speaker 3: in unpredictable and random ways. But these things, these things
Speaker 3: do happen, his film suggests, and it's one of those
Speaker 3: moments I think we all remember, you remember where you
Speaker 3: were watching Magnolia for the first time, and being stunned
Speaker 3: by that sound first and then the visual of those
Speaker 3: frogs and trying to process what's occurring in that moment.
Speaker 3: You actually do hear the thudding for a good twenty
Speaker 3: or thirty seconds, the camera holding on Philip Seymour Hoffman's
Speaker 3: face in shock and pta withholds what he's seeing until
Speaker 3: he finally says, and really only the way Philip Seymour
Speaker 3: Hoffman can he says, oh, there are frogs falling from
Speaker 3: the sky. He delivers it both in a way that
Speaker 3: suggests he's utterly perplexed, as you would expect, but also
Speaker 3: it's completely matter of fact. It's both. He nails both
Speaker 3: of those senses at once with that line reading and Yeah,
Speaker 3: I instantly thought of rain. I instantly thought of frogs
Speaker 3: falling from the sky in Magnolia.
Speaker 1: It's a cleansing, amphibious rain, you know, Yes it is, Yes,
Speaker 1: that's what we ad No, it's a great scene. I
Speaker 1: all of a lot of people. You know, for a
Speaker 1: lot of people it was their exit moment, you know,
Speaker 1: from a film that was maybe testing their patients in
Speaker 1: other ways. But no, I love it. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: the kind of risk that it doesn't if he showed
Speaker 1: it to me on paper and sort of described it,
Speaker 1: or if I heard this podcast, you know, and I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen the movie. You know, I probably think maybe
Speaker 1: you know, but somehow at all the tone is perfect,
Speaker 1: and it's just one of the craziest nervous transitions into
Speaker 1: another realm that mostly realistic film, you know, he's ever
Speaker 1: pulled off. So yeah, great pic, great pick.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're number one rain scene. Michael.
Speaker 1: Well, when I was I was saying, no comedy, you
Speaker 1: know when I think about this, Actually, I love the
Speaker 1: wit of this scene. Just I've delighted in it ever
Speaker 1: since I saw the movie. And the movie's The Big
Speaker 1: Sleep from nineteen forty six. Humphrey bogartist Philip Marlow, and
Speaker 1: in the scene I'm talking about Dorothy Malone, all of
Speaker 1: twenty years old, is the unnamed but unforgettable proprietor of
Speaker 1: the Acme Bookshop in downtown La So Marlow is on
Speaker 1: the trail of the shady pornographer right, whose name is
Speaker 1: on the door of the Rare Books emporium across the street.
Speaker 1: But one of the best timed cloudbursts in the history
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles cracks open again. Marlow continues a little
Speaker 1: quicker across the street to see if you anybody at
Speaker 1: the other bookstore can talk abit and give him some
Speaker 1: information about the rival bookstore and the shady corner across
Speaker 1: the way and dozy. So the second Marlow starts questioning
Speaker 1: this cool a cucumber woman about what she might know
Speaker 1: about the suspect. She sort of leans in and says,
Speaker 1: you begin to interest me vaguely, and it's a smile.
Speaker 1: And they're both I mean, they both just so clearly.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like there's a little thought bubble about
Speaker 1: both of them. It's like I dig this person. And
Speaker 1: so just as the mutual flirtation is easy into kind
Speaker 1: of very promising territory, let's say, Malone's character mentions, you
Speaker 1: know that it's raining pretty hard and gives Marlow a
Speaker 1: long look that Howard Hawk's the director makes sure to
Speaker 1: give a choice two and a half second close up,
Speaker 1: and then she says, looks like we're closed for the
Speaker 1: rest of the afternoon, and she pulls down the shade
Speaker 1: in a way that suggests that she might have done
Speaker 1: some night work as a stripper occasionally, and she actually
Speaker 1: says that line ye know, the look says, looks like
Speaker 1: we're closed for the rest of the afternoon, and then
Speaker 1: she actually says that line out loud a few seconds later,
Speaker 1: so Marlowe says, I've got a good got a flask
Speaker 1: a pretty good ride in my pocket. And then there's
Speaker 1: this fade out just after he wonders if she could
Speaker 1: remove her reading glass, and then new scene undetermined length
Speaker 1: of time later, And it's entirely in the mind of
Speaker 1: the viewer at this point to speculate if they've actually
Speaker 1: managed to make love and get dressed again, or are
Speaker 1: we just thinking that because we were raised wrong. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but either way, Max Stein or the
Speaker 1: composer is determined to make it seem like they, yes,
Speaker 1: they have had a lovely hour or so of passion,
Speaker 1: just because he's pouring on this music on the soundtrack,
Speaker 1: and it's just enough slightly hands the physical contact in
Speaker 1: the last few seconds between these two, just before Marlowe
Speaker 1: has to get back to the goddamn plot nobody can follow.
