Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome to Movie Crush. Charles W Chuck Bryant
Speaker 1: here in the Basement, and this is filmmaker series with
Speaker 1: Paul Thomas Anderson. Not with Paul Thomas Anderson. I'm with
Speaker 1: the far superior Adam Branica. I mean, we really went
Speaker 1: down a trail to get to that introduction at the end.
Speaker 1: I went through a lot of emotions being introduced as
Speaker 1: Paul Thomas Anderson by you, Chuck les Man. I'm having
Speaker 1: so much fun with the series with you, because uh a,
Speaker 1: Paul Thomas Anderson is one of my faves, and we're
Speaker 1: getting into some some pretty good stuff, not not to
Speaker 1: slag any of his first four films. But there will
Speaker 1: be Blood was when I sat back, and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people did, and went, oh, like, this
Speaker 1: is what Paul Thomas Anderson is doing here with his
Speaker 1: life and career. It's interesting the way confidence reveals itself
Speaker 1: in filmmakers we love like and how so often many
Speaker 1: of them get the confidence and then like poison their
Speaker 1: own wells with like not to not to like look
Speaker 1: at me using like well terminology and there will be
Speaker 1: blood that. But like we we mentioned this like the
Speaker 1: very first time we talked about a Paul Thomas Anderson film,
Speaker 1: like just how apparent the confidence was from the start.
Speaker 1: And here we are several films in and it's just
Speaker 1: like growing in streng length and you don't get the
Speaker 1: accompanying like repulsion to that kind of confidence that I
Speaker 1: think you get in some filmmakers where you get overconfident
Speaker 1: and too flashy and in many ways like like there
Speaker 1: will be blood pulls back on that, it slows it
Speaker 1: all down. It's not flashy in in ways that other
Speaker 1: directors would choose to be. Yeah, he uh, he was.
Speaker 1: He was after a Scorsese thing I think early in
Speaker 1: his career and whipping that came around and quick cutting
Speaker 1: and sweeping around and telling these huge stories with a
Speaker 1: hundred characters. And then he went, wait a minute, let
Speaker 1: me let me be John Forward for a minute. Yea
Speaker 1: and dabble in the ford. Yeah, but before we start
Speaker 1: talking about the movie, how you doing? How is anyone doing?
Speaker 1: It's an exciting time to be alive. Yeah, hanging just fine.
Speaker 1: You have you been able to see any of l
Speaker 1: A yet No? Still no? And depending on when this
Speaker 1: episode comes out. I don't know that that will be reality. Really.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's it's one of those huh. I love
Speaker 1: the confidence you have in episodes you deal with me
Speaker 1: that nothing will need to be edited. This is a
Speaker 1: way of podcast life, that is, that is not the
Speaker 1: way we do things at the Greatest Generation. Do you
Speaker 1: guys edit heavily? We do? Yeah? What about we really
Speaker 1: hammer those shows with with drops and sound effects and
Speaker 1: taking all of our stammering out. Oh god, don't take
Speaker 1: the stammering out. I know people are often shocked to
Speaker 1: speak to me in real life and notice that it
Speaker 1: takes me five minutes to get to the point of
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. I love that about you, though. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you guys edit Friendly Fire pretty heavily? Our producer
Speaker 1: Rob Schulty edits that show and uh and does a
Speaker 1: great job with it. I think I think he would
Speaker 1: blow his brains out if he gave it the amount
Speaker 1: of scrutiny that we give the Greatest Gen. His Gen
Speaker 1: takes about a day of editing complete, and that's about
Speaker 1: an hour long show. If that is any indication of
Speaker 1: how much we hit we hammer it is that you
Speaker 1: or ban or do you switch it off, we alternate. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's cool. That show used to come out two episodes
Speaker 1: a week back when we were insane, right back in
Speaker 1: those early seasons of Star Trek the Next Generation. And
Speaker 1: then we backed off after t n G and went
Speaker 1: one episode a week the standard. Yeah. As soon as
Speaker 1: we joined the Podcasters Union, we were told one a
Speaker 1: week is what you do. Well, we did that, and
Speaker 1: we edit every other one. You know what. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you realize this, but between the new short
Speaker 1: stuff so not new but newer short stuffs and many crushes,
Speaker 1: I published podcast episodes on Monday, A, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
Speaker 1: and Friday, and we release a classic on Saturday. Wow,
Speaker 1: isn't that crazy? I cannot get enough chuck put in
Speaker 1: my ear holes. Uh. And I texted you and I've
Speaker 1: been you know, we text all the time or whatever,
Speaker 1: but I uh, you know, I took a podcast break
Speaker 1: from kind of everything, but the Aukerman Scott podcasts barreled
Speaker 1: through that for several months. It is, it's great, but
Speaker 1: um so I binged that for a while and then
Speaker 1: I have dove right back into flophouse and friendly fire
Speaker 1: and boy, it's good to be like hanging out with
Speaker 1: you guys again, because that's what it feels like my
Speaker 1: three friends and I'm I told Ben yesterday on text,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm that podcast fan. I'm just constantly
Speaker 1: talking back to you guys or straight up texting you
Speaker 1: and being like dude. Of course in Gallipoli, Uh, the
Speaker 1: other guy would have been fast enough to make it right, right,
Speaker 1: And those are the arguments were famous for starting on
Speaker 1: that show. Who would win in a foot race? Mel
Speaker 1: Gibson or the other guy? It's great stuff, man, and
Speaker 1: I am just started the English Patient episode today. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of skipping around and uh, it's it's a good
Speaker 1: one so far. We really liked that movie. It was good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I love how much are you someone who always
Speaker 1: watches the source material for the talk about the source
Speaker 1: material brand of podcast that we both tend to enjoy. No,
Speaker 1: not at all. In fact, I rarely watched You can
Speaker 1: need to do that, Chuck. Of course I do for
Speaker 1: this show, asshole. I p seven days a week, Chuck.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's unusual to ask that question. Well,
Speaker 1: it's my job I watch. I've rarely seen many of
Speaker 1: the Flop House episodes because you know they do so
Speaker 1: many really bad, sort of semi obscure movies. Um, and
Speaker 1: you know, I've seen probably only about of these friendly
Speaker 1: Fire movies, But I don't feel like I have to
Speaker 1: go watch him. I like get a lot out of
Speaker 1: the episode without having seen the movie. I'm sure a
Speaker 1: lot like some of the movie crush folks do. That's
Speaker 1: part of the magic of Flophouse is that is that
Speaker 1: the show is so strong and good without the need
Speaker 1: to see the movie. We curate friendly Fire in such
Speaker 1: a way that we we choose not to do movies
Speaker 1: that aren't easily available on a streaming service because we're
Speaker 1: hoping that people watch these movies totally. Yeah, and there's
Speaker 1: some that I've gone back and watched because of you guys.
Speaker 1: And I'm definitely gonna watch fucking uh Final Countdown now.
Speaker 1: I can't believe. I don't know how I didn't know
Speaker 1: about that movie. I don't know either. It's the sweet
Speaker 1: Spot like age wise and interest wise, it's yeah, it
Speaker 1: hits all hits, all the targets. It's a real treat,
Speaker 1: real love. How much you loved it and how much
Speaker 1: Ben didn't And it seemed like you don't hear you guys,
Speaker 1: seem to have a genuine divide very much. But that
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun for me. It's fun to
Speaker 1: really enjoy something at another person in a way that
Speaker 1: is antagonistic. Absolutely. Man, that's so funny. Uh so I'm
Speaker 1: doing it. By the way, speaking of Flop House, I'm
Speaker 1: doing a a run with all three of those guys,
Speaker 1: three three weeks in a row with the Floppers. Really. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I recorded with Stuart yesterday and I've got Dan
Speaker 1: in for next week, and then Eliot's going to be
Speaker 1: the week after. They they are all so great together.
Speaker 1: A good job by you getting getting maximum value from
Speaker 1: spreading them out. Yeah, I got there. They're awesome individually too,
Speaker 1: Like I think, I think those are gonna be great.
Speaker 1: Can you reveal what the movies are going to be? Yeah? Sure?
Speaker 1: Stewarts was Ricky? Oh the story of Ricky? Do you
Speaker 1: know this movie? Yes? I do, mostly from its uh
Speaker 1: the imagery used on the Daily Show back when Kilburn
Speaker 1: used to host her, Right, that's what it's known for.
Speaker 1: But you know, I have to say that head uh
Speaker 1: symbol clap head explosion is fairly team compared to what
Speaker 1: happens in that movie. I haven't seen it. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to see it then. Based on that review, it's
Speaker 1: pretty great. I mean it's ninety minutes of good, bad dubbing,
Speaker 1: and you know the eyeball gouge count or eyeball pop
Speaker 1: out count is high. Yeah, well even better this multiple disembowments,
Speaker 1: very creative Gore. I love it. So yeah, he's he
Speaker 1: did that one. I think Dan is doing Aliens, which
Speaker 1: would be fun. How has that not been done on
Speaker 1: on movie Crush yet? I don't know, man, Alien hasn't either.
Speaker 1: What I know, I'm dying to do Alien. When we
Speaker 1: did Aliens on Friendly Fire, I said it then and
Speaker 1: I and I still. I mean, I think it's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite movies of all time. And it is
Speaker 1: because it it almost exists outside of a genre. It's
Speaker 1: not a science fiction movie or a war film or
Speaker 1: anything else. It is. It is so many things. I
Speaker 1: think it's it's great. Was that a pork chop movie?
Speaker 1: That was a mainline Friendly Fire movie? Oh? Man, I
Speaker 1: need to I need to hit that one next time.
Speaker 1: I don't think I saw that one. For some reason.
Speaker 1: It is so good. That's a movie that I returned
Speaker 1: to a couple of times a year. That movie told, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it in a long long time. And
Speaker 1: you and Elliot are doing that one. No, that's a dance.
Speaker 1: I don't know what. It's awesome, awesome, So that'll be good. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: have we caught up? I think? So what are you drinking?
Speaker 1: I am drinking a big glass of bourbon? Like can
Speaker 1: you're holding it right in my face. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: a nice glass. Uh. This A A good friend of
Speaker 1: mine for my birthday got me the blade Runner glasses.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, So I'm drinking this out of the heavy
Speaker 1: ass blade Runner glass and there the You're on the
Speaker 1: clouds of Orion. Now what's it called Shoulder of Orion? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm about to get sea Beam wasted. If
Speaker 1: you catch my drift, I'm gonna get sea Beam glittery.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. That's not quite as cool as Adam Savage's
Speaker 1: Blade Runner replica gun that he has made himself with
Speaker 1: his hands. Nothing that I have or will ever have
Speaker 1: is as cool as anything Adam Savage has in that
Speaker 1: warehouse space. Yeah. The worst piece of shit in that
Speaker 1: warehouse space is cooler than anything I own. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I agreed, Like whatever, he uses as a garbage can.
Speaker 1: Is better than than anything I've got. I've got a
Speaker 1: really I've got the best bottle of bourbon in the
Speaker 1: house poured into this glass. This is Old Boudreau's bourbon.
Speaker 1: Jamie Boudreau is the owner and bartender of a place
Speaker 1: called Cannon in Seattle. And it's a place I really
Speaker 1: want to go to with you if we're ever able
Speaker 1: to be in Seattle at the same time. It's it's
Speaker 1: one of the best bars in the world. And it's
Speaker 1: and it's run by a total gentleman and he uh,
Speaker 1: he started bottling his own bourbon. It's one of those
Speaker 1: places with a thousand bottles on the wall and owned
Speaker 1: by a guy who's just a collector of of rare spirits.
Speaker 1: It's it's just the best. That's amazing. I want to
Speaker 1: try it. Yeah, I loved that makes his own booze.
Speaker 1: That's great. Yeah, it's legit. It is. It's delicious. I
Speaker 1: know I'm probably not supposed to be drinking it with
Speaker 1: a big ice cube, but I think we've talked about this.
