Speaker 1: Could I Peter Halley here, hosts of You Ain't Seen
Speaker 1: Nothing Yet?
Speaker 2: We have some classic replay episodes over a couple of weeks,
Speaker 2: just while we get the season six all kind of
Speaker 2: up and going. Some great episodes coming up, some great
Speaker 2: new guests Lucky Hume, Ryan Sheldon and Michael Hing, as
Speaker 2: well as some returning guests. We've got Ross Noble and
Speaker 2: Alexi Tollyopolis, among others. But I wanted to play some
Speaker 2: episodes to highlight some of the people touring around at
Speaker 2: the moment. I've alviously got my show touring at called
Speaker 2: Deconstructed Oragami around the country.
Speaker 1: Please come and check it out.
Speaker 2: I would love you to get tickets at comedy dot
Speaker 2: com dot Au. You can also get tickets for today's
Speaker 2: guest as well. I love this episode if you Ain't
Speaker 2: Seen Nothing Yet. It's with Tom Ballard, one of the
Speaker 2: sharpest comedians on the scene, and he watched one of
Speaker 2: my favorite films for the first time and kind of
Speaker 2: loved it. So enjoyed his episode. Tom's new show is
Speaker 2: called It Is I. It's playing around the country. If
Speaker 2: you haven't seen Tom before live, then go checking him out.
Speaker 2: If you have seen him, well you know what to expect,
Speaker 2: and that is some comedy. Enjoy this replay from Tom
Speaker 2: Bellard and in Bruges and you won't say nothing yet,
Speaker 2: go ahead make.
Speaker 3: My day.
Speaker 4: Schewingum online.
Speaker 3: I hope you brought enough for everybody.
Speaker 5: There's only one man who would dare give me the
Speaker 5: raspberry lone stars haven't.
Speaker 1: Any right now?
Speaker 4: You don't say nothing here.
Speaker 2: Tom Ballard has been delivering master class of stand up
Speaker 2: comedy for years now. Tom burst onto the Melbourne scene
Speaker 2: at the age of eight for Memory, seemingly a fully formed,
Speaker 2: worldly in season comic with a whole lot on his mind.
Speaker 2: He began on Radio and Warnable until eventually finding himself
Speaker 2: on the Jays for seven years. I believe he was
Speaker 2: twelve when he left for Memory. Tom has been a
Speaker 2: regular fixture on the Australian comedy scene as well as
Speaker 2: on our screens, hosting such shows as Reality Check and
Speaker 2: Tonightly with Tom Ballard.
Speaker 1: He even hosted Q and eight.
Speaker 2: He's also appeared on The Projects and Hughey, we have
Speaker 2: a problem amongst the all those other Channel ten shows.
Speaker 2: Tom's recent show We are All in This Looking back
Speaker 2: at the cluster fuck that was twenty twenty was bold,
Speaker 2: brilliant and one of the best live stand up shows
Speaker 2: I've ever seen. Whilst many comics weighed up just how
Speaker 2: much COVID their audiences could handle, Tom jumped right in.
Speaker 1: But it was never just about looking back.
Speaker 2: It was just as much about the future as it
Speaker 2: was about what had just happened. Tom Ballard is brave,
Speaker 2: intelligent and not as angry in person as you might expect,
Speaker 2: And I'm bloody stoked he's with me today.
Speaker 1: Tom aw.
Speaker 3: Hello, Peter, Hi everyone, My name is Tom Ballard. My
Speaker 3: top three films are you know? The Classics? I Love
Speaker 3: You Too, How To Stay Married and The Project.
Speaker 4: But when I'm not watching them, it's probably Return of
Speaker 4: the Jedi.
Speaker 2: Your Imagination, The Matrix, Free Your Mind Ed Hook.
Speaker 4: You are a very poor role model for these kids,
Speaker 4: do you know that? And until recently I had not
Speaker 4: seen In Bruges.
Speaker 2: Yes, the brilliant Carter Burwell's eerie Gothic score is almost
Speaker 2: a character in Irish playwrights Martin McDonald's feature film directorial
Speaker 2: debut two thousand and eighth's dark comedy in Bruges, But
Speaker 2: as far as actual characters go, Ray and Ken, Colin
Speaker 2: Farrell and Brennan Gleeson, both brilliant have been given instructions
Speaker 2: to hide out in the quaint little Belgian town of
Speaker 2: Bruges and await further instructions from their boss Harry after
Speaker 2: an assassination attempt goes wrong. Kenny's quite having this gothic
Speaker 2: fairy tale, happy to take in the history, the art,
Speaker 2: the culture, whilst Ray is clearly more anxious, bored and fidgety.
Speaker 2: He's a man looking for distractions to numb the pain
Speaker 2: of his horrific rookie era.
Speaker 1: He finds this.
Speaker 2: Somewhat in Chloe Clemens Posey, a local woman who deals
Speaker 2: drugs with the local film crew, and Jimmy in Angry
Speaker 2: drug using party intent, racist dwarf played by Jordan Pretens,
Speaker 2: not Peterdinkliche in Bruce is massively written and executed. The
Speaker 2: dark tale about the weight of gilt, the power of redemption,
Speaker 2: and the reminder that nobody swears quite like the Irish
Speaker 2: Tom Ballard. You've played some sleepy towns, I'm sure on too.
Speaker 2: Have you ever played in Bruges to Bruges never.
Speaker 3: Never, never looked, never be to Belgium in any way whatsoever.
Speaker 4: No, but I did enjoy this, this beautiful Christmas film.
Speaker 1: This is like the new die Hard is in Bruce
Speaker 1: a Christmas film.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I do believe that they had.
Speaker 2: To keep up the decorations out of season to make
Speaker 2: this film. They've explained to the townspeople, this is why
Speaker 2: we're keeping the decorations up. And I do know that
Speaker 2: the mayor of this town did say after the film
Speaker 2: came out that they're going to be more discerning as
Speaker 2: to who they allow to film in Bruce from now on. Well,
Speaker 2: this film weighed on your you know, on your mind,
Speaker 2: like it must get to film or this.
Speaker 4: It was it was always this, Yes, it was.
Speaker 3: It was just it was yes, two thousand and eight,
Speaker 3: and I remember it being mentioned again and again again.
Speaker 3: I remember thinking Colin Farrell was a bit shit. I
Speaker 3: don't know what really what my basis was that maybe.
Speaker 2: Well, but then Colin Farrell was you remember Chris Rock
Speaker 2: at the Oscars and he made that joke about if
Speaker 2: you can't afford Russell Crowe, you get Colin Farrell. So
Speaker 2: he was a little bit he came he kind of hot,
Speaker 2: and then it was like very much. He got a
Speaker 2: reputation as being the womanizer. Yes, and let's started making
Speaker 2: contionhit films. That's what was really bad, wasn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he makes a big action films, went for those big
Speaker 2: films and then and then it was a bit of
Speaker 2: a down with memory. This might have been the film
Speaker 2: that kind of brought him back, because you want to
Speaker 2: go him globe for this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Wow, he's amazing in this. He's incredible in this.
Speaker 3: He's so funny and so duck and just yeah, just brilliant.
Speaker 3: And then is brilliant again in Seven Psychopaths, the next
Speaker 3: Martin McDonough film. So anyway, but I couldn't figure out
Speaker 3: what it was like. No one could explain to me
Speaker 3: what this movie really was about, and so it just
Speaker 3: sort of was one of those things that fell by
Speaker 3: the way and it felt like yeah, cool hips to
Speaker 3: people might mention they've seen him Bruges.
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, I don't really get it.
Speaker 1: Anyway.
Speaker 3: Fast forward years later and I'm getting a bit more
Speaker 3: into theater and playwriting and reading stuff, and I hear
Speaker 3: about this Martin McDonough.
Speaker 1: Guy.
Speaker 4: I happened to watch seven Oh No. I saw Three.
Speaker 3: Billboards of course, and I love that, love that film.
Speaker 3: So it was so funny and dark and fucked up
Speaker 3: and so genuinely edgy, and maybe something we can talk
Speaker 3: about is just how non pc mcdonnery is and how
Speaker 3: he plays with it.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what you're talking about. I thought it
Speaker 2: felt very tweets any one and quite woke.
Speaker 4: And I love it.
Speaker 3: I love that you tell he doesn't give a fuck. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so yeah, I love that film. Wander to find out
Speaker 3: more about this guy, and then yeah, watch Seven Psychopaths.
Speaker 4: Absolutely love that film.
Speaker 3: And then when this opportunity came up, I was like,
Speaker 3: put me down for im Bruges, please.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited when you chose it one because I
Speaker 2: thought you would love it. And we'll get to that
Speaker 2: very soon. But so it's actually I'm not sure what
Speaker 2: number of like it's in my top fifteen. I would say, yes,
Speaker 2: I saw it in the cinema on the advice and
Speaker 2: I'm about to drop a name. Joel Legend had said
Speaker 2: to me. Joel Legend had told me I think he
Speaker 2: had worked with Martin McDonough and they said, go see
Speaker 2: this film. It hasn't come out yet, but he's an
Speaker 2: amazing playwright. I've worked with him and it's going to
Speaker 2: be great and so and it blew me away. So
Speaker 2: about your three favorite films I Love You Too, let's
Speaker 2: talk about it. Writing, yes, performances, it's a it's an
Speaker 2: asolute master class.
Speaker 1: Enough.
Speaker 2: I did mention Peter Dinklage in the opener because when
Speaker 2: we were making I Love You Too, and Peter thinklish
Speaker 2: was in that film. He he told me, he told
Speaker 2: me a story that he that everyone thinks he's the
Speaker 2: guy he's.
Speaker 1: Jimmy in in.
Speaker 2: Bruce like, yeah, this is back then before he did
Speaker 2: Game of Throne, so I imagine it's changed quite a bit.
Speaker 2: But it got to the point that whenever somebody came
Speaker 2: up there and said a man, I love you any Bruce, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you just go, oh, mane. It was great to
Speaker 2: make and Colin Farrell is an absolute blast and we
Speaker 2: had a really fun time making that film. Okay, thank
Speaker 2: you buy. So when I was a bit fitter, I
Speaker 2: got it a lot with Joel Greesa, just tell us
Speaker 2: these days ago, No, no, we don't.
