WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: Rock'n Roll Wolf 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:07.920 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:09.799 Lamb and oh we have a fun one here for you. 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:13.920 Today we're gonna be talking about the nineteen seventy six 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:18.159 film Rock and Roll Wolf, also known as Mama. It 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:22.120 is a Romanian Soviet French co production and a live 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:26.040 action adaptation of the brothers grim tale The Wolf and 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:30.200 the Seven Young Goats. It is weird, It rocks, and 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:34.040 it originally published twelve thirteen, twenty twenty four. Let's jump in. 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:44.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:49.559 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.920 This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:55.680 today on Weird House Cinema we're going to be discussing 0:00:55.800 --> 0:01:02.200 the nineteen seventy six Romanian Soviet French produced psychotropic children's 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:08.319 fairytale musical Mama aka Rock and Roll Wolf, directed by 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:13.640 the Romanian filmmaker Elisa Beta Boston. And I really mean 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.040 it when I say this movie has everything. It is 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:23.120 so much, so fast, and so wonderful, infectiously lovable music. 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:28.080 Russian ballet dancer is dressed up like spiders and or sparrows. 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:32.920 Nearly just NonStop locomotive energy. Maybe flags a little bit 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:34.920 in the second half of the movie, but at least 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:37.280 the first half is like it is. It is a 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:42.000 freight train, it does not stop. It's got diverse frolicking, 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:45.560 theeomorphs in a secret village in the deep woods. It's 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:50.960 got rooftop seesaws, bridges over nothing, goat boy, levitation, ice 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:56.040 based wolf traps, strawberries coated and honeydew, a rainbow parrot 0:01:56.080 --> 0:02:01.800 with like mad auctioneer energy, plaintive donkey, solos, pendulum beds, 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:07.480 secret passwords, red squirrel, acorn rituals, a dangerously handsome bad 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:12.640 boy wolf man, a gorgeous angelic goat mother, and NonStop 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:17.120 historical smoking. Yes, this is one of those where I 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:21.079 am definitely in how have I never seen this before? Territory? 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:24.320 A rock and roll wolf is so so in my 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:28.080 wheelhouse and I can't recommend it enough, super weird and 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:31.080 pushes like every single sensory boundary at once. 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:34.040 I showed part of this to my wife at line 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:36.799 after I'd finished watching it, and she thought it looked 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:40.000 like an acid trip. And her follow up question was, 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:42.280 how did Joe find out about this movie? And I 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:44.880 don't have the answer. Do you have an answer? Can 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:45.760 you answer it? For this? 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.520 I wish I remember it. No, I honestly, I don't 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:50.880 know how this movie first came onto my radar. I've 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:52.519 like had it on a list of movies I was 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:55.040 gonna come back and check out later, and then this 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:57.000 week I did. I looked at my list and I 0:02:57.040 --> 0:02:58.760 was like, oh, okay, what's the deal with this one? 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.239 So I know. The one reason I became intrigued this 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:06.560 week is that I started looking into user reviews and 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:10.000 comments online just how people were reacting to this movie, 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:15.800 and I noticed there were several distinct tranches of audience reaction. 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:21.480 One type was pretty similar to how I'm reacting now, like, wtf, 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:24.840 I just discovered this insane movie as an adult. My 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:29.680 senses are overwhelmed and I am delighted and confused. But interestingly, 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.920 another type of reaction was and I think this is 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:36.920 probably particularly common in people from certain countries in Europe. 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:40.320 It was a reaction like I grew up watching this 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:44.400 over and over on TV, and it is intensely nostalgic 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:47.400 for me. I couldn't verify this, but I read a 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.880 bit of unsourced trivia online that this movie was played 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:55.160 every year at Christmas on Norwegian television, where I believe 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:58.280 it would have been known as a RockA uven, meaning 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:02.119 the rock Wolf. And so I don't know, I guess 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:04.960 we are in Christmas movie territory, whether whether or not 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:06.000 we meant to be this week. 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:08.640 Yeah, and it's when we get into the plot later on, 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:12.120 it does seem like there is some sort of well, 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:15.520 you know, there is some winter folkloric magic going on here, 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:18.560 so it does seem to fit well within like the 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:20.800 Holiday movie universe. 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:23.640 Yeah, yeah, we get a winter fairy who comes and 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:27.039 saves a little goat boy who has gotten lost in 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:29.720 the in the wilderness. Oh but I should mention the 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.440 third major type of reaction, So we've got the this 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:35.880 movie is is weird. I love it. We've got this 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:38.080 movie is nostalgic for me. I saw it when I 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:40.400 was a kid. And then the third type is my 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:45.200 fanatical celebrity crush. Is a weird pipe smoking wolf or 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:49.120 a heavenly goat mother or both. And this type of 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:52.360 reaction could overlap with one of the other histories possibly, 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.200 but a lot of people crushing on the main sort 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:57.719 of lead animals in this movie. 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:01.760 Yeah, this movie has dare I say, strong furry energy 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:05.839 to it. If you if you at any point in 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:10.200 your life you've really gotten into the practical makeup effects 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:14.920 for the cat's musical or perhaps the I finally remember 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:20.680 this show Zubli Zoo starring Ben Vereen. This was like 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:24.479 a kid's musical dance show, very Broadway, and all the 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:25.839 makeup was very cats. 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:29.039 I've never seen Zubalizo, but I watched part of this 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:31.359 movie with my wife and she she compared it to 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:32.360 Zublizu as well. 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:37.080 Yes, strong Zubali Zoo energy, and yeah, it has a 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.719 lot of attractive people dressed up as these animals. So 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:44.240 I did have to wonder at times like if I 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.960 was bringing that energy into it, if other people were 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:51.000 having that reaction as well, Because I just came off 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:53.159 a couple of viewings of nineteen seventy six is were 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:55.360 Wolf Woman. So I don't know if I'm letting like 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:59.760 the were Wolf Woman experience taint my viewing of a 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:05.520 family children's Christmas story, you know, from several countries away. 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.240 No, I mean, it's not the only movie of this sort, 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:12.480 but I think from what I can tell, everything explicit 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.880 about it is you know, very it's very family friendly 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:18.800 and it's you know, it's a children's movie. It's a 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.960 fairy tale movie. But there's sort of a second level 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:24.880 of interpretation that a lot of people I think, look 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:27.920 back on it with after they grew up watching it, 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:32.159 and in fact regarding that first type of reaction, like 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:34.080 all the people who were saying, oh, I watched this 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.920 so many times as a child, like maybe on Norwegian 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:41.480 TV or in Norway. Somehow this connects to another interesting 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:45.560 thing I found online, which was a trailer for a 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:51.960 live musical stage adaptation which played at the Norwegian National 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.279 Theater in twenty eleven. And I so wish I could 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:57.360 go back in time and see this. I would fly 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:59.760 to Norway. If they do a revival, I don't know, 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:03.000 maybe they keep doing this thing. But kind of interesting 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.320 thing about it is the movie I think is firmly 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:10.520 aimed at kids. It's like a it's extremely weird, but 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:14.760 it is a family fairy tale adventure. Just from the trailer, 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:19.080 this stage musical looks to me more explicitly aimed at adults. 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.800 It has slight, slight, rocky horror energy. 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.840 Yes, yes, soft, but yes, I see what you're saying 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:31.040 like the little clips in the trailer feel like something 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.560 in one sense aimed at adults who have passionate nostalgia 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.120 for a movie they loved as children, but with a 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:41.040 sense of irony about the weirder aspects. For example, a 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.000 few of the clips from the stage version really seem 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.000 to press on the sexual tension between Mama Goat and 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:49.960 mister Wolf. Like. I pulled out a few screenshots for 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:51.800 you to look at. Rob. This is again, this is 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.440 not from the movie. This is from the stage version, 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:58.480 where we've got Mama Goat here spanking the wolf them 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:01.720 just like making weird faces each other. And then here's 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.240 this one scene where suddenly Mama Goat has had a 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.760 costume change and she's no longer in her Romanian folk 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:10.600 dress and is wearing some kind of black leather thing 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:11.920 with a bunch of metal rivets. 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:13.840 Yeah, at this point, I feel like we're in a 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:14.679 meat love video. 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:19.000 Yes, yeah, but no yeah again. To be clear, this 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:22.480 does not happen in the movie. I think adult viewers 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:26.880 will find it impossible to miss the weird tension between 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.440 the wolf Titisuru and the goat mother Rata, but it's 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:32.719 not explicit in the movie, and it's not played for 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:37.080 laughs like it seems to be here. So technically, this 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:42.160 movie is a film adaptation of one version of the 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.960 fairy tale known as The Wolf and the Seven Young 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:49.360 Kids in the Brother's Grim Catalog, and we'll get to 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:51.679 the details of that story later on. I'll summarize it 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.679 when we get to the plot, but overall the movie 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:58.240 is quite loose on plot. Rock and Roll Wolf is 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:02.280 like many musicals of an experience. It's kind of hard 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:07.120 to communicate how much experience is packed into this eighty 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:10.480 minute movie, the kind of time I personally had with it. 