Speaker 1: We like our drinks cold. Yeah, I do. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: drinking because you're drinking. You asked you texted me and said,
Speaker 1: what are you drinking? Mr? And he said what would
Speaker 1: what would Daniel plain View drink? And I said your milkshake?
Speaker 1: Yah ha ha ha, and uh, of course you would
Speaker 1: drink whiskey, So that's what you're doing. But by that
Speaker 1: time I had poured a giant gin and tonic into
Speaker 1: my giant sixteen ounce yetti mug, so I didn't have
Speaker 1: to get up. I love a yetti mug for for
Speaker 1: keeping it chill. Question about Daniel plain Views drinking in
Speaker 1: this movie, we see him drink out of the flask
Speaker 1: quite a bit. We see him pour booze into a
Speaker 1: glass of milk for for his son. What is he drinking? Like?
Speaker 1: Are we clear on what's in the flask? Because it
Speaker 1: doesn't turn the milk brown. It looks like so much.
Speaker 1: I thought it looked brown in his flask though now yeah,
Speaker 1: it did in the flask, but not when mixed with
Speaker 1: the milk. Maybe it's moonshine maybe, so it's clear, but
Speaker 1: it really looks like it does the job. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: it does. And it's weird because it doesn't show him.
Speaker 1: You see him, you see him hitting the flask, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't show him hitting a bottle to excess to
Speaker 1: indicate anything, but he does seem very drunk at least
Speaker 1: at the end. It appears as though there is a
Speaker 1: substance abuse problem. Yeah, storyline here. Yeah, Um, all right,
Speaker 1: so there will be blood the next you know, we
Speaker 1: skipped um punch drunk Love. You allow me to skip
Speaker 1: that since I did that with Tony Hale, although at
Speaker 1: the end of this, maybe we'll go back and do
Speaker 1: it again because it'd be a different conversation. I would,
Speaker 1: but I loved your conversation with Tony Hale, and I
Speaker 1: would never dream to to try to best it, so well,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be that. But I mean that was a
Speaker 1: live one too, so that was I mean, you were
Speaker 1: at that one, so that was live shows are always
Speaker 1: a little different, so I think we could probably have
Speaker 1: a probably a deeper run at that movie. So maybe
Speaker 1: we should do that at some point. But there will
Speaker 1: be blood. Like I said, was was the movie where
Speaker 1: I was like, p t A is not fucking around here.
Speaker 1: He's gotten a lot more going because I loved him,
Speaker 1: but this just showed to me that he had a
Speaker 1: lot more going on than I thought he did. This
Speaker 1: was the time where I was going to see his
Speaker 1: movies at midnight showings the night they dropped at the
Speaker 1: independent movie theater. Yeah, and this film was like Punch
Speaker 1: Drunk Love was unique and special and a surprise. This
Speaker 1: this film felt like an assault at midnight, Like you
Speaker 1: go to the midnight screening and you're like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: ready for my two and a half hours of awesome.
Speaker 1: And it was I mean, I mean assault in the
Speaker 1: best way. Like it was a physical to to watch
Speaker 1: it that first time. And it's been a film that
Speaker 1: I go back to every year for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 1: It's like it's it's the best kind of assault. Like
Speaker 1: you said, it's great. It's great to feel something when
Speaker 1: you watch a movie. I think this is something that
Speaker 1: we agree on about the entire p t A move
Speaker 1: mm hmm. Yeah. Absolutely, this is a movie that I'm
Speaker 1: going to go back to now. I had only seen
Speaker 1: it the one time. Man, I saw it in the theater,
Speaker 1: and uh I liked it a lot. But this time
Speaker 1: I fucking loved it. Like it. It took on a
Speaker 1: whole different spin for me. Always you know, I always
Speaker 1: say this, but when I watched movies in a studied lens,
Speaker 1: like for the show that really you know, when you
Speaker 1: watch a movie like that, that's a different experience. And boy,
Speaker 1: this is just a fucking phenomenal film on every single level.
Speaker 1: Some people think it's boring and slow, but and you
Speaker 1: don't want to be those guys to be like, well,
Speaker 1: they just didn't get it because that's shitty. But because
Speaker 1: it's not for everyone, you know, there's no routable protagonist.
Speaker 1: I love that sensibility about movies in je rule though.
Speaker 1: You know, like some things aren't for everyone and that's fine.
Speaker 1: Like the story of Ricky isn't for everyone, but you
Speaker 1: get but you get two of the right people together
Speaker 1: to talk about it. It's it's the perfect thing. Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: So um, I mean, let's just dive in. Man, we
Speaker 1: can go anywhere we want. Uh. You know. It opens
Speaker 1: up with that that menacing Johnny Greenwood score and just
Speaker 1: that that synth stab at the beginning, that droning synth
Speaker 1: that just immediately I imagine, I mean I don't really remember,
Speaker 1: but you remember that first viewing that just washes over
Speaker 1: a theater crowd like a heavy, uncomfortable quilt. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: really like it's a it's a continuation of the promise
Speaker 1: of what happened in Punch Drunk Glove, Like Punch Drunk
Speaker 1: Glove was visual and auditory and how it like disrupted
Speaker 1: you a little bit during the experience. But this is
Speaker 1: this feels like a continuation of that theme, like how
Speaker 1: can we create an atmosphere of being unsettled? And the
Speaker 1: answer many times in this movie is that Johnny Greenwood score.
Speaker 1: It's it's like it's discordant and percussion, but it's like
Speaker 1: not on time with itself, and it just makes you
Speaker 1: uncomfortable throughout the movie. And and I think it's a
Speaker 1: it's an aspect of this film that's been copied by
Speaker 1: a lot of other filmmakers, as I think this time
Speaker 1: has gone on. Yeah, I mean it ended up being
Speaker 1: a I think you're right. I think it ended up
Speaker 1: being a very influential score. Uh. And the fact that
Speaker 1: it was Johnny Greenwood, it got a lot of buzz
Speaker 1: for that um And I think I remember hearing that
Speaker 1: he did the score beforehand, and what what we got
Speaker 1: was not what I expected. Not that I had a
Speaker 1: preconceived notion, but I love Radiohead, They're one of my
Speaker 1: favorite bands, and what he did was was just what
Speaker 1: worked for this film, had nothing to do with Rady Ahead. Obviously.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited when I learned that, uh, successful creative
Speaker 1: people have moments like where where they have a crisis
Speaker 1: of confidence. And the story about Johnny Greenwood and doing
Speaker 1: the score was like he didn't think he could do it.
Speaker 1: He didn't he didn't think he'd do enough good enough
Speaker 1: job for Paul Thomas Anderson, and Paul Thoms Anderson Anderson
Speaker 1: was like, dude, you're Johnny Greenwood, You're amazing, like and
Speaker 1: it's and it's like p t A coaching him through it,
Speaker 1: like you're doing great man, Like keep keep making it,
Speaker 1: like this is exactly what I'm going for. And and
Speaker 1: I like that the idea that to creators could have
Speaker 1: that kind of mutual respect for each other, and that
Speaker 1: respect could take the form of I don't know if
Speaker 1: I'm good enough for you. It's interesting, that's a very
Speaker 1: like it's like a very human quality to to someone
Speaker 1: like I don't think of people in Radiohead as human.
Speaker 1: That's like the equality I ascribed to what they make,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, absolutely, And that's you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of sweet in a way that he would feel that way.
Speaker 1: And I sort of get it though, like as even
Speaker 1: though he's Johnny Greenwood to be like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I want to try a movie score. Um, and Paul
Speaker 1: Thomas Anderson comes knocking. I don't know how that all
Speaker 1: came about, but that's you know, you're not dipping you
Speaker 1: it's a big knock big knockers. Yeah. Yeah. I you
Speaker 1: know what, like one of the one of the low
Speaker 1: key things that really grabs your attention when this movie
Speaker 1: starts is the title card that says nineteen o two. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you sit in that moment for a second
Speaker 1: and you recognize that like it's just over a hundred
Speaker 1: years ago, Yeah, that this ship is taking place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's shocking that that so much happens in a century. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the movie takes place over almost thirty year period.
Speaker 1: I think it's like twenty eight or twenty nine years.
Speaker 1: And um that the font that they use for the
Speaker 1: title cards in the in the in the year title
Speaker 1: cards UM very biblical obviously, and starting I think it
Speaker 1: did it start a nine two? I thought it started,
Speaker 1: Yeah it did then, Yet you know, to title card
Speaker 1: was just something that that's squared it's time like by
Speaker 1: the century, Like that's as close to an even century
Speaker 1: as I think any of the title cards get right.
Speaker 1: So it's started in the late eighteen hundreds. And Um,
Speaker 1: another thing I love about this film and films like
Speaker 1: this is and it sort of reminded me of Days
Speaker 1: of Heaven and the reality of what life was like
Speaker 1: back then, and and how shitty oil rigging was, digging
Speaker 1: fucking pipeline ditches a hundred miles long, Like you do
Speaker 1: that ship with your fucking hands man. That's not a
Speaker 1: technical garment that Daniel play View is wearing at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the well, Like that is hot, thick wool,
Speaker 1: like tincloth he's got on down there. It's it's incredible,
Speaker 1: And like this is a film that's full of those
Speaker 1: kind of details, the discomfort and the dirt and could
Speaker 1: you imagine, like you've been on your share of film sets,
Speaker 1: but like the the dirtiness apparent on every character and
Speaker 1: here has got to stick to every part of the production,
Speaker 1: Like every camera has got to be covered in the
Speaker 1: same dust, every every light, every scrim It seems like
Speaker 1: a real punisher. Yeah, And I don't know what they
Speaker 1: used for the oil. Um was it oil? Is that
Speaker 1: a dumb question? There is I should look this up
Speaker 1: because there's a specific name for it, but the stuff
Speaker 1: that McDonald's uses for their milkshakes. Coincidentally enough, it starts
Speaker 1: as a as a base. It's a liquid base that
Speaker 1: you then add flavor and other liquid two to make
Speaker 1: the McDonald's milkshake, the milk and cream and sugar. I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people are going to be shocked
Speaker 1: to hear that it that it comes in a tanker truck,
Speaker 1: but that's what it is. When you go and get
Speaker 1: your frap from Costco, like your your your Mocha freeze
Speaker 1: or whatever, it all comes from the same source stuff.
Speaker 1: This this sludgy stuff, and that's what this liquid is
Speaker 1: that they used throughout the film. Yeah, holy sh it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so funny that it's milkshake. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's better to think about it being like if it
Speaker 1: had been real oil or if it had been sweet
Speaker 1: McDonald's milkshake. That's fucking gross too, Like they're both almost
Speaker 1: equally gross, and they're really are they really are? Well
Speaker 1: it certainly looks good, man, I mean, I guess they had.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole movie looks. Mean. We got to
Speaker 1: talk about Jack Fisk for a minute, and he was
Speaker 1: the production designer and just a fucking icon of that
Speaker 1: department over the years. He did the Early Malik, he
Speaker 1: did Days of Heaven, he did over his Plate. That's
Speaker 1: where he and says he Spasic met and they are
Speaker 1: still married today. Awesome. Uh I think they're still married.
Speaker 1: True love is is possible, It's but man, they just
Speaker 1: there's not a frame in this film that doesn't look
Speaker 1: like they just had a fucking time machine and dropped
Speaker 1: themselves in the period. You know what. But it also
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like it's overdone, like a like a Christmas
Speaker 1: store in a shopping mall where every square inches filled
Speaker 1: with a detail. Yeah, it doesn't. It isn't overdone in
Speaker 1: a flashy way. It's it's perfectly it's restrained, like so
Speaker 1: much at the rest of this movie. Well, I was
Speaker 1: just about to say that it is restraint. It's spare. Um.
Speaker 1: It's not a huge cast, it's not you never see
Speaker 1: you never see the world at all. Like it's always
Speaker 1: very insular around this man and where he is at
Speaker 1: the time. And he's by virtue of the story, he
Speaker 1: is sort of out in the boonies. But you know,
Speaker 1: he never goes to the big city to do anything.