Speaker 1: Lockdown was tough and everyone mate.
Speaker 2: Return of the Jedi, Yes, this is fascinating. So we've
Speaker 2: discussed Star Wars with Wiley Lee on this show, and
Speaker 2: he's returning very soon to do Empire Strikes Back and
Speaker 2: this is and Star Wars has a people.
Speaker 1: We had Adam Christie, who's a Canadian commedity.
Speaker 2: He did War Street, and he made the point that
Speaker 2: isn't like Star Wars in everybody's top three, but everyone's
Speaker 2: just like it's like the most successful film of all time.
Speaker 1: The biggest impacts is you know pop culturally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nobody puts it in their top three, so you'll
Speaker 2: bypass Star Wars and New Hope and going straight for
Speaker 2: a Return of the GEDI explain.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess it is derided a bit or
Speaker 3: not derided, but yeah, people either say yeah if I
Speaker 3: strikes Back or do you hope? Other other superior films.
Speaker 3: All I can say is that the level of imagination.
Speaker 3: I think the imagination is a theme across these three
Speaker 3: films for me. But the way that that film captured
Speaker 3: my imagination. I guess I watched it because it's like
Speaker 3: eighty eight or something. Is it eighty seven round then?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: So obviously so I was born in eighty nine, so
Speaker 3: I'm not watching it till I guess the late nineties
Speaker 3: really technically, so there's no reason why I'd watched that
Speaker 3: earlier than all the others.
Speaker 4: But anyway, from the from the get go, from.
Speaker 3: The rescue of Hard Solo from from jabb or the
Speaker 3: revenge of like the Jabba Palace sequence, I just like
Speaker 3: my mind was blown. It's an adventure. It looks fucking cool.
Speaker 3: I thought it was really funny. I like the Ewoks.
Speaker 3: They probably are a very cynical merchandise exercise, but I
Speaker 3: think they're really cute and great. And I guess just
Speaker 3: the drama, the Shakespearean drama of that final confrontation and
Speaker 3: Darth Vader's decision to find the good within him.
Speaker 4: I was terrified of Faalatine.
Speaker 3: He was the scariest thing I've ever seen in my
Speaker 3: entire life. It's just like an incredible adventure from go
Speaker 3: to woh.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm, you know, a massive Star Wars fan,
Speaker 2: and I love Return of the Jedi. I particularly love
Speaker 2: the first half, like the whole Jabbaz Palace thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I literally you.
Speaker 2: Know, when The Mandalorian was released and they had that
Speaker 2: final little teaser, yes, which takes place a Jabba's Palace
Speaker 2: for the next series they're going to be doing, I
Speaker 2: literally punched a Yeah. It was so good to be
Speaker 2: back in Jabba's Palace for some reason, you know, and
Speaker 2: I just loved it. I remember seeing it twice at
Speaker 2: the cinema, I think maybe on the same day, but
Speaker 2: like or the next day, and I was sitting there
Speaker 2: watching it, and a guy the second time, and when
Speaker 2: Luke enters in the in the club, you're not sure
Speaker 2: who who it is, and a guy behind.
Speaker 1: Me went start fader, and I just went, no, it's
Speaker 1: not what a prick. Yeah, yeah, it's our podcast about
Speaker 1: spoiling movies.
Speaker 4: Really talking drink.
Speaker 1: It's an ad.
Speaker 2: It's at the man Let Peerlindine do their job.
Speaker 1: But it is it is.
Speaker 2: It is a fantastic ride, and it often doesn't get
Speaker 2: put in. Empire is the one that I think people
Speaker 2: will gravitate towards. But often, you know, you don't hear
Speaker 2: Return of the Jedi. Everyone loves it, you know, but
Speaker 2: it's usually either Star Wars or Empire.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think my brother is quite a purist too,
Speaker 4: and I think he always.
Speaker 2: Looked his nose down, down his nose a little bit
Speaker 2: of the Return of the Jedi, maybe thought it was
Speaker 2: too easy. And I remember I remember loving the Ewoks,
Speaker 2: you know, when it happened. I think maybe over the
Speaker 2: years I grew a little bit when I heard about
Speaker 2: maybe the toy, you know, merchandise side of it, that
Speaker 2: I grew a little bit more cynical about them. But
Speaker 2: I think that was a lot of that was in hindsight.
Speaker 2: I think at the time I just was all in
Speaker 2: for theox one.
Speaker 3: I think maybe, yeah, if you were, like if you
Speaker 3: were slightly older, and yeah, you've been through the coolness
Speaker 3: of New Hope and by strikes back, you might look
Speaker 3: at the C three po being hailed as a god
Speaker 3: by these little ewoch things that are going what are
Speaker 3: we doing here?
Speaker 4: Like why why isn't someone killing someone with the lightsaber?
Speaker 2: Or It is a reminder, though, when people talk about
Speaker 2: the new films and they get you know, they get
Speaker 2: their arguments online that these films were made for kids.
Speaker 1: Really, that's not true. How have you taken the latest,
Speaker 1: you know, the new Star Wars?
Speaker 3: I really I watched them all again recently in my
Speaker 3: endless quest to procrastinate from achieving anything, and even Solo really.
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, yeah, it's fine.
Speaker 2: I don't think it was as bad as I thought
Speaker 2: it was the first time I watched it, but it
Speaker 2: didn't quite capture my heart and my soul.
Speaker 3: And they were they were all actually great fun. I
Speaker 3: thought the final three were.
Speaker 4: The fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the most recent sort of Free is part of
Speaker 3: the trilogy. I just watching them back to back. I
Speaker 3: just had a lot of fun. I think Snoke was
Speaker 3: a bit stupid and weird. And you do sort of
Speaker 3: notice these competing visions of the various directors, and you,
Speaker 3: I guess, knowing what we know about the tension, about
Speaker 3: the direction that certain films went, that you it can
Speaker 3: feel a little bit uneven, But I don't know, it's fun,
Speaker 3: that's really all for me.
Speaker 2: The lack of synergy between the three films, like the
Speaker 2: communication between JJ Abrams and Ryan Johnson kind of really
Speaker 2: surprised me to learn that there wasn't a whole lot
Speaker 2: of discussion about what you're doing and where's it's going
Speaker 2: to go, and like and being part of the Disney family,
Speaker 2: you think, well, there, Marvel's part of that family. They
Speaker 2: have executed this amazing whatever it was nineteen film mark.
Speaker 1: Yes, it worked brilliantly.
Speaker 2: Surely you tap Kevin Fag on the shoulder and say,
Speaker 2: can you run your eyes over this?
Speaker 1: And you know, any ideas you have or have you
Speaker 1: any any pointers. That's the only thing. But I love
Speaker 1: for the thing I love about Force Awakens.
Speaker 2: It felt like a Star Wars film kind of immediately
Speaker 2: for me, where I think some of the prequels going oh,
Speaker 2: this feels like it's it's I can see it Star Wars,
Speaker 2: but it feels different for some reason and not in
Speaker 2: a great way. And this felt Force Awakens straight away.
Speaker 2: I like, I like the last stupid that don't Yeah,
Speaker 2: I know people, but I always go well. He brought
Speaker 2: up a good point which has kind of a few
Speaker 2: times since sometimes I guess has raised it the idea
Speaker 2: that what does the Empire actually want? Like it's not
Speaker 2: actually defined. It's basically just good and bad. And that's
Speaker 2: I think when you think about Star Wars, that's all
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 1: It's good and bad.
Speaker 2: And I think that's that's why when people complain, like
Speaker 2: in The Men Laurie and look Skywalker's back, it's.
Speaker 1: Like, can we just move on from school? No? Because
Speaker 1: this is the guy.
Speaker 2: This is the guy and kind of like Dart Bade
Speaker 2: and Palpatine, they're like the other dudes on the other side,
Speaker 2: like the shadow is his looms large so you're always
Speaker 2: gonna come back.
Speaker 3: It's like that join me, like will rule the galaxy?
Speaker 3: Like what does it actually look like Invader's head? Like
Speaker 3: what is a successful administration of the galaxy? And what
Speaker 3: does he do for fun? And like how does he
Speaker 3: pleasure himself? Because it's just being evil is the being evil?
Speaker 2: Being evil is the thing never and sitting and getting
Speaker 2: the best arm chair in the galaxy. Basically, But I
Speaker 2: really love, I love, I really enjoyed the Rise of Skywalker.
Speaker 2: I watched it, I said a couple of times in
Speaker 2: the cinema, and I left it for a while and
Speaker 2: I revisited, i think during lockdown, and this really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: The choice to make Skywalker like the cynical burnt out
Speaker 3: like that was very It was very jarring initially and
Speaker 3: very weird, but I thought, yeah, it paid off the end.
Speaker 2: Incredible shaking people after last year. I'm saying that the
Speaker 2: story's not over yet. Let it still who knows what's
Speaker 2: going to happen? And I actually thought maybe he wasn't
Speaker 2: he was going to come back. This part of me thought, well,
Speaker 2: you know, who knows. Sure he disappeared off that rock,
Speaker 2: but maybe it's a Jedi mind trick or something anyway, and.
Speaker 3: Then the prequels, which I can look back now and go,
Speaker 3: these are not so great, but my my memory and
Speaker 3: my sentiment with those films is incredible because I went
Speaker 3: to like Midnight premieres in ninety nine with my brother
Speaker 3: in the cinema, and that was the most like on
Speaker 3: a school night, that was the most exciting thing that
Speaker 3: ever happened, staying up till midnight.
Speaker 4: The movie started at midnight, which is the scariest hour
Speaker 4: of all.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is.
Speaker 3: And then you know the pod racist stuff. It doesn't
Speaker 3: do much plot wise or anything, but it's it was cool.
Speaker 4: It was fucking cool. It exilt.
Speaker 2: I remember walking out of a fan of man it's
Speaker 2: actually kind of thinking it was. You know, it was
Speaker 2: a good Star Wars as much as I just said
Speaker 2: the whole you know, the whole thing that times didn't
Speaker 2: feel like exactly what Star was in the same way
Speaker 2: I think the Force Awakens achieved, but I still walked
Speaker 2: out going nah, I think it was just good to
Speaker 2: have been that world again. The Attack of the Clones
Speaker 2: is the one that let's the prele because I think
Speaker 2: Revenge of the City is good. I think Revenge of
Speaker 2: the City is the best of of the three, actually, right,
Speaker 2: And I think Take of the Clones is just you know,
Speaker 2: it's just all about red tape and administration. Really, I
Speaker 2: mean it's it's I find it quite dull. But all right,
Speaker 2: Return of the Jedi done. And your second one little
Speaker 2: film called The Matrix.