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.679 The runtime just flew by, especially in the first half, 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:17.240 with the song and dance numbers just coming so fast, 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:21.240 and the tone and the visual and sonic texture constantly 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:25.200 switching up with this kind of rapid shuffling deck of 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:28.320 cards kind of feeling. I loved Rock and Roll Wolf, 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:31.240 and I think it's a real shame that, as far 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:33.560 as I'm aware, there is not like a high quality 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:38.640 blu ray of the English version available today. I really 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:42.120 really want that, because this is a gem of a film. 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.199 Oh and I guess sorry. That brings up a second 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.960 impressive thing about this movie. It is a film where 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:54.240 the main creative inputs were Romanian and Russian. But there 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:58.160 is a native English version of the film, so not 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.880 just subtitles, not even just to d U. There is 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:05.400 a version of the movie where the songs have lyrics 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.520 in English and are performed in English by the cast. Now, 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:13.600 it might be different voice actors than the people playing 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:16.360 the characters on screen. I'm not sure, because I did 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:20.680 listen to snippets of songs from the different versions. There's 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.600 at least one in Romanian, one in Russian, and one 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:25.280 in English. I don't know if there are any other 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:28.960 language versions, And the voices sound kind of different to me, 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.960 so I think it might be different singers. But like 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:35.960 one example was that I recall in the Russian version 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:38.960 the wolf sounded a lot less suave than in the 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:41.079 English version and more kind of rascally. 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:45.120 Yeah, I did notice that the English track was recorded 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:49.400 in London, so you know, I mean, that kind of 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:51.600 leads me to believe it is a different a different 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:53.720 vocal cast for the English cut. But the English cut's 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.080 the version we watched. That's at least a version that 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.319 as of this recording is floating around out there. I 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:05.760 asked around about this movie at Video Drome here in Atlanta, 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:08.840 the video rental store, and John, one of the guys 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.320 who works there, is quite knowledgeable. He was looking around 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:14.719 looking stuff up and he pointed out there is a 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:18.640 DVD version of this film or a DVD R. I'm 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.480 not sure in the technical specs there, but there is 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:24.600 some sort of diss you can buy. You might have 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:26.160 to go on eBay to get it, he said, but 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:28.960 it does exist. But in terms of like a really 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:31.360 nice like Blu ray edition, which clearly a film like 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:34.240 this deserves, he said. You know, a good place to 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.559 watch out for it would maybe be the Deaf Crocodile guys. 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:41.000 That company puts out a number of great films, some 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.640 you know, some Russian films for sure, and so that 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.839 those would be the guys to pester with your with 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:51.480 your requests for Rock and Roll Wolf aka Mama. 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.880 Well, yes, I fully endorse that please put this out 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:57.800 because this is you can tell you can just look through. 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:02.160 The core of visual assets are fantastic. This is a 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:06.480 movie of beautiful production values. It has these great sets. 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:09.480 It's set in this fairy tale animal village in the 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.280 middle of a forest with all these you know strang 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:16.439 like these Romanian folk cabins and weird sets. But it's 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:18.959 also got like some disco kind of sets. Oh yeah 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:23.280 for sure. So yeah, the psychotropic elements dominate as well. 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:27.880 The costumes and the makeup are just you know, push 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:33.319 to eleven. It's almost constantly something something beautiful to behold. 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:37.120 It is definitely a nineteen seventies musical, There's absolutely no 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:40.520 doubting that. Like if you have ever seen like the 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:45.240 original film adaptation of Godspell, indeed Rocky Heart Picture Show 0:12:45.440 --> 0:12:47.160 or a movie if we've talked about on the show 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:49.600 before The Apple, which came out in the nineteen eighties, 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:54.559 but he's still a seventies rock musical, Like this has 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.200 all of that energy, the rock and rolls there, the 0:12:57.240 --> 0:12:59.880 disco elements are there, and also that kind of like 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:06.319 bohemian vibe, you know of these troubadours and bards floating 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:10.720 around in a troubled decade but still keeping some of 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.760 that energy of the late nineteen sixties alive in their art. 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:18.200 Yeah. Hey, hey, hey, Wolf's on the way. So like 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:20.600 I can see that comparison with The Apple and all that, 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:22.719 and another one I saw people a comparison I saw 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:26.160 people making online was Tommy, you know, the adamiation of 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:31.480 the Who album. So yeah, I absolutely see that though 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:36.199 something about this does feel a little It has common 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:40.960 esthetic elements, but it feels less decadent than a lot 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.680 of your western seventies rock operas. It feels more wholesome 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:46.680 and kind of forest magic based. 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:47.439 Yeah. 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:47.840 Yeah. 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:50.839 It is ultimately angling for children and features a lot 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.400 of child characters. So yeah, it's it's it's managing to 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:55.520 be all these things at once. 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:58.320 But on the other hand, don't want to over sell 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.280 the wholesomeness or make its ound bland like it does 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:05.520 have strong Mother Goose drops acid energy. 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:07.400 Is that your elevator pitch? 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:10.480 Yeah, that's gotta be Mother Mother Goose drops acid and 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:12.640 joins the spiders from Mars. 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.080 All right, you know, I'm not sure we actually have 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:22.360 any trailer audio for this one, given the nature of 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:25.240 the picture. We'll hunt around a little bit and if 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:27.200 we can find something, we'll throw it in here. If not, 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.920 maybe we can get JJ to sample just a tiny 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:34.200 bit of the audio. If not, you know, you'll never 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:35.920 hear this part because we'll cut it down. 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:50.320 I should say home now you can open the door. 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:54.680 Don't be afraid now not any more. 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:07.560 He suus coucis plains, tell us an occuntation. 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:13.880 We lend a helping hand in suit operation. 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:27.960 I'm the don't keeper trincle. He ho my brother a 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:39.160 good kicker. All right, if you want to see this 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:41.880 film for yourself, we already discussed ways you might be 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:44.400 able to find it, and perhaps find it in the future. 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.680 Who knows, but this is always the case. We do 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:50.120 urge you to watch it in the best quality possible, 0:15:51.320 --> 0:16:02.120 however you obtain it. All right, Let's get into the 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.800 people behind this picture, all right. Starting at the top, 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:10.880 we have ELIZABETHA. Boston born nineteen thirty one, the director 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:14.760 Romanian film director and screenwriter whose credits include nineteen sixty 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:18.160 four's Memories of My Childhood, nineteen sixty eight's Kingdom in 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.600 the Clouds, seventy two is Veronica, and seventy threes Veronica 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:25.600 Comes Back. She's been involved in various stage and screen 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.320 projects over the course of her long career, as well 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:30.520 as in academia concerning film. 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:35.880 Apparently, these Veronica movies she did are also sort of wild, 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.160 sort of fairy tale fantasies aimed at children. And I'm 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:42.640 interested in checking those out because oh we didn't. I 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.600 guess we didn't mention this yet. But one of the 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:48.680 appeals of getting into this movie this week is that, 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.480 of course every Christmas season, Rob and I get in 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:56.880 mind the mind of Jack Frost or Morosco the Great 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:01.880 the Christmas Tale of the Russo Finished Taiga, But that 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:05.600 one I saw little echoes of that in the movie 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:08.000 we're talking about today. And in the screenshots I saw 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.160 from the Veronica movies, I saw some comparisons one could 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.040 make to moros Co as well. So those are going 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:15.679 to be on my radiar. I want to come back 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:16.680 and check them out. 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.080 All right. As for the writing here, we have two 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:23.960 screenplay credits. One is a Russian and the other is 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:29.080 a Romanian. We have a Yuri Intin born nineteen thirty five, 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:31.720 Russian author, a musician whose other credits include various other 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:36.800 children's pictures. And then we have Vasilica Istrad lived nineteen 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.119 thirty four through two thousand and two, Romanian producer and 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:42.440 writer who works several times in a writing capacity with Bustan. 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:44.560 And this is a good a time as any to 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:49.320 add usual caveat my apologies for any mispronunciations of the 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:53.280 various Russian, Romanian and French names that are going to 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:59.359 be involved in this multi national production. Here, all right, 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.920 this film, there's no doubt about it, stars Ludmila Gorshenko 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:09.240 playing Rata the Goat. This is the titular Mama from 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:13.280 the versions of the film you'll find with the title Mama, 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:18.280 and she lived nineteen thirty five through twenty eleven. 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:21.720 Radiating goodness and light even when the forest is dark. 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:26.280 She has strong you know, she's the paladin, she's the 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:30.040 heroin character, and she comes off as so good and 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.960 so pure, even when she's like flirting with the wolf 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:34.600 who's going to eat her children. 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.399 I mean, you very well may think that you were 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:42.480 immune to the wiles of various satyrs and Baphamets and 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:47.160 even mister Tumness. But you know, you need to watch 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:49.920 this film and see how Rada hits for you, because 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:54.440 her charisma, her brightness or just absolute goodness shines through. 