Speaker 1: But you know, we're with the Big Sleep all the
Speaker 1: way for every reason that besides this plot that is
Speaker 1: you know, almost wilfully decipherable, and this film. To me,
Speaker 1: those three minutes or so that the whole scene probably
Speaker 1: makes it. It's just the kind of detour, the off
Speaker 1: plot moment that between two people dealing with a great
Speaker 1: a great bit of timing and luck that they have
Speaker 1: been thrown together in this bookstore. To me, you know,
Speaker 1: if this what does rain serving this purpose? Well, it's
Speaker 1: it's like it makes literacy look really sexy, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's that's this is rain as you know, it's
Speaker 1: rain as misliteracy nineteen forty six. That's that's that's my
Speaker 1: reading of this.
Speaker 3: What's Boby's line, I'd a lot rather get wet in here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's what that was. It was just slang
Speaker 1: for getting drunk back in the day. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't quite sound like I was. Yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: love it. And it's just you've just never seen two
Speaker 1: actors more instantly write together in a scene that barely
Speaker 1: barely matters to the plot. So yeah, no, I love you.
Speaker 1: My number one.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a great pick. I mentioned that there would
Speaker 3: be more Hitchcock. No Psycho is not in the pantheon yet,
Speaker 3: even though it probably should be. Driving to the Baits
Speaker 3: Motel is my pick. And even oh yeah, even before
Speaker 3: the rain, Michael, this is such a great three minute sequence,
Speaker 3: this driving sequence, and of course the music from Bernard
Speaker 3: Herman is a huge part of it. Leaves Marion Crane
Speaker 3: with the forty k she's stolen from her employer, off
Speaker 3: to rendezvous with her boyfriend Sam in California. Hitchcock's camera
Speaker 3: fixated almost entirely on Marion's face for the entire scene,
Speaker 3: as she replays some actual moments from the day and
Speaker 3: the crime she's committed, and imagining other scenarios, though fantasizing
Speaker 3: is probably a more appropriate word because of how Hitchcock
Speaker 3: links Marian here to Norman later, I think quite intentionally,
Speaker 3: that tormented face that twists up into a little smile,
Speaker 3: eyes almost sparkling as these voices talk about how sweet,
Speaker 3: innocent Marian could possibly be so devious as to pull
Speaker 3: all this off, and she likes that, she likes the
Speaker 3: darker talk about her and the thing that she's done. Again,
Speaker 3: she's all conjuring it in her mind. She couldn't be
Speaker 3: there for any of these things that they may or
Speaker 3: may not actually be saying. But then the rain does come,
Speaker 3: and as the rain starts pouring, down during a drive
Speaker 3: that makes it difficult for Marian to see the road.
Speaker 3: She can't see her path any longer. To Sam, everything
Speaker 3: seems to be going as they've planned it. Now the
Speaker 3: rain is coming, She's confused, and then that's when she
Speaker 3: finally gets scared, and this is where Hermann's strings become
Speaker 3: more violent and frenetic in time with the windshield wipers
Speaker 3: trying to keep the rain at day. The relentless music
Speaker 3: then only stops when, almost like a mirage in the desert,
Speaker 3: the light of the Baits Motel is revealed through the
Speaker 3: darkness and the spatters of rain. I love how Hitchcock
Speaker 3: shows that reveal and how her car somehow almost floats
Speaker 3: into the drive of the Baits Motel like the car's
Speaker 3: on autopilot. It's like Marion has no choice in the matter.
Speaker 3: Her fate has been preordained. She is completely powerless, and
Speaker 3: of course water is going to factor into her fate
Speaker 3: in a major way as well a few scenes later.
Speaker 3: But it's it's that reveal. It's it's the rain only
Speaker 3: slightly dissipating enough for her to see the light of
Speaker 3: the Bates Motel and pull in, even though she has
Speaker 3: really no choice in it, Michael.
Speaker 1: That's a great pick. I mean, even though the you know,
Speaker 1: the car has the worst set of wipers in the
Speaker 1: history of vehicles, you know. I mean like it's just
Speaker 1: maybe maybe that was standard issue wipers for nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: and extremely heavy rain. But yeah, yeah, no, I love it.