Speaker 1: The Matrix, Yes, ever heard of it? Uh No?
Speaker 2: I discussed it with Kitty flannag and we may need
Speaker 2: your help to completely understand that. We still wrestled with
Speaker 2: it a little bit. I remember seeing it at the
Speaker 2: cinema and knowing that we had just seen something revolutionary.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, Matrix Revolutions, I mean, yeah, what can you say?
Speaker 3: Just an incredible mind bending film that I can watch,
Speaker 3: I can watch again and you know, a million times.
Speaker 3: And it was so it was so cool, it was
Speaker 3: so smart. It was it was simultaneously this like existential
Speaker 3: exploration of the self and reality with like cool action
Speaker 3: sequences and bullets and stuff, and like kung fu.
Speaker 1: That's what I love about.
Speaker 2: You can you can watch all the three Matrix movies,
Speaker 2: and there's another one coming out soon and really delve
Speaker 2: into what it means. Or you can just watch it
Speaker 2: and going this is a really cool film. It's great, Yeah, totally,
Speaker 2: And I.
Speaker 1: Probably was more on that side as to completely.
Speaker 2: I got lost in the weeds a little bit at times,
Speaker 2: and even revisiting is the one film I was a
Speaker 2: bit nervous about because I know how they'll get about
Speaker 2: the Matrix, and I'm like, oh, I think I understand it.
Speaker 2: So if I was asking you what is the matrix?
Speaker 2: Go what is the actual matrix? What is the actual matrix?
Speaker 3: The Matrix is a virtual reality created by artificial intelligence
Speaker 3: to keep human beings distracted while they kill us and
Speaker 3: use our body mass as energy in order to survive.
Speaker 1: Connor White, Scott Morrisson is doing. Am I right? Am
Speaker 1: I right? Andrew Bolts called into a podcast RM. We
Speaker 1: didn't even have a phone number. And then I like
Speaker 1: the other two films got me crazy.
Speaker 2: They're great, and I went further like going, I think
Speaker 2: I started making that point after more so with the sequels.
Speaker 2: They're just cool films, chases and you know, it's awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah, fucking great.
Speaker 3: And the architect thing, yeah blew my mind. And I
Speaker 3: didn't get it at all, and I was scared and confused.
Speaker 3: But then you watch it a couple more times, you go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: it all makes sense. He's just saying it in a
Speaker 3: weird way. But you know, that is an incredible twist
Speaker 3: that this has happened multiple times, and the human beings,
Speaker 3: the nature of human beings cannot be solved, and you
Speaker 3: can't and even a highly intelligent computer cannot create some
Speaker 3: world that will fool every single human being all the
Speaker 3: time because there is something else, there is something within
Speaker 3: us yearning for freedom that will inevitably fuck up the matrix,
Speaker 3: which means that the one is created, then they have
Speaker 3: the revolution, and then it all happens again.
Speaker 4: It just repeats, It repeats again, again and again.
Speaker 2: Were surprised that counter Reeves understood all of that.
Speaker 3: I've never seen Hill and so he is like neo
Speaker 3: to me, Like, that's what was my introduction?
Speaker 4: Like that was got you?
Speaker 2: I knew from Yeah, I knew from point Break was
Speaker 2: well my actual reference point, but also Parenthood. He was
Speaker 2: so good in Parenthood. Break comedy really still stands up today.
Speaker 2: It's really great. But yeah, but I think I joke
Speaker 2: about that because I remember when he was on Row
Speaker 2: Live rode through that question what he's the major, and
Speaker 2: he just had his answer, you know, like and he
Speaker 2: just knew and I think it. And then I kind
Speaker 2: of got a bit more interested in Keanu Reeves and
Speaker 2: he's actually like a really intelligent dude. Yeah, he just
Speaker 2: played a lot of dumb roles leading into the matrix.
Speaker 2: So he was a bit of a mind bending as
Speaker 2: mind bending is. The idea itself was like, can it
Speaker 2: Reeves is across this?
Speaker 3: I was obsessed, Like I watched all the like you know,
Speaker 3: on the DVDs, had all these extras like how it
Speaker 3: was made and what was going on in the process
Speaker 3: behind it. Wachowski's were fascinating figures. I was fascinated by
Speaker 3: their brain, how much thought they put into this. They
Speaker 3: always conceded as a trilogy, which was incredible that they
Speaker 3: always had that was the pitch for it, So to
Speaker 3: be able to do that it was amazing.
Speaker 4: And then Cloud Atlas, to me is extraordinary. I love
Speaker 4: that film.
Speaker 3: Right, A lot of people think of shit, but I
Speaker 3: just think that an incredible film. Jupiter Ascending is one
Speaker 3: of the worst films I've ever seen in my entire life.
Speaker 3: So like, who are these Yeah, these these siblings who
Speaker 3: were able to I don't know, kick it out for Bendetta.
Speaker 1: Even Debt is great.
Speaker 3: Yes, I like that and and races that racist ones
Speaker 3: all right, yeah, but yeah, Cloud out List to me
Speaker 3: is yeah, that that is extraordinary film.
Speaker 2: My any criticism of the Matrix is they could have
Speaker 2: got rid of the Commonwealth Bank logo that you see
Speaker 2: in one of the final scenes shot in George Street
Speaker 2: and sorry.
Speaker 3: I once I did a work experience at Melbourne Theater
Speaker 3: Company when I was at a high school because I
Speaker 3: was very cool and Belinda McLaury was in the play
Speaker 3: that I was. Work experience at MTC means you sit
Speaker 3: there and you watch them rehearse. Just the easiest work
Speaker 3: experience of the world. And Belinda McClory was in it
Speaker 3: and she plays I believe switch right in the place.
Speaker 3: So so just the fact that I was like near
Speaker 3: someone that was in the Matrix was like, yeah, an
Speaker 3: incredible moment for me because it was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all shot in the citney right and carry on.
Speaker 2: Moss was just awesome in that that was the first
Speaker 2: time we saw I became away of Moss and she
Speaker 2: was She was in Memento too, and that's kind of
Speaker 2: the ones that I know where's she got. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm sure she's done some other stuff. I think I
Speaker 2: think Catherine Keena started stealing all her roles personally, or
Speaker 2: maybe that was already happening beforehand.
Speaker 4: Do you think the fourth one will or can possibly
Speaker 4: be good?
Speaker 2: I I often think things are bad ideas, and I
Speaker 2: get proven wrong constantly. From Dancing with the Stars, which
Speaker 2: I called the Daryl Summer's Dance Show and became one
Speaker 2: of the you know, one of the giant hits it
Speaker 2: around the world Transformers, I was like, this can't work.
Speaker 2: Maybe he's going to see this and one of the
Speaker 2: biggest movie franchises of all time. So like that heresy
Speaker 2: Jake about studying computing at university, there's no money in this.
Speaker 2: I could have gone either way, so I want nothing past.
Speaker 1: Of the Macasics are involved. I imagine they're doing it.
Speaker 4: I think both, I think both of them.
Speaker 1: Maybe was one of them right.
Speaker 3: But Lily Wachowski produces Work in Progress, which is an
Speaker 3: incredible TV series that everyone should watch. I forget the
Speaker 3: name now, but it's centered about this lesbian woman who's
Speaker 3: like a legend in the Chicago improv scene, and it
Speaker 3: follows her experience of dating a trans man and had
Speaker 3: this sort of midlife crisis. Basically, she has this box
Speaker 3: of almonds and she's going to eat an almond every day,
Speaker 3: and if at the end of eating all the almonds
Speaker 3: she's still not happy, she's.
Speaker 4: Going to kill herself.
Speaker 3: That's the initial premise that comes into the show. Anyway,
Speaker 3: extraordinary show, Working Progress that everyone should check out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those are a activated of the armors. Where can
Speaker 1: you see it? You know that's on stand stan all right,
Speaker 1: Working Progress? Check it out.
Speaker 2: Finally, Hook is a movie that has come up before,
Speaker 2: and I must say I haven't seen it, even though
Speaker 2: it's been suggested to me.
Speaker 1: Mark Humphreys had this in his top three.
Speaker 3: I was literally listening to this on the way here,
Speaker 3: and I had About a Boy, the Grant film in
Speaker 3: my top three. I love that film endlessly, both for
Speaker 3: the soundtrack for what it is, and I think Hugh
Speaker 3: Grant has never been better than in that film. And
Speaker 3: Nicholas Holt is adorable, and Tony cl It gives a
Speaker 3: standard performance.
Speaker 2: And he's one of that sounds rape but badly. John
Speaker 2: Boy is just one of the complete kind of efforts.
Speaker 4: Perfect in every way.
Speaker 3: And but then Mrcovery is mighty be no hook is
Speaker 3: my Princess Bride is the millennial Princess Bride. It is
Speaker 3: an extraordinary film that is funny and just unbridled imagination
Speaker 3: that I could watch a million times.
Speaker 4: And yeah, that absolutely has.
Speaker 2: To be my top for reasons. I have no idea why.
Speaker 2: I just have not seen it, and I I will,
Speaker 2: I will now, an't they? Yeah, Yeah, it's it's Oscar Mike,
Speaker 2: it's Robin Williams, Steven Spielberg's restricted it. Yes, yes, And
Speaker 2: there's no reason why should have seen this film. It
Speaker 2: doesn't Huffman's incredible.
Speaker 4: It's just.
Speaker 3: And I remember you guys talking with with MRC Comfrey
Speaker 3: is about like, you know, Robin Williams doing Robin Williams
Speaker 3: is Peter Pan. But I guess in every other representation
Speaker 3: of Peter Pan, Peter Pan doesn't seem that fun or
Speaker 3: like he's a little boy, but like what does that
Speaker 3: actually mean? Like he's not playing pranks or anything. Really,
Speaker 3: he's just a boy who doesn't want to grow up.