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:57.240 And also something about you know, she has this little 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:00.040 button nose that seems to just work so well with 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:01.640 the big goat horns and all. 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:04.600 Yeah, yeah, she does have goat horns and they do 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:09.199 the It feels like a very Eastern Bloc style of 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:11.600 makeup effects. Though I think the makeup in this movie 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.760 might have been done by the fringe. I'm not sure, but. 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:16.960 Yeah, I think I saw at least some French credits 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:17.880 for the makeup. Yeah. 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:20.760 Well, anyway, it's something I recognized from Morosco as well, 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:24.600 the freckles she has, which are just done. It looks 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.240 like with like a black felt tip pin, just black 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:30.720 felt tip, little freckles on her cheeks. Well. 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:35.719 Grushenko was a Ukrainian born, Russian and Soviet actress, singer, 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:39.600 and overall entertainer. While she at times was seen as 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:43.119 too Western by Soviet entertainment tastemakers earlier in her career, 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:45.879 she went on to be a highly regarded actress in 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:49.560 Soviet and post Soviet Russia, receiving the highest acting honors 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.359 during both eras she worked well into her seventies on 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:56.639 stage and in TV and film. She put out several 0:19:56.640 --> 0:20:00.400 albums in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, and her best 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:05.720 known films include nineteen fifty six's Carnival Nights, nineteen seventy Nines, 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:11.359 Sibera Day, and nineteen seventy six is Twenty Days Without War, 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:14.919 which was apparently suppressed to some degree due to its 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:18.640 anti war themes and wasn't released until nineteen eighty one, 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:24.600 and that was after the success of seventy nine Siberi Day, 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:27.760 so you know, at that point there was no stopping her. 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:30.959 I was exploring her filmography a bit I have. This 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:34.000 is the only film I've seen starring her, but clearly 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:37.200 she's a huge name and a number of prestige pictures, 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:39.600 like she's not an actress that you find in any 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:44.480 like sci fi and horror pictures. But of note, there's 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:50.320 nineteen ninety one's Sex Kaska, which I think translates to 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:54.600 sex story, and it's a fantasy mystery picture. It looks 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:56.679 like it has some like sexy aspects to it, but 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:59.399 also seems to have a very almost kind of noir 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:04.919 quality to the filmmaking. The only other two films that 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:08.400 I think fall roughly into a fantasy genre for her 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.439 were nineteen sixty ones The Man from Nowhere in nineteen 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:15.200 seventy one's Ten. So yeah, this is my first time 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:17.840 seeing her in a film, but it seems based on 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:19.800 what I was reading and like the oh bit that 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.920 ran in The Guardian when she passed it seems difficult 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:27.880 to overstress how successful she was as an actress in Russia. 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:30.960 It seems hard to believe that she didn't do more 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:34.160 like sci fi and genre type movies when you look 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:37.320 at some of her press photos. Yeah, there's one you share. 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:39.360 I don't know what this is from, but there's one 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:42.000 photo you shared with me. It's clearly from some kind 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:45.640 of magazine shoot or something where she's I guess she's 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:48.359 having a picnic. She's sitting out in the middle of 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:51.560 a field with a blanket spread out under her, and 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:54.399 she's got you know, kind of like a ratan lined 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:58.640 wine bottle there, but she's got several daggers in ornate sheaths. 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:01.879 She's wearing one of those like felt mountaineer hats with 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:05.120 feathers in it. She's got a flask of some guy 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:07.880 next to her, just some kind of bunches of grapes 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:10.240 lying around, and then a falcon in her hand like 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:13.560 it's per she's got one those leather gloves and just yeah, falconing. 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:17.399 Between this image and the still I shared with you 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:19.680 from sex Story, in which she's wearing like some sort 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:22.359 of like she got crazy makeup on and this big 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:25.520 furry hat like both of these images, and I really 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:28.000 to an extent. Also the screen cap here we have 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:31.000 from today's movie. If I encountered all of these and 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:33.240 like a Google image search, I would be like, get 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:35.880 this AI stuff out of here. Nice try mid journey. 0:22:36.040 --> 0:22:38.440 But I'm not believing that this is a real image 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:41.520 of a woman with a falcon and a ceremonial dagger 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:43.920 and a big flowery hat out on a picnck. 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:47.200 Yeah, somebody put into the prompt like a Russian actress 0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:48.639 as Edward scissor hands. 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:52.120 Yeah, but these are all real, These are actual photos. 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:54.919 I think I found the bird one on a blog 0:22:54.960 --> 0:22:58.520 about like Russian pop culture. All right, so that that 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:01.800 is our star. That is mama that. But on the 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:04.600 other hand, this film was also known as rock and 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:07.479 Roll Wolf, So who is our wolf? Well, the character 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:14.000 is Titisuru played by Mikhail Boyarsky born nineteen forty nine 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:17.840 Russian actor and singer, apparently best known for some adventure 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:22.080 films he did, especially a nineteen seventy nine Soviet Three 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:25.600 Musketeers movie in which he played the lead role of d'Artagnan. 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:28.280 In fact, I think the name of that movie this 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:31.040 may be in translation or you know international releases, but 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:34.240 I saw it referenced as d'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers, 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:36.480 so he must have stood out from the rest of 0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:36.919 the bunch. 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:40.159 Yeah, well, wait a minute, No is d'Artagnan one of 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:42.000 the three Musketeers. I think he might not be. 0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:43.959 He's not. It's been a long time sin they've done 0:23:43.960 --> 0:23:44.800 Three Musketeers. 0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:47.399 But I gotta look this up. I'm not gonna be 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:48.679 able to rest until I know. 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:51.440 Yeah, I haven't. As a kid, I watched at least 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:53.800 one of the versions that had Oliver Reid in it. 0:23:53.920 --> 0:23:56.040 But yeah, it's been a long time since they interacted. 0:23:56.040 --> 0:23:58.720 Because sometimes there are four of them, right, they're three Musketeers. 0:23:59.160 --> 0:24:04.680 Yes, that's right, it's d'Artagnan, Athos Aramis, and Porthos. I could. 0:24:04.720 --> 0:24:08.040 I just looked it up. So Porthos was Oliver Reed. Okay, 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:10.439 I didn't know that, but yeah, that's right. It's like 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:14.000 d'Artagnan appreciates these other three guys, the Three Musketeers. 0:24:14.200 --> 0:24:15.960 All right, well, there you go. Well this is apparently 0:24:16.119 --> 0:24:18.240 his big role that skyrocketed his career. 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:19.160 I believe he's. 0:24:19.080 --> 0:24:22.159 Currently retired from acting, but apparently remains an active voice 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:23.800 in Russian politics. 0:24:24.160 --> 0:24:28.760 So this guy is obviously a big part of the 0:24:28.800 --> 0:24:31.920 impression this movie makes on people. Like I think there's 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:34.800 a reason that one of the release names, like the 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:39.920 international title was rock and Roll Wolf, because people online 0:24:39.960 --> 0:24:41.280 have thoughts about this guy. 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:45.840 Yeah, I mean, I mean he's a slind, tall slender really, 0:24:46.119 --> 0:24:49.760 you know, has like kind of kind of liking you know, 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:54.080 aspects to his his body and face already. But yeah, 0:24:54.080 --> 0:24:56.760 he's wearing all black. He's constantly smoking a pipe, and 0:24:56.800 --> 0:24:58.760 I mean constantly. I don't know if there's a single 0:24:58.760 --> 0:25:03.760 scene where he isn't smoking a pipe. Yeah, he has 0:25:03.800 --> 0:25:07.960 a real rock star energy. Reminded, I was reminded at 0:25:08.000 --> 0:25:10.240 times of like Frank Zappa, you know. 0:25:10.840 --> 0:25:13.040 Yes, yeah, a little bit Frank Zappa, because he's got 0:25:13.040 --> 0:25:15.960 that He's got a strong mustache and part of a 0:25:16.000 --> 0:25:19.840 little beard with with the dark hair and the heavy eyebrows. 0:25:20.359 --> 0:25:20.479 Uh. 0:25:20.640 --> 0:25:25.800 I'm thinking a cross between somewhere between Jerreth the Goblin 0:25:25.960 --> 0:25:30.200 King and I remember in Almost Famous, when Billy Krudip 0:25:30.200 --> 0:25:32.359 plays a rock star, there's a little bit of a 0:25:32.359 --> 0:25:33.960 resemblance there. 0:25:34.119 --> 0:25:37.360 He's the one I'm a Golden God, right remember remember, yeah? 0:25:37.920 --> 0:25:40.520 Right? Yeah, So there's a good bit of that. But 0:25:40.640 --> 0:25:44.320 he is just a just a rascally gyrate and rock 0:25:44.359 --> 0:25:47.720 star in the middle of this fairy tale village with 0:25:47.720 --> 0:25:50.280 with a twinkle in his eye so bright it would 0:25:50.280 --> 0:25:54.200 be like registered on telescopes and other other star systems. 0:25:55.160 --> 0:25:59.040 Like he he is up to no good. Oh and 0:25:59.080 --> 0:26:02.000 I almost forgot him in. This is true of most 0:26:02.040 --> 0:26:04.919 of the characters in the movie, but it's especially notable 0:26:04.920 --> 0:26:10.440 in his case wearing an Amadeas style wig, gigantic voluminous 0:26:10.520 --> 0:26:13.600 wig in his case, with just these you know, kind 0:26:13.640 --> 0:26:17.320 of swishes of curly wavy hair going all over the place. 0:26:18.440 --> 0:26:22.480 Everybody's got their own type of voluminous wig, but his 0:26:22.640 --> 0:26:24.400 is I don't know. It looks really good. 0:26:25.160 --> 0:26:27.280 Yeah, So we'll have a lot more to say about 0:26:27.280 --> 0:26:29.560 this performance, but at this point we're going to get 0:26:29.560 --> 0:26:33.320 into some of the supporting players and animals playing Donkey. 0:26:33.680 --> 0:26:38.800 We have George Mihaitz born nineteen forty eight. This is 0:26:38.800 --> 0:26:41.600 a Romanian actor and direct director, apparently a pretty big 0:26:41.640 --> 0:26:44.920 name in Romanian cinema. His films include nineteen sixty eight's 0:26:45.000 --> 0:26:48.920 Reconstruction and two thousand and eight Silent Wedding, as well 0:26:48.960 --> 0:26:52.119 as the sci fi comedy, A Fantastic comedy from nineteen 0:26:52.160 --> 0:26:55.920 seventy five. This was I thought one of the creepier 0:26:56.240 --> 0:26:58.679 characters in the film. I don't know, every time Donkey 0:26:58.800 --> 0:27:01.680 was on screen, I was at least a little creeped out, 0:27:01.880 --> 0:27:05.439 in part because he falls in with the gang that 0:27:05.520 --> 0:27:11.800 is supporting mister Wolf, that's supporting Suru in his various schemes. 0:27:12.080 --> 0:27:13.840 But I don't know, there's something about his face, like 0:27:13.880 --> 0:27:18.840 he puts out this like calm, serene kind of clown face, 0:27:19.760 --> 0:27:23.400 but he's like actively supporting the main villain. And he's 0:27:23.400 --> 0:27:25.560 a donkey, like not this is not an animal that 0:27:25.760 --> 0:27:28.000 I would necessarily think of as, Oh, yeah, the Donkey's 0:27:28.040 --> 0:27:29.520 gonna definitely fall in with the wolf. 0:27:29.800 --> 0:27:32.879 He's the only herbivore in the wolf gang. 0:27:33.480 --> 0:27:37.240 Yeah, what does that mean? Maybe it gets into I 0:27:37.280 --> 0:27:39.600 don't know, it could be something cultural. We've talked before 0:27:39.640 --> 0:27:43.440 about about donkeys and how sometimes they are associated, at 0:27:43.480 --> 0:27:48.880 least in ancient Babylon or ancient Sumeria, with various demons 0:27:48.880 --> 0:27:50.080 and so forth. So I don't know. 0:27:50.600 --> 0:27:55.840 His emotional key is strange. He's like a morose gray clown. 0:27:56.119 --> 0:27:59.480 Where we were just talking about everybody's wigs. His wig 0:27:59.640 --> 0:28:04.520 is great Nigel Toughnell, and he has got big donkey 0:28:04.560 --> 0:28:08.520 ears on top, though he strangely has a lot of 0:28:08.600 --> 0:28:10.919 soul at a few moments. Do you remember the he 0:28:11.080 --> 0:28:15.000 haw song, Like the part where he's just plaintively singing 0:28:15.080 --> 0:28:17.639 he haw, he haw, he haw. 0:28:17.880 --> 0:28:20.600 Yeah? Yeah, and Andy gets a love interest later then 0:28:20.880 --> 0:28:23.679 I don't know why, but that was decided we needed that, 0:28:23.920 --> 0:28:30.000 so so yes, Donkey, We'll come back to Donkey. Fascinating 0:28:30.080 --> 0:28:34.520 character in the Rock and Roll Wolf universe. Another care 0:28:34.560 --> 0:28:36.800 this is one we're introduced to, like right off the bat, 0:28:37.040 --> 0:28:40.200 we have the character Parrot. It is kind of a 0:28:40.240 --> 0:28:42.880 stretch to see him as a parrot. At first, he 0:28:42.920 --> 0:28:45.560 seems like maybe he's some sort of a clown, but yeah, 0:28:45.600 --> 0:28:49.160 he's a parrot. Played by Florian Pittis who of nineteen 0:28:49.200 --> 0:28:51.480 forty three through two thousand and seven. This is a 0:28:51.640 --> 0:28:54.600 Romanian actor, a folk musician and general entertainer. 