Speaker 1: It's like the one, you know, the shining beacon of
Speaker 1: truth ahead of her. A name you can trust, a
Speaker 1: name you can trust. Bates Martel, Yeah, of course, no,
Speaker 1: it's it's wonderful. And and Herban's music, You're right, Bernon,
Speaker 1: Herban's music is uh is absolutely evoking, you know, this
Speaker 1: sort of like driving repetitive, you know, rhythmic kind of
Speaker 1: like you know, hammering rain. And why it's not in
Speaker 1: the pantheon, what the hell, Adam, Well.
Speaker 3: There's some other hitchcock already there. We've got to make
Speaker 3: room for some others to play camp on Sandbox Michael.
Speaker 3: But yeah, very deserving an all timer for sure. Those
Speaker 3: are our top five rain scenes. Do you have any
Speaker 3: honorable mentions others that you considered that you want to
Speaker 3: get on the record before we go.
Speaker 1: I mean, I considered Todd Browning's Freaks, which has a
Speaker 1: terrifying last ten minutes or so where the you know,
Speaker 1: the circus circus acts of the title exact their revenge
Speaker 1: on their tormentors, and there's a lot of that scene
Speaker 1: wouldn't be half as frightening without a driving rainstorm studio style,
Speaker 1: you know. But somehow it didn't quite make my top five.
Speaker 1: But that's certainly memorable that film. The fact that that
Speaker 1: film was such an enormous flop at the time too
Speaker 1: just I think attest to how gruesome it was then
Speaker 1: and how it still seems that way. And also it's
Speaker 1: a it's a two faced achievement in that it's dealing
Speaker 1: with fairly sincere sympathy, you know, real sympathy toward these
Speaker 1: characters and the performers because Tom Browning his career had
Speaker 1: been spent in part in these sort of acts. And
Speaker 1: at the other time, he's said, by the end here
Speaker 1: he's just exploiting the hell out of the you know,
Speaker 1: sort of the image of these quote freaks unquote for
Speaker 1: the worst possible shock value, you know, which I you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, the movies are built on
Speaker 1: that kind of hypocrisy, I think face quality. But that's
Speaker 1: my dad, that would be a runner up for me.
Speaker 3: Okay, a few for me. I may have excluded memories
Speaker 3: of murder, but definitely want to throw a shout out
Speaker 3: to parasite from Bong Juno, the flood from that film,
Speaker 3: Peter Wher's The Truman Show when when he's out there
Speaker 3: all alone, Truman's out there Jim Carrey and the malfunction
Speaker 3: occurs where the rain is just isolated only on him right,
Speaker 3: and it follows him along before the rain finally does
Speaker 3: sweep across the entire space. I must make my witness
Speaker 3: Howard Beale coming in from the storm, going on the
Speaker 3: news and beginning is I'm mad as Hell's speech? Two
Speaker 3: thousand and two Spider Man, the famous upside down kiss
Speaker 3: happening in the rain, a couple from the film Spotting
Speaker 3: Family Discord that I otherwise would have completely overlooked. Ohver,
Speaker 3: Libergall mentioned the ending of Kiarastami's Taste of Cherry, and
Speaker 3: Mark Friedman highlighted the wedding night scene what are they
Speaker 3: ducks from It's a Wonderful Life? Okay, they're a great one.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Good.
Speaker 3: A lot of good contenders for our top five rain scenes.
Speaker 3: We would love to hear your picks or any other
Speaker 3: comments about the show. You can email us feedback at
Speaker 3: film spotting dot net. You can find me and the
Speaker 3: show on Instagram and Facebook. I'm at film Spotting, Josh
Speaker 3: is at Larson on film My, you're on the Socials.
Speaker 3: You're at Phillips Tribune.
Speaker 1: Yep, maam on. As for my sins, I guess still
Speaker 1: on Facebook, you know. And then yeah, it just just
Speaker 1: joined Blue Sky kind of.
Speaker 3: But you know, time is put your foot in the water.