Speaker 3: And I guess Robin Williams is that. I guess he
Speaker 3: was Jack as well. Right, this is adult man who
Speaker 3: has the spirit of a boy within him. So he's
Speaker 3: the perfect choice and his rediscovery of his inner child.
Speaker 3: That's what the film is really like, finding the child
Speaker 3: with him, kind of thing like he grew up and
Speaker 3: he becomes a sort of boring man who's like always
Speaker 3: on the phone. He has this massive nineties like mobile
Speaker 3: phone that he's constantly yelling into and then someone grabs
Speaker 3: it off and throws it, throws it out the window.
Speaker 3: So he's like obsessed with work. He's just become this
Speaker 3: burnt out, you know, hold out adult. And then he
Speaker 3: finds he's in a child.
Speaker 1: He's Julia Roberts in it. Yes, she's think about, she's
Speaker 1: think about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was aware of him, but I must say
Speaker 2: I had no idea it was any good at all. Well,
Speaker 2: I think when Mark Humphrey said, I was a bit
Speaker 2: shocked by In fact, I think when he might have
Speaker 2: said this his first film, and I thought he might
Speaker 2: have been taking the piss like to be honest, I
Speaker 2: just have not had any reverence for it or any
Speaker 2: kind of like I must, I must watch it. But
Speaker 2: that has flipped on its head, and I will get
Speaker 2: to around a watching hook.
Speaker 1: But let's get on to talk about the movie.
Speaker 2: Where he had to talk about in Brews two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight, Martin Donna, starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and
Speaker 2: Ray find I saw this in the cinema.
Speaker 1: It is one of my favorite films. Did you like it?
Speaker 4: Loved it?
Speaker 3: I know, I sort of knew, to be fair, having
Speaker 3: seen seven Psychopaths. Knowing what I knew about Martin McDonough,
Speaker 3: I knew going to it this time around that I
Speaker 3: was going to like this film. But I watched it twice.
Speaker 3: We were gonna live this. A few weeks ago, I
Speaker 3: did reschedule because I was sick as a dog. So
Speaker 3: I sort of watched it while I was sick, and
Speaker 3: I was like, I know this is good, but I'm
Speaker 3: coming in and out of consciousness. And then I rewatched
Speaker 3: it yesterday in preparation for this, and I loved it
Speaker 3: even more the second time. And it was so funny
Speaker 3: and so beautifully structured. I mean, you can tell he's
Speaker 3: a playwright and he knows how to construct a story.
Speaker 3: Every little detail and scene is sort of setting something
Speaker 3: up and there's a payoff, and it is this beautiful
Speaker 3: mediation on guilt, what it means to be a good
Speaker 3: person living with the consequences of your actions insanely dark
Speaker 3: and fucked up and yeah it was really up my alley.
Speaker 1: So soo things you mentioned it I want to explore.
Speaker 2: One is that that everything is there for a reason,
Speaker 2: and that's it's you can tell he's a play right,
Speaker 2: and there's things like The two things that come to
Speaker 2: mind are and it's it's so it's so tricky to
Speaker 2: do sometimes so and what what how Matta and we done?
Speaker 1: Does it really well?
Speaker 2: Is it comes often it comes across as this banter
Speaker 2: or a joke, and then it comes back. The bottle
Speaker 2: is a good example of the uh they're talking about
Speaker 2: the karate and then and then the bodying fact we
Speaker 2: might play. I think this scene when they're talking about
Speaker 2: the lollipop man, just a lollipop man.
Speaker 1: It came at me with a bottle.
Speaker 4: What are you going to do?
Speaker 1: Shut him down?
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 6: And my book, don't sorry someone comes out to you
Speaker 6: with a bottle, that is it dead weapon.
Speaker 4: He's got to take the consequences. I know that in
Speaker 4: my heart.
Speaker 1: I also know that he's just trying to protect his brother.
Speaker 4: You know, I know what a bottle they can kill you.
Speaker 6: It's a case of it's you or him if you
Speaker 6: commented with his bare hands, that would be different, and
Speaker 6: that wouldn't have fair.
Speaker 1: Well, technically your bare hands can kill somebody too. They
Speaker 1: can be deadly weapons too. What if you knew karates?
Speaker 6: Say he said he was a lollipop man, he was
Speaker 6: a lillipop man. What's a lollipop man doing no fucking karate?
Speaker 4: How was he?
Speaker 6: What's a fifty year old lollipop man doing no fucking karate?
Speaker 6: What was her Chinese lollipop man? Jesus ken, I'm trying
Speaker 6: to talk about, trying to talk.
Speaker 2: About so much to talk about this in that's in
Speaker 2: the line that what I was referring to was the
Speaker 2: bottle gets played almost as a joke there, Yes, and
Speaker 2: then later on in the restaurant, the woman swings a
Speaker 2: bottle at him and he sees it as reason enough
Speaker 2: to then hit her a bunch in the face, which
Speaker 2: you will get to the the PC and the darkness
Speaker 2: of this in the sec and the other thought. And
Speaker 2: you may have some examples of things that you were
Speaker 2: planted and come back was and I are going to
Speaker 2: miss it. So I said this a few times when
Speaker 2: it came out on DV DVD, and then I watched
Speaker 2: it when we were going to do it a few
Speaker 2: weeks ago, for the first time in probably years, and
Speaker 2: I was reminded how bloody extraordinary it was, and you
Speaker 2: was good, and he was on my favors, but it
Speaker 2: was even better than I remembered. And but I had
Speaker 2: I think I missed this fact that the tower is
Speaker 2: closed later on because an American had a heart attack
Speaker 2: the day before, which is obviously the elephant of an
Speaker 2: American that Colin Farrell's Ray was teasing earlier on in
Speaker 2: the movie.
Speaker 4: I'm not being funny.
Speaker 3: Fucking elements, but yes. But even so, their first tourism scene,
Speaker 3: they go to the square and Ken goes up the tower,
Speaker 3: looks down and like does a sniper shot of Ray right,
Speaker 3: like all this beautifully foreshadowing and planting the seeds of
Speaker 3: what's to come.
Speaker 4: Yeah, of doing that same tourism.
Speaker 2: Scene and the coins and the coins as well, he
Speaker 2: can't use his coins, so they give the notes, which
Speaker 2: we'll get to we'll cover the and film I think
Speaker 2: in good detail and the later on.
Speaker 1: But that comes back later on as a factor as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, Yeah, beautiful, Yeah, callbacks and structures that are sort
Speaker 3: of threaded throughout and then I guess thematically too, and
Speaker 3: maybe this is a little bit later too, but like
Speaker 3: only on the second watching did I kind of get oh,
Speaker 3: Bruges is purgatory, right, so those religious elements, and you know,
Speaker 3: people have compared it to sort of waiting for godd
Speaker 3: Oo and those kind of literary references of two duds
Speaker 3: waiting and we're all waiting to see what's going to
Speaker 3: happen at the end of all this which way we're going,
Speaker 3: And I mean the final lines of the film again,
Speaker 3: it's sort of you know, maybe life is whether your
Speaker 3: hell is just being in fucking Bruges for the fraternity.
Speaker 3: And so when they're looking at the painting, the Hornomous
Speaker 3: Bosh painting, which apparently was a big influence for Mud McDonough,
Speaker 3: questioning what does actually means to be purgatory and where
Speaker 3: am I going? Is Yeah, it's just sort of beautifully done,
Speaker 3: never heavy handed, just sort of there if you want it.
Speaker 3: And of course the mirroring of the of Ray's actual
Speaker 3: crime to a child and what Harry ends up doing
Speaker 3: is a beautifully balanced kind of ending, to which Harry replies, Oh,
Speaker 3: I see.
Speaker 2: It's just like perfect that he's so good. Will you
Speaker 2: raise Catholic at all? Or do you have any religion
Speaker 2: in your not at all? Because this really plays to
Speaker 2: like Catholic guilt life is and you know, and the
Speaker 2: McDonough family because his brother. He's also an extraordinary player.
Speaker 2: Cavalry with Brendan Gleeson, which also is an extraordinary film,
Speaker 2: and that starts in a in confession and Brendan Gleeson
Speaker 2: plays a Catholic priest in a small town.
Speaker 1: Go see that film, forget a chance, I have seen that? What?
Speaker 2: So he starts off the very first scene. This is
Speaker 2: not spoiling anything. The very first scene is somebody comes
Speaker 2: to it. We don't know who it is. It is,
Speaker 2: but he says, we all be returning next Sunday and I.
Speaker 1: Will kill you.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 1: So he has to kind of work out who it is.
Speaker 2: And he's kind of like not in a mad rush
Speaker 2: to find out, like he's just trying to kind of
Speaker 2: calmly kind of find out. And he's not sure how
Speaker 2: serious this guy is and why. But all say, he's
Speaker 2: not sure why he wants to kill him. So he's
Speaker 2: going to try to work that out. But no, it's
Speaker 2: it's it's extraordinary. Let's talk about the the fact that
Speaker 2: this I love the way Martin McDonough doesn't spend all
Speaker 2: his credits at the start, as far as there's a
Speaker 2: version of this film where you begin with the assassination
Speaker 2: of the priest, and I love that we just don't
Speaker 2: we know something's happened, but it's kind of eked out
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: There's a scene where I think the first time is
Speaker 2: Brendan Gleeson's character Ken says in the hotel room, he
Speaker 2: goes while we're here because of you know, and he is, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know why we're here, don't You don't need to
Speaker 2: you know, And and then there's a few of those
Speaker 2: kind of moments. And we just heard it with the
Speaker 2: lollipop man a scene. I love the way they play
Speaker 2: that out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, well, I mean, I don't mean to
Speaker 3: say it. And then why do you go bring that up? Yeah,
Speaker 3: the fact that I killed a kid. I mean, God,
Speaker 3: stoll throw that in my face. But that's that's just
Speaker 3: brilliant withholding yeah, withholding information intrigue. I did this playwriting
Speaker 3: sort of Workshoper recently anyway, and they just idea of
Speaker 3: intrigue which I thought was such an interesting idea.
Speaker 4: That you so rarely see.
Speaker 3: Trusting an audience to be like you know, they'll they'll
Speaker 3: put that away in their head. They know that's an
Speaker 3: unresolved question. We don't need to get all the answers
Speaker 3: right now, and.