0:28:55.160 --> 0:28:57.440 They mainly signal that he's a parrot just by giving 0:28:57.480 --> 0:29:02.080 him a very colorful outfit and wig. But yeah, he 0:29:02.120 --> 0:29:05.040 doesn't have a beak or anything. And the role of 0:29:05.080 --> 0:29:07.840 the parrot here is interesting because he's a kind of 0:29:09.600 --> 0:29:14.960 entertainer slash vender or slash auctioneer. You know, he's kind. 0:29:14.760 --> 0:29:20.920 Of a traveling bard or something, perhaps you know, music man. Perhaps, 0:29:21.160 --> 0:29:22.480 I don't know. At times I was like, it was 0:29:22.520 --> 0:29:24.440 this guy up to no good? Is he a con 0:29:24.480 --> 0:29:26.120 man or something? But now he's just here to tell 0:29:26.160 --> 0:29:29.720 stories and sing songs and gather everyone together inside the 0:29:29.760 --> 0:29:30.840 Magical Disco Ball. 0:29:31.200 --> 0:29:35.360 Yeah, it's interesting the level that they go to communicate 0:29:35.800 --> 0:29:39.440 what animal each person is. So i'd say, you know, Rada, 0:29:39.960 --> 0:29:41.720 I mean, she looks very human in one sense, but 0:29:41.760 --> 0:29:43.360 you can tell she's a goat. She's got the clear 0:29:44.480 --> 0:29:47.640 in the ears. There's no mistaking a parrot here. I 0:29:47.680 --> 0:29:49.920 don't know. Yeah, he could just be like a human clown. 0:29:50.680 --> 0:29:54.680 And there's another one, like the Bear family. They don't 0:29:54.720 --> 0:29:57.240 work that hard to make them come off as bears. 0:29:57.280 --> 0:30:00.200 They just look like humans in strange makeup. 0:30:00.280 --> 0:30:02.560 They just look like human clowns. And in fact, I 0:30:02.560 --> 0:30:05.160 don't think the next character, Father Martin the Bear, is 0:30:05.280 --> 0:30:08.960 named in the English version that we watched, but Father 0:30:09.000 --> 0:30:12.080 Martin the Bear is played by noted Soviet and Russian 0:30:12.120 --> 0:30:15.760 clown and circus artists Oleg Popoff, who lived nineteen thirty 0:30:15.760 --> 0:30:18.560 through two twenty sixteen. Not to be confused. I think 0:30:18.560 --> 0:30:21.360 there's an Olegg pop Off MMA fighter right now. This 0:30:21.400 --> 0:30:25.959 is different. This guy's a lover, not a fighter, and 0:30:26.120 --> 0:30:29.840 a laugher not a fighter. Maybe mostly worked in purely 0:30:29.920 --> 0:30:33.640 Russian film, but also appeared in nineteen seventy six is 0:30:33.680 --> 0:30:36.440 the Bluebird. I wasn't familiar with this, but this is 0:30:36.480 --> 0:30:40.360 apparently an American Soviet co production, an American Soviet co 0:30:40.440 --> 0:30:44.160 production made during the height of the Cold War, starring 0:30:44.160 --> 0:30:46.000 Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda. 0:30:46.680 --> 0:30:48.160 I did not know there was such a thing. 0:30:48.360 --> 0:30:51.280 Yeah, I don't know much about it beyond that, but 0:30:52.320 --> 0:30:55.320 that's fascinating. As for Oleg pop Off, I'm not sure, 0:30:55.320 --> 0:30:56.480 but I feel like this is a name I had 0:30:56.520 --> 0:30:59.480 heard before. I don't know if in the past, someone 0:30:59.760 --> 0:31:03.560 like I ran into a clowning enthusiast at a party 0:31:03.640 --> 0:31:05.320 or something and they decided to tell me about the 0:31:05.360 --> 0:31:08.240 Great Oily pop Off, But I feel like this name 0:31:08.280 --> 0:31:10.840 has come up for me before. And this is also, 0:31:10.880 --> 0:31:12.440 by the way, a guy. When you see him in 0:31:12.480 --> 0:31:14.640 the film, you're like, this guy's a pro clown. There's 0:31:14.680 --> 0:31:15.720 no doubt about. 0:31:15.440 --> 0:31:18.720 It, not at all. In how he physically looks, but 0:31:18.840 --> 0:31:21.240 in the way that he is dressed here and the 0:31:21.280 --> 0:31:24.680 way that he acts like his physical comedy reminded me 0:31:24.720 --> 0:31:25.600 of Harpo Marx. 0:31:26.080 --> 0:31:32.160 Hmmm, yes, all right. Next we have a severely Kramarov 0:31:32.240 --> 0:31:35.360 playing the young wolf. Let's see, there's another. They refer 0:31:35.480 --> 0:31:40.640 him as something else, like little nephew Wolf something. But 0:31:40.720 --> 0:31:42.880 he's definitely part of the villain gang obviously, I mean 0:31:42.920 --> 0:31:43.840 he's a blood relative. 0:31:45.440 --> 0:31:46.440 But yeah. 0:31:46.440 --> 0:31:49.440 He lived nineteen thirty four through nineteen ninety five, a 0:31:49.480 --> 0:31:52.720 Soviet actor who then ended up immigrating to the US 0:31:52.800 --> 0:31:55.440 in nineteen seventy nine at the what was apparently the 0:31:55.440 --> 0:31:58.960 height of his popularity in the USSR, and his subsequent 0:31:59.120 --> 0:32:02.760 US films included nineteen eighty four's Moscow in the Hudson 0:32:02.840 --> 0:32:06.680 starring Robin Williams, twenty ten, The Year We Make Contact, 0:32:07.200 --> 0:32:10.160 nineteen eighty six is Armed and Dangerous, nineteen eighty eight's 0:32:10.200 --> 0:32:13.440 Red Heat, and nineteen eighty nine's Tango in Cash. I 0:32:13.480 --> 0:32:16.240 don't have to tell you that he generally played supporting 0:32:16.280 --> 0:32:19.640 Russian characters and or Russian bad guys in these pictures. 0:32:20.080 --> 0:32:22.080 One of these days I got to watch Red Heat, 0:32:22.520 --> 0:32:24.760 not that I expected to be good. It just seems 0:32:24.800 --> 0:32:26.600 like one of those that would be a kind of 0:32:26.680 --> 0:32:27.440 history lesson. 0:32:28.160 --> 0:32:30.560 I think of those the films I just named, twenty 0:32:30.600 --> 0:32:32.720 ten is the one I need to see. I haven't 0:32:32.760 --> 0:32:34.920 seen that one, and I've heard that while it's no 0:32:35.480 --> 0:32:39.240 two thousand and one, it is interesting in its own right. 0:32:40.320 --> 0:32:45.160 Yeah, I've seen it. It's not bad, but it's I 0:32:45.200 --> 0:32:46.960 don't know. I just don't know if I feel like 0:32:47.000 --> 0:32:49.960 two thousand and one needs a sequel film, but I 0:32:50.000 --> 0:32:51.800 don't know, you know, go for it. 0:32:52.360 --> 0:32:54.520 I saw Moscow in the Hudson though at a very 0:32:54.560 --> 0:32:58.520 young age, way too young. It has as I recall, 0:32:58.560 --> 0:33:00.760 there's like a lot of naked rock and Williams in it, 0:33:01.760 --> 0:33:06.280 but I don't remember its quality beyond that. I don't 0:33:06.320 --> 0:33:08.640 think I was at an age to understand what this 0:33:08.720 --> 0:33:13.520 movie was even about. Let's see moving on, Okay. This 0:33:13.520 --> 0:33:16.960 is just a very supporting character, but she stands out 0:33:16.960 --> 0:33:19.440 all the time in the scenes because she's our hot 0:33:19.440 --> 0:33:23.680 squirrel lady. She is played by Marina Poliak born nineteen 0:33:23.720 --> 0:33:26.960 fifty one, Russian actress best known for this film. Maybe 0:33:27.000 --> 0:33:28.920 she was a squirrel woman, I don't know, and if so, 0:33:29.080 --> 0:33:31.680 like it's it's hard to get work in serious cinema. 0:33:31.760 --> 0:33:33.520 You mean, in real life she was part squirrel. I 0:33:33.520 --> 0:33:33.760 think she. 0:33:34.160 --> 0:33:36.240 I don't think she's in makeup here. She's just a 0:33:36.320 --> 0:33:37.520 humanoid squirrel person. 0:33:37.800 --> 0:33:41.600 There are near constant squirrel antics in this film. You know, 0:33:41.680 --> 0:33:44.400 there'll be a scene where you're trying to focus on 0:33:44.480 --> 0:33:47.000 what the main characters are doing, but then a squirrel 0:33:47.120 --> 0:33:50.760 just like runs through the frame. All right. 0:33:50.840 --> 0:33:54.160 The next character is the Swallow. I thought she was 0:33:54.160 --> 0:33:57.320 a spider when I watched the film, because the spider 0:33:57.520 --> 0:33:59.640 people like, she kind of looks like a spider woman. 0:34:00.040 --> 0:34:02.400 I don't know, like she lives in a tree in 0:34:02.520 --> 0:34:03.800 dangles from threads. 0:34:04.200 --> 0:34:06.400 Yeah, Like she doesn't have a beak, and she also 0:34:06.440 --> 0:34:10.080 doesn't have like mandibles or anything. But but yeah, I 0:34:10.120 --> 0:34:13.880 thought she was a spider. She's played by Violetta Andrei 0:34:14.480 --> 0:34:18.360 born nineteen forty one, a Romanian actress whose credits include 0:34:18.400 --> 0:34:21.280 the East German sci fi film The Dust of the Stars, 0:34:21.719 --> 0:34:24.920 which I believe I've seen and it's one that's been 0:34:24.920 --> 0:34:26.920 on the Weird House Cinema list for a while. To 0:34:26.960 --> 0:34:29.960 come back to okay, all right, and then coming to 0:34:30.040 --> 0:34:33.480 the musical credits, we have two one's French, one's Romanian. 0:34:34.080 --> 0:34:38.600 The French composer that's credited is Gerard Bourgeois, who lived 0:34:38.640 --> 0:34:41.960 nineteen thirty six through twenty sixteen, not to be confused 0:34:41.960 --> 0:34:44.439 with the French silent film era director of the same name. 0:34:44.680 --> 0:34:49.160 This guy's a composer songwriter. He composed a few songs 0:34:49.200 --> 0:34:51.880 that were made famous by Bridget Bardoux in the late sixties, 0:34:52.080 --> 0:34:54.960 and he also had a singles run as a musician 0:34:54.960 --> 0:34:58.319 in the early to mid nineteen sixties. And then on 0:34:58.360 --> 0:35:03.320 the Romanian side, we have to Mestoicole Popa or Papa 0:35:03.800 --> 0:35:07.520 nineteen twenty one through twenty thirteen. He's a Romanian composer 0:35:07.560 --> 0:35:10.640 who worked with the director of this film on numerous projects. 0:35:10.680 --> 0:35:13.160 I think he scored Veronica. I could be wrong on that, 0:35:13.239 --> 0:35:14.719 but if it wasn't Veronica, it was one of the 0:35:14.760 --> 0:35:16.720 other pictures that she'd done. 0:35:17.080 --> 0:35:19.120 As I said earlier, I think the music in the 0:35:19.120 --> 0:35:21.880 movie is quite strong and constant. 0:35:21.960 --> 0:35:24.680 This is so, you know, there are different types of musicals, 0:35:24.719 --> 0:35:26.560 and you know, I don't even know that I have 0:35:26.640 --> 0:35:29.279 the terminology in my head for the different types, but 0:35:29.320 --> 0:35:32.040 this is one where there are a handful of songs, 0:35:32.560 --> 0:35:34.920 but we keep coming back to them again and again, 0:35:35.120 --> 0:35:39.880 different characters singing them, also different renditions of those numbers, 0:35:40.360 --> 0:35:42.879 and it's nearly constant. It's not one of these where 0:35:42.960 --> 0:35:44.759 all right, we've had a little dialogue and now it's 0:35:44.800 --> 0:35:47.600 time for a full blown song. So much, but it's 0:35:47.640 --> 0:35:49.840 also not opera, you know. 0:35:49.960 --> 0:35:53.880 Yeah, and it really varies in terms of genre. Like 0:35:53.960 --> 0:35:56.800 parts of this are full on like rock opera. They're 0:35:56.840 --> 0:36:00.239 like rock songs, almost prog rock. Others feel more like 0:36:00.480 --> 0:36:02.880 traditional kind of stage musical numbers. 0:36:03.360 --> 0:36:06.160 Yeah, and at times it's a little like we've got 0:36:06.200 --> 0:36:08.600 some almost kind of like a Caribbean drum beat going 0:36:08.640 --> 0:36:09.600 on at times. 0:36:09.360 --> 0:36:12.239 You know, and the parrot songs, Yeah, the parrot. 0:36:12.080 --> 0:36:14.200 Songs, which I guess that makes sense, like what's a 0:36:14.200 --> 0:36:16.719 parrot doing here? Like it came from somewhere else, maybe 0:36:16.719 --> 0:36:19.480 we brought some different drum beats with it. And then 0:36:19.800 --> 0:36:23.200 other times there's certainly what feels like more of a 0:36:23.440 --> 0:36:27.040 I don't know, you know, you know, Russo or Romanian 0:36:27.880 --> 0:36:31.000 like folk music kind of mentality there. Certainly in some 0:36:31.040 --> 0:36:33.560 of like the more lullabot eccentric songs we. 0:36:33.560 --> 0:36:45.239 Hear, Yeah, I agreed, So I figure when we start 0:36:45.239 --> 0:36:47.200 off talking about the plot, we should talk about the 0:36:47.320 --> 0:36:49.640 folk tale this is based on I mentioned earlier. This 0:36:49.680 --> 0:36:53.600 is based on a traditional fairy tale, and so the 0:36:54.600 --> 0:36:58.400 Grim's fairy Tales rendition of this story is known as 0:36:58.560 --> 0:37:01.759 The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids. Here, I'm going 0:37:01.800 --> 0:37:05.600 to be drawing on a translation that's available online by d. L. Ashleman, 0:37:07.000 --> 0:37:09.279 and the story goes like this. So you've got a 0:37:09.320 --> 0:37:12.080 mother goat who has seven children, and they live together 0:37:12.080 --> 0:37:14.640 in a house in the forest, and one day mother 0:37:14.760 --> 0:37:17.960 has to leave home to forage for something to eat. 0:37:18.120 --> 0:37:21.080 She warns her children that there is a wolf in 0:37:21.120 --> 0:37:23.600 the woods, and while she is gone, the wolf of 0:37:23.640 --> 0:37:25.520 the woods will come to the door and ask to 0:37:25.560 --> 0:37:28.080 be let inside, and if they let him through the door, 0:37:28.120 --> 0:37:30.080 he will eat them all up, so they better keep 0:37:30.080 --> 0:37:32.600 the door shut. The children ask, how are we to 0:37:32.680 --> 0:37:35.760 know if it's you coming home, mummy, And so she says, 0:37:35.960 --> 0:37:38.520 if the young goat's here knocking at the door, they'll 0:37:38.560 --> 0:37:40.760 be able to know that it's their mother by listening 0:37:40.800 --> 0:37:44.520 for her soft voice and looking at her feet either 0:37:44.680 --> 0:37:47.280 under the door or through the window. And the wolf 0:37:47.320 --> 0:37:49.840 will have a rough voice and will have furry black 0:37:49.960 --> 0:37:53.040 paws and so she goes out. She leaves the house, 0:37:53.480 --> 0:37:56.120 and then the text reads quote, it was not long 0:37:56.200 --> 0:37:59.360 before someone knocked at the door and called out, open 0:37:59.440 --> 0:38:02.200 the door, children, Dear, your mother is here and has 0:38:02.200 --> 0:38:05.439 brought something for each one of you. But the little 0:38:05.560 --> 0:38:08.400 kids knew from the rough voice that it was the wolf. 0:38:08.880 --> 0:38:11.279 We will not open the door, they cried out. You 0:38:11.320 --> 0:38:14.320 are not our mother. She has a soft and gentle voice, 0:38:14.360 --> 0:38:17.880 but your voice is rough. You are the wolf. So 0:38:18.080 --> 0:38:20.799 after this, the wolf is like, hmm okay, thwarted. So 0:38:20.880 --> 0:38:23.240 he goes to a shop and he buys a piece 0:38:23.239 --> 0:38:26.160 of chalk, and then he eats the chalk and that 0:38:26.320 --> 0:38:29.920 makes his voice soft. Don't know how that works, but 0:38:30.000 --> 0:38:32.480 that is what the story says. He goes back to 0:38:32.520 --> 0:38:34.839 the house again and pretends to be the mother, goat 0:38:34.880 --> 0:38:38.759 on once again. This time the kids they hear the 0:38:38.800 --> 0:38:40.799 soft voice. But then they look out the window and 0:38:40.840 --> 0:38:43.520 they see the wolf's black paw and they know he 0:38:43.640 --> 0:38:45.320 is a wolf, and they tell him to go away. 0:38:45.719 --> 0:38:48.439 And then the text reads quote, So the wolf ran 0:38:48.560 --> 0:38:51.480 to a baker and said, I have sprained my foot. 0:38:51.719 --> 0:38:54.760 Rub some dough on it for me. After the baker 0:38:54.800 --> 0:38:57.200 had rubbed a dough on his foot. The wolf ran 0:38:57.280 --> 0:39:00.400 to the miller and said, sprinkle some white flour on 0:39:00.440 --> 0:39:03.600 my foot for me. The miller thought this wolf wants 0:39:03.640 --> 0:39:06.600 to deceive someone and refused to do it. So the 0:39:06.640 --> 0:39:08.960 wolf said, if you will not do it, I will 0:39:09.000 --> 0:39:12.160 eat you up. That frightened the miller, and he made 0:39:12.160 --> 0:39:15.160 his pall white for him. Yes, that is the way 0:39:15.160 --> 0:39:19.880 people are morals in the middle of the story, that 0:39:20.000 --> 0:39:23.799 is the way people are. So anyway, Now that he 0:39:23.800 --> 0:39:26.120 has swallowed the chalk to make his voice soft and 0:39:26.239 --> 0:39:29.120 gotten the flowered up dough foot, the wolf goes back 0:39:29.120 --> 0:39:32.160 to the house and tries tries again. This time he 0:39:32.200 --> 0:39:34.759 does trick the young goats, and the little goats led 0:39:34.840 --> 0:39:37.200 him inside, and he eats all of them except for 0:39:37.239 --> 0:39:41.480 the youngest one, who hides inside a clock. Then, satisfied, 0:39:41.520 --> 0:39:44.640 the wolf goes off takes a nap in a meadow. Meanwhile, 0:39:44.680 --> 0:39:47.200 mother goat comes home from her foraging, and she finds 0:39:47.239 --> 0:39:50.200 the house all in disarray and her children missing. And 0:39:50.239 --> 0:39:53.319 then she finally she locates the youngest goat hiding in 0:39:53.320 --> 0:39:56.120 the clock, who tells her what happened, and together they 0:39:56.200 --> 0:39:58.520 run to the meadow and find the wolf sleeping off 0:39:58.560 --> 0:40:02.320 his meal. But they see something moving and jiggling inside 0:40:02.360 --> 0:40:05.640 the wolf's belly. And then the text reads quote the 0:40:05.680 --> 0:40:08.400 mother goat sent the kid home and to fetch scissors 0:40:08.680 --> 0:40:11.960 and a needle and thread, and then she cut open 0:40:12.040 --> 0:40:15.760 the monster's paunch. She had scarcely made one cut before 0:40:15.800 --> 0:40:18.400 a little kid stuck its head out, And as she 0:40:18.480 --> 0:40:22.120 continued to cut, one after the other, all six jumped out, 0:40:22.200 --> 0:40:25.360 and they were all still alive. They were not even hurt, 0:40:25.440 --> 0:40:28.800 for in his greed, the monster had swallowed them down hole. 0:40:29.280 --> 0:40:32.279 How happy they were. They hugged their dear mother and 0:40:32.440 --> 0:40:36.880 jumped about like a tailor on his wedding day. But 0:40:36.920 --> 0:40:40.280 the mother said, go now and look for some big stones. 