Speaker 1: There's never any weird subplot where he has to go
Speaker 1: into town. Uh, there's there's not much there. Your your
Speaker 1: comment about that perspective, I think is spot on, and
Speaker 1: it's it's you notice it in the visual compositions too,
Speaker 1: because like, how often are you seeing the back of
Speaker 1: Daniel day Lewis's head in scenes like You've got a
Speaker 1: Daniel day Lewis here and eat and you're gonna and
Speaker 1: you're gonna spend fifteen seconds on the back of his head?
Speaker 1: Are you crazy? But so often we get these super
Speaker 1: long sequences unspooling and you're just getting like just glimpses
Speaker 1: of perspectives. It's it's incredible the way that this film
Speaker 1: spends its time. Yeah, did you were able to watch
Speaker 1: that YouTube thing I sent? I did that was that
Speaker 1: was a really interesting link that you sent me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I posted that on the movie crush page. But if
Speaker 1: you're not there and you're listening, and you um how
Speaker 1: I framed it when I posted as a primer, But
Speaker 1: also if people that listen to the show or movie
Speaker 1: shows don't and our movie fans but don't feel like
Speaker 1: they really understand what camera framing and placement and movement
Speaker 1: and editing and pace, like kind of what that all
Speaker 1: means and how it affects a film. Watching that little
Speaker 1: seven minute video really kind of lays it out there
Speaker 1: in a way that's super interesting and very easy to understand.
Speaker 1: And the long and short of it, if you haven't
Speaker 1: seen it, is that not you, but the listeners that
Speaker 1: the average shot length of this movie ends up being
Speaker 1: about thirteen seconds long, which if you don't know much
Speaker 1: about it, it might be like whatever, but that is
Speaker 1: really really really long, right. Yeah. The math of that
Speaker 1: is astounding, and it's also like an evolution of of
Speaker 1: a filmmaker's sensibility. When we were talking about Boogie Nights
Speaker 1: and about Heartache slash Sydney, I know, one of the
Speaker 1: one of the aspects that we enjoyed was like the
Speaker 1: the introduction to a scene with that three shot sequence,
Speaker 1: and the evolution of the three shot sequence in this
Speaker 1: film is instead an unbroken shot in three parts where
Speaker 1: we're finally we're like, we're starting uh with a with
Speaker 1: an scu and then we're widening out even more and
Speaker 1: then maybe we're pushing it on a character and you're
Speaker 1: still using those three beats to open a scene in
Speaker 1: a way that's just a furtherance of a sensibility. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and he makes a point of that in the
Speaker 1: video to the three frame shot or whatever, and and
Speaker 1: another sort one of the takeaways from that video It's
Speaker 1: um is that when you do a movie like that
Speaker 1: and you have this kind of deliberate pacing, it really
Speaker 1: puts a lot of heat on the editor because the
Speaker 1: cuts are so important because they're not just cuts there, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a real purpose behind each one. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: considering it from a from a production aspect and not
Speaker 1: just an editorial aspect, Like it's so much easier to
Speaker 1: film your sequences in shorter runs because going back to
Speaker 1: one in a standard film as a fairly easy process.
Speaker 1: We're gonna, we're gonna roll the dolly back. We're gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna take it again. Go here. It's like, get
Speaker 1: your two extras back into place. Walk Daniel day Lewis,
Speaker 1: back up the oil rig. It's it's seven minutes of
Speaker 1: stuff to redo. And I wonder how many takes you
Speaker 1: get a day for a sequence like that. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and think about I mean you're talking about the dirt.
Speaker 1: Think about the sequences where they start out with no
Speaker 1: oil on them and up covered in oil to go
Speaker 1: back to one. And for everyone listening, we assume you
Speaker 1: know this. You may not back to one means first
Speaker 1: positions and that's basically just resetting everything. Like you said,
Speaker 1: put the camera back in place, but you know a
Speaker 1: lot of times you're moving lights back into place that
Speaker 1: the actors have to completely change their wardrobe and sometimes
Speaker 1: take a shower, and like a reset like this could
Speaker 1: take like an hour. And if you're shooting sequences for coverage,
Speaker 1: you're depending on an actor's appropriate reception to remember where
Speaker 1: they were, where their hands were, what they were looking
Speaker 1: at it a certain as the script supervisor at a
Speaker 1: certain spot. And like, yeah, when your takes are seven
Speaker 1: minutes long or whatever, that's an incredible amount of of
Speaker 1: day for an actor to retain, uh in a in
Speaker 1: a movie like this, it's just a mirror. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And more than that, like you know, a script supervisor
Speaker 1: will a good script supervisor script he will will have
Speaker 1: all that for you. Yeah, because the actor will be like,
Speaker 1: which handed I have the Bible in or the book in,
Speaker 1: and but I think getting back to that emotional space. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not just important, but super fucking hard. But you
Speaker 1: know Damuel day Lewis, and is there anyone better in
Speaker 1: the world and acting than him? If you've spent five
Speaker 1: minutes screaming at a kid in your scene, like, it's
Speaker 1: one thing for for DDL to like go back to
Speaker 1: one emotionally, Yeah, but when you're Dylan Freeser, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: how do you do it? Yeah? His son, It's total.
Speaker 1: It's one of the miracles of this movie is how
Speaker 1: they could pull that off. Yeah. I mean there's so
Speaker 1: many great actors in the world, but he's the best
Speaker 1: at it, right, Daniel day Lewits This is not or
Speaker 1: there's no one better. No, there's not. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: you're already Paul Thomas Anderson. Just try to imagine, like
Speaker 1: you introduced me as Paul Thomas Anderson. Now I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do this to you. Imagine you're Paul Thomas Anderson and
Speaker 1: you're as great as Paul Thomas Anderson and I'm married
Speaker 1: to Maya Rudolph, which is so much fun. Now imagine
Speaker 1: you've you've thrown up the you've thrown open the door
Speaker 1: to your wagon. You're going to set uh and you're
Speaker 1: working with Bob Elswood. Yeah, and your your actor, your
Speaker 1: star is Daniel day Lewis. This is as good as
Speaker 1: it gets. I think for a storyteller, you have all
Speaker 1: of the best pieces. You've got Jack Fisk direct production
Speaker 1: designing your film. You've got Johnny Greenwood as the editor.
Speaker 1: He's amazing. I wonder this is like an aspect to like,
Speaker 1: I read a lot of interview with P. T A.
Speaker 1: But I wonder to what extent you're You're nervous when
Speaker 1: the deck of cards you're given to play with is
Speaker 1: all aces and you And I wonder if there's any
Speaker 1: aspect to him in his mind that's like, how do
Speaker 1: I funk this up? I can't funk this up right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That there there is a weird sort of pressure there
Speaker 1: that's sort of antithetical to what you think. You're like,
Speaker 1: I've got all the best people. But then I wonder
Speaker 1: if at some point it's like, oh shit, I've got
Speaker 1: all the best people. Guess who the weak point in
Speaker 1: this entire project is? All right? So Mark Bridges is
Speaker 1: the costume designer, and um did he win for this?
Speaker 1: I know this one a handful of Academy Awards. I
Speaker 1: think it wont to. I should have looked that up.
Speaker 1: Why do I think it won an Editing Award? Did it?
Speaker 1: Are you looking that up? I'll help, I should help,
Speaker 1: That's what I should do. It one for actor obviously,
Speaker 1: not one for cinematography. Okay, so, but it was nominated
Speaker 1: for editing and sound editing in art direction. But Daniel
Speaker 1: day lewis one for this one though, right he did? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well jeez. Uh So speaking of shots, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: so many great shots, but one of my favorites is
Speaker 1: the and I'm sure you'd love this one too, that
Speaker 1: the shot where towards the end where they're digging a pipeline,
Speaker 1: and it goes that long tracking shot all the way
Speaker 1: down the pipeline and again showing that backbreaking pick axe
Speaker 1: work of what you had to do to build a
Speaker 1: pipeline like that. And uh, then it gets to the
Speaker 1: that big wide shot when the camera settles of the
Speaker 1: when plain View is reunited with his son in the field,
Speaker 1: and then it swings around and follows as they cross
Speaker 1: over the train tracks and walk to the to the
Speaker 1: right of camera, and uh, it lulls you to sleep
Speaker 1: such that I had to rewind it excited and realize
Speaker 1: it was one shot. It was so well done. It's
Speaker 1: hypnotic in that way. Yeah. Yeah, And and I think
Speaker 1: one aspect to that video that you sent me that
Speaker 1: was studying this movie was that, like, there's a greater
Speaker 1: value placed on every cut when there are so few
Speaker 1: of them in a movie like this. Yeah. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a scene that made me wonder, like you remember
Speaker 1: when they're remember when they're laying the pipe check, I
Speaker 1: know that was your favorite part. There's there's the pick
Speaker 1: ax guys down pipe we'll call it, but the people
Speaker 1: with pipe, there's like the wrenchers, the people connecting the
Speaker 1: two pieces, and then there's a guy with a hammer
Speaker 1: tink tinking the pipe. And it made me wonder, is
Speaker 1: that the guy that you see, you know, in the
Speaker 1: bottom of of like a Roman ship hitting the drum
Speaker 1: so that the people with the oars row in time?
Speaker 1: I wonder if he's the click track to the pipe
Speaker 1: laying or if if like, what is what's with the
Speaker 1: hitting of the empty pipe with the hammer other than
Speaker 1: I didn't notice that guy. Yeah, well, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: one thing. He wasn't there by accident because Paul Thomas
Speaker 1: Anderson spent a he did a lot of work to
Speaker 1: get this movie right and did a lot of studying
Speaker 1: on what the process was like of searching for that. Well,
Speaker 1: he's not at the very beginning, he's searching for silver,
Speaker 1: I think, right, Yeah, he's a silver miner prospector and
Speaker 1: he finds oil and his career kind of takes a
Speaker 1: different turn after after the legs snap. Yeah, it's pretty
Speaker 1: incidental how his life took a turn. Yeah, boy, that
Speaker 1: legs Net two When you see it and then you
Speaker 1: see him laying on the floor with just the board
Speaker 1: strapped to it, and you know what year it is,
Speaker 1: and you're like, man, I don't know if he knows it,
Speaker 1: but he will always be in pain and he will
Speaker 1: always walk with a limp from here to the of time.
Speaker 1: Daniel Plainview died of dysentery. Was the was the title
Speaker 1: card I was expecting? Yeah, I love the detail of
Speaker 1: the dirty floor, like he's down there with the splint
Speaker 1: and that floor is just so filthy and just hauling
Speaker 1: out that oil by the bucket like early on and
Speaker 1: before they have I don't know if that was I
Speaker 1: guess that's how they did it, or maybe his operation
Speaker 1: just wasn't big enough to afford the equipment. Yet I
Speaker 1: couldn't quite decide. But either way, that's just brutal. That
Speaker 1: milkshake McDonald's milkshake sludge. I wonder if, much like there
Speaker 1: is a group that makes sure that you're treating your
Speaker 1: animals ethically on a movie set, if there isn't an
Speaker 1: environmental ah person whose job it is is to make
Speaker 1: sure that your milkshake doesn't go into the ground forever? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Or is that ship toxic to the actors? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: don't know, and I don't think we mentioned yet. You know,
Speaker 1: the first almost fifteen minutes of this movie or dialogue Free,
Speaker 1: which is one of my favorite things that I've seen
Speaker 1: a few movies do stuff like this, but he certainly
Speaker 1: takes it to a pretty extreme level with fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: But it's just gripping. I wonder if you don't appreciate
Speaker 1: Johnny Greenwood enough if that fifteen minutes are filled with dialogue,
Speaker 1: because it gives you fifteen minutes to go, hey, check
Speaker 1: it out. This is going to be different. This is
Speaker 1: this is the emotional through line of this movie made
Speaker 1: clear by the score. Like noticed this because you wouldn't otherwise? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure he does. He has a lot of room,
Speaker 1: which you know that might have been one of the
Speaker 1: things to make it nervous. He's nervous going in. Then,
Speaker 1: Paul Thomas Anderson, it's like, and get this, You've got
Speaker 1: the first fifteen minutes of this movie to yourself. I yeah,
Speaker 1: if if P. T A said that that was a
Speaker 1: miss take, should have kept that to himself. Probably so
Speaker 1: he's like, I don't have Tom York to lean on. No,
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. One of the great faces that gets
Speaker 1: introduced early on in this movie is is Fletcher Hamilton's
Speaker 1: the Saran Hines character. Yeah, he's awesome, one of the
Speaker 1: great faces in all of movies. Yeah, where do I
Speaker 1: know him from? I've seen him before and when I
Speaker 1: saw him yesterday, he looks God, who does he look like?