Speaker 1: You should and you shouldn't have all the answers.
Speaker 2: As soon as you have all the answers, Yes, the
Speaker 2: movie is over, really and you need to, like if
Speaker 2: you think of the good movies, and Matt McDonald is
Speaker 2: so good of that with all these films, you don't
Speaker 2: know where this is going.
Speaker 1: No, you can't. Nobody gets it in the Brudge going Yes,
Speaker 1: so happened?
Speaker 2: Predictable? Yeah, predictable. Yes, the PC nature like the darkness of.
Speaker 1: This comedy. Let's talk about that.
Speaker 2: Like this is a good example because people might see
Speaker 2: this film and go, well, you can't say that I
Speaker 2: don't like these characters saying these, but I think you
Speaker 2: get the set your own culture, your own your own boundaries,
Speaker 2: and go, this is the world we are playing in.
Speaker 1: And they do it very early, and they do it constantly.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think when Ray says they're filming midgets and
Speaker 3: runs over, it starts there.
Speaker 4: You sort of go, oh my god, what is this film?
Speaker 3: Or I believe the line if I'd grown up on
Speaker 3: a farm and was retarded, Bruges might impress me.
Speaker 4: But I didn't, so it doesn't. So and again, is
Speaker 4: Ray a good person?
Speaker 3: Which is the central question of the film too, right,
Speaker 3: he's this he's constantly trying to have people tell him
Speaker 3: that he's a good person, or he's trying to find goodness.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: He views Chloe as a nice someone, nice or whatever,
Speaker 3: which is so funny too as this drug dealer who's
Speaker 3: just tried to mug him.
Speaker 4: But yeah, she's nice. He wants Hurtle like him, he
Speaker 4: wants to be a good person. Harry.
Speaker 3: When he's trying to chase down Ray says, I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna shoot.
Speaker 4: You to the hotel owner.
Speaker 3: I'm a nice person, for God's sakes, even though I've
Speaker 3: tried to go kill this other guy. So the question
Speaker 3: like what does it mean to be a nice person
Speaker 3: and a good person is sort of running through there.
Speaker 3: But Ray's not a nice person, uh, and so he
Speaker 3: says messed up stuff.
Speaker 4: And so yeah, it's always so interesting to me.
Speaker 3: And I've run into these issues every now and again
Speaker 3: with with some recent writing projects, and I've been thinking
Speaker 3: a little bit about offense in comedy recently, and it's
Speaker 3: just so interesting that we about how when when when irony, Yes,
Speaker 3: sometimes irony for some people doesn't seem to apply. Like
Speaker 3: in a movie, a character can shoot someone in the face,
Speaker 3: and that's all part of the movie. But if you
Speaker 3: would say to midget or retarded or you know, use
Speaker 3: these terrible sort of jokes, then that's unacceptable, and that's.
Speaker 4: Crossing a crossing a path.
Speaker 3: There was a there was a review in The New
Speaker 3: Yorker that I read said, no one wants a movie
Speaker 3: that tiptoes in step with political correctness, Yet the wilful
Speaker 3: opposite can be equally noxious. And as in Bruges, Barges
Speaker 3: and blusters its way through dwarf jokes, tried abuse jokes,
Speaker 3: jokes about fat black women, and moldy old jokes about Americans,
Speaker 3: it runs the risk of pleasing itself more than.
Speaker 4: It's paying viewers. And I couldn't disagree more with that.
Speaker 3: I think that's a very New Yorker, you know, uh,
Speaker 3: self important view. I think I think that's objectively what
Speaker 3: Ray's doing is objectively funny, and we don't need to
Speaker 3: like him as a person.
Speaker 4: And it's funny because what he's doing is so wrong.
Speaker 2: But what's fascinating is and with that going through what
Speaker 2: happens at the end. We'll get to that later. But
Speaker 2: did you want Rader survivor do you want Rady to
Speaker 2: get out.
Speaker 4: Or you live?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I didn't want Harry to get him right, Yeah, so
Speaker 2: you got Harry looking and I didn't want that to happen.
Speaker 2: And when you think about what that is, Martin McDonough
Speaker 2: and Colin Farrell have achieved to create this character who says,
Speaker 2: the most awful thing is doing this has killed a child,
Speaker 2: and we're still rooting for him at the end. Yes,
Speaker 2: isn't incredible? That's an incredible piece of writing.
Speaker 4: That is very true. I love that.
Speaker 3: I love a film where someone you think is an
Speaker 3: asshole becomes your favorite character by the end. That's extraordinary
Speaker 3: and that's hugely down to Colin Farrell's performance. But yes, bye,
Speaker 3: by the writing, you're absolutely right, I mean, yeah, the
Speaker 3: brilliant moment when the hotel latter says says, why don't
Speaker 3: you just go home? And how he goes don't be stupid.
Speaker 3: This is the shootout, Like this is just this is
Speaker 3: the end of the film. We have to have a shootout,
Speaker 3: This violence has to happen. YEA a beautiful depiction of that,
Speaker 3: which I also think is a huge strength of the film.
Speaker 3: It's sort of doing what say Goodfellas or Sopranos does,
Speaker 3: which is saying these are terrible people, like the way
Speaker 3: that we glorify gangsters and a lot of really dumb
Speaker 3: people seem to think the point of Godfathers all good
Speaker 3: Fellas is to celebrate these awful murderers, when in fact
Speaker 3: it's actually trying to satirize it and try to show
Speaker 3: these people like how show us how terrible they really are.
Speaker 3: And the Sopranos is the perfect example of a guy
Speaker 3: who thinks that that's that's a cool way to live
Speaker 3: your life. Yeah, I think that's really the film's really
Speaker 3: beautifully showing that how stupid and awful and ugly violence
Speaker 3: is and try to contrast it with the ways represented
Speaker 3: in a lot of other films.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I did love that.
Speaker 2: Ray the way he almost flirts with Chloe is to
Speaker 2: talk about in his words, midgets, you know, kind of
Speaker 2: committing suicide, like this is how he charms a lady.
Speaker 2: He also, I think that's when the line that Belgians
Speaker 2: are only famous with two things, chocolates and pedophiles, and
Speaker 2: only made the chocolates that get to the kids.
Speaker 7: He's a charmer, brilliant, But it's self aware too, because
Speaker 7: when she says he doesn't like to be called a midget,
Speaker 7: he prefers to be called a dwarf. And then he's like, well, exactly,
Speaker 7: you know, like how tough would that life be if
Speaker 7: you know, if you people call you a dwarf? Of
Speaker 7: course you would to blow your fucking brains out, Like
Speaker 7: just brilliant, Like he's marm. McDonald is fully aware of
Speaker 7: what the politically correct term is, but he's also fully
Speaker 7: aware that this character is going to be aware of that,
Speaker 7: and he's not going to make that character that in
Speaker 7: his film for the sake of the sensibilities of people
Speaker 7: who write for The New Yorker.
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: And this is made thirteen years ago, so you can
Speaker 2: imagine even being The New york had been weirder about
Speaker 2: it now, because you know, you get we live in
Speaker 2: an age where you know an athlete or you know
Speaker 2: a singer who have grown up on the streets or
Speaker 2: with a single parent families or broken families who maybe
Speaker 2: didn't go to school, job out of school twelve.
Speaker 1: They're supposed to have.
Speaker 2: The workers' views in the world, So how are we
Speaker 2: supposed to represent you know, the uneducated on screen?
Speaker 3: Right? The conflict between the way that we see the
Speaker 3: world as it is, in the way that it should
Speaker 3: be or the way that we would like it to be,
Speaker 3: or the way that you.
Speaker 4: Know, using certain terms.
Speaker 3: In media or in art, you know, are we reinforcing
Speaker 3: the use of those terms, are we endorsing them or what?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 4: I have very strong views against it.
Speaker 3: I was recently writing on a project and the feedback
Speaker 3: I got from people gave me an impression that they
Speaker 3: sincerely believed that the representation of racism on the stage
Speaker 3: was a equivalent to or you know, as bad as
Speaker 3: just being racist, it was effectively being racist. Questions of satire,
Speaker 3: of irony, of how bad these characters are, Like, how
Speaker 3: do we feel about these characters.
Speaker 4: Who are being racist to other people even if they're
Speaker 4: being funny.
Speaker 3: Can a character be funny and be racist and we
Speaker 3: still know that racism bad and that character sucks?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: I think we absolutely can and sometimes it feels like
Speaker 3: the kind of gatekeeper folks have a very low opinion
Speaker 3: of audience's intelligence, right, They're like, I get it, I
Speaker 3: know what you're doing, but these idiots, these rooms out there,
Speaker 3: they're not going to understand what you're working with.
Speaker 4: And that's quite frustrating, I think.
Speaker 3: And that's why I feel like this is so incredibly
Speaker 3: refreshing and just sort of blows makes all that look
Speaker 3: so silly to me.
Speaker 4: I really love that about him, brush.
Speaker 2: I did love when Harry leaves a message. I think
Speaker 2: this is so beautiful the way this is. Let's have
Speaker 2: let's have a listen to the message Harry leaves. He's
Speaker 2: so he's given it to the This is he's read
Speaker 2: this to the receptionist, who has then typed this out.
Speaker 4: This is the message number one.
Speaker 5: Why aren't you in when I fucking told you to
Speaker 5: be in? Number two? Why doesn't this so tell? Our
Speaker 5: phones with fucking voicemail? And I have to leave messages
Speaker 5: with a fucking receptionist. Number three, you better fucking be
Speaker 5: in tomorrow night. When I fucking call again, they'll be
Speaker 5: fucking out to pay. I'm fucking telling you, Harry, I love.