0:40:40.400 --> 0:40:43.399 We will fill the godless beast's stomach with them while 0:40:43.400 --> 0:40:47.040 he is still asleep. So the kids go gather the stones, 0:40:47.080 --> 0:40:49.080 they bring him back. They put the stones in the 0:40:49.120 --> 0:40:51.880 wolf's belly, and then they sew him up again, and 0:40:51.920 --> 0:40:54.640 the wolf wakes up thirsty, and he decides, well, I'm 0:40:54.680 --> 0:40:56.600 gonna go to a nearby well and get some water. 0:40:57.080 --> 0:40:59.880 But when he begins to walk, he cries out in pain. 0:41:00.080 --> 0:41:03.960 He cries out quote what rumbles and tumbles inside of me. 0:41:04.440 --> 0:41:07.200 I thought it was kids, but its stones that they be. 0:41:08.680 --> 0:41:11.000 And so the story finishes quote when he got to 0:41:11.040 --> 0:41:13.000 the well and leaned over the water to drink, the 0:41:13.040 --> 0:41:16.600 heavy stones pulled him in and he drowned miserably. When 0:41:16.640 --> 0:41:19.000 the seven kids saw what had happened, they ran up 0:41:19.040 --> 0:41:22.160 and cried out, the wolf is dead. The wolf is dead, 0:41:22.520 --> 0:41:25.480 and with their mother they danced for joy around about 0:41:25.520 --> 0:41:29.239 the well. So how much does this overlap with the 0:41:29.239 --> 0:41:35.080 plot of the movie. I would say medium moderately. Unfortunately, 0:41:35.320 --> 0:41:37.680 in this movie they never cut the wolf open and 0:41:37.760 --> 0:41:41.680 fill him up with stones, But the major conflict of 0:41:41.880 --> 0:41:46.120 the film is the same. And I guess because the 0:41:46.120 --> 0:41:48.360 plot here is very loose, we should just sort of 0:41:48.400 --> 0:41:50.919 summarize up top, and then we can go and fill 0:41:50.920 --> 0:41:54.560 in some texture when we talk about individual songs and scenes. 0:41:55.000 --> 0:41:59.200 But the general plot is that Mama Goat aka Missus 0:41:59.280 --> 0:42:02.520 Rada lives in a house in the forest with her 0:42:02.520 --> 0:42:05.680 goat children. In this case, it's within a kind of 0:42:05.760 --> 0:42:09.080 animal village where one house is full of rabbit people, 0:42:09.200 --> 0:42:12.880 one house's sheep, one house is squirrels, and so forth, 0:42:12.920 --> 0:42:16.120 and there's also a donkey, and there is a pipe 0:42:16.120 --> 0:42:20.439 smoking wolf in this village named Titisuru who he lives 0:42:20.480 --> 0:42:22.839 in town, and he spends the first quarter of the 0:42:22.840 --> 0:42:25.680 movie telling Rada that he is going to eat her children, 0:42:26.040 --> 0:42:28.360 and she tells him no, and then they dance and 0:42:28.400 --> 0:42:29.439 make eyes at each other. 0:42:29.840 --> 0:42:32.200 Yeah, there's a lot of like, no, for real, I'm 0:42:32.200 --> 0:42:35.560 going to eat your brats, like he calls them brats essentially, 0:42:36.160 --> 0:42:39.280 and he is pretty clear, like I'm a predator there, 0:42:39.320 --> 0:42:41.640 baby goats, i am going to eat your children. And 0:42:41.680 --> 0:42:43.840 she's like, oh, no, you won't. But there's kind of 0:42:43.840 --> 0:42:44.480 a wink there. 0:42:44.760 --> 0:42:48.080 Yeah. Yeah. And so in the movie, kind of like 0:42:48.080 --> 0:42:52.000 in the folk tale, there's a secret code that Mamorada 0:42:52.160 --> 0:42:54.520 uses to enter the goat castle, but in the movie, 0:42:54.880 --> 0:42:58.520 it's a song. It's a song that Rada teaches her children, 0:42:59.080 --> 0:43:01.440 and she has to say it note for note perfect 0:43:01.560 --> 0:43:05.560 to be granted access. And I'm sure anybody who's seen 0:43:05.600 --> 0:43:08.320 this movie will have this song burned in their brain forever. 0:43:08.440 --> 0:43:11.320 You hear it many many times, in both its correct 0:43:11.360 --> 0:43:16.000 form and in its incorrect form. When when crudely attempted 0:43:16.000 --> 0:43:20.240 by the wolf and his companions, but he goes MoMA's home. 0:43:20.360 --> 0:43:22.799 Now you can open the door and it goes on 0:43:22.880 --> 0:43:25.120 with this whole thing about like I've brought you strawberries 0:43:25.160 --> 0:43:27.319 covered in honeydew and stuff like that. 0:43:28.680 --> 0:43:30.640 And so the idea is the kids will listen, is like, 0:43:30.960 --> 0:43:33.680 is that is that Mama? I don't know. Let's hear yep, 0:43:33.719 --> 0:43:36.400 that's her. Her voice sounds perfect, it's beautiful. Then you 0:43:36.440 --> 0:43:38.960 open the door and she comes in right now. 0:43:39.080 --> 0:43:42.680 Sue Ru spends much of the movie trying to learn 0:43:42.760 --> 0:43:45.759 to sing this song correctly. He's like outside the house 0:43:45.840 --> 0:43:49.600 eavesdropping and writing out sheet music quickly as he hears it. 0:43:49.960 --> 0:43:51.959 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, So he spends a lot of time 0:43:52.040 --> 0:43:57.400 like workshopping at with his his buddies, the Donkey, the 0:43:57.520 --> 0:43:59.239 what the. 0:43:58.480 --> 0:43:59.640 The Links, the Lynk. 0:44:01.400 --> 0:44:03.680 Yeah, so they're all working on it, and at times 0:44:03.680 --> 0:44:06.520 it's just, you know, it's it's too rock and roll. 0:44:06.560 --> 0:44:09.000 You know, he is a rock and roll wolf after all, 0:44:09.560 --> 0:44:11.880 So it takes him a while to really refine the 0:44:11.960 --> 0:44:14.640 performance to the point where he can attempt to pull 0:44:14.680 --> 0:44:17.040 off this this scheme. 0:44:17.520 --> 0:44:19.799 Yeah. Now, there's a subplot in the middle here where 0:44:19.840 --> 0:44:24.080 one of the Goat children, the older boy Mattei, wants 0:44:24.120 --> 0:44:26.439 to escape the house and go to the fair while 0:44:26.480 --> 0:44:29.200 Mama is out even though it's dangerous and the wolf 0:44:29.280 --> 0:44:31.600 is prowling around, so he runs out and then he 0:44:31.640 --> 0:44:33.880 gets into trouble and he gets pursued by the wolf 0:44:33.880 --> 0:44:37.160 and his allies. But that's just sort of a b 0:44:37.320 --> 0:44:40.000 plot in the middle of the movie. Eventually, the wolf 0:44:40.120 --> 0:44:43.200 and his goons kidnap a couple of the goat kids, 0:44:44.120 --> 0:44:47.080 and even though early on it was suggested that the 0:44:47.120 --> 0:44:50.040 wolf would eat the children, he doesn't eat them. It 0:44:50.080 --> 0:44:52.239 seems what he really wants is to hold them for 0:44:52.480 --> 0:44:55.720 ransom so that Mama Rada must pay him a bag 0:44:55.800 --> 0:44:58.879 of gold. He's like, give me the gold. He has 0:44:58.960 --> 0:45:02.399 this short speech about how much he wants gold. Of 0:45:02.440 --> 0:45:04.600 what use is gold to a wolf? I don't know, 0:45:04.640 --> 0:45:06.360 but he wants gold, gold, gold. 0:45:06.680 --> 0:45:08.480 Well, I think one of his cronies ask him, like, 0:45:08.520 --> 0:45:09.799 what are you going to do with the gold, and 0:45:09.840 --> 0:45:12.400 he's like, I'm gonna do what everybody does with the gold, baby, 0:45:13.080 --> 0:45:14.880 which is spend it. But I mean, again, what's he 0:45:14.920 --> 0:45:17.840 going to spend it on? I guess I don't know. Food. 0:45:18.640 --> 0:45:22.680 The wolf in the Brother's Grim story does buy something. Remember, 0:45:22.719 --> 0:45:24.839 he goes and he buys chalk and then eats it. 0:45:25.280 --> 0:45:29.879 Okay, all right, so open question then yeah, so. 0:45:29.880 --> 0:45:32.680 Anyway, yeah, so a couple of the goat children get kidnapped, 0:45:33.120 --> 0:45:35.680 but then Rada comes up with a plan to get 0:45:35.719 --> 0:45:38.959 her children back and get revenge. So she first there's 0:45:39.000 --> 0:45:42.080 a lot of dancing, like ice skating and dancing around 0:45:42.120 --> 0:45:44.319 on the ice, and the whole village comes out to 0:45:44.360 --> 0:45:47.280 the frozen pond in the wintertime and ice skates around 0:45:47.320 --> 0:45:50.160 and dances and stuff. And then Rada dances with the 0:45:50.200 --> 0:45:54.120 wolf and there, you know, it's very flirty dancing. But 0:45:54.160 --> 0:45:56.120 then also he's like, give me the gold, and what 0:45:56.200 --> 0:46:00.239 the gold? And so she eventually uses what I don't 0:46:00.239 --> 0:46:01.960 know if it's actually a bag of gold, but it's 0:46:02.000 --> 0:46:04.080 something made to look like a bag of gold. She 0:46:04.239 --> 0:46:07.480 uses it as bait to trick him into falling into 0:46:07.640 --> 0:46:10.160 a trap that the villagers have made in the ice 0:46:10.239 --> 0:46:14.040 of the frozen pond. So the wolf falls into the water, 0:46:14.280 --> 0:46:17.080 and while he's drowning in the freezing water, his co 0:46:17.040 --> 0:46:21.080 conspirators again, the younger Wolf, the Lynx, and the donkey, 0:46:20.840 --> 0:46:23.680 they sort of have a change of heart and they 0:46:24.040 --> 0:46:27.360 bring Roda's children back to her, and then mister Wolf 0:46:27.480 --> 0:46:29.680 is pulled from the water and allowed to live, and 0:46:29.719 --> 0:46:32.560 he promises he has a changed wolf, he will never 0:46:32.680 --> 0:46:35.919 kidnap her children again, and everyone lives happily ever after. 0:46:36.760 --> 0:46:39.200 That's it, and that's how it goes down. Nobody is 0:46:39.239 --> 0:46:42.920 cut open, no stones are implanet in anybody's body, and 0:46:43.040 --> 0:46:47.200 everyone learns their lesson. But we cannot stress how much 0:46:47.440 --> 0:46:50.959 dancing and dare I say prancing occurs on the road? 0:46:51.040 --> 0:46:51.920 Did this conclusion? 0:46:52.120 --> 0:46:57.319 Oh, unbelievable amounts of gambling and gyrating about Oh, and 0:46:57.440 --> 0:46:59.319 I haven't mentioned this anywhere else, so I guess I'll 0:46:59.360 --> 0:47:01.840 just throw it in he or I mentioned that the 0:47:01.960 --> 0:47:04.200 you know, the visual textures of the movie are good, 0:47:04.320 --> 0:47:07.960 like the costumes and the and the makeup and the 0:47:08.000 --> 0:47:10.240 sets and all that are great. But I just really 0:47:10.360 --> 0:47:16.760 want to emphasize again how much how much landscape texture 0:47:16.840 --> 0:47:19.560 there is in the village set, which is a great 0:47:20.120 --> 0:47:23.040 is a great compliment to the choreography and the dancing. 0:47:23.760 --> 0:47:26.400 So it's in this lovely natural setting in the forest, 0:47:26.400 --> 0:47:29.239 but there are just all these interesting little things for 0:47:29.360 --> 0:47:32.360 the dancers to kind of move around and react to, 0:47:32.800 --> 0:47:37.000 all these little pathways and gates and staircases and ladders 0:47:37.000 --> 0:47:41.000 and railings and little bridges, and it's all very rustic 0:47:41.120 --> 0:47:45.279 and pretty, and it makes for a perfect landscape for 0:47:45.400 --> 0:47:48.520 these rambling dance numbers that lead the characters from one 0:47:48.600 --> 0:47:49.760 edge of the village to another. 0:47:50.480 --> 0:47:55.200 Absolutely. Yeah, it really the environment feels very authentic, you know, 0:47:55.440 --> 0:47:59.160 like it's almost like they these actors, as these animals 0:47:59.200 --> 0:48:02.520 lived here for months or something leading up to the 0:48:02.600 --> 0:48:03.440 actual filming. 0:48:03.800 --> 0:48:07.200 Yeah, okay, you want to talk about the individual scenes 0:48:07.200 --> 0:48:08.160 and musical numbers. 0:48:08.640 --> 0:48:10.919 Yeah, let's start at the beginning, because, you know, Joe, 0:48:10.960 --> 0:48:14.480 they pull a reverse Holy Mountain on us here, which 0:48:14.520 --> 0:48:15.400 is kind of interesting. 0:48:15.600 --> 0:48:20.799 Yeah. Yeah, So we start outside of the story with 0:48:20.960 --> 0:48:25.840 the credit sequence taking place over shots of the actors 0:48:25.880 --> 0:48:30.120 being introduced with credits as they get into costume and 0:48:30.160 --> 0:48:33.319 have their makeup applied. Interesting choice. 0:48:33.480 --> 0:48:36.399 Yeah, And for some reason for me, this really drove 0:48:36.480 --> 0:48:39.080 home the nineteen seventies musical quality. I don't know why. 0:48:39.120 --> 0:48:41.920 Maybe it's just because you're seeing, you know, guys and 0:48:41.960 --> 0:48:44.960 gals who are clearly denizens of the nineteen seventies, like 0:48:45.040 --> 0:48:50.160 in their casual clothing, being transformed into these timeless woodland creatures. 0:48:50.560 --> 0:48:55.000 Yeah, there is a softening, kind of humanizing element to 0:48:55.040 --> 0:48:57.600 it because, for example, One of the things we see 0:48:58.280 --> 0:49:02.880 is the actor who plays the villain, who plays mister Wolf, 0:49:03.560 --> 0:49:05.759 is like sitting in a chair in his makeup chair, 0:49:06.160 --> 0:49:08.960 and the kids who play the goat children in the 0:49:09.000 --> 0:49:12.040 movie are like play They're like putting funny makeup on 0:49:12.120 --> 0:49:15.520 his face and they're all laughing about it. So it's like, oh, okay, 0:49:15.800 --> 0:49:17.799 he's the bad guy in the movie, but in real 0:49:17.840 --> 0:49:18.880 life they're all friends. 0:49:19.160 --> 0:49:21.840 Yeah, it's all in good fun. Children. Yeah, don't be 0:49:21.880 --> 0:49:23.680 stressed out by anything. You're about to see. 0:49:24.120 --> 0:49:27.759 Kind of interesting cinematography choice here in the scene where 0:49:27.760 --> 0:49:31.760 we're meeting all the characters is that most often sometimes 0:49:31.800 --> 0:49:33.839 we just get like a headshot where they smile at 0:49:33.880 --> 0:49:37.120 the camera, but more often we see performers making eye 0:49:37.120 --> 0:49:40.320 contact with the camera through a mirror, so the camera's 0:49:40.400 --> 0:49:43.320 over their shoulder and we're looking into their makeup mirror 0:49:43.400 --> 0:49:45.640 and connecting with them that way. 0:49:46.160 --> 0:49:47.120 Yeah. Yeah. 0:49:47.360 --> 0:49:50.239 Also, did you notice how in this part, basically everybody 0:49:50.360 --> 0:49:53.120 is smiling as they meet the camera except the actor 0:49:53.160 --> 0:49:57.319 who plays Donkey, who's just grimacing and looking like, you know, 0:49:57.800 --> 0:49:59.799 why go on with this masquerade of. 0:49:59.800 --> 0:50:03.520 A well, he's method. You know, he's Donkey from the 0:50:03.560 --> 0:50:07.080 get go. He showed up this morning, donkey, before he 0:50:07.120 --> 0:50:08.680 even put the makeup or the ears on. 0:50:09.120 --> 0:50:11.239 He looks like he has just about had it with 0:50:11.280 --> 0:50:16.839 this job. I'm sick of playing donkey. Okay, but let's 0:50:16.880 --> 0:50:20.440 go into the world. Now. We go into the forest, 0:50:20.560 --> 0:50:25.160 into the village of fantastic magical creatures. And what's our 0:50:25.200 --> 0:50:25.840 first song? 0:50:26.400 --> 0:50:29.000 Oh, the first one is I honestly don't remember what 0:50:29.120 --> 0:50:32.160 the song is, but this one is by a parrot 0:50:32.800 --> 0:50:35.400 and it's kind of an upbeat, prancing tune set to 0:50:35.440 --> 0:50:39.600 some furious, kind of almost Caribbean drumming. 0:50:39.680 --> 0:50:41.719 You know, yeah, yeah, this is the one that goes 0:50:41.800 --> 0:50:47.360 ladies and gentlemen. So before the song even starts, I 0:50:47.400 --> 0:50:49.640 think one of the first things we see is like 0:50:49.719 --> 0:50:52.560 the squirrel lady. She's she's looking out at the road 0:50:52.680 --> 0:50:55.960 leading to the village and she screams like here he comes. 