Speaker 1: He looks a little bit like someone else. Oh, I
Speaker 1: can't think there's an actor that he sort of looks like,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't quite place it. He's a that guy
Speaker 1: in so many movies. He's just great and valuable. Like
Speaker 1: if you need a face that's going to be in
Speaker 1: a in this movie, like like his is is perfect.
Speaker 1: Like if you've got a DDL you're gonna need to
Speaker 1: Saren Hines and and he's right there. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: there's a lot of great faces in this movie. Um,
Speaker 1: the like I said, there's not a ton of characters,
Speaker 1: but um, if you don't have a lot of dialogue,
Speaker 1: you need a great face. Do you think that's what
Speaker 1: they were going for here with like with the Paul
Speaker 1: Dano stuff, Like another great face. I'm looking at the
Speaker 1: faces now. The guy who plays his brother, Henry Kevin
Speaker 1: j o'connorman, great face. Uh, that little girl Mary Sunday,
Speaker 1: great face. You know. Mary Sunday had kind of a
Speaker 1: come and see face. Also like a very aged old
Speaker 1: and aged young girl totally. You know, she looked like
Speaker 1: she had I bags is like an eight year old. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the cast now. And I didn't realize
Speaker 1: that our buddy Paula Tompkins was in it. Which part
Speaker 1: was he? So in the scene where Daniel plain View,
Speaker 1: not the first business meeting he has with the town,
Speaker 1: but like one of the one of the middle ones
Speaker 1: he goes in, he gives his pitch and the town
Speaker 1: just erupts in the pews fighting over what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: And remember when he just pieces out and he leaves.
Speaker 1: He's like, I don't need this. Yeah yeah. The guy
Speaker 1: who runs out of the meeting after him and says no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, wait, like like, well, we're gonna work with you.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be okay, And then plain View goes, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't take this site for free. That's Paul left to really. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I gotta go. I'm gonna put that in right after
Speaker 1: we finished this and and check that out again, because
Speaker 1: I know we talked about it because he was in
Speaker 1: I mean, he's been in a couple of Paul Thomas
Speaker 1: Anderson movies. Was it Magnolia that we talked about it? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Lucky Devil. I know, man, could you like I would you?
Speaker 1: You could probably get away with being an extra in
Speaker 1: There will be blood. I could see you dirty ing
Speaker 1: up is like the sort of the anti gruff bearded guy.
Speaker 1: They were also the fair skinned ones like yourself. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you went there with it, because any make
Speaker 1: up artist would have to have me in the chair
Speaker 1: for like six hours to put enough facial hair on this. No.
Speaker 1: I think every movie like this needs a guy like
Speaker 1: you in there with like, you know, shiny apple cheeks,
Speaker 1: because you got to show the guy who's like fucking miserable.
Speaker 1: He's like, I don't I don't fit in here. I'm
Speaker 1: a man of a different time. I'm a time traveler,
Speaker 1: traveler that's made a terrible mistake. Um, let's talk about
Speaker 1: Paul Dano for a minute, uh, the or for many minutes.
Speaker 1: The I remember now the first time I saw this,
Speaker 1: I was one of the dummies who h was confused
Speaker 1: the entire film about whether these guys were brothers, twins,
Speaker 1: or if there was some weird And I think that's
Speaker 1: why the movie why I didn't love it the first time,
Speaker 1: because I left thinking were they the same guy? Was
Speaker 1: he a figment of his imagination? Was he not real?
Speaker 1: I thought there was some weird thing going on, and
Speaker 1: there was, and at all that he just got him
Speaker 1: to play brothers. I think the thing that doesn't tie
Speaker 1: that thread up ably in a way that you would
Speaker 1: expect from a film and a filmmaker that is so
Speaker 1: good at like making all the pieces fit, that you
Speaker 1: never see Paul after his first scene. Yes, and that's
Speaker 1: why you're waiting for the Paul shoe to drop your like,
Speaker 1: surely there's a scene where it's going to be revealed
Speaker 1: that Paul has been doing Eli bilesque and he's infiltrated
Speaker 1: the church and he's going to take it down from
Speaker 1: the inside or something. And it's and it's like an
Speaker 1: an unintentional amount of tension put into this film that
Speaker 1: that is, uh, it's distracting, unfortunately it is. That's the
Speaker 1: one knock is that? And now it's kind of coming
Speaker 1: back to me. I totally remember thinking because there's the
Speaker 1: one scene where where Eli is that brutal scene where
Speaker 1: he where he just brutalizes his father is just so
Speaker 1: raw and demeaning. But he says something about he references
Speaker 1: Paul and he said Paul made the deal or something
Speaker 1: like that. And I think when I saw that the
Speaker 1: first time, my takeaway was that he had a like
Speaker 1: a split personality or something. And that really messed with
Speaker 1: me because it just it didn't feel right. It's because
Speaker 1: it wasn't right, but that was a distraction for sure,
Speaker 1: especially because you know, around this time, I feel like
Speaker 1: the split personality storyline in a movie was was a thing,
Speaker 1: a thing that one would expect on occasion, you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, and you know the story was I'm sure
Speaker 1: you know this. He had another actor cast as Eli,
Speaker 1: and Dana was cast as Paul, which was a very
Speaker 1: small part, and this guy, kell O'Neill got fired after
Speaker 1: the weeks and p t A was just like, hey,
Speaker 1: Paul Dano was great, you should do both parts. I
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you and I could, you know,
Speaker 1: write a long list of the of the many you know,
Speaker 1: regrets we have in our lives, or or like the
Speaker 1: the moments where like we wish they had turned out differently.
Speaker 1: But boy, when the there will be Blood train leaves
Speaker 1: without you when you had a ticket on it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's gotta be tough. Yeah, that's tough. And the longstanding
Speaker 1: sort of lore was that uh dd L was too
Speaker 1: intimidating for him and he couldn't hang. But I did
Speaker 1: read some articles where he came clean years later and
Speaker 1: he's like, no, that's not the deal at all. He's like,
Speaker 1: I didn't you know, I didn't handle things right, and
Speaker 1: Paul and I just didn't work out. And sometimes it
Speaker 1: just doesn't work out. That's tough to be painted with
Speaker 1: that brush in the first brush. Yeah, with either brush,
Speaker 1: I guess you don't want to be the guy that
Speaker 1: that has a reputation for not working with well with
Speaker 1: Paul Thomas Anderson, you know, I think you find a
Speaker 1: way to make it work. Uh. That first scene with
Speaker 1: with Eli though, when he finally comes to uh, not
Speaker 1: when they're building the fire or whatever, but when they
Speaker 1: first are sitting down for the negotiation. Basically that really
Speaker 1: just sets into motion what is the central conflict in
Speaker 1: this movie, which is this battle between these two men.
Speaker 1: Um unlike any other sort of battle between two men
Speaker 1: that you've seen in any movie, though, it's really weird. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's like the battle for the soul of the town,
Speaker 1: for any town that they're occupying at the same time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That and just like I mean, he eventually says it
Speaker 1: when he finally confides with who he thinks is his brother,
Speaker 1: that great scene where he says, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: competition in me and I don't want anyone else to win.
Speaker 1: And that's sort of what's going on with he and
Speaker 1: Eli to uh, starting with that negotiation. Yeah, it's so
Speaker 1: all of the scenes of negotiation in this film are
Speaker 1: just riveting. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. Every time he
Speaker 1: meets with the I mean the map guy, I don't
Speaker 1: know who the guy is that knows who owns all
Speaker 1: the properties. But when he has that first meeting and
Speaker 1: he said, can it all be got? Can all the
Speaker 1: land we got? And he goes sure that that was
Speaker 1: al right because later on he says, don't be thick
Speaker 1: in front of me al, And I think that's my
Speaker 1: favorite line in the movie, don't be think in front
Speaker 1: of me al. Another one of my favorite lines is
Speaker 1: during that first negotiation when Paul Dano asks him which
Speaker 1: church he goes to, and it's like the ultimate almost
Speaker 1: politicians answer. He's like, you know, I like uh, I
Speaker 1: like many different churches, and then he goes it's almost
Speaker 1: not noticeable, he goes, I like everything. I like everything,
Speaker 1: and in fact he hates everything. Yeah, he'll say what
Speaker 1: it takes to close the deal. Yeah. I mean it's
Speaker 1: weird because he never, even from the beginning, he never
Speaker 1: feels truthful or trustworthy, even though we haven't really seen
Speaker 1: him be either one of those things yet. He just
Speaker 1: Daniel de Lewis brings this just severe unease to uh,
Speaker 1: this character that like, you just know he's fucking trouble.
Speaker 1: What's interesting about Plainview is that when he makes his
Speaker 1: pitch to the towns. It is never a hey, you
Speaker 1: you can trust me because of how I am with people.
Speaker 1: It is always you can vet me the success in
Speaker 1: my past. Okay, look at this dig and the one
Speaker 1: before that and the one before that. You know, you know,
Speaker 1: when you deal with me, you're going to get a
Speaker 1: well that produces and you're gonna make a ton of money.
Speaker 1: But at no point is he ever making the case
Speaker 1: the dis a trustworthy person for any other reason than
Speaker 1: than previous success. Right, And that's why he, you know,
Speaker 1: has adopted this child as a prop. I mean, their
Speaker 1: relationship is interesting. We should unpack that for a second.
Speaker 1: He has he has the son that he basically kind
Speaker 1: of takes over and adopts from one of his early
Speaker 1: rigs that his father dies, and he clearly is using
Speaker 1: him as a prop and even says so very cruel
Speaker 1: at the end. But um, he also can't keep his
Speaker 1: hands off of him, like clearly loves this kid too. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. It's it's so interesting, like how their relationship
Speaker 1: is born through like the violence of his father's death. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you understand that there is a mom, but she is
Speaker 1: she's gone, Yeah, died a childbirth, he said, it's I mean,
Speaker 1: every time we're in the well, it feels dangerous because
Speaker 1: of that first scene, because of HW's father's death, and
Speaker 1: and I guess going back before that, like like that
Speaker 1: opening scene where Daniel breaks his leg like whatever, inside
Speaker 1: a well, feeling safe, very good about things. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that's where the title kind of comes back. It's
Speaker 1: those aren't bloody occasions. But I mean the title says,
Speaker 1: you know it's got It's a very imposing title of
Speaker 1: impending badness. There will be blood. Does what it says
Speaker 1: on the movie poster. Well, it's interesting too because there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of blood until you know the money
Speaker 1: shot at the end, and that is the promise fulfilled.