Speaker 2: This featuring that receptionist or sorry, the hotel owner. She
Speaker 2: is because he makes that note at the end she's
Speaker 2: not the reception she's actually the hotel owner with her
Speaker 2: husband typing that out. It's beautifully done, and Harry is
Speaker 2: not revealed. We do not see Harry until an hour
Speaker 2: into the film. It is so good that scene and
Speaker 2: it's one of my favorite scenes of any movie when
Speaker 2: and it's played. It's a long scene and it's all
Speaker 2: I'm not sure it's one take, but it is one shot, yeah,
Speaker 2: because it is actually because because in the on the
Speaker 2: TV Awesome Well's Touch of Evil is being played and
Speaker 2: that's one of the famous, one of the most famous
Speaker 2: continuous shots in cinema history. Right, So that's a little
Speaker 2: homage that they're put in there. But I love the
Speaker 2: fact that you don't cut to Harry. If you know
Speaker 2: who Harry is played by, you kind of have an
Speaker 2: idea of you know who you're doing, but you know
Speaker 2: not everybody does know that or he's aware, so that
Speaker 2: it's don't show the shark until the shark wants to attack,
Speaker 2: and it's it's so brilliant and that's scene the way
Speaker 2: that plays out that he you know, the whole closing
Speaker 2: is as he left.
Speaker 1: As he left and he's taking.
Speaker 2: A shipware make sure he's not outside the corridor, and
Speaker 2: then the whole you know, we get a little bit
Speaker 2: of information that you know, Harry has been to Bruises
Speaker 2: when he was seven and he loves him Bruges.
Speaker 1: It's like a fairy tale.
Speaker 2: And he's angry that when when Ray says that, Key
Speaker 2: says that he wasn't raised thing, and he's like he's
Speaker 2: in sense by and then he has to kind of
Speaker 2: talking down By. Actually no, he did actually say he
Speaker 2: said something like, oh, it's like a fairy tale, and
Speaker 2: I'm glad I'm here. And then and without knowing that
Speaker 2: that is basically giving Harry exactly what he wants. And
Speaker 2: he wants to give Ray this fairy tale before he
Speaker 2: gives it, you know, before he gets killed.
Speaker 1: It's so tragic because we know how much Ray fucking
Speaker 1: hates through.
Speaker 2: That. So like, as Harry's painting out this beautiful nice
Speaker 2: thing again, he's trying to do something nice for the
Speaker 2: guy that he's.
Speaker 4: About to kill.
Speaker 2: Yes, nice thing is so ship Yeah, from Ray's point
Speaker 2: of view, it is, it is incredible. And the other
Speaker 2: thing Matt macdoneerdos was really good is that he shows
Speaker 2: when we do see Harry, we see him and he's
Speaker 2: he's angry, he's he's banging into the phone against it.
Speaker 1: He calls his wife and in them and an object.
Speaker 2: But he apologizes to it later and he'll we see
Speaker 2: him with his kids and that connection he has with
Speaker 2: his kids. So it makes sense the idea later on
Speaker 2: that the idea that because you imagine some you know,
Speaker 2: bosses of hit men would forgive this, would go, well,
Speaker 2: let's us move on. Sure you fucked up, let's not
Speaker 2: next time, don't kill a kid.
Speaker 3: Yes, you don't know what the priest did either, by
Speaker 3: the way, so fascinated by like the story there about
Speaker 3: that hit.
Speaker 2: There was a deleted scene and they discussed it and
Speaker 2: Ken and Ray had different opinions that they didn't know,
Speaker 2: but they supposed it was to do with pedophilia, yes,
Speaker 2: or that it was a land deal that Harry was
Speaker 2: trying to negotiate and the priest was against us, right, so,
Speaker 2: which apparently has a similar kind of similar themes in
Speaker 2: primal fear, not in primal fear. Yes, So there you go,
Speaker 2: and it would have been in a way an easy
Speaker 2: get out for Martin MacDonald to lean on pedophilia, that
Speaker 2: this priest deserved to die. Yes, And it's actually funny
Speaker 2: because it all becomes about the you know, the the
Speaker 2: the boy dying. Yes, but you're right, we don't actually
Speaker 2: kind of you finally have not caring about the priests
Speaker 2: in the way because if the boy trumps the priest.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, priest, you can do some fucked up stuff.
Speaker 4: You're never gonna die. But the children think of the kid?
Speaker 3: I mean, can we talk about that scene because that's
Speaker 3: twenty four minutes in right when you see that scene,
Speaker 3: you see assassination of the flashback h you know, Ray
Speaker 3: sees some kids walking around at the square in Bruges
Speaker 3: and then he flashes back to that scene and that
Speaker 3: scene is horrific Like that that shot is just like
Speaker 3: at that moment, you're like, what is this movie that
Speaker 3: I'm seeing? Can I laugh anymore? Will there be any
Speaker 3: more laughs after this? That is such a brilliant reveal.
Speaker 3: The boy is holding a note where he was doing
Speaker 3: his prey is his prayers?
Speaker 1: Right? He's better the confession especially, he's going to confess.
Speaker 3: Yes, what is it being moody? Being that maths and
Speaker 3: being sad. He was going to confess about being sad
Speaker 3: and then he was shot in the head.
Speaker 2: And there are three there are three things that Ray
Speaker 2: I think he's also is as well.
Speaker 1: Is he mad at Maths? I think I think there
Speaker 1: is something where he in the film.
Speaker 2: I forget what it was, but I do remember making
Speaker 2: a connection with the note and the boys list of
Speaker 2: Confessions and Ray when I watched a while ago, and
Speaker 2: it was this. I'm sure there's a scene where he's
Speaker 2: a bit fidgety with genius.
Speaker 1: Genius.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like if you're starting a pro And I
Speaker 2: don't know where the idea actually, do know a little
Speaker 2: bit where.
Speaker 1: The idea came from.
Speaker 2: As far as being sitting in Bruce Mark McDonald had
Speaker 2: been to Bruce yes, and had like a time like
Speaker 2: he was younger, like I think partied for it, you know,
Speaker 2: a couple of nights and so a little bit of
Speaker 2: the culture, but then got extremely bored. So he had
Speaker 2: this whole weird experience where he's like, yeah, it's some
Speaker 2: pretty good nights there. But there was other times where
Speaker 2: he was this bored out of his fucking mind. So
Speaker 2: he almost became these two personalities so he actually bactually
Speaker 2: split these personalities and and what made these two personalities
Speaker 2: into Ray and Ken.
Speaker 4: Oh god, that's a genius. But now that's life.
Speaker 3: Life is having some great nights and then being bored
Speaker 3: at his fucking mind pageous.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so I'm not sure when the idea of like
Speaker 2: a boy being murdered you're waiting for confession came from,
Speaker 2: but imagine I can't imagine as a bleaker starting point
Speaker 2: where you kind of go, Okay, this is going to be.
Speaker 1: The worst thing.
Speaker 4: What is the worst thing you can do? Is it
Speaker 4: is kill or you know, abuse a child?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Yes, and that's you know, yeah, maybe the only worst
Speaker 2: thing you could see happening is being abused Weekley.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But so for him that this side, we're going to
Speaker 2: do this and we're going to make it funny, Yes,
Speaker 2: like really fucking funny.
Speaker 1: Yes, is incredible.
Speaker 3: It's just yeah, so bold, and that's so interesting because children,
Speaker 3: you know, of course innocent, and so the idea of
Speaker 3: innocence and guilt is there.
Speaker 4: And yes, and even.
Speaker 3: When when Ken brings in Harry's kids, he's fucking fucking
Speaker 3: cunting kids, Oh my god, and then apologizes like I'm Sorry,
Speaker 3: that is too far. I don't want to bring your
Speaker 3: kids into this. Please let's play a bit of that scene.
Speaker 3: This is Harry and Ken having a beer in the
Speaker 3: in the Golden Litz streets of Bruise.
Speaker 4: Let me get this wrong.
Speaker 5: Not only have you refused to kill the boy, you've
Speaker 5: even stopped the boy from killing himself.
Speaker 1: We should have solved my problem.
Speaker 5: We should have solved your problem, which sounds like we
Speaker 5: would have solved the boy's problem.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't have solved this problem. Ken.
Speaker 5: If I killed a little kid accidentally or otherwise, I
Speaker 5: wouldn't have thought twice. I'd have killed myself on the
Speaker 5: fucking spot, on the fucking spot. I'd have stuck the
Speaker 5: gun in my mouth on the fucking spot.
Speaker 1: That's you, Harry.
Speaker 4: The boy is the capacity to change. The boy has
Speaker 4: the capacity to do something decent with his life.
Speaker 5: Excuse me, Ken, I have the capacity to change.
Speaker 4: Yeah you do. You have the capacity to get fucking worse.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Now getting down to it, Harry, let's face it,
Speaker 5: and that'd be funny.
Speaker 4: I mean no disrespect, but you had a cut a count.
Speaker 4: Now you have as me a cunt.
Speaker 6: And the only thing that's going to change is you're
Speaker 6: going to become an even bigger.
Speaker 1: Count there you have some more count kids. Leave my
Speaker 1: kids fucking out of it? What have they done?
Speaker 5: You fucking attracted that a bit about my count fucking
Speaker 5: kids tracked that bit of duck kids going over board mate.
Speaker 1: That's going overboard mate here, that is funny, but from
Speaker 1: what the official record?
Speaker 4: What a talking about striking from the record, there's.
Speaker 1: A type of on the other table just taking it
Speaker 1: all down.
Speaker 2: There is not only the here that's funny, but the
Speaker 2: look on ray Fines his face is there before we
Speaker 2: didn't get back to the themes and what's happening. But
Speaker 2: you think of Ray Fines, like, if you like, line
Speaker 2: up his performance in some like Quiz Show and The
Speaker 2: English Patient and Constant Gardener the Grand Buldabest Hotel in Bruges,
Speaker 2: Like the range of that man is extraordinary. Yeah, Like
Speaker 2: I think he's under like highly rated. We all know
Speaker 2: he had good inn actories, but I think he might
Speaker 2: be absolutely one of the best.
Speaker 4: Isn't he in Red Dragon as well?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 4: Isn't he that's like the serial killer with the tag
Speaker 4: so get back, Yes.
Speaker 3: Which is probably a weird odd film, But I remember
Speaker 3: him being terrifying in that Yes, no extraordinary, but the
Speaker 3: fact that he's playing that character and the guy from
Speaker 3: the Grandpa to Best Hotel extraordinary. He's great, He's so
Speaker 3: good and yeah, as we said, to hang on to him,
Speaker 3: to not see his face until an hour en is incredible.
Speaker 4: It gives the story such energy too. When he starts.