0:50:56.520 --> 0:51:01.200 And then mister Parrot, a tweet voiced master of ceremonies 0:51:01.320 --> 0:51:06.359 type presence in a teal tuxedo jacket, a red cravat 0:51:06.600 --> 0:51:09.600 and a rainbow wig is riding into town on this 0:51:09.840 --> 0:51:14.839 rag and bone shop velocipede, singing a song I had 0:51:14.840 --> 0:51:16.960 to This is one of the many parts where when 0:51:16.960 --> 0:51:19.520 I went back and I listened to the lyrics more closely, 0:51:19.920 --> 0:51:22.360 I was like, wait, what is this about. It sounds 0:51:22.400 --> 0:51:25.399 like the song is about artifacts he has stolen from 0:51:25.560 --> 0:51:29.040 various places around the world. He says that he went 0:51:29.080 --> 0:51:32.640 to Tehran where he got a rock that shows the future, 0:51:33.320 --> 0:51:36.640 and from Bali he took something referred to as the 0:51:36.760 --> 0:51:38.880 ancient magic tree. 0:51:39.000 --> 0:51:40.960 Well, I've got news for mister Parrett. I feel like 0:51:41.000 --> 0:51:43.759 those artifacts and tales of their exploits are going to 0:51:43.840 --> 0:51:47.000 be lost on this crowd, because then these animals are 0:51:47.000 --> 0:51:49.480 a little more down to earth in their yeah, their 0:51:49.560 --> 0:51:50.760 needs and aspirations. 0:51:50.880 --> 0:51:53.080 Yeah, I think they would rather have like some cakes 0:51:53.120 --> 0:51:58.000 and stuff. Yeah, this is the shire. In fact, this 0:51:58.080 --> 0:52:00.680 is exactly this is the shire. Because the other thing 0:52:00.760 --> 0:52:04.400 is the implication in this song is that everybody loves Parrot. 0:52:04.600 --> 0:52:07.480 And it's like when Gandalf arrives at the Shire in 0:52:07.520 --> 0:52:10.960 his cart, the children are all running around screeching with joy. 0:52:11.719 --> 0:52:14.160 Parrot here does not set off any fireworks, but he 0:52:14.280 --> 0:52:17.480 might as well. We also get several close up shots 0:52:17.520 --> 0:52:21.120 of the various like lady animals of the village watching 0:52:21.160 --> 0:52:25.360 Parrot's arrival with rapturous admiration, Like we see the lamb 0:52:25.480 --> 0:52:29.720 lady looking at him like what a honk. But anyway, 0:52:29.760 --> 0:52:33.520 the whole number has this traveling medicine show quality to it. 0:52:33.560 --> 0:52:36.640 He comes in on his velocipede cart and then they 0:52:36.640 --> 0:52:38.759 set up a kind of stage where he stands there 0:52:38.800 --> 0:52:42.920 singing to the crowd, and Parrot's arrival is presaging a 0:52:43.400 --> 0:52:46.359 fare that will be held I think the following day. 0:52:46.920 --> 0:52:49.800 Now, he doesn't particularly have any role in the plot. 0:52:49.960 --> 0:52:54.000 He's just here to facilitate dance numbers though, so unlike. 0:52:53.719 --> 0:52:57.680 Gandalf, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Anyway, while all this 0:52:57.719 --> 0:53:01.680 is going on, we also see another major carecharacter, the Wolf. 0:53:01.880 --> 0:53:03.800 He's up in his tower. I don't know what you 0:53:03.800 --> 0:53:06.080 would call this building he lives in, but he's in 0:53:06.120 --> 0:53:08.399 this building that's like got a view up and over 0:53:08.480 --> 0:53:12.960 everything else, and he's standing standing watching the celebrations suspiciously 0:53:13.080 --> 0:53:15.600 through a wooden spyglass. 0:53:15.960 --> 0:53:16.920 Up in his wolf tower. 0:53:17.360 --> 0:53:19.600 So he's there with his flowing mane of hair, a 0:53:19.719 --> 0:53:23.560 strong eyebrows, strong mustache. He makes an impression the first 0:53:23.560 --> 0:53:26.960 time you see him, and also he's keenly peering out 0:53:26.800 --> 0:53:30.440 at things going on. He has a predator's gaze. You 0:53:30.480 --> 0:53:32.279 know he's ready. He's ready to eat some of the 0:53:32.320 --> 0:53:36.839 herbivores of the village, and wolf begins to watch a 0:53:36.880 --> 0:53:40.920 single family among the crowd, that of mother Goat missus 0:53:41.000 --> 0:53:43.680 Rada and her children who are on their way home. 0:53:44.320 --> 0:53:47.480 The children are begging to be taken to the upcoming fair, 0:53:47.880 --> 0:53:50.640 and this leads into the second song, which is performed 0:53:50.680 --> 0:53:51.360 by the wolf. 0:53:52.080 --> 0:53:55.680 Yeah, this is a bold, sauntering number that it occupies 0:53:55.719 --> 0:54:00.240 that place where comedic brass and seductive brass meet. It's 0:54:00.239 --> 0:54:04.160 also it's basically his allow me to introduce myself toune 0:54:04.200 --> 0:54:06.120 where he tells you who he is and what he's 0:54:06.160 --> 0:54:06.640 all about. 0:54:06.840 --> 0:54:09.000 This got funny era once again when I went and 0:54:09.040 --> 0:54:13.560 transcribed the lyrics. He's saying, how do you do? I'm 0:54:13.600 --> 0:54:17.680 Titi Suru, friendliest wolf you've met. You'll hear the strangest 0:54:17.680 --> 0:54:21.080 things about me, for it's been said that I could 0:54:21.080 --> 0:54:26.920 be responsible for incidents unexplained. People do invent the oddest tales. 0:54:27.600 --> 0:54:29.680 That's not what I would put in my cover letter. 0:54:29.880 --> 0:54:32.200 The first thing you're hearing from is from him is 0:54:32.280 --> 0:54:34.040 people tell a little lies about me. 0:54:34.520 --> 0:54:37.880 M m yeah. People will try to pin various unsolved 0:54:37.960 --> 0:54:41.440 murders on me. But there's actually no connection. My alibi 0:54:41.520 --> 0:54:44.520 is pretty solid. Yeah, it's not a convincing start. 0:54:45.360 --> 0:54:48.399 It's great when like the first thing somebody says when 0:54:48.400 --> 0:54:50.680 you meet them is like, my haters are all lying. 0:54:51.680 --> 0:54:52.680 Yeah. 0:54:53.080 --> 0:54:56.160 Anyway, Titisuru goes out dancing through the middle of the 0:54:56.239 --> 0:54:59.920 village with his posse, which includes his nephew, the young 0:55:00.760 --> 0:55:03.600 and as we mentioned earlier, also a lynx and the 0:55:03.640 --> 0:55:07.200 town donkey, who is a kind of dolorous clown. And 0:55:07.560 --> 0:55:10.799 mister Wolf greets people in town and they mostly seem 0:55:10.920 --> 0:55:13.920 to regard him with naive trust. Is that how you 0:55:13.960 --> 0:55:16.839 took this in the beginning, Like everybody seems to be like, oh, 0:55:16.920 --> 0:55:20.280 mister Wolf, Yeah, he's handsome, he's a nice guy. He says, 0:55:20.320 --> 0:55:20.880 he's nice. 0:55:21.560 --> 0:55:24.200 Yeah. Yeah. They have kind of this I don't know, 0:55:24.920 --> 0:55:28.360 you know this, this kind of like passive response to 0:55:28.400 --> 0:55:30.319 the predator in their midst is like, well, he's not 0:55:30.360 --> 0:55:33.840 attactively attacking anyone right now, so I guess we'll keep grazing. 0:55:34.239 --> 0:55:37.719 Yeah. But then Wolf comes up. He squares off with 0:55:37.840 --> 0:55:41.600 Rada and her children. Rada, the way she reacts to 0:55:41.680 --> 0:55:45.759 him is complex. It's like she sees through this, and 0:55:45.880 --> 0:55:48.120 she knows better than to trust him, So there's no 0:55:49.480 --> 0:55:52.799 she doesn't have the naive reaction that the other villagers have, 0:55:53.000 --> 0:55:55.520 like she knows immediately what's up with this guy. She's 0:55:55.520 --> 0:55:59.040 too wise and so she rebukes him. But there is 0:55:59.120 --> 0:56:04.160 also a con instant, simmering underlying element of hubba hubbah. Yeah. 0:56:04.200 --> 0:56:07.399 I mean it's basically like, I know you're a bad boy, 0:56:07.680 --> 0:56:10.719 but I kind of like bad boy, And that's basically 0:56:10.760 --> 0:56:13.360 their tension throughout the picture with the but with the 0:56:13.360 --> 0:56:16.319 added detail that said bad boy wants to kill and 0:56:16.360 --> 0:56:17.040 eat her children. 0:56:17.280 --> 0:56:20.360 Yeah, yeah, so he explains in the song, well, he 0:56:20.400 --> 0:56:23.680 doesn't say that at first. Instead, at first he says, 0:56:23.760 --> 0:56:26.360 your children, uh number one, they make too much noise 0:56:26.520 --> 0:56:29.759 and they tease me and I can't tolerate that. So 0:56:29.880 --> 0:56:33.000 he says, this is your final warning, and also I 0:56:33.040 --> 0:56:36.000 am a wolf and my wolf instinct will not be suppressed. 0:56:37.360 --> 0:56:40.120 But then, almost as if to play down the danger, 0:56:40.200 --> 0:56:42.360 SUERU just kind of like dances off. He does like 0:56:42.360 --> 0:56:47.040 a little tap dance number with his goons, and he's 0:56:47.120 --> 0:56:49.520 you know, running around the village dancing, and while he's 0:56:49.520 --> 0:56:52.560 off with his guys, he starts singing about how ooh, 0:56:52.680 --> 0:56:55.359 of all the children I've ever seen, missus Rawda's kids 0:56:55.400 --> 0:56:58.160 would be the finest cuisine. So he's like, I am 0:56:58.200 --> 0:56:59.480 going to eat those goats. 0:57:00.160 --> 0:57:03.200 So this leads almost immediately into the third song. I 0:57:03.280 --> 0:57:06.520 guess this one's performed by Rada basically putting the wolf 0:57:06.560 --> 0:57:10.560 in his place, saying, let my children be. Basically, we're 0:57:10.600 --> 0:57:12.680 gonna go into and out of a lot of songs 0:57:12.680 --> 0:57:15.400 in this picture at the drop of a hat, but 0:57:15.880 --> 0:57:19.240 sometimes just for like less than a minute even, and 0:57:19.240 --> 0:57:21.480 then sometimes for longer. You never know how long they're 0:57:21.480 --> 0:57:23.760 going to sing a particular song which keeps you on 0:57:23.800 --> 0:57:25.919 your feet. You know, you don't get that. It's easy 0:57:25.920 --> 0:57:27.560 to get worn out with musicals where it's like, oh 0:57:27.640 --> 0:57:30.120 I hear another song coming on. Well, yeah, you're gonna 0:57:30.120 --> 0:57:31.760 get hit with them constantly, but some of them are 0:57:31.880 --> 0:57:44.160 very short. Okay, where are we in the plot to 0:57:44.360 --> 0:57:46.040 kidnap the goat children? 0:57:46.280 --> 0:57:48.200 Well, I think there isn't a plot. Yeah, we've just 0:57:48.280 --> 0:57:53.400 had the conflict between between Wolf and Rada, like they've 0:57:53.440 --> 0:57:56.760 had their their square off. It's kind of flirting but 0:57:56.880 --> 0:58:00.000 also threatening each other. Rada is seeing through the wolf 0:58:00.240 --> 0:58:04.280 suave exterior, but she's wary of him, but she's also 0:58:04.360 --> 0:58:08.600 kind of into him, and so that's strange. But yeah, yeah, 0:58:08.400 --> 0:58:10.840 so so far, that's where we are. And here we 0:58:10.920 --> 0:58:14.000 get into a medley that was one of my favorite 0:58:14.000 --> 0:58:16.960 parts of the movie because it's just sort of a 0:58:17.000 --> 0:58:19.840 string of songs that are mostly sung by the bad 0:58:19.920 --> 0:58:23.840 guys but then interrupted by some good dance numbers by 0:58:23.920 --> 0:58:27.160 the good characters. But this string of songs by the 0:58:27.200 --> 0:58:30.080 Wolf's Gang goes on for like ten minutes and it's 0:58:30.120 --> 0:58:34.760 just one wacky, hard hitting Tommy style rock opera song 0:58:34.880 --> 0:58:37.840 after another. And I was thinking about how, you know, 0:58:37.960 --> 0:58:40.920 sometimes people say that a Batman movie is really only 0:58:40.960 --> 0:58:43.760 as good as its villain, Like, you know, Batman's always 0:58:43.920 --> 0:58:46.800 you know, I don't want to discount differences, but Batman's 0:58:46.800 --> 0:58:49.840 always just sort of Batman. So it's really the villain 0:58:49.880 --> 0:58:51.080 that defines the film. 0:58:51.960 --> 0:58:54.919 Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that translates into musicals too, 0:58:55.040 --> 0:58:58.240 Like in Disney musicals, the villains always have the best songs. 0:58:58.920 --> 0:59:01.240 In Rocky Horror, all the best songs are sung by 0:59:01.280 --> 0:59:05.479 the villains. I guess they're villains and so forth. I mean, yeah, 0:59:05.680 --> 0:59:08.800 if you're gonna have a musical film like this Phantom 0:59:08.840 --> 0:59:12.160 of the Opera, He's got all the great songs, obviously. 0:59:12.200 --> 0:59:14.160 Absolutely, So I was gonna say, I think the same 0:59:14.200 --> 0:59:18.680 thing is often true about musicals, musicals and especially rock operas. 0:59:18.680 --> 0:59:21.880 The villains get the best songs, and so it's the 0:59:21.960 --> 0:59:24.240 villain songs that end up kind of sticking with you 0:59:24.320 --> 0:59:27.520 and defining how the musical feels. And that is definitely 0:59:27.560 --> 0:59:29.880 how I feel about this part of the movie. So 0:59:30.000 --> 0:59:33.000 the first tune in this Bad Guy medley is the 0:59:33.040 --> 0:59:37.360 Wolf's gang singing a song about the confrontation between Rada 0:59:37.400 --> 0:59:40.040 and the Wolf, and we see all like the townspeople 0:59:40.120 --> 0:59:44.120 running and hiding, slamming their doors shut. After watching the altercation. 0:59:44.640 --> 0:59:47.680 The squirrely squirrel lady is very upset. You can see 0:59:47.680 --> 0:59:51.840 she's nervous. And it's this song. It's the one that 0:59:51.920 --> 0:59:56.520 goes where they're singing like wahoo t tsuru's furious. 0:59:56.960 --> 0:59:59.200 Yeah, this is the one where they're like, mother goat 0:59:59.280 --> 1:00:01.080 Rata better run away, that kind of thing. 1:00:01.320 --> 1:00:05.720 Yeah, yeah, okay, Yeah, Rada's future is dubious. It's sort 1:00:05.760 --> 1:00:08.840 of like like there's just been a rap battle and 1:00:08.880 --> 1:00:13.320 they're their guy lost, and so they're walking away, being like, oh, 1:00:13.520 --> 1:00:15.600 next time it's gonna be it's gonna be really bad. 1:00:15.600 --> 1:00:20.000 We're gonna get you. But interestingly, while everybody else runs 1:00:20.000 --> 1:00:23.439 and hides, Rada and her children do not hide at all. 1:00:23.560 --> 1:00:27.160 They're not afraid, and they do a frenetic dance number 1:00:27.160 --> 1:00:30.800 on their front lawn. They're very happy. They're like sliding 1:00:30.840 --> 1:00:36.280 down this extremely splintery looking wooden plane and playing on 1:00:36.320 --> 1:00:39.160 all kinds of stuffy. They go swinging, all seven of 1:00:39.200 --> 1:00:42.200 them on one wooden rope, swing all seven at the 1:00:42.200 --> 1:00:45.520 same time, and then they get on the rooftop seesaws, 1:00:45.600 --> 1:00:48.000 which got what. 1:00:48.480 --> 1:00:51.400 Yeah, Like, I meant to go back and rewatch this 1:00:51.440 --> 1:00:54.840 sequence because my recollection is there's no way they fake this. 1:00:55.080 --> 1:00:56.880 I mean, there may not be actual children up there, 1:00:56.920 --> 1:00:58.880 but there might be, I don't know. It looks like 1:00:59.280 --> 1:01:03.200 a sizeable building with kids on seesaws up there, you know, 1:01:03.280 --> 1:01:09.479 at the most extreme height, they're what twenty thirty feet 1:01:09.520 --> 1:01:12.160 off the ground or something like. It's intimidating. 1:01:12.280 --> 1:01:15.440 Yeah, it's at the apex of the roof is the 1:01:15.520 --> 1:01:18.720 fulcrum of the teeter totter, and the kids are just 1:01:18.760 --> 1:01:22.880 going up and down and maybe it's adult stunt performers, 1:01:22.920 --> 1:01:24.560 but it looks not faked. 1:01:24.760 --> 1:01:26.800 Yeah, does not look like a model. 1:01:27.120 --> 1:01:30.880 So Rata is not one of these safety obsessed helicopter parents. 1:01:30.920 --> 1:01:34.120 She's like children. We will now be playing on equipment 1:01:34.160 --> 1:01:37.400 that is illegal in most countries. And also you're going 1:01:37.400 --> 1:01:39.560 to have to defend the goat house on your own 1:01:39.560 --> 1:01:41.919 against wolf attacks while I am gone at the fair. 1:01:42.520 --> 1:01:44.120 Yeah. 1:01:44.440 --> 1:01:47.040 But anyway, while the children are playing, the bad guys 1:01:47.160 --> 1:01:49.880 kind of peep over the fence and watch the goats 1:01:50.120 --> 1:01:53.400 at play. And there is an interesting moment here where 1:01:53.760 --> 1:01:56.000 we see a lot of this throughout the film, where 1:01:56.240 --> 1:01:58.320 we get a close up on Donkey and at first 1:01:58.360 --> 1:02:00.959 he's smiling. It's like he's having a lot of fun 1:02:01.000 --> 1:02:03.840 watching the goats play. Oh, isn't it nice? And then 1:02:03.960 --> 1:02:08.080 suddenly his smile just fades. It melts into the saddest 1:02:08.120 --> 1:02:11.920 face you've ever seen yours if you will, Yeah, exactly, 1:02:12.800 --> 1:02:15.320 And so this is kind of establishing a theme upon 1:02:15.480 --> 1:02:18.280 rewatching For me, I didn't catch it as much the 1:02:18.280 --> 1:02:21.240 first time, but Donkey was really emerging as one of 1:02:21.240 --> 1:02:25.320 the most interesting and subtle characters. But from here we 1:02:25.400 --> 1:02:28.160 get into one of my favorite tracks, which is a 1:02:28.280 --> 1:02:32.200 rock number where the members of the Wolf's gang introduce 1:02:32.320 --> 1:02:37.000 themselves and sing about their loyalty to Titisuru. I think 1:02:37.440 --> 1:02:39.360 it starts with kind of a chant where they say 1:02:39.400 --> 1:02:42.640 like one for all and all for Suru. So there, 1:02:43.000 --> 1:02:46.480 it's very top down, you know, leader oriented kind of 1:02:46.480 --> 1:02:47.080 friend group. 