Speaker 1: I guess of the two scenes that you love, Chuck
Speaker 1: or the pipe laying scene and the money shot at
Speaker 1: the end. But you rarely stick around that long until
Speaker 1: the end. You's wrong with you done by then? The
Speaker 1: job site is not a safe place for a child,
Speaker 1: and yet h W is there all the time and
Speaker 1: he gets deaf because of it. Yeah. Yeah, I for
Speaker 1: a non professional actor to be as expressive as this
Speaker 1: actor is throughout the film, and it's unexpressive in a
Speaker 1: very specific way, like all those scenes where where Daniels
Speaker 1: making the pitch and he's just stoically behind him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's magical. Yeah, it's really good. And he didn't really
Speaker 1: it's sort of I think you see this a lot
Speaker 1: of movies where you get a non actor kid who
Speaker 1: does a great job and they never do anything else
Speaker 1: because there Uh what's perfect about them is that they
Speaker 1: were non actors to begin with. I get it though,
Speaker 1: Like if you're if you're if you're Dylan Freezer, what
Speaker 1: do you do after this? Where is there to go?
Speaker 1: You've been thanked on stage at the Academy Awards by
Speaker 1: by Daniel day Lewis. Did he thank him? Yeah, like
Speaker 1: as his son, Wow, my son and my son in
Speaker 1: the movie. He said something like that, how does it
Speaker 1: get better than that? It doesn't. Probably just hang it
Speaker 1: up and and go go work at the Ponty act
Speaker 1: Dealership or something. Yeah, that's probably what he does. So
Speaker 1: I was talking about the you know, the central driving
Speaker 1: uh conflict in this movie is Eli and Daniel's relationship,
Speaker 1: and it's, uh, it's just one started that there's that negotiation,
Speaker 1: and after that there's this it's just a constant power
Speaker 1: play against each other. Starting off with that first one
Speaker 1: where he h Eli asked to christen the well and
Speaker 1: Daniel fucking just pulls a rug out and and uses
Speaker 1: Mary and blesses the well himself right in front of
Speaker 1: his face. A lesser movie I think would have had
Speaker 1: Daniel do this at Eli in a more pronounced way.
Speaker 1: But the most withering thing that Daniel could do was
Speaker 1: ignore Eli completely the way he did. Yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: I didn't notice that. There's not that one shot that
Speaker 1: you expect in that scene where he's he zeroes in
Speaker 1: on him and you get the close up of him
Speaker 1: his eyes looking at his face. Yeah, it's it's like
Speaker 1: that scene in Tombstone. I'm sorry, I didn't know you
Speaker 1: were there. You may go like that kind of withering,
Speaker 1: like you don't even register to me as as a person,
Speaker 1: as a as a thing. You know. The other time
Speaker 1: they do this, I mean, it's a total character thing
Speaker 1: they think about it is. The other power play he
Speaker 1: makes is when he there's that sort of picnic table
Speaker 1: scene when they're taking lunch and he brings Mary over
Speaker 1: and tells Mary how uh. He basically, in so many words,
Speaker 1: says I'm your father now, and you're not gonna get
Speaker 1: hit anymore. And the whole time I'm like, and he's saying,
Speaker 1: your dad can't hit you, or it's not gonna hit you.
Speaker 1: And the whole time I'm like, wait, isn't that like
Speaker 1: his dad right there? And he doesn't even acknowledg him.
Speaker 1: He doesn't look over and be like, right, when you're
Speaker 1: so powerful, you don't even have to look at the
Speaker 1: target of your ire, Like, that's true power right there. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: that's like the level three guys in Red Dead Redemption.
Speaker 1: They're not even looking. One of my favorite sequences having
Speaker 1: to do with Mary is when she and h W
Speaker 1: are playing and they jump off the deck, circle around
Speaker 1: and jump off the deck, and then after one of
Speaker 1: the jumps we cut to the wedding. Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: That's a great transition. I love that cut too, it's
Speaker 1: really nice. Yeah, that's a great flash forward because you, um,
Speaker 1: you see that, you see it the riding on the wall,
Speaker 1: when they start playing together right then. Yeah, not that
Speaker 1: they're just like, uh, they're gonna be buddies, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're gonna get married. It easily connects the continuity too,
Speaker 1: in a movie that that does not have comparatively as
Speaker 1: much dialogue as other films. You need to be good
Speaker 1: at showing that visually and you're getting need to probably,
Speaker 1: but cut the two sequences together the way they do. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Eli stuff, like you know, you know that he's
Speaker 1: a preacher and he's so soft spoken, and then like
Speaker 1: an hour into it, you get it that first sermon
Speaker 1: in the healing and it's like, oh, okay, that's what's
Speaker 1: that's what's going on here. There's no indication that that's
Speaker 1: what you were about to dive into. As a viewer,
Speaker 1: I love the power play. We're is going to be
Speaker 1: jumping around this whole conversation, which is yeah, but the
Speaker 1: but we talked so much about the power play between
Speaker 1: Daniel and Eli having like non subtle elements to it.
Speaker 1: But the subtlety of people coming off of Daniel's job
Speaker 1: site and being prostolytized too by Eli and his church,
Speaker 1: like being issued the little fabric crosses, like being invited
Speaker 1: to church, Like that kind of invasion into into the
Speaker 1: workplace there is so like it's it's subtly antagonistic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the one guy, uh just kind of barred his
Speaker 1: right by that might have been Paula Thompkins for all
Speaker 1: I know, But that is sort of the deal, is
Speaker 1: that he has got these uh in those days with
Speaker 1: the vast expanse of nothingness when you built an oil well,
Speaker 1: you were building a town. And he makes that great point.
Speaker 1: He is like, you know you're going to have schools
Speaker 1: and you're going to have business, and you know like
Speaker 1: this I'm what I'm bringing is opportunity, not just this
Speaker 1: oil business. And the one thing in his way is
Speaker 1: this fucking church and this guy, in a weird way,
Speaker 1: he is the obstacle. I love that daniels salesmanship is
Speaker 1: so fast and sharp that he ends up sucking himself
Speaker 1: fairly early on when when he lies like where's that
Speaker 1: road you promised going to go? And he's like the
Speaker 1: church first, Yeah, church guy in the crowd, and like
Speaker 1: like he's so he's so fast that ends up being
Speaker 1: his undoing, like like being so easy to please in
Speaker 1: that moment sets himself Yeah, yeah, you're right. I didn't
Speaker 1: really think about that. And that's an uncharacteristic give I
Speaker 1: think right, right, because he's so hungry in the big
Speaker 1: I need to close the deal. He gets a little
Speaker 1: bit less so as the film goes on and as
Speaker 1: he as he amasses his power, he'd never do that
Speaker 1: kind of deal in the next town. No, And you
Speaker 1: know what that kind of ties into with the end,
Speaker 1: because it all culminates in the ultimate power play when
Speaker 1: like he starts out really desperate for the deal, and
Speaker 1: then that in that last negotiation sort of bookended by
Speaker 1: these negotiations, he secretly knows that he already has that
Speaker 1: fucking oil from the Bandy tract and that's where he
Speaker 1: dupes him into renouncing God. And uh, that's I mean,
Speaker 1: that is such a power play. He's he's a drunk,
Speaker 1: like he's just slurring cruel drunk at the end. But
Speaker 1: he never loses the facility of memory. And he never
Speaker 1: forgets a slight, even if it's a if, even if
Speaker 1: it's an untrue slight like the perceived slight. Yes, he'll
Speaker 1: never forget it. And that's such a reminder, like he
Speaker 1: reminds you as a character how he'll never forget stuff.
Speaker 1: And so by the end, everything's on the table when
Speaker 1: you lie shows up and you wonder how he's going
Speaker 1: to return the favor for that initial baptism like that
Speaker 1: that baptism. Man, Yeah, am I remembering correctly that that
Speaker 1: was basically the trailer to this movie, like I abandoned
Speaker 1: my boy. Like they basically showed that sequence and that
Speaker 1: was the trailer. God, I abandoned my boy. That was
Speaker 1: tough stuff, man, dude, I mean it is. It is
Speaker 1: a war. After that, he's and and you know he's
Speaker 1: a man of God supposedly, but you know as a viewer,
Speaker 1: he's doing this to humiliate him like it's personal for
Speaker 1: him too. He's not righteous. You're okay, we're gonna do
Speaker 1: this game again, Jack, all right, you're this time you're
Speaker 1: Paul Dano. You're not Paul You're not Paul Thomis Anderson.
Speaker 1: You've been field promoted into the part of Eli Sunday. Congratulations. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: You know that the previous actor hired to play Eli
Speaker 1: Sunday left because left because he was afraid of acting
Speaker 1: across across from Daniel day Lewis as allegedly, well that's
Speaker 1: what he thought at the time. Sure. Uh, And now
Speaker 1: you have to slap Daniel day Lewis around, ye hard,
Speaker 1: Take after take, yeah, back to one. Paul Dano got
Speaker 1: your slap in hand ready? Yeah? Oh man, he owns
Speaker 1: this movie. He does such a good job. Like, I've
Speaker 1: always been a big Paul Dano fan, but I didn't
Speaker 1: know he could do this. When this came out, It's incredible.
Speaker 1: He's so great, so great in this, I don't I
Speaker 1: think if you're casting it, you can't go for the
Speaker 1: You can't go for Anuel day Lewis is equal. You
Speaker 1: have to play compatibility games, right, like, because Paul Dano's
Speaker 1: got soft power to Daniel day Lewis is hard power. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's what makes Eli's character so effective at getting his
Speaker 1: goat right. Yeah, he does have the soft power because
Speaker 1: he um for better for worse. He has the influence
Speaker 1: of the townsfolk because you know, back then there they
Speaker 1: the church was a very big deal. It was sort
Speaker 1: of the center of things. They were all the preacher was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they weren't the mayor, but they had the
Speaker 1: same sort of influence, you know. Yeah. Um, let's talk
Speaker 1: about the explosion sequence when his son loses his hearing,
Speaker 1: and that Johnny Green would score man is just uh
Speaker 1: so unsettling, and its magic hour and this fire is
Speaker 1: raging and he's with the sun and that that whole
Speaker 1: sequence is just it's it's one of the best sequences
Speaker 1: in movies, not just in this movie. You're right about
Speaker 1: light playing such a great part in the greatness of
Speaker 1: this scene. You experience the passage of time by the
Speaker 1: sun going down. You also experience how Daniel plain few
Speaker 1: changes forever in this moment. Yeah, you think you know
Speaker 1: who he is before this happens, and when Sara Hynes's
Speaker 1: character is like, hey, HW has got to be cool,
Speaker 1: right because you're standing right here next to me watching
Speaker 1: this explosion, and the look on Sara hides his face
Speaker 1: when when he realizes that no, h W is not okay, Well,
Speaker 1: he says it man. The line is he says, he says,
Speaker 1: w H gonna be okay? As h W or w
Speaker 1: H I can't remember hbbi you. He says, h W
Speaker 1: gonna be okay, and he just goes, no, he isn't
Speaker 1: like he just flatly says, it's really, oh you think
Speaker 1: so dr kind of like yeah, And it leads to man,
Speaker 1: some of the most especially now as a father, some
Speaker 1: of those brutal ship in this movie is him him
Speaker 1: laying on the floor when the sun's just making that sound,
Speaker 1: and that sound is driving him crazy and he's trying
Speaker 1: to get him to stop, but he can't hear him,
Speaker 1: and then that all culminates in and it's hard to
Speaker 1: even talk about. Man, the the abandoned boy scene when
Speaker 1: he puts him on that train and fucking leaves them there.
Speaker 1: It's so hardcore. It's another scene that makes me want
Speaker 1: more Syrian Hines because he's the guy. You see him
Speaker 1: him as the guy behind the guy, and the way
Speaker 1: they reveal him is so great in that sequence with
Speaker 1: Daniel d Lewis like like exit DDL inter Serean Hines
Speaker 1: like and the and the screaming that were meant to
Speaker 1: hear that that plain view does not. Yeah, yea, he
Speaker 1: leaves Yeah the audience here's that, but he doesn't that.
Speaker 1: I mean you read that that fire caused problems for
Speaker 1: No Country for old men, Like that's one of the
Speaker 1: fun trivial bits of blood. Like they're shooting in the
Speaker 1: same area of Texas and what did the smoke? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the smoke blew a day. That's fantastic. And then No
Speaker 1: Country beat this out for Best Picture too, didn't it
Speaker 1: it did? I that's tough, man. They're they're two perfect movies.