Speaker 3: You know he's coming to Budapest and we want to
Speaker 3: see that confrontation. And I guess again that that theme
Speaker 3: of like being a nice person, being a good person,
Speaker 3: he did something good for Ken and that he killed
Speaker 3: the guy who killed Ken's wife. So they got this
Speaker 3: debt and this obligation to one another, which Ken honors
Speaker 3: by essentially sacrificing his life and saying, look, if you're
Speaker 3: going to shoot me because I betrayed you by letting
Speaker 3: this kid go, then so be it. I'm standing by
Speaker 3: my principles.
Speaker 2: And the respect that for McDonagh has for the audience
Speaker 2: to catch that information because it's not you know, they're
Speaker 2: actually there was They shot some flashbacks of all this thing,
Speaker 2: all this happening, and Matt Smith, doctor who was going
Speaker 2: to play were played. Yeah, because they shot it young
Speaker 2: young Harry doing this, but the because it's not and
Speaker 2: because they've got the thick accents, imagine a lot of
Speaker 2: American audiers don't catch this information. And it's just mentioned that,
Speaker 2: you know, a couple of type the party.
Speaker 4: They're doing drugs. The always said the midget. But that's
Speaker 4: the wrong thing to do, Jimmy, we're not quoting Ray.
Speaker 3: That's a very bad Jimmy is talking about the race
Speaker 3: war between black and white. Ray's wondering how that will
Speaker 3: work out of the midget world anyway. And then yes,
Speaker 3: in Passing, Ken just says, you know, my wife was black.
Speaker 3: I loved her very much and she was killed.
Speaker 4: She was killed by a white man.
Speaker 2: How do I fit into that that kind of moral
Speaker 2: that moral middle ground a gray area. Yeah, as you say,
Speaker 2: mentioned very briefly in passing, and it's Harry actually mentioned.
Speaker 2: Is Harry immediately connected to that.
Speaker 3: Or Ray says Harry got him? Yeah, a friend of
Speaker 3: mine got him.
Speaker 2: He says, yeah, yeah, which I think is even off
Speaker 2: screen for memory, Like it's so brief, so it's like
Speaker 2: it's easy to miss. And I think maybe the first
Speaker 2: time I saw it, I did I did miss that.
Speaker 1: So it's just it's just incredible.
Speaker 2: This film kind of reminds me of like if Alexander
Speaker 2: Payne and Quentin Tarantine they got together to make a film,
Speaker 2: This is the film they would make.
Speaker 4: That's beautifully put. Yes, I mean yeah, saw a few.
Speaker 3: Reviews of it saying it's kind of like a gangstery film,
Speaker 3: but it's not at all.
Speaker 4: It's not in all in any way.
Speaker 3: That's just the sort of the prism through which to
Speaker 3: explore questions of morality. And yeah, I mean obviously if
Speaker 3: we relate to this film, we haven't killed children, but
Speaker 3: we have done bad things in our lives, and those
Speaker 3: hang over us making amends for those whether we can
Speaker 3: ever ever get past them, and whether we deserve to
Speaker 3: be forgiven for those things. Yeah, yeah, really really big questions.
Speaker 3: There's always two premises in this movie. One, if you
Speaker 3: explain what this was, it was two hits and after
Speaker 3: a hit gone wrong, get told to go to Bruce,
Speaker 3: small sleepy gothic town to wait for further instructions from
Speaker 3: their from their boss. But then it kind of becomes
Speaker 3: something else when and will play the scene when when
Speaker 3: Ken gets the instructions to kill his partner and he
Speaker 3: finds him sitting in a park in the playground watching kids.
Speaker 1: He waits for the kids to leave and he approaches.
Speaker 2: Him and he he's gone out, and he realizes that
Speaker 2: Ray's about the put a gun to his head and
Speaker 2: stops himself, which is a brilliant premise, like when you
Speaker 2: when your target as a hit man is about to
Speaker 2: kill himself. And that's what and that's what we played
Speaker 2: a little bit out of order, but that's what Harry
Speaker 2: was saying before, like you had the problem was solved,
Speaker 2: and you jumped in and fucked it up so that
Speaker 2: all happens. And then they they realize and and and
Speaker 2: Ray realized that Ken was about to shoot him, and
Speaker 2: they have a chat.
Speaker 4: Have to be I'm so sorry we made choice to
Speaker 4: kill me.
Speaker 6: Go and gets nectarmarsuck of burls. Listen, I'm gonna give
Speaker 6: you some money and go to tryin somewhere, my.
Speaker 4: Dam and Ray, you'll be a dead man.
Speaker 1: If you've been missing something. I don't want to be
Speaker 1: a dead man, right, killed the little boy and save
Speaker 1: the next sile boy.
Speaker 6: Just go away somewhere, get out of this business and
Speaker 6: try to do something good.
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna help anybody dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's u it's the ability to put I mean,
Speaker 2: it's that that's not a there's not a lot of
Speaker 2: funny in that scene.
Speaker 1: Like the Lollipop Man scenes is a good example of
Speaker 1: the fight. Think I must say one of my favorite
Speaker 1: lights and.
Speaker 4: He says, or do I would be a doctor.
Speaker 1: You need exams. I don't know why, but you need exams.
Speaker 1: It's just like so adorable and heartbreaking and very funny.
Speaker 3: Same.
Speaker 2: He's one of the best, this character, the Colin Farrer.
Speaker 2: I think he's the best Colin Farrell and I like
Speaker 2: I like Colin Farrell. I think since this movie, he's
Speaker 2: gone on and done really great performance and he's done
Speaker 2: something before Phone Booth. You know, an earlier one of
Speaker 2: his earlier films there was that was great with Joel Schumacher.
Speaker 2: But this guy's dumb, but he's not. It's a different
Speaker 2: kind of dumb than we've seen portrayed in you know,
Speaker 2: the way an American movie might portray somebody dumb.
Speaker 1: He's not necessarily the dumb things. You know that you
Speaker 1: can see what he's trying to from his perspective.
Speaker 2: It's like before he might have good intentions, but he's
Speaker 2: just he's not He can't quite put it the way
Speaker 2: he wants to put things.
Speaker 3: Well, like, this is why we forgive him in part
Speaker 3: or at least are prepared to are invested in his
Speaker 3: his his journey throughout the film, in that he killed
Speaker 3: the priest for money and he killed the kid by accident.
Speaker 1: Okay, so so he is.
Speaker 3: You know, we don't know his backstory, but he's killing
Speaker 3: people for money. He says, Look, father, I murdered someone
Speaker 3: for money. Like, it's not like he's a psychopath. Like
Speaker 3: maybe Harry is a little bit more unbalanced and maybe
Speaker 3: enjoys killing people. I don't know, but he's like circumstances
Speaker 3: have brought him to the point in which he found
Speaker 3: himself killing a priest and then to his own horror,
Speaker 3: and how cut up he is and how racked is
Speaker 3: by guilt by killing that child. We're prepared to recognize
Speaker 3: ourselves in him a lot more. You know, we know
Speaker 3: we're not horrible people, but we've done this terrible thing,
Speaker 3: and oh god, I just wish I hadn't done that thing.
Speaker 4: And that thing haunts me and lives with me to
Speaker 4: this day.
Speaker 2: And when we find out as well, I think this
Speaker 2: this is a great piece of writing. When we find
Speaker 2: out that this was his first this is his first hit.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yes, what are like up? Until then you
Speaker 1: got to go, what these guys? How many people is
Speaker 1: it killed?
Speaker 3: In?
Speaker 2: These two feel like there's been a you know, like
Speaker 2: partners for a while. And then when on the train
Speaker 2: of leaves he goes, what an idiot? You know this
Speaker 2: is my you know, my first hit? What a great
Speaker 2: hit man I turned out to be.
Speaker 1: I can't do anything right.
Speaker 2: I can't even kill a preece, kill a priest. Everybody
Speaker 2: goes it does aim quite low at the priest. I
Speaker 2: think it was a rookie era. He seems to aim
Speaker 2: like midrest, so he shoot higher. If you shoot low,
Speaker 2: you're gonna some kids kids learn it.
Speaker 3: But like the writing comedically, I think it's worth just
Speaker 3: noting bits where it's always hard to explain how it's funny,
Speaker 3: or the the skill that mcdonnaugh has to know that
Speaker 3: that will be funny. Alcoves right, the pronunciation and the
Speaker 3: use of the term alcoves, I could not tell you
Speaker 3: why that's so funny. But just a Belgian man speaking
Speaker 3: through flebish, I guess it looks like a language. Is
Speaker 3: just his obsession with that particular term and it's just
Speaker 3: like anyone else would cut that. But he's like, no,
Speaker 3: that's I can tell that that's going to be really funny. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and he's absolutely right.
Speaker 2: And one of my favorite lines to do is after
Speaker 2: Harry smashes the phone and he's talking to his wife
Speaker 2: and he's like, I have to go to and she goes,
Speaker 2: I was going to be dangerous yea.
Speaker 3: Is it something to do with the phone? I'm like,
Speaker 3: there's nothing funny to me that the character asking you
Speaker 3: the dubbest question of all something to do with the phone.
Speaker 1: Because he has just pounded the phone into the desk
Speaker 1: six times.
Speaker 2: Another thing that he does really well is is that
Speaker 2: we kind of feel for Ray in a way because
Speaker 2: we've all been bored on a holiday we didn't want
Speaker 2: to go on. Sure, and it's very it's very you know,
Speaker 2: it's not he doesn't lead with that, but it's he's
Speaker 2: very We're very aware that Ray is completely bored to
Speaker 2: the point where he doesn't even want to hang aroun
Speaker 2: and to see Jesus' blood.
Speaker 4: No, you don't have to because SHE'SUSU up there. So good.
Speaker 3: That's so interesting about McDonough partying and being bored in British.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can see it anyway.
Speaker 3: That's and yeah, imagine that to be able to split
Speaker 3: two sides of yourself into different characters, which I think
Speaker 3: maybe is in the waiting for Godo tradition, is that
Speaker 3: I don't know all the ins and outs. But Beckett
Speaker 3: is like, is you know there are those Those characters
Speaker 3: are two sides of the same of a say, right,
Speaker 3: the consciousness basically, you know, just in the same way
Speaker 3: that we are constantly arguing with ourselves in our own
Speaker 3: head as we're bored and wondering about what the hell
Speaker 3: to do. Ye, turn them into two characters, put them
Speaker 3: on stage and let them have it out.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and and it keeps on.