1:02:47.360 --> 1:02:50.800 Yes, hees big followers of Suuman here. You know, we 1:02:50.800 --> 1:02:53.320 have links Donkey and oh yeah, yeah, Little Bad Wolf. 1:02:53.320 --> 1:02:56.360 I believe he's referred to either one way or another 1:02:56.400 --> 1:02:59.280 in this bed the nephew and yeah, there's a lot 1:02:59.320 --> 1:03:04.400 of snarling, moderate cartwheels added to the general prancing. And yeah, 1:03:04.440 --> 1:03:06.880 there's some great lyrics in here, like tears our occupation 1:03:07.000 --> 1:03:11.600 well into helping hand in Titusuru's operation. So they're just 1:03:11.680 --> 1:03:14.320 all like trying to really get it out there that 1:03:14.320 --> 1:03:17.480 they're as close as friends. And they also throw in 1:03:17.520 --> 1:03:19.640 some added little tidbits, like one of them's like, I've 1:03:19.680 --> 1:03:20.360 never read a book. 1:03:20.520 --> 1:03:24.480 Okay, well they're contrasting that little I think Little Bad 1:03:24.520 --> 1:03:28.840 Wolf says I've never read a book, because he's contrasting 1:03:28.920 --> 1:03:31.600 with the fact that Donkey says he does read books. 1:03:31.760 --> 1:03:34.120 Hmmm. Yeah, I think they're getting a little off track 1:03:34.160 --> 1:03:37.160 in their commitment to speech here. 1:03:37.240 --> 1:03:40.880 But okay, so we hear from the Links. He says, 1:03:41.000 --> 1:03:44.320 I'm Rasul the Links. My missions are nocturnal. When your 1:03:44.360 --> 1:03:48.200 eyes start to blink, my role becomes essential. And then 1:03:48.360 --> 1:03:52.280 the donkeys verse goes, he he haw, he haw, I'm 1:03:52.320 --> 1:03:57.360 the Donkey Patrica, he he haw. I'm rather a good kicker, 1:03:58.320 --> 1:04:01.280 And so he's bragging about how good at kicking he is. 1:04:01.280 --> 1:04:03.560 But then he also mentions I like to read books, 1:04:04.000 --> 1:04:06.440 and so there's tension in the gang. Rassele, the Lynx 1:04:06.480 --> 1:04:09.280 and Little Bad Wolf mock the Donkey first of all 1:04:09.320 --> 1:04:13.200 because they think he's he's delusional for thinking he's very 1:04:13.240 --> 1:04:16.360 strong and a good kicker. They don't agree, but they 1:04:16.400 --> 1:04:18.720 also mock him by saying I've never read a book. 1:04:18.920 --> 1:04:22.400 The implication is like, that's for nerds, and I'm not 1:04:22.680 --> 1:04:25.760 fully grasping the significance. I think there might be some 1:04:25.840 --> 1:04:29.800 kind of cultural archetype coding going on with Donkey, but 1:04:29.960 --> 1:04:32.720 like he's one of the bad guys, but he doesn't 1:04:32.760 --> 1:04:35.840 really fit in with them. The other bad guys mock him, 1:04:36.480 --> 1:04:39.840 and there are scenes of him with conflicted emotions that 1:04:39.920 --> 1:04:42.280 the other bad guys don't show, or at least Little 1:04:42.320 --> 1:04:45.600 Bad Wolf and Links don't show you get some conflicted 1:04:45.640 --> 1:04:48.880 emotions from the main bad wolf. But anyway, I just 1:04:48.920 --> 1:04:51.560 think it's interesting the way Donkeys is set apart from 1:04:51.600 --> 1:04:52.400 the other villains. 1:04:53.200 --> 1:04:58.600 Yeah, that is something to contemplate. Yeah, he seemed I 1:04:58.600 --> 1:05:01.320 don't know, like maybe we're really supposed to to put 1:05:01.360 --> 1:05:02.520 ourselves in Donkey's shoes. 1:05:02.560 --> 1:05:03.200 I'm not sure. 1:05:04.480 --> 1:05:07.120 Now we eventually go back to the house here, right, 1:05:07.200 --> 1:05:09.240 And I want to point out that the inside of 1:05:09.240 --> 1:05:11.960 the goat household it looks like a cat cafe. If 1:05:11.960 --> 1:05:14.280 you've ever been to a cat cafe, that's kind of 1:05:14.280 --> 1:05:16.880 the vibe I'm getting here. Lots of little shelves and 1:05:16.920 --> 1:05:20.720 places for cats or I guess goats to walk around on. 1:05:20.840 --> 1:05:22.440 That would make sense, you know, goats like to be 1:05:22.520 --> 1:05:25.240 up high. And then they have like cool what hanging 1:05:25.280 --> 1:05:26.680 beds or loungers here. 1:05:26.960 --> 1:05:30.640 Yeah, the the young goats sleep in these like pendulum beds. 1:05:30.800 --> 1:05:33.360 They're dangling from the ceiling like a I don't know, 1:05:33.440 --> 1:05:34.440 like a like a planter. 1:05:35.040 --> 1:05:36.320 Yeah. They put a lot of thought at the end 1:05:36.320 --> 1:05:38.600 of this. I'm actually a little bit reminded of the 1:05:38.720 --> 1:05:41.320 kids rooms in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, you know, 1:05:41.320 --> 1:05:44.600 where they're like, what do the Martian children's bedrooms look like? 1:05:44.680 --> 1:05:47.400 How do Martians sleep? And so forth. 1:05:47.760 --> 1:05:50.120 But this scene also has an interesting part where one 1:05:50.120 --> 1:05:53.200 of the kids asks Rada, why does the wolf want 1:05:53.240 --> 1:05:55.360 to take us away? 1:05:55.560 --> 1:05:57.560 Oh yeah, and the answer is, well, because he's lonely 1:05:57.600 --> 1:06:03.320 and childless, which it's an interesting way to view predation, 1:06:03.840 --> 1:06:05.960 but that's what she tells them. 1:06:06.360 --> 1:06:08.920 One of the children ask she says this, and one 1:06:08.920 --> 1:06:11.680 of the children says, is it wrong to be lonely? 1:06:11.840 --> 1:06:14.600 And Rada says, no, it just makes you feel bad. 1:06:15.080 --> 1:06:18.919 Hmm. Maybe something's was lost in translation a bit into 1:06:18.920 --> 1:06:19.680 the English version. 1:06:19.720 --> 1:06:22.240 I don't know. Oh, but then after this we go 1:06:22.360 --> 1:06:25.800 straight into a psychedelic disco dance number by the Bad 1:06:25.880 --> 1:06:28.800 Guys who Oh yeah, there's no singing. They're just like 1:06:28.960 --> 1:06:35.040 out in inside a five dimensional kaleidoscope doing some real 1:06:35.120 --> 1:06:36.720 like Saturday night fever moves. 1:06:37.000 --> 1:06:39.680 Oh yeah, this is like the dark disco scene. And 1:06:39.960 --> 1:06:43.400 I was really hoping this would erupt into vocalizations as well, 1:06:43.440 --> 1:06:48.840 but it's just you know, darkness prancing. It's like a 1:06:48.920 --> 1:06:52.320 raven Mordoor or something. I'm not sure, but it's it's fun. 1:06:52.400 --> 1:06:54.680 I like it in some parts of the choreography here 1:06:54.720 --> 1:06:57.040 reminded me of that Okay Go Treadmill video. 1:06:57.480 --> 1:06:59.720 Yeah, yeah, yeah, they really get into it. They get 1:06:59.760 --> 1:07:01.240 some but. 1:07:01.200 --> 1:07:03.600 They're like standing out on some kind of bridge in 1:07:03.680 --> 1:07:06.280 the darkness with like the night sky behind them, and 1:07:06.320 --> 1:07:09.520 sometimes there's this aurora in the sky and sometimes it 1:07:09.520 --> 1:07:14.000 looks like a giant fish pig face. But then here 1:07:14.040 --> 1:07:18.440 we go into a lullaby sung by Rada, which we 1:07:18.480 --> 1:07:21.080 sort of go around and see all the villagers going 1:07:21.080 --> 1:07:24.760 to sleep. I gotta say, I've been playing some of 1:07:24.840 --> 1:07:28.320 the music from this movie in my house and my 1:07:28.480 --> 1:07:32.040 toddler is obsessed with this lullaby song. She asked me 1:07:32.080 --> 1:07:34.840 to play like ten times yesterday. It's the night Night 1:07:34.960 --> 1:07:36.520 song to her, and she loves it. 1:07:37.320 --> 1:07:39.480 This is the You know, one of the great things 1:07:39.520 --> 1:07:43.000 about early parenthood is you get to choose what really 1:07:43.080 --> 1:07:46.360 obscure nonsense you and jacked into your child's life that 1:07:46.520 --> 1:07:50.919 will become a part of their their wholesome recollection years later, 1:07:51.080 --> 1:07:53.400 but no one else in their friend group will share. 1:07:54.160 --> 1:07:56.000 They'll be like, hey, did you guys watch that weird 1:07:56.840 --> 1:08:03.120 Russo Franco Romanian family animal picture every holiday? And they're like, no, 1:08:03.280 --> 1:08:04.800 we have no idea what you're talking about. 1:08:05.240 --> 1:08:07.520 Yeah, out on the playground, you don't know the tickets 1:08:07.600 --> 1:08:13.840 tickets song. But okay, yeah, so this is a lullaby. 1:08:13.920 --> 1:08:16.559 But there is an interesting moment here where the wolf 1:08:16.640 --> 1:08:19.360 comes in and sings along at the end of the song. 1:08:19.439 --> 1:08:21.720 So it's Rada singing to her children and she's like, 1:08:21.760 --> 1:08:25.799 close your eyes, I'm here beside you. And then suddenly 1:08:25.840 --> 1:08:28.599 the wolf is outside the house and he's like singing 1:08:28.800 --> 1:08:33.040 at Rada, And I thought this maybe is playing up 1:08:33.080 --> 1:08:36.639 on the idea that like, underneath his wickedness, he really 1:08:36.720 --> 1:08:39.920 is just lonely, like Rada was talking about. Maybe the 1:08:39.960 --> 1:08:42.560 subtext is that if he had someone to love, he 1:08:42.600 --> 1:08:45.559 wouldn't be trying to harm the goats, which plays directly 1:08:45.600 --> 1:08:48.439 against what he himself said, which is like, I have 1:08:48.479 --> 1:08:50.720 a wolf nature and it will not be suppressed. 1:08:51.080 --> 1:08:53.000 Yeah. I don't know. I also wasn't sure if we're 1:08:53.000 --> 1:08:56.599 supposed to think that she can hear him, and because 1:08:56.600 --> 1:08:58.679 she has kind of like a you know, winkie smile 1:08:58.760 --> 1:09:00.559 thing at the end here, and I don't know if 1:09:00.560 --> 1:09:04.040 that's more of her like oh suru, or if I'm 1:09:04.080 --> 1:09:06.080 just reading into it because we have been spending so 1:09:06.160 --> 1:09:12.800 much time already with their sort of teasing predator prey relationship. Yeah, 1:09:13.120 --> 1:09:15.400 oh right. Then we get a song about equilibrium from 1:09:15.439 --> 1:09:18.760 the children where they they're playing on a pair of 1:09:18.880 --> 1:09:20.720 enormous sea saws, and we see a lot of other 1:09:20.800 --> 1:09:22.599 children there in the scene. They're sheep children of course, 1:09:22.640 --> 1:09:27.080 the squirrel children, Donkey grinning like an absolute maniac, Donkey, 1:09:27.240 --> 1:09:30.200 Lynx and Little Bad Wolf joining into the song. They 1:09:30.320 --> 1:09:33.720 dance and prance around. The dance becomes cocky and aggressive 1:09:34.000 --> 1:09:36.519 till finally what one of the kids has enough. This 1:09:36.600 --> 1:09:39.280 may be the oldest kid, and he starts riding Donkey 1:09:39.320 --> 1:09:41.280 around and then like somebody has come break it up. 1:09:41.479 --> 1:09:44.400 This is Matteia, the oldest goat son who will sneak 1:09:44.439 --> 1:09:46.760 out of the house later he you know, he is 1:09:46.880 --> 1:09:50.599 up to mischief. But yeah, he rides Donkey around and 1:09:51.600 --> 1:09:53.400 I don't know, Donkey really gets put in his place. 1:09:53.560 --> 1:09:55.599 Yeah, yeah, somebody they send the ref end to break 1:09:55.600 --> 1:09:56.080 it out there like. 1:09:57.240 --> 1:09:59.760 Out of hand. Rada comes in. Rada always puts a 1:09:59.760 --> 1:10:02.559 stuff up to the nonsense. And then the next scene 1:10:02.640 --> 1:10:05.160 is we get one of the main themes of the movie, 1:10:05.200 --> 1:10:08.719 which is the song that Rada sings teaches her children 1:10:09.120 --> 1:10:11.280 in order for them to know it's her at the 1:10:11.280 --> 1:10:15.240 door and not someone else. So this is the mommy's home. 1:10:15.360 --> 1:10:17.759 Now you can open the door and don't be afraid 1:10:17.800 --> 1:10:18.679 children anymore. 1:10:19.080 --> 1:10:21.799 Yeah, it is a beautiful little number about stranger danger 1:10:21.880 --> 1:10:23.280 for latchkey kids. 1:10:23.360 --> 1:10:23.559 You know. 1:10:23.800 --> 1:10:28.040 It's like, don't open that door for anybody, anybody except 1:10:28.080 --> 1:10:30.920 for me. Except for me. I'm here to protect you, right. 1:10:30.960 --> 1:10:33.439 So she sings the song, and meanwhile outside the wolf 1:10:33.520 --> 1:10:36.599 is listening and furiously scribbling notes on how the song 1:10:36.640 --> 1:10:39.240 goes so that he can get into the house when 1:10:39.640 --> 1:10:41.400 Rada goes to the fair. So she goes off to 1:10:41.400 --> 1:10:43.000 the fair. What's going on at the fair? 1:10:43.400 --> 1:10:46.519 Oh, tickets is what's going on at That's the main 1:10:46.560 --> 1:10:49.559 thing I got. Because we run back, we meet Parrot 1:10:49.560 --> 1:10:52.879 Guy again, and we're in this fun house of mirrors. 1:10:52.920 --> 1:10:54.960 We're gonna spend a lot of time in this set, 1:10:55.120 --> 1:10:57.320 and it's pretty gorgeous. It feels like it feels like 1:10:57.320 --> 1:11:00.280 we're inside a disco ball, and there's yeah, a lot 1:11:00.280 --> 1:11:03.600 of general discussion of tickets. I don't know if you 1:11:03.640 --> 1:11:05.240 were able to make sense of this when you went 1:11:05.280 --> 1:11:06.120 back through the lyrics. 1:11:06.200 --> 1:11:08.960 Joe, No, I did not understand at all. The parrot 1:11:09.080 --> 1:11:12.839 is like throwing little like ticker tape, you know, bits 1:11:12.880 --> 1:11:16.599 of you know, confetti. Basically, tickets are in the air, 1:11:16.960 --> 1:11:20.040 and he's standing in these mirrors with silver tinsel all around. 1:11:20.080 --> 1:11:23.760 He's still in his rainbow outfit, and the lyrics are 1:11:23.800 --> 1:11:27.160 like tickets to your life, tickets to find your wife. 1:11:28.160 --> 1:11:32.920 I think maybe the idea is that, I don't know, 1:11:32.960 --> 1:11:36.920 it's some kind of commercialization or commodification, like the parrot 1:11:37.040 --> 1:11:45.120 is selling a kind of shallow promise of good fortune. 1:11:45.280 --> 1:11:47.439 But I don't know. Parrot is not really presented as 1:11:47.439 --> 1:11:49.519 a villain of the film. It's just kind of like, oh, 1:11:49.560 --> 1:11:51.679 here's what's going on at the fair. There's some kind 1:11:51.680 --> 1:11:53.800 of there's some kind of nonsense happening. 1:12:01.320 --> 1:12:01.680 All right. 1:12:01.720 --> 1:12:01.880 Now. 1:12:02.160 --> 1:12:04.760 I have to point out that at this point the 1:12:04.800 --> 1:12:06.599 episode is probably getting a little long, and I feel 1:12:06.640 --> 1:12:09.840 like I could probably talk about each and every little 1:12:09.880 --> 1:12:12.280 musical number because I made notes about all the weird 1:12:12.320 --> 1:12:14.479 little things they threw, and like suddenly there's a trampoline 1:12:14.479 --> 1:12:17.519 for the squirrels and I love it. Yeah, so I'm 1:12:17.560 --> 1:12:20.400 going to let you drive here, Joe, and just I'm 1:12:20.400 --> 1:12:23.400 gonna follow you through your favorite moments of the rest 1:12:23.479 --> 1:12:26.040 of this film, and I'll jump in if I have 1:12:26.120 --> 1:12:26.679 some thoughts. 1:12:26.960 --> 1:12:29.720 Well, we've already talked about the general outline, so you 1:12:29.760 --> 1:12:31.439 know that the wolf is going to keep trying to 1:12:31.439 --> 1:12:34.280 sing the song and sneak into the house. He fails 1:12:34.280 --> 1:12:37.519 the first few times we know that Mattee sneaks out 1:12:37.520 --> 1:12:40.840 of the house, he runs around outside, he gets chased 1:12:40.880 --> 1:12:44.160 by the bad guys. Of course, while we're here at 1:12:44.200 --> 1:12:46.679 the fair, some various things will happen. There's a bunch 1:12:46.840 --> 1:12:50.599 of just like songs and big ensemble numbers where everybody's singing. 1:12:51.400 --> 1:12:54.800 We get a ballet sequence where the people that you 1:12:54.920 --> 1:12:57.519 thought were spiders but I think are actually supposed to 1:12:57.600 --> 1:13:00.840 be sparrows. These are played by ballet dancer. I think 1:13:00.880 --> 1:13:03.759 these might be the Bolshoi Ballet or some Moscow based 1:13:04.840 --> 1:13:08.880 ballet dancers who do a very good but I don't know. 1:13:09.200 --> 1:13:12.200 Ballet might not exactly be my thing. But you can 1:13:12.200 --> 1:13:14.000 tell that they're great at what they do, and they 1:13:14.000 --> 1:13:17.040 do it in front of these very interesting painted backdrops. 1:13:17.479 --> 1:13:19.880 Yeah, yeah, the effects are very cool here, like it's 1:13:19.960 --> 1:13:22.800 it's not just a performance of dance on stage. And 1:13:22.800 --> 1:13:25.519 we've been seeing a lot of actual dance performance, but 1:13:25.720 --> 1:13:29.000 here we have high level ballet with cool effects. 1:13:29.240 --> 1:13:31.120 And I think maybe in some parts of these songs 1:13:31.120 --> 1:13:35.200 they're like balancing on tethers or whatever you call that, tetherwalking. 1:13:34.600 --> 1:13:36.160 Or it's made to look like I couldn't tell if 1:13:36.160 --> 1:13:39.240 this is effects or yeah, yeah, yeah. 1:13:39.280 --> 1:13:42.479 At the fair, there's more of a wolf following Rada around, 1:13:42.520 --> 1:13:45.840 being like, hey, let's dance, and so first they don't dance, 1:13:45.880 --> 1:13:49.080 and then they do dance. But one thing we definitely 1:13:49.080 --> 1:13:53.599 should mention is the the Sheep and Donkey song. 1:13:54.160 --> 1:13:58.040 Mm hmm, yeah, well this is a mid movie romance 1:13:58.160 --> 1:13:58.800 between the two. 1:13:59.000 --> 1:14:02.480 Yeah. Would you characterized this song as like a seduction 1:14:02.840 --> 1:14:05.280 of Donkey by the Lamb character. 