Speaker 1: They are they are utterly perfect, and I almost wish
Speaker 1: that they did not exist in the same year, so
Speaker 1: that this one may be appreciated more. I think I
Speaker 1: think generally No Country for Old Men is a more
Speaker 1: a more beloved film than this. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that sure, if that is a correct take, but it
Speaker 1: feels that is. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: that I mean, this is very unsettling movie. Like I said,
Speaker 1: there's no protagonists you can root for, and this sort
Speaker 1: of began that trajectory of his with the Master to
Speaker 1: where there's there's not a like of not a lot
Speaker 1: of likability in it. So they're challenging tough films. Um.
Speaker 1: But speaking of the Oscars, just funny. I was thinking, like,
Speaker 1: some years you get this when you have two perfect films,
Speaker 1: and then there are other years where Crash and Shakespeare
Speaker 1: and love Ye spread it around, guys, spread it around.
Speaker 1: Can we do a little like grouping of a few
Speaker 1: years or something. Yeah, it's funny how those groupings work,
Speaker 1: especially in retrospect. You know. Yeah, let's talk about the
Speaker 1: brother who is not the brother. Um that is yeah,
Speaker 1: Henry and not just him, but like what he means
Speaker 1: for this film is way more than then this brother
Speaker 1: character coming in because it opens up it does so
Speaker 1: much to Daniel. To Daniel Plainview's character, he he's more
Speaker 1: human than he is at any point in the movie,
Speaker 1: which is still not much around Henry for a little while,
Speaker 1: but he bonds with him. I think it's a chance
Speaker 1: to redeem himself really after what happened to H. W
Speaker 1: like there's some humanity left in him that that you
Speaker 1: see in his relationship with with his fake brother, and
Speaker 1: he gets don draperd by him. He does, he does, uh,
Speaker 1: he trust him and h you can tell that there's
Speaker 1: a brokenness to his his family blind yea emotionally within him.
Speaker 1: But he starts to trust him and you can tell
Speaker 1: that he's he's feeling this void. And you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: when you see a character is just kind of misanthropic.
Speaker 1: Is is Daniel Plainview? You wonder or I wonder, like
Speaker 1: what got them there? And he clearly has a broken
Speaker 1: family history because from the moment he meets Henry, even
Speaker 1: though he doubts who he may be, he starts asking
Speaker 1: all kinds of questions about his sister and about you know,
Speaker 1: he he wants some sort of connection like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it doesn't come across as h interrogative, like he's
Speaker 1: not he's not interrogating him in a way that would
Speaker 1: feel unnatural or would give away his suspicions about Henry.
Speaker 1: And it's very well done the way the way Daniel
Speaker 1: does this. It's a slow drip in confirming the guy's identity.
Speaker 1: And yeah, there's just one. It's funny how when Henry slips,
Speaker 1: it isn't that he said something that was incorrect. It's
Speaker 1: that he didn't say anything at all in reaction to
Speaker 1: a reference and that's what did him in Well what
Speaker 1: was it? Because that I didn't quite pick up on it.
Speaker 1: So what what happens is? Uh? I mean, I'm assuming
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this you've probably seen it. But
Speaker 1: they really kind of do become brothers, and there's these
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the movie kind of there's
Speaker 1: probably another half hour of them, and it doesn't show
Speaker 1: them bonding in a chummy way like at the bar,
Speaker 1: you know, hugging each other. But there he becomes the
Speaker 1: HW like he's the sidekick on all the all the
Speaker 1: mission and he's a business partner and um. Then they
Speaker 1: eventually get to a brothel and Henry is drunk and
Speaker 1: he's asking for money, um to to go be with
Speaker 1: a lady and I that's when the moment happens. But
Speaker 1: I didn't quite pick up on what the tell was.
Speaker 1: Oh no, it happened before that. It happened on the beach, okay,
Speaker 1: swimming Daniel refers to something on shore that when Henry
Speaker 1: has his head down he does not react to. Oh,
Speaker 1: and that's the moment where Daniels, like my brother would
Speaker 1: have would have gotten that reference. That was not that
Speaker 1: was not a deep cut. The real Henry would get it.
Speaker 1: And so when we cut to the brothel later, he's
Speaker 1: already in a bad place. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: that makes a lot more sense now because he's just
Speaker 1: sitting there, uh, clearly upset, in angry, angrier than normal.
Speaker 1: I think one of my favorite shots in this movie
Speaker 1: is once that realization is made clear, we're back in
Speaker 1: the water with Daniel, and I'm like, well, the first
Speaker 1: time I saw this movie, I was like, well, Daniel
Speaker 1: is going to drown him, right, going to be what happens,
Speaker 1: But instead it's it's Daniel with his arms out and
Speaker 1: the wave behind him is coming. Daniels. Not you never
Speaker 1: you know this, You never turn your back on the
Speaker 1: ocean Daniels. Daniels propelled forward into the camera. By the way,
Speaker 1: he is not He's not scared or or damaged by
Speaker 1: it at all. And that was such a dark foreshadowing
Speaker 1: of what was going to happen, Like that power of
Speaker 1: him as a character, like not even nature can harm him,
Speaker 1: almost like he marshals the wave. I love that shot.
Speaker 1: And the movie filled with great shots. Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: that shot, and I I just sort of appreciated it
Speaker 1: as an aesthetic thing. But uh, I love your Hilm paper,
Speaker 1: the film paper and the next eight pages. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you why that's significant. Yeah, for for you guys listening,
Speaker 1: first of all, check out friendly Fire. But that that's
Speaker 1: sort of one of the running jokes on friendly Fire
Speaker 1: is I think you did the first one them, like
Speaker 1: you know, the student writing the film paper, which is
Speaker 1: to say, you know something some sort of weird, kind
Speaker 1: of deep right, if you're making some sort of like
Speaker 1: deeper meaning connection in the film, we're going to call
Speaker 1: it a film paper on friendly Fire. I what was
Speaker 1: the first one? I can't remember, but it was what
Speaker 1: was it? Oh, I don't remember the first time. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I forgot my first film paper, and I'll have to
Speaker 1: the job. I'm pretty sure it was a first blood
Speaker 1: thing like that, because that was a film I actually
Speaker 1: wrote film papers about. I was a film studies major,
Speaker 1: and so I wrote. I wrote my share of eight
Speaker 1: to sixteen page film papers. Did you see the last one?
Speaker 1: I haven't because I the flophouse did it from what
Speaker 1: I read, and I haven't to that episode either. You should.
Speaker 1: They come down on it pretty hard though. It's and
Speaker 1: not in a like, oh it's not a good movie.
Speaker 1: Away there, like this is sort of trash and xenophobic
Speaker 1: and racist and just bad in every way. I don't
Speaker 1: understand how you can start with a first blood and
Speaker 1: just get worse and worse and worse and worse every time.
Speaker 1: Like it's got such it's like a house with good bones, right,
Speaker 1: like the Rambo universe, like like the studs are square,
Speaker 1: every corner is perfect, the trim is great, and and
Speaker 1: movie after a movie they just take fucking sledgehammers to
Speaker 1: that character. You're right, I love your analogies, dude. It's awful.
Speaker 1: The last Rambo movie should have been a first blood
Speaker 1: type of movie. Yeah, yeah, I don't know if I'll
Speaker 1: ever see that last one. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: have the heart to like, I'm afraid it's going to spoil.
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes I won't see a sequel film because I
Speaker 1: just don't want the the earlier stuff ruined. Oh dude,
Speaker 1: I did, I did. I didn't see Anchorman two for
Speaker 1: that very reason. I heard it wasn't good, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't even want to see it. Then
Speaker 1: I still haven't. That's a great poll. That's that's one
Speaker 1: of those ones. Um, all right, so back to There
Speaker 1: will be Blood. I did want to mention when the
Speaker 1: brother shows up. Uh, it's very key here, and I
Speaker 1: made a special note, um, you know, kind of jumping
Speaker 1: back to when Henry arrives on the scene and that
Speaker 1: very first bit you finally sort of get. You know,
Speaker 1: plain View is not someone that he He doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like he just wants to be rich or you know,
Speaker 1: you don't know what his motivation is as a person.
Speaker 1: It's not super clear until the scene and he finally
Speaker 1: just lays it out there halfway through the film when
Speaker 1: he says talks about the competition not wanting to lose,
Speaker 1: but he says a very key thing, which is that
Speaker 1: he wants to make enough money to get away from everyone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he hate people. Yeah. Yeah, And it's interesting how family
Speaker 1: is the cheat code for that, right, Like when Henry
Speaker 1: first arrived, I was like, when Henry first arrived, I
Speaker 1: was like, Daniel is going to shoot him in the
Speaker 1: head day one, even if he is the brother, because
Speaker 1: what does it mean. It means another person to divide
Speaker 1: the money with. And what is the one thing that
Speaker 1: Daniel is going to be unwilling to do. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be that. And the longer that Henry lived in the movie,
Speaker 1: the more you get, the more you understand that, Like
Speaker 1: by being family, that's a protection for him against Daniel.
Speaker 1: It's the thing that that suspends the competitive nature of Daniel.
Speaker 1: It allows him to continue in a way that no
Speaker 1: other person would be allowed. Yeah. And in the end
Speaker 1: when he kills him, uh you know, he said he
Speaker 1: shoul shoot him on the dead head and day one
Speaker 1: he shot him on the head, and day like whatever.
Speaker 1: How much time is last few months? Maybe six months
Speaker 1: a season? Yeah, enough to get a few more wells?
Speaker 1: Yeah he he but he does. So Like my take
Speaker 1: was that not because he was duped, but I think
Speaker 1: more because he was hurt. Yeah, And he would never
Speaker 1: admit that. But after that, you see him weep when
Speaker 1: he sees a picture of his real brother in that diary,
Speaker 1: like he finally made he finally made this human connection
Speaker 1: and got burned. I think that's kind of his undoing too.
Speaker 1: I mean, you see this a lot in real life.
Speaker 1: You get you get dumped really hard that first time,
Speaker 1: and you're never the same. Yeah, You're never as open
Speaker 1: with anyone because it could always happen again after that.
Speaker 1: And I think it's the same with family when when
Speaker 1: family hurts you, or or who you think is a
Speaker 1: family member hurts you, or or anything else, like like,
Speaker 1: you're never as open as the moment where you're made
Speaker 1: to regret that openness. Yes, yeah, that's and that's Daniel's time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he kills him, and that ends up being his
Speaker 1: undoing in a few ways, because I think emotionally he
Speaker 1: put himself out there for the first time and just
Speaker 1: got wrecked. And it's also his undoing, and that that's
Speaker 1: what sort of spins the plot forward to the Bandy stuff, right,
Speaker 1: because Bandy knows that he killed him. I love like
Speaker 1: everything in this movie is almost like without dialogue. But
Speaker 1: when Bandy produces the gun and you know that it's great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the and the only other option is like go
Speaker 1: down the road of keep killing people, like then you
Speaker 1: kill Bandy because he knows. Yeah, Daniel has a code
Speaker 1: and that code is only kill family members or or
Speaker 1: married in family member brs like legal family members. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's his deal. Yeah, because I guess Eli is a
Speaker 1: family member at some point, because yeah, that's right. Um.