Speaker 1: Time is money. I don't know, I'm not much. I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not a heavy participant yet, but but yeah,
Speaker 1: you can, you can. You can find me here and
Speaker 1: there now and then Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 3: Film Spotting is independently produced and listeners supported. You can
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Speaker 3: ad free. You get our weekly newsletter, monthly bonus episodes,
Speaker 3: and access to the entire show archives. In the archives,
Speaker 3: you can find some other Joe Wriich conversations. We talked
Speaker 3: about pride and prejudice. This week. We talked about atonement
Speaker 3: on episode one eight nine, Hannah, Episode three forty three,
Speaker 3: Anna Carininda for twenty three in the Darkest Hour on
Speaker 3: episode six sixty seven, Michael, I'm gonna give you some
Speaker 3: new releases outlimited out wide. If you any of them
Speaker 3: want to give us a quick yay or nay, please
Speaker 3: do Grand Tour. This is a period drama from Portuguese
Speaker 3: filmmaker Miguel Gomash, who made Taboo. It's playing at the
Speaker 3: Gene Siskel Film Center. Justin Chang from the New Yorker
Speaker 3: says undermines the relationship between sound and image with a
Speaker 3: sly and miraculous fluidity. I'm intrigued.
Speaker 1: I've not seen it myself. I will see it.
Speaker 3: Soon, Okay. The King of Kings is out stars Oscar Isaac,
Speaker 3: Kenneth Branna Uma, Thurman, Forrest Whitaker, Mark Hamill. It's a
Speaker 3: banger of a cast based on a story by Charles Dickens.
Speaker 3: The catch. It's an animated film about the life of
Speaker 3: Christ with Isaac as Jesus, which you know is weird
Speaker 3: because Isaac already played Jesus's human debt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I have not seen that. I don't know
Speaker 1: a damn thing about it.
Speaker 3: Actually, yeah, I don't really either, except what information I
Speaker 3: related Sacramento out as well. This is a road trip
Speaker 3: drama edy with Michael Sarah and director Slash star Michael
Speaker 3: on Garano. It co stars Kristin Stewart in wide release,
Speaker 3: The Amateur, an introverted Cia Dakota played by Raymy Mallick,
Speaker 3: takes matters into his own hands when his wife is
Speaker 3: killed in a terrorist attack. Laurence Fishburne and Michael Stoolbarg
Speaker 3: co star. Favorite review title pun Okay, this is Sam
Speaker 3: giving us a little levity. Robert Daniel says, clear and
Speaker 3: present data, Ryan Ty the board identity, and Aaron Newarth
Speaker 3: our friend said the boorn novice.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's all cool. I'll be filing tomorrow on that,
Speaker 1: so we'll I gotta up my wordplay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, apparently drop is out. This is about a widowed
Speaker 3: mother on her first date in years. She's terrorized by
Speaker 3: a series of mysterious drops to her phone that just
Speaker 3: doesn't really seem fair. It's from the director of Happy
Speaker 3: Death Day and Freaky Here Again. Brian tall Rico says,
Speaker 3: finally a south By Southwest movie that knows what it
Speaker 3: wants to do, and Jess sets about doing it. Fun stuff.
Speaker 3: According to Brian Warfare is out. It doesn't seem like
Speaker 3: fun stuff. This is a movie about a platoon of
Speaker 3: Navy seals on a real time mission gone wrong, co
Speaker 3: directed by Alex Garland and former Seal Ray Mendoza, who
Speaker 3: was Garland's technical advisor on Civil War. Isaac Feldberg says,
Speaker 3: a clear response to the politics of apathy. Next week,
Speaker 3: we're not planning on talking about any of those films.
Speaker 3: Some things still up in the air. Not up in
Speaker 3: the air, Andre Tarkowsky. Our new marathon kicks off with
Speaker 3: two early efforts from the Russian Master, The Steamroller and
Speaker 3: the Violin, and Ivan's Childhood. For show plans and more,
Speaker 3: visitfilm spotting dot net slash episodes. Film Spotting is produced
Speaker 3: by Golden Jo Toso and Sam van Holgren. Without Sam
Speaker 3: and Golden Joe, the show wouldn't go. Our production assistant
Speaker 3: is Sophie Kempenar and special thanks to everyone at wb
Speaker 3: e Z Chicago. More information is available at WBEZ dot
Speaker 3: org and of course a huge thank you, Michael to
Speaker 3: you for filling in this week. Always a pleasure, dave On.
Speaker 3: We gave the folks a robust show and I'm glad
Speaker 3: we saw ey'd eye and pride and prejudice.
Speaker 1: You know, absolutely, it was. It was. It was great
Speaker 1: fun to talk about that one. And yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a pip, Like I got a towel. I got a
Speaker 1: towel off of that rain list though I've got a
Speaker 1: little damp.
Speaker 3: And everybody, I got a It was a pip, which
Speaker 3: is all I ever want from you. Michael, Thank you
Speaker 3: so much for film spotting. Adam Keepinar, thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: This conversation can serve no purpose anymore.
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