1:14:06.080 --> 1:14:09.640 I think so. I mean, he's into it, but it 1:14:09.800 --> 1:14:11.719 kind of comes out of nowhere, like I wasn't really 1:14:12.840 --> 1:14:19.280 thinking about Donkey's romantic prospects. And likewise, you know, Lamb 1:14:19.400 --> 1:14:23.080 is one of the many cute animal ladies in the film, 1:14:23.280 --> 1:14:25.479 but you know, she's very much been in the background, 1:14:25.640 --> 1:14:27.400 and we're just like, oh, there's Lamb lady, you know, 1:14:27.520 --> 1:14:30.080 much like Squirrel Lady. You know she's there, but I 1:14:30.120 --> 1:14:32.639 didn't know that she was actually gonna do anything other 1:14:32.720 --> 1:14:34.920 than jump around and maybe do a trampoline flip. 1:14:35.800 --> 1:14:38.639 Yeah, So I was curious why is Lamb so into Donkey? 1:14:38.760 --> 1:14:42.479 The framing implies that Lamb is like the most eligible 1:14:42.560 --> 1:14:46.640 bachelorette in town, but so far Donkey has been portrayed 1:14:46.680 --> 1:14:50.040 as a pitiable loser, like he is the outcast of 1:14:50.320 --> 1:14:53.600 the village's criminal gang, and yet Lamb is coming on 1:14:53.720 --> 1:14:57.400 to him very strong. So I don't know, like what 1:14:57.880 --> 1:15:00.560 makes Donkey attractive to her? Maybe the fact that he 1:15:00.680 --> 1:15:03.479 reads books, Like is she into a a well read ass? 1:15:04.840 --> 1:15:08.000 Perhaps? Perhaps you know, I want to I want to 1:15:08.000 --> 1:15:09.519 throw in here because I'm looking at one of the 1:15:10.080 --> 1:15:12.760 I'm looking at the still you have of Lamb lady, 1:15:13.280 --> 1:15:17.719 and the attention to the curling hair on her lamb 1:15:17.800 --> 1:15:22.240 ears on her sheep ears here absolutely top notch, like 1:15:22.600 --> 1:15:26.479 they would. These costumes they do. You know, they're very 1:15:26.560 --> 1:15:28.439 much costumes. You're not gonna believe that this is. This 1:15:28.520 --> 1:15:30.920 is not like you know, were wolf, an American werewolf 1:15:30.920 --> 1:15:32.839 in London here or anything when it comes to combining 1:15:32.880 --> 1:15:35.400 the animal and the human form. But on another level, 1:15:35.439 --> 1:15:37.800 it kind of is, because look at these ears, look 1:15:37.840 --> 1:15:39.760 at the amount of tension they put into this hair. 1:15:40.840 --> 1:15:41.160 There is. 1:15:42.840 --> 1:15:45.479 This is something, this is something. This is a key 1:15:45.560 --> 1:15:47.040 part of the movie's alchemy. I'm sure. 1:15:47.360 --> 1:15:50.479 I totally agree. Yeah, the costuming and the makeup effects 1:15:50.479 --> 1:15:52.360 that they are all so wonderful, Like. 1:15:52.439 --> 1:15:55.080 You didn't have to do that for this film. But 1:15:55.160 --> 1:15:57.960 someone's like, no, no, no, these ears need to look 1:15:58.080 --> 1:16:02.400 one percent authentic. They need to be warm to the touch. 1:16:03.040 --> 1:16:05.040 Now, I think somewhere in here is we when we 1:16:05.120 --> 1:16:07.880 get that scene where the wolf is explaining to his 1:16:08.000 --> 1:16:10.759 goons that he no longer wants to eat the goat children. 1:16:10.840 --> 1:16:15.040 He wants gold. We've got to get gold, gold, you fools. 1:16:16.800 --> 1:16:19.720 It's very out of nowhere, but I like it. I 1:16:19.800 --> 1:16:23.160 wonder if the commercialism of the fair, like the whole 1:16:23.240 --> 1:16:28.280 tickets thing, inspires Wolf to switch his switch up, like 1:16:28.360 --> 1:16:31.320 his animal nature, his desire to just eat prey animals, 1:16:31.680 --> 1:16:35.280 and instead become a more civilized kind of villain that 1:16:35.400 --> 1:16:37.559 wants money. Do you think that? Does that make sense? 1:16:38.000 --> 1:16:40.280 I guess so, and I it ties into a number 1:16:40.320 --> 1:16:42.760 we're gonna see later where we have this real after 1:16:43.240 --> 1:16:46.680 the kidnapping has been carried out, Rada has this bit 1:16:46.720 --> 1:16:49.080 where she's like, you know, why is why is the 1:16:49.160 --> 1:16:51.479 world like this? Why do people want to hurt you? 1:16:51.800 --> 1:16:54.120 Why are they hurting you still? Why are they going 1:16:54.200 --> 1:16:56.240 to hurt you in the future? And it's got kind 1:16:56.280 --> 1:16:59.680 of this real, you know, dark somber number. But you know, 1:17:00.479 --> 1:17:03.120 it makes sense then that you would have the wolf 1:17:03.560 --> 1:17:08.040 change his predatory approach from something that is purely an 1:17:08.040 --> 1:17:12.160 animal world activity into something that is, you know, more 1:17:12.200 --> 1:17:13.240 akin to human crime. 1:17:13.840 --> 1:17:17.040 Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. Okay, just a couple of little 1:17:17.520 --> 1:17:20.320 texture observations as we go along. There's one scene that 1:17:20.640 --> 1:17:24.320 is obviously this came earlier, but it feels straight out 1:17:24.360 --> 1:17:27.200 of the first Lord of the Rings film where the 1:17:27.880 --> 1:17:30.679 you know, the mattee is hiding from the bad guys 1:17:30.720 --> 1:17:32.840 and they go looking out over the edge of the 1:17:33.360 --> 1:17:35.400 there's like an outcropping and they're looking out and he's 1:17:35.439 --> 1:17:36.519 hiding right underneath it. 1:17:37.439 --> 1:17:40.880 Yes, yes, this and you know, and I think just 1:17:41.439 --> 1:17:43.960 must be an accident because I think the main framing 1:17:44.240 --> 1:17:46.479 of that that we're familiar with the Peter Jackson Lord 1:17:46.479 --> 1:17:48.880 of the Rings is based on a sequence in the 1:17:48.960 --> 1:17:51.160 seventy eight animated Lord of the Rings. 1:17:51.560 --> 1:17:54.600 But yeah, we were before that here, So this is 1:17:54.680 --> 1:17:55.519 seventy six. Yeah. 1:17:55.600 --> 1:17:58.000 Yeah, so it's just just I don't know, just just 1:17:58.120 --> 1:17:59.400 great framing. I don't know. 1:17:59.760 --> 1:18:02.559 There's it's a sad scene at some point where Rada 1:18:02.640 --> 1:18:04.799 comes home and she's been like out in a storm 1:18:04.960 --> 1:18:08.040 in the winter and she can't sing the song to 1:18:08.320 --> 1:18:10.200 get into the house. You know, she's trying to sing 1:18:10.280 --> 1:18:13.559 the password song, but her voice is all torn up. 1:18:13.720 --> 1:18:15.479 And yeah, she sounds like she's been hitting the bottle 1:18:15.479 --> 1:18:18.240 a little bit grief, and they're like, that's not mama. 1:18:18.400 --> 1:18:21.160 Mama's voice is good. I don't know what this thing 1:18:21.360 --> 1:18:24.000 is out there howling in the darkness, but we're not 1:18:24.120 --> 1:18:24.680 opening the door. 1:18:25.760 --> 1:18:28.960 Yeah. And there's also a very sweet part where I 1:18:29.000 --> 1:18:31.880 think it's the oldest Goat daughter. The child sings a 1:18:31.960 --> 1:18:35.400 song for it's like an inversion of the mother's song 1:18:35.479 --> 1:18:37.760 to the children. She sings a song about mommy. It's 1:18:37.880 --> 1:18:38.679 extremely sweet. 1:18:39.200 --> 1:18:40.760 Oh, and then at some point we get the song 1:18:40.800 --> 1:18:44.280 about modern decline. The children today are not the same, Yes, 1:18:44.320 --> 1:18:47.080 I'm not the same, not the same. Children today don't 1:18:47.080 --> 1:18:49.800 even know how to sit on a shovel. They don't 1:18:49.800 --> 1:18:51.439 say that, but it made me think of that moment in. 1:18:51.520 --> 1:18:56.240 Jack FROs Now there is a part here where Mattee 1:18:56.360 --> 1:18:58.840 has run out into the wilderness and gotten lost. He's 1:18:58.880 --> 1:19:02.200 like stranded on some kind of rocky spire in the 1:19:02.240 --> 1:19:05.640 middle of nothing, and the snow is falling, and it's like, 1:19:05.720 --> 1:19:08.640 what's going to happen to him? Well, what happens is 1:19:08.760 --> 1:19:11.280 we get one of the musical numbers from the Star 1:19:11.360 --> 1:19:15.000 Wars Holiday Special. It's like when the old Wookie puts 1:19:15.040 --> 1:19:19.160 the VR goggles on and he sees Diane Carroll, he's 1:19:19.240 --> 1:19:21.479 singing to him that kind of thing. Or it's no, 1:19:21.600 --> 1:19:28.479 it's those acrobats jumping around. Yes, yes, very holiday special stuff. 1:19:28.520 --> 1:19:30.920 But what we see instead is all these like silver 1:19:31.080 --> 1:19:35.680 ice skaters who are fairies. These represent the presence of 1:19:35.720 --> 1:19:38.200 the Winter Fairy and they come and they help matte 1:19:38.400 --> 1:19:40.160 magically and send him back home. 1:19:40.479 --> 1:19:42.360 Yes, the time has come for every start of shine 1:19:42.400 --> 1:19:46.799 on where you are the angels, the fairies, the stars. 1:19:48.040 --> 1:19:49.960 And I was looking this up. We have a lot 1:19:50.000 --> 1:19:51.880 of ice skating to round out the picture. And I 1:19:51.960 --> 1:19:55.080 believe this is a combination of the Moscow Circus and 1:19:55.200 --> 1:19:57.280 the Moscow Ice Ballet according to the credits. 1:19:57.640 --> 1:20:02.040 Yeah, so skipping ahead to the the final confrontation, So 1:20:02.280 --> 1:20:05.360 of course, the wolf does eventually kidnap the children. We 1:20:05.520 --> 1:20:08.840 have this big showdown in this frozen pond where everybody's 1:20:08.920 --> 1:20:12.680 ice skating, and as we said earlier, Rada outsmarts the 1:20:12.720 --> 1:20:14.840 wolf in the end and tricks him into falling in 1:20:15.200 --> 1:20:18.920 into the water through the ice and his lackeys give 1:20:19.040 --> 1:20:21.040 up and they're like, okay, here are your kids back, 1:20:21.760 --> 1:20:24.040 and in the end the wolf learns his lesson. 1:20:24.560 --> 1:20:28.479 That's right. Everybody. Everybody comes around, but they really threaten 1:20:28.600 --> 1:20:32.000 him with cold drowning in the lake. Rod is like like, 1:20:32.080 --> 1:20:34.479 we'll just let you drown right here, wolf unless you 1:20:34.560 --> 1:20:36.840 come around like your cronies just did. And they're like, yeah, 1:20:36.840 --> 1:20:39.200 we've changed, and he's like, you know, I've looked at 1:20:39.240 --> 1:20:42.040 deep inside myself and I realize I need to change 1:20:42.040 --> 1:20:42.439 as well. 1:20:42.720 --> 1:20:45.639 That's right, and he does, and we kind of seasonal 1:20:45.720 --> 1:20:46.920 transition as well, don't we. 1:20:47.240 --> 1:20:49.360 That's right. That's right. There's this idea that it's like 1:20:49.439 --> 1:20:53.400 we're coming out of winter now it's becoming spring. So 1:20:54.680 --> 1:20:57.040 this alone, we alluded to this earlier. Like this, I 1:20:57.120 --> 1:20:59.760 can see why this film would make so much sense 1:20:59.760 --> 1:21:03.600 as holiday movie, even if there's nothing directly related to 1:21:04.600 --> 1:21:08.000 you know, ideas of a Christian Christmas and so forth 1:21:08.200 --> 1:21:10.320 or Santa Claus like, no, it's still getting into that 1:21:10.479 --> 1:21:14.200 deep primal idea of the winter holidays. Like what is 1:21:14.280 --> 1:21:17.120 the magic be it? You know, you know, capital M 1:21:17.240 --> 1:21:19.840 magic or lower case magic that is going to help 1:21:19.920 --> 1:21:20.960 us through to the spring. 1:21:21.479 --> 1:21:24.080 Yeah, but at the ending is a spring festival. I'm 1:21:24.080 --> 1:21:26.160 a little disappointed that we did not put the wolf 1:21:26.200 --> 1:21:29.519 in a Wickerman Yeah. 1:21:29.960 --> 1:21:33.640 You know, if you had had like the ritual disembowment 1:21:33.720 --> 1:21:37.000 of the wolf, the removal of the children, the insertion 1:21:37.160 --> 1:21:39.880 of the stones, and the throwing of the wolf into 1:21:39.920 --> 1:21:42.200 the water, like I guess that would have this more 1:21:42.240 --> 1:21:46.200 of a Wickerman esque ritualistic vision. And you know, I 1:21:46.320 --> 1:21:48.720 can very much envision a sort of I don't know, 1:21:48.920 --> 1:21:53.799 Midsummer esque horror movie in which someone visits this small 1:21:53.920 --> 1:21:59.720 town perhaps in perhaps in Romania, where hey, everyone is 1:21:59.760 --> 1:22:03.840 dress as animals and they've made me wear this wolf 1:22:03.960 --> 1:22:08.080 hat for some reason, and what is this big, big 1:22:08.360 --> 1:22:11.080 festival that I've been invited to, and you know it's 1:22:11.160 --> 1:22:13.320 going to have absolutely horrifying results. 1:22:13.800 --> 1:22:16.600 Christopher Lee in a big wig with pigtails? 1:22:16.920 --> 1:22:19.680 Who would Christopher Lee? Would Christopher Lee be Donkey in this. 1:22:20.439 --> 1:22:23.040 Oh no, I think Christopher Lee would be the wolf 1:22:23.280 --> 1:22:23.719 of course. 1:22:24.439 --> 1:22:27.120 Oh okay, so he would get sacrificed. 1:22:27.560 --> 1:22:30.000 Well, spoilers for The Wickerman if you haven't seen it. 1:22:30.040 --> 1:22:32.840 I mean, it's an old movie, but it is great 1:22:32.880 --> 1:22:34.760 to see it without spoilers if you get a chance. 1:22:35.680 --> 1:22:39.000 But here they come at the end of The Wickerman. 1:22:39.320 --> 1:22:41.920 You know the inspector. What he yells at Christopher Lee 1:22:42.080 --> 1:22:44.280 is he says, it's you know, this is not going 1:22:44.360 --> 1:22:46.960 to save your crops, and when it doesn't work next year, 1:22:47.000 --> 1:22:48.240 they'll put you in this thing. 1:22:48.360 --> 1:22:50.200 That's right. I forget. It's been a long time since 1:22:50.240 --> 1:22:52.800 I've seen it. I forgot about that twist. Yeah, but 1:22:53.040 --> 1:22:55.240 it is worth noting that. Yeah, film like this, as 1:22:55.280 --> 1:22:57.920 wholesome as it is, it's really only two or three 1:22:57.960 --> 1:23:02.360 degrees removed from Full Car. So that's one of its charms. 1:23:02.880 --> 1:23:06.479 So that is Mama aka rock and roll Wolf. I 1:23:06.600 --> 1:23:08.760 did not know how much I needed this in my life, 1:23:08.880 --> 1:23:11.000 but I love this movie. 1:23:11.160 --> 1:23:14.679 A film that I feel just inevitably spread the seeds 1:23:15.080 --> 1:23:19.200 of furry fandom throughout throughout Europe. 1:23:20.800 --> 1:23:23.040 To be clear, that's not the appeal for me. I'm 1:23:23.080 --> 1:23:26.559 not judging no judgment there, No, no, no, that's that's 1:23:26.640 --> 1:23:28.920 not what I'm saying. But I think it has appeal 1:23:29.000 --> 1:23:30.080 beyond that as well. 1:23:30.320 --> 1:23:32.040 Yeah, so this is a film that can be enjoyed 1:23:32.080 --> 1:23:35.559 on multiple levels and is and is very very kid friendly. 1:23:36.280 --> 1:23:38.280 All right, well we're gonna go ahead and close out 1:23:38.320 --> 1:23:40.719 this episode. Yeah, I get this was a holiday episode. 1:23:40.800 --> 1:23:44.439 We'll go ahead and make it official of Weird House Cinema. 1:23:45.280 --> 1:23:48.160 Just a reminder, let's see if you enjoy our Weird 1:23:48.160 --> 1:23:50.519 House Cinema episodes. These are curved Friday and the Stuff 1:23:50.560 --> 1:23:53.639 to Blow your Mind podcast feed primarily science and culture, 1:23:53.960 --> 1:23:55.800 but on Fridays we set most of that aside to 1:23:55.880 --> 1:23:58.160 really just dig into a weird film. And if you 1:23:58.200 --> 1:23:59.599 want to see a list of all the movies we've 1:23:59.640 --> 1:24:01.880 covered so far, go over to letterbox dot com. You 1:24:01.920 --> 1:24:05.680 know letterboxed. Our user name there is weird House, and 1:24:05.800 --> 1:24:07.920 we have a nice, big old episode list of everything 1:24:07.960 --> 1:24:10.240 we've covered so far, and sometimes there's a peak ahead 1:24:10.479 --> 1:24:13.000 at what's coming up next. There's currently a peak ahead 1:24:13.160 --> 1:24:15.479 at what's coming up next, and it is another uh 1:24:15.760 --> 1:24:19.240 technically uh technically a holiday film, so uh to go 1:24:19.400 --> 1:24:22.599 check that out if you're if you were interested, and likewise, 1:24:22.600 --> 1:24:25.320 if you were on the Instagram, we're on there as 1:24:25.600 --> 1:24:28.920 STBYM podcast. That's our that's our main account, that's the 1:24:28.960 --> 1:24:32.719 one that gets up updated frequently. UH. You can follow 1:24:32.840 --> 1:24:35.320 us there and keep an eye on what's coming up 1:24:36.240 --> 1:24:38.519 on the you know, the core episodes, but also what's 1:24:38.560 --> 1:24:39.759 happening in Weird House Cinema. 1:24:40.360 --> 1:24:43.920 Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway. 1:24:44.240 --> 1:24:45.680 If you would like to get in touch with us 1:24:45.720 --> 1:24:48.160 with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest 1:24:48.200 --> 1:24:50.040 a topic for the future, or just to say hello, 1:24:50.560 --> 1:24:53.280 you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow 1:24:53.320 --> 1:24:54.400 your Mind dot com. 1:25:01.080 --> 1:25:04.000 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 1:25:04.120 --> 1:25:07.920 more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 1:25:08.040 --> 1:25:09.759 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.