Speaker 1: Earlier you mentioned the the grudges that he's able to
Speaker 1: hold over slight or perceived slight, and I'd forgotten, like
Speaker 1: the big case of this one is the standard oil guy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And all the guy said was like, you know, you,
Speaker 1: you and your son, you can take care and hang
Speaker 1: out with your son. And that was it. Man, it's
Speaker 1: so innocent, and I'm glad that it was. Like if
Speaker 1: it edged a little more into into flip or cutting,
Speaker 1: it would give you some sort of like you as
Speaker 1: a viewer, you would forgive Daniel in a way that
Speaker 1: he is unforgivable. Yeah, it must be totally innocent, and
Speaker 1: that standard oil guy is man. Yeah, and he's great,
Speaker 1: Like he felt like a non actor. I don't know
Speaker 1: who he was, but he uh. The way they handle
Speaker 1: that in the restaurant later on, Man, that scene the
Speaker 1: napkin over the face, Oh my god, so holy shit,
Speaker 1: it is just ridiculous, how great it is. How what
Speaker 1: was he doing? Was that? I mean, was that an
Speaker 1: actor's choice? It was such again, a power move. How
Speaker 1: hard are you biting the inside off your cheek? If
Speaker 1: you're Paul Thomas Anderson you're sitting underneath the camera and
Speaker 1: you're watching that happen like, you've got to be giddy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was an amazing scene that he was drunk guy
Speaker 1: at the bar. Yeah, he drank that other guy's shadow whiskey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a power move too. Have you ever been to
Speaker 1: a restaurant with someone who is embarrassing to go to
Speaker 1: restaurants with? Um? No, but I kind of know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. The there's a scene in here that
Speaker 1: that like makes my skin crawl. And it's not it's
Speaker 1: so not obvious. But when Daniel goes up to the
Speaker 1: bar to get the drinks that he and h W
Speaker 1: ordered and says, we ordered these before those other guys,
Speaker 1: just letting you know that is a quality of a
Speaker 1: person who's bad at restaurant that it like, I know,
Speaker 1: I know we both know people like this that I'll
Speaker 1: never go places with these people. They don't know how
Speaker 1: to be And even if you get your drink second,
Speaker 1: you just can't say that it makes you a bad person.
Speaker 1: And this is like it's so in keeping with Daniel's
Speaker 1: whole worldview, like like that code he is not going
Speaker 1: to be slighted by being served second oil guys are there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and the fact that he he's in there by
Speaker 1: himself with the sun. He gets addressed first by the
Speaker 1: waiter and then this the big the big hot the
Speaker 1: big fat cats come in all together and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, everyone's just paying attention. And that is like
Speaker 1: like the humiliation for him is real as for a
Speaker 1: viewer it's like, come on, man, like who cares? But
Speaker 1: it's a big deal to him. Uh And and though
Speaker 1: he doesn't he only murders two people. I think he
Speaker 1: wants to murder a lot of people in this movie. Yes,
Speaker 1: he wanted to kill that waiter, right, And it almost
Speaker 1: feels like there's more danger being with Daniel when he doesn't,
Speaker 1: because it's just like a coiled spring. Yeah, like like
Speaker 1: the tension just becomes so great and there's nowhere for
Speaker 1: it to go. But at the delivering end of a
Speaker 1: bowling pin. One of my favorite lines of dialogue in
Speaker 1: the whole movie is from this restaurant seem though, Chuck.
Speaker 1: It's he's trying to get through to his son and
Speaker 1: it's un clear whether or not they can even have
Speaker 1: any kind of communication with each other. Yeah. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: like checking him out, making sure he's okay, and he's like,
Speaker 1: you know what, you know, what's gonna do it? All
Speaker 1: we need is a good, strong, expensive meal. Yeah, is
Speaker 1: what he says. Yeah, he orders two steaks. There's like,
Speaker 1: there's certain friends in certain situations. I feel like where
Speaker 1: that is the line? Right, Yeah, we've just been through
Speaker 1: a thing. Let's get a good, strong, expensive meal. Did
Speaker 1: that be you and me? Don't you think? Absolutely? Yeah? Alright,
Speaker 1: that's what I was thinking about. Um. By the way,
Speaker 1: I had a note in here I forgot to mention. UM.
Speaker 1: I went back and subtitle that that first brutally abusive
Speaker 1: baptism scene with Eli uh, because there's so much going on,
Speaker 1: it's chaotic, and so I subtitled because Daniel day Lewis
Speaker 1: was saying stuff the whole time, and at the very
Speaker 1: end after he slapped him, and he gets up and
Speaker 1: everyone's cheering and it's just like complete chaos in there.
Speaker 1: He goes, he just gets up and goes, there's a
Speaker 1: pipeline because the only reason he went through that is
Speaker 1: because he needed that pipeline. Like that's the only reason
Speaker 1: he endures that and doesn't just kill Eli in that room.
Speaker 1: He goes in at Paul Dano in the corner of
Speaker 1: the of the stage and he gets in his face
Speaker 1: and he says stuff that we can't hear. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: not in the subtitles. Yeah, that's the big that's like
Speaker 1: the lost in translation mystery. As far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 1: those are not loving words like that. What did he
Speaker 1: say though, because you know he's in character and like
Speaker 1: that's Daniel day Lewis just doing his thing. If you
Speaker 1: rewatch that scene, I think Paul Dano breaks at the
Speaker 1: end of it. There's a moment where he like his
Speaker 1: body does a thing and his face does a thing
Speaker 1: where I don't know what d d L says, but
Speaker 1: maybe he's fucking with them. Then I wonder, I really wonder,
Speaker 1: what's it like living with Daniel dy Lewis while he's
Speaker 1: making this movie, Like a method guy, Like what what
Speaker 1: comes home to you every night? Night? Daniel day Lewis
Speaker 1: came home from set? Is the horror movie that I
Speaker 1: would watch. Yeah, I don't know. I mean it's probably
Speaker 1: pretty intense. He's one of those guys though, that's that's
Speaker 1: worth the reach. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um. You know
Speaker 1: the other thing with that time jump to as we
Speaker 1: go into that third act that where you knew they
Speaker 1: were going to get together was when um, it shows
Speaker 1: him learning sign language and you see Mary behind him
Speaker 1: also learning the sign language. I didn't say that earlier,
Speaker 1: did you know? Okay, it's like, wait a minute, it's
Speaker 1: one of the subtle ways, Like just besides Mary's proximity
Speaker 1: to h W at all times and her willingness to
Speaker 1: like play and seek safety with him, and the plain
Speaker 1: Views like it's her she's interested in being with him
Speaker 1: for the long haul. Yeah, she wants to be able
Speaker 1: to communicate with him. Yeah, and and that and you
Speaker 1: know the next thing you see is that Daniel Plainview
Speaker 1: has gotten what he wanted. He made so much money
Speaker 1: that he was able to build a big house and
Speaker 1: remove himself from society and not not have to see people.
Speaker 1: And he says angry, old lovesome, drunk in this huge house. Uh,
Speaker 1: with no nothing, nobody he likes around him. He's surrounded
Speaker 1: by nothing that he likes. Correct. I thought it was
Speaker 1: interesting that his housekeeper reminded me so much of Eli's father,
Speaker 1: to the extent that I thought it was Eli's father
Speaker 1: working for him. Like, even though I don't think the
Speaker 1: years work there, I think I think that man is
Speaker 1: long dead. I didn't notice that. Did he look like him?
Speaker 1: I thought so, but in a way that like everyone
Speaker 1: on the job site looked like Daniel day Lewis to me,
Speaker 1: also in a certain way, like like dirty, hard living,
Speaker 1: about to die, decrepit men. Yeah, and he's just he's
Speaker 1: he's sort of lost his mind at this point. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know if there's a legitimental illness going
Speaker 1: on or if it's just kind of, you know, misanthropic
Speaker 1: hermit syndrome. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to tell. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think when you're when you're shooting a firearm inside
Speaker 1: your home, yeah, randomly, that's a bad sign. Elvis Elvis style. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do like that Bowling Alley though he's bowling Alley rich. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's Bowling Alley rich and you know, I just is
Speaker 1: the guy? Is he a sociopath? Like? What is his diagnosis?
Speaker 1: I I mean, I think we both have own mean drunks.
Speaker 1: And I wonder to what extent there might not be
Speaker 1: anything else to it. If we rarely see him sober,
Speaker 1: and when we do see him drinking, it is like
Speaker 1: a force multiplier on his personality. I wonder if that's
Speaker 1: all it is? That maybe it uh? I read that
Speaker 1: this house is outside of l A, this mansion, I mean,
Speaker 1: oh really, yeah. I wonder if it's go and seeable
Speaker 1: in a way that the Boogie Night's house is not.
Speaker 1: Did I tell you I went to go? I was
Speaker 1: out in West Covina on an errand and I attempted
Speaker 1: to go to the Boogie Knight's house. And what you
Speaker 1: can't is there a fence or something that's too far
Speaker 1: off the street. It's behind a gate and you can't
Speaker 1: even see it. It was really disappointing, just ring the buzzer.
Speaker 1: You and I are going to buy that house, Chuck.
Speaker 1: That's the play. Um. You get that breakup scene with
Speaker 1: the sun, which is just brutal man like the one
Speaker 1: thing he had in his life that he thought was
Speaker 1: had a chance at being some sort of pure relationship,
Speaker 1: was his relationship with his son, and that time jumps
Speaker 1: forward and it's just like it's such a slap to
Speaker 1: the like a punch in the gut to the audience
Speaker 1: of what happened between them. You and I don't know
Speaker 1: anything about Paul Thomas Anderson's family, but you get the sense,
Speaker 1: like we've talked about this a bunch, right, like how family,
Speaker 1: How family is such a theme in his films, and
Speaker 1: like nothing hurts quite like the the family member on
Speaker 1: family member emotional violence that we see so often in
Speaker 1: his movies. And in the same way that that we're
Speaker 1: seeing in our tour, like changing and evolving with how
Speaker 1: he's setting up scenes and those three shot sequences, like
Speaker 1: the venom with which a family member destroys another family
Speaker 1: member in his movies is getting sharper and deeper and
Speaker 1: more awful to witness, Like he's getting better at a
Speaker 1: cruel thing. Yeah, I mean, when Eli goes after his dad,
Speaker 1: he does it the same And I think the scene
Speaker 1: was right before when and we haven't talked about it yet,
Speaker 1: When Daniel that first beat down of Eli in front
Speaker 1: of the other guys he's working with, and then Eli
Speaker 1: does the same thing to his dad. It's just it's
Speaker 1: the sun of the abused abuse of dad abusing his
Speaker 1: son basically, but it's his dad. Yeah, it is rough.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting that we get that thrumming Johnny
Speaker 1: Greenwood score throughout the entire movie until the final scene, right, Like,
Speaker 1: we get it up until the confrontation, and then it
Speaker 1: falls away and then and then it's almost shocking when
Speaker 1: it's gone because once we move to the bowling Alley
Speaker 1: and it's not they're all you're hearing is the is
Speaker 1: the echo from that room. Yeah, all you're getting is
Speaker 1: their attention on each other. It's in the same way
Speaker 1: that we've been talking about, Like you you appreciate the
Speaker 1: edits because there are so few of them. You you
Speaker 1: get a sense of the of the tension here when
Speaker 1: the music goes away. Yeah, absolutely, And that that does
Speaker 1: that starkness to that ending. I think that lends itself
Speaker 1: to that and it's, uh, it's so brutal. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's in such bad shape. He's just an awful, depraved
Speaker 1: human throughout, but especially at the end. It's a great
Speaker 1: sweater though it's great sweater. They really they really choose
Speaker 1: angles to emphasize the sweater. Once that once we get
Speaker 1: to the mansion, it's very comfortable. But he ends up
Speaker 1: on the ground again. And the way they enter Eli
Speaker 1: so great because you only see him. The camera kind
Speaker 1: of stays there on the ground, so you see from
Speaker 1: the waist down someone walking up and you're kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: who's that going to be? Then he kneels down and
Speaker 1: it's Eli And it's this, I mean, the ending to
Speaker 1: this movie. Man just brutally. Uh, it's just brutal. It's
Speaker 1: such a ride. Like if if you're doing this linearly,
Speaker 1: like you're thinking about how you top yourself and not
Speaker 1: just a career, but in a movie. You know, you've
Speaker 1: got to bring this thing to a conclusion somehow. How
Speaker 1: do you do that? There will be blood? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean the this is a legendary scene now partially because
Speaker 1: of the drink your Milkshake, which became like a legit
Speaker 1: meme when when DDL is is softballing bowling balls at
Speaker 1: him and then he hits the bucket and they don't
Speaker 1: cut away chuck like the bucket flips into the camera
Speaker 1: and the DDL keeps coming like across such a happy
Speaker 1: accident to not cut away and instead we're swinging the
Speaker 1: camera as he passes, like, yeah, holy sh it, that
Speaker 1: was amazing. Well, and it's funny. I say, that's a
Speaker 1: happy accident. What if Daniel day Lewis is like I
Speaker 1: was trying to hit that bucket? Where does the bowling
Speaker 1: ball go? I mean he's gunning them at the camera guy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if it hits the bucket, Like, what are the
Speaker 1: chances that it hits the rig? Yeah? Boy? Man? Him
Speaker 1: coming back like he as I try to think of
Speaker 1: Eli's character as like, um, like what he was thinking
Speaker 1: before that, It's like, oh, well I need some money. Uh,
Speaker 1: And so you know what. I know we've had our
Speaker 1: differences in the past, but I'm going to go talk
Speaker 1: to my now in law, Mr. Plain View and see
Speaker 1: if he'll give me some money. It's like a big
Speaker 1: mistake with the standing that family is a shield for
Speaker 1: the sort of violence that he gets later. Like I
Speaker 1: think he feels like he's safe here he does. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the worst he thinks might happen is that
Speaker 1: he will like run him out of there and yell
Speaker 1: at him or something. He does. I don't think he
Speaker 1: knows because he doesn't know where he that he has
Speaker 1: just broken up with his son, and like he's having
Speaker 1: a pretty bad day. Yeah, he's a depraved guy, but
Speaker 1: he's at his lowest point. I think here, Yeah, not
Speaker 1: a good time to ask for money. You know, we've
Speaker 1: both been drunk before, we've both been very drunk together.
Speaker 1: But I don't know that I've ever been drunk and
Speaker 1: passed out in the middle of a bowling alley lane
Speaker 1: or drunk you might if you had one in your basement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what, that's true. There's a big difference. I'm
Speaker 1: definitely dirt napping in the middle of a lane. But
Speaker 1: it's such a great revenge at the end. Like this
Speaker 1: whole movie, that central conflict with him back and forth
Speaker 1: is you know, there's always one of them that wants
Speaker 1: to get the other one back for the last thing,
Speaker 1: and this is the end of that. He's never too
Speaker 1: drunk to see a play, like to see a target
Speaker 1: that can be exploited. There is no amount of drinking
Speaker 1: that could get him off target in this scene. I
Speaker 1: think that's what's so scary. Like he's wobbly and glassy
Speaker 1: eyed and gross and not super slurry. Yeah, but when
Speaker 1: Eli walks into that bear trap, it is over for him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the acting is just I mean, how many times
Speaker 1: I'd love to know a little bit about just shooting
Speaker 1: this last sequence, like if they waited till the end
Speaker 1: of the shooting schedule to do it, or like it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like this is one of those movies where
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like you could just do this in
Speaker 1: the first third of your shooting schedule or anything like that,
Speaker 1: Like it's just a a rumble in the jungle level
Speaker 1: acting exercise between these two guys. I go back and
Speaker 1: forth every time I watched this movie between the idea
Speaker 1: that Eli has been exposed as a charlatan and this
Speaker 1: is his moment of admitting it, or if he's just
Speaker 1: doing it for money. I think you could make a
Speaker 1: case either way. I think you're right, and I like
Speaker 1: both versions of the movie almost equally. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't even think. I don't know how important that is.
Speaker 1: I guess if you are an anti Eli the whole movie,
Speaker 1: you want him to admit that he's a snake oil salesman,
Speaker 1: and you want you want him to admit his fraudulence.
Speaker 1: But there's never there's never an indication of that, Like
Speaker 1: there's never that scene that you might get in a
Speaker 1: movie where it shows him pocketing the the plate money
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Yeah, that's an interesting point, Like
Speaker 1: you aren't super clear whether or not he's a reliable
Speaker 1: character with his circumstances, even like can we trust that
Speaker 1: Eli wouldn't say anything to get more money that he
Speaker 1: may or may not need. Maybe he thinks that Daniel
Speaker 1: is down and and persuadable and manipulatable in a way
Speaker 1: that like, well, I mean, elies flying the globe prostlytizing,
Speaker 1: like maybe this is a good time to to get
Speaker 1: some some quick cash. He's got money. Maybe he fell
Speaker 1: into that kind of trap, like maybe it's a it's
Speaker 1: a version of Eli trying to out Daniel Daniel and
Speaker 1: it just backfires. You can even see that being a possibility.
Speaker 1: Yeah it, boy, is it backfire. I didn't even remember
Speaker 1: the first time I saw it too, and even last night,
Speaker 1: even though I knew what happened, it kind takes you
Speaker 1: by surprise a little bit because he's out of control,
Speaker 1: he's throwing those bowling balls. But I did not anticipate
Speaker 1: what happened and bludgeoning him to death. It really surprises
Speaker 1: because the the it seems like a survivable circumstance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at all times, Yeah, I could see him just kicking
Speaker 1: him in the gut until he was, you know, coughing
Speaker 1: up blood. Like I could see it going that far.
Speaker 1: But from this movie is you don't want to wear
Speaker 1: dress shoes to a bowling alley. Yeah that was his undoing,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it. Yeah, it really was. That last shot about
Speaker 1: no dress shoes at the bowling alley. Uh, that last
Speaker 1: shot is so great too. When the when the house
Speaker 1: man comes down and I'm finished, that last line is
Speaker 1: just doesn't get any better. Man, just so perfect. So
Speaker 1: spare still even at the end. I know you and
Speaker 1: I are nerds about like when credits happened, like opening
Speaker 1: credits especially, like you'll see a director credit at the
Speaker 1: perfect time, splashy, perfect frame. But but p t A
Speaker 1: has a real like he has developed an instinct for
Speaker 1: when to drop the title and this is one of
Speaker 1: those movies. I'm a fan of that too, of dropping
Speaker 1: the title card at the end, that's a cool thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how would you? I know every one of us is
Speaker 1: all has fantasized about your how you would do your
Speaker 1: credits and stuff. What do you want in front of
Speaker 1: the movie thing, because you get your choice or back
Speaker 1: of the movie thing. This is a great question. I
Speaker 1: think you get the benefit at the beginning of designing
Speaker 1: what it looks like like in and in the way
Speaker 1: in the way, you don't get that benefit at the end,
Speaker 1: like if you want to design a visual around what
Speaker 1: your name is superimposed over, like the beginnings where it's
Speaker 1: at like I'll always remember John wu Who's director credit,
Speaker 1: showing up in face off when Nick Cage gets out
Speaker 1: of his Cadillac El Dorado and his cape flows back
Speaker 1: and in slow motion it just crackles, and it's directed
Speaker 1: by John Woo at the bottom, and we're like, this
Speaker 1: says everything about the director here. But I think in
Speaker 1: the in a movie like this, uh, Paul Thomas Anderson
Speaker 1: has graduated past the need for any of that, and
Speaker 1: he's more interested in Like I really love the ending
Speaker 1: of Boogie Nights and and Magnolia for the same reason,
Speaker 1: like like we we ramp up and up and up
Speaker 1: like the roller coasters, clacking up to the top, and
Speaker 1: then like the curtain fucking falls on the right quickly
Speaker 1: and the right credit at the end, like it's all
Speaker 1: perfectly timed in a way that like it's so intentional. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a although there's not much going on here at
Speaker 1: the end and he's just sort of sitting there. I
Speaker 1: feel like his movies, it's hard to describe. He ends
Speaker 1: them like five frames early or something. There's this weird
Speaker 1: energy to the way he ends his movies. Yeah. I agree.
Speaker 1: It's effective, though, man in a big way. And that's
Speaker 1: when that black title card, even though I think he did,
Speaker 1: like you said, there will be blood on this one.
Speaker 1: But um, there's something you said for the flashy thing
Speaker 1: in the beginning. But when you when you time that
Speaker 1: directed written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson card that
Speaker 1: hits you with the right music queue, that's another kind
Speaker 1: of power play. It's a little jolt. It's the last
Speaker 1: it's the last chance to jolt you. You know, it
Speaker 1: is great. It's a great moment. It's a great moment
Speaker 1: in a great movie. God damn, dude, I think we
Speaker 1: did it a hundred minutes. I mean we usually go longer,
Speaker 1: but I can be satisfied with this. I'm finished, Jack,
Speaker 1: Are you finished? Yeah? I'm finished. But before that'll be fine,
Speaker 1: that'll be fine, um before, I'm sure you'll agree. Oh man,
Speaker 1: he's so good in this movie. I just can't get
Speaker 1: over how great he is in that voice, which he
Speaker 1: kind of ripped off from John Houston. Apparently it's the
Speaker 1: perfect voice. God, he's good. It's the perfect voice, it's
Speaker 1: the perfect mustache, it's the perfect hate. God damn, dude,
Speaker 1: that was the last thing on my list. That's just
Speaker 1: about to say. The hat such a great hat. You
Speaker 1: can buy that hat, dude, I looked it up. There's
Speaker 1: a company called Baron Hats, all right, I'm looking it
Speaker 1: up right now, Like I think it's spelled b A
Speaker 1: r o N. And they may call the hats for
Speaker 1: movies and it's called the plain View. And it's like
Speaker 1: fucking six dollars. Though it's so much money for a hat,
Speaker 1: but I want it so bad. Oh my god, that's
Speaker 1: it right, they ate it for the movie. Hast this hat,
Speaker 1: of course he does. Yeah, they were probably crew gifts. God,
Speaker 1: could you imagine? It's pretty sweet. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I could pull it off, though Ben Harrison probably could.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he could totally. I like, I don't have
Speaker 1: a hat head or a hat face, I look like
Speaker 1: the I looked like the kid from the sand Lot.
Speaker 1: When I put on a hat, I look like I
Speaker 1: looked like Smalls. My brother worked on that movie. I
Speaker 1: can't pull off a hat. God, what a what a
Speaker 1: great hat. It's a good looking hat, didn't it. Shoot?
Speaker 1: I looked. I looked up one time Bob Dylan's on
Speaker 1: the Rolling Thunder review tour. I don't know which about Dylan,
Speaker 1: but he had that great hat. It's that big sort
Speaker 1: of ballero hat and I had the feather stuff on
Speaker 1: the side and that great band. I was like, oh man,
Speaker 1: I wonder if anyone makes one of those. And I
Speaker 1: looked it up and it was like it was almost
Speaker 1: like a thousand dollars for a perfect replica, and like, can't.
Speaker 1: I can never spend a thousand dollars on a hat
Speaker 1: that you wear like twice a year, maybe just to
Speaker 1: show off or something. I do it. I will go
Speaker 1: as far as glasses like this, this whiskey glass I'm
Speaker 1: drinking out of is is absurdly priced, and I'm I
Speaker 1: didn't buy it for myself. You gotta tell me. I
Speaker 1: feel like this is glass. Oh God, it's dumb. But
Speaker 1: the difference is you don't wear a hat every day
Speaker 1: and you can drink whiskey every day. That's a solid
Speaker 1: point and that's a great way to end. In the
Speaker 1: punch line to all this, everyone is next time I
Speaker 1: see Adam, we're both going to meet at the same
Speaker 1: bar and show up in this goddamn hat. Double plain views,
Speaker 1: double plain views. All right, brother, this is a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. It was. Thanks so much for having me back.
Speaker 1: I love this project we're doing. Yeah, me too, and
Speaker 1: thank you. Thanks to everyone for listening, and we will
Speaker 1: see you next week. Lumie Crush has produced, edited, and
Speaker 1: engineered by Ramsey Hunt here in our home studio at
Speaker 1: Pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I Heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.