Speaker 2: He doesn't judge the characters, really does he like, we
Speaker 2: like our opinion of the characters keep shifting. I think, yes,
Speaker 2: I found it for me anyway, and even within like
Speaker 2: nobody's exactly who they appeared to be, like even to
Speaker 2: the point where the American that he hits in the restaurant.
Speaker 1: In fact, let's just listen to that scene because it's
Speaker 1: a it's a fun scene.
Speaker 4: Yes, I am talking to you.
Speaker 1: What's fucking unbelievable? Well, I'll tell you what's fucking unbelievable.
Speaker 3: Sh I'm blowing cigarette smoke straightened to myself and my
Speaker 3: girlfriend's face.
Speaker 1: That's fucking unbelieving.
Speaker 6: This is the smoking sect.
Speaker 5: I don't care if it's the smoking section, all right,
Speaker 5: she directed right in my face.
Speaker 1: Man, I don't want to die just because you're fucking arrogant.
Speaker 6: Uh huh isn't that what the Vietnamese used to say?
Speaker 1: Vietnamese taling about the Vietnamese?
Speaker 4: That statement makes no fucking sense at all.
Speaker 1: Because it does Vietnamese over and over and get.
Speaker 3: Anything more sense. But how does the Vietnamese have any
Speaker 3: relevance whatsoever to myself and my girlfriend having to breathe
Speaker 3: your friend's cigarettes?
Speaker 4: Oh tell me how saying.
Speaker 6: That's pretty your Yankee fucking content.
Speaker 1: I don't bother. Oh yeah, that's a lady being hit
Speaker 1: in the face.
Speaker 4: You hit the Canadian, the Canadians.
Speaker 2: So the American ends up being a Canadian. You know,
Speaker 2: he thinks Chloe is a movie producer. You know, on
Speaker 2: the movie she ends at as being a drug dealer
Speaker 2: and a thief. So there's just some lovely.
Speaker 1: Stuff going on with playing with who we think people are.
Speaker 4: It's so rich yeah, it's so rich. And yes, as
Speaker 4: you say, we shift a million times on.
Speaker 3: Whether we like people, whether we consider judgment of them,
Speaker 3: and it gets extremely messy. And that really is I
Speaker 3: see that I think far more in theater than I
Speaker 3: do in films, that kind of moral messiness, that gray
Speaker 3: area maybe.
Speaker 4: And that was the other thing I was going to
Speaker 4: say to you, like the great fear.
Speaker 3: My understanding of reading what I can about the history
Speaker 3: is that films like this are not long for this world,
Speaker 3: in that Hollywood will will not, does not he is
Speaker 3: not interested in this kind of I have no idea
Speaker 3: what the budget is, but that kind of mid level
Speaker 3: budget where it's mainly people talking. It's a psychological moral
Speaker 3: quandary of a film like I don't know how many
Speaker 3: more of these things can can happen.
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like the doom and gloom around
Speaker 2: cinema has been going on for decades now and it
Speaker 2: hasn't quite you know, happened in the way that we
Speaker 2: were expecting it to. And there's been the marvelization of cinema.
Speaker 2: But I will argue there are still great films being made,
Speaker 2: you know, Nomad Land, I saw no mad Land, and
Speaker 2: The Father and they were both brilliant. Even a little
Speaker 2: gem based on the Patrick DeWitt novel French.
Speaker 1: Exit I was really good. Rochelle Feifel was amazing in
Speaker 1: that films. If you've got people like you know.
Speaker 2: Mark mcdonnah and in his brother and the Coen Brothers
Speaker 2: and you know, Where's Anderson and poor Thomas Anderson like these,
Speaker 2: it will always be people who don't want to make
Speaker 2: those can't you can't step and even the studios they
Speaker 2: need people to make these films to then graduate.
Speaker 1: You can't stay was.
Speaker 3: Directing a Marvel film now like after No mad Land
Speaker 3: is like a massive movel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you need you need people to hone their
Speaker 2: craft on these, so it's in their interest. I think
Speaker 2: that these films continue to have them. But with that said,
Speaker 2: yeah there is These films are hard to get made done,
Speaker 2: so the you know, we hope that Mark McDonald has
Speaker 2: earned some credits, you know, whether it ends up being
Speaker 2: on Netflix. I mean Netflix has paid an enormous amount
Speaker 2: of money for Ryan Johnson's Knives Out sequels, which you
Speaker 2: know I would have you could see how that was
Speaker 2: that that he was setting up that Daniel Craig, the
Speaker 2: long character to become a you know, inspected, you know,
Speaker 2: Cluseo style character. So I can see now that, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: this makes sense. There'll be more mysteries. But if that
Speaker 2: was just the one film, that would have been fine
Speaker 2: as well. So I'm hopeful that, you know, if Martin McDonald,
Speaker 2: who's made these films, and one thing hollywoods always loves
Speaker 2: is awards, and he won awards for three Billboards with
Speaker 2: France and McDormand won the Best Actress Oscar, So I'm
Speaker 2: hoping more films like this get done. Let's walk through
Speaker 2: the final act. It's one of the great incredible third acts,
Speaker 2: one of my favorite third acts. Anyway, We'll start with
Speaker 2: Chloe in a way saves Ray, and that's almost her
Speaker 2: reason for being here. I think like she kind of
Speaker 2: saves him one that she gives him, she makes Bruce
Speaker 2: more appealing to him, and then that she almost physically
Speaker 2: saves him because she's kissing him with his hands on
Speaker 2: his face as Harry and Ken walk by, which is
Speaker 2: a nice touch. So they walk by and stop me
Speaker 2: if you want to make any points along the way,
Speaker 2: and it's going to go through it.
Speaker 1: So then.
Speaker 2: Ken, so Chloe and Ray see Jimmy. He's in the
Speaker 2: school uniform because they're shooting. And again this is brilliant
Speaker 2: because we just think it's funny. Look, they've put the
Speaker 2: dwarf in a school uniform and they've gotten about the kid. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we've got about the kid. Yeah, And we don't see
Speaker 2: the foreshadowing at all. It's just finally they're taking the
Speaker 2: piss out of him, isn't Isn't life funny?
Speaker 1: Ken? They go sorry.
Speaker 3: It starts with Ken telling Harry that that Ray is
Speaker 3: in any one of the million towns that you can
Speaker 3: be in mainland Europe.
Speaker 4: Cut to him walking out of the Bruge for the
Speaker 4: President Bruges or whatever.
Speaker 3: Just like beautifully beautifully done that, Like, yeah, when he
Speaker 3: was leaving Brudges on that train, I was like, how
Speaker 3: are they going to get him back into brutes? Obviously
Speaker 3: you can't leave now that up at the end of
Speaker 3: the film, and of course, again brilliantly structured, he gets
Speaker 3: arrested for punching for hitting the Canadian hit in the.
Speaker 2: Canadian and so Ken and Harry walk by and they've
Speaker 2: gone up to the Clocktawer, which is closed because an
Speaker 2: American had a heart attack earlier. Again brilliant. Harry ken
Speaker 2: Is proposed going to the tower because it's quiet and
Speaker 2: nobody will be there, and he's accepting that Harry will assassinated.
Speaker 1: That's him at the top of the town.
Speaker 3: Just one other small point, yes, back to the initial
Speaker 3: confrontation with the Americans. What I loved is that Ken
Speaker 3: also sort of said, don't go up there.
Speaker 1: It's too narrow.
Speaker 3: So the easy thing to be would be that Ken
Speaker 3: is constantly the skold, or he's always the straight man,
Speaker 3: I guess, or like he's a very normal guy who
Speaker 3: wouldn't possibly say anything rude, but no, he's still a
Speaker 3: little bit of just a dumb, irish guy as well.
Speaker 3: Like he also sort of says don't go The way.
Speaker 2: I read that was was Ray said it as a
Speaker 2: you're fucking fast, right, you know, you know you can't
Speaker 2: go up there, and and Ray kind of said it
Speaker 2: like he's been up there, and he probably struggled because
Speaker 2: he's a bigger guy, struggled hesbably saying just so you.
Speaker 1: Know, okay, it's not it's not an easy.
Speaker 3: Right, and they turned that Okay, yeah, that's probably probably
Speaker 3: sport says. So they get to the top and feel
Speaker 3: good at watching movies.
Speaker 2: Well, I was saying this a few times, but he
Speaker 2: killed so you know, they talked about he killed his
Speaker 2: Wife's this kind of he's made a little bit clearer
Speaker 2: up here.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful confrontation.
Speaker 2: I love you, Yes, it's and it's like there's respect,
Speaker 2: there's love, and that puts Harry off. He's like, well,
Speaker 2: I can't go kill you now you've said all these
Speaker 2: nice things, and then shoots him in.
Speaker 1: The leg yes, which is so great because you think
Speaker 1: he's gonna let him go.
Speaker 2: And then the way it's a cut, it happens really
Speaker 2: quickly and it's so funny and leg it's almost like
Speaker 2: ray shot. He's almost like Ray thought he might get
Speaker 2: away with it, even though you think he's accepted it,
Speaker 2: like he's fully accepted, so ken that he has accepted
Speaker 2: at this stage. But then when he gets shot in
Speaker 2: the leg, he's like what. And then we've got blind
Speaker 2: Eric who's been shot in the eye by a blank,
Speaker 2: which makes it the second time Colin Farrell shot somebody
Speaker 2: in the eye with the blank in movie history.
Speaker 1: He did an Entiger Land as well another job she
Speaker 1: maker film.
Speaker 2: So he raises he wants to tell line little gay boy.
Speaker 2: He raises to tell Harry, who is now helping Ken
Speaker 2: down the stairs of the tower, so he tries he
Speaker 2: finds Harry. He tells him that Ray is just outside
Speaker 2: to the left, sitting at the table. Ken tries to
Speaker 2: stuff Harry. They struggle. Harry shoots Ken in the neck
Speaker 2: and he apologizes and he says, I'm sorry, but he
Speaker 2: killed a boy. Again just re emphasizing the moroc code.
Speaker 2: He killed a boy and that's going to be important.
Speaker 2: So then Ken drags his bleeding body to the top
Speaker 2: of the tower. He puts his gun away, he buttons
Speaker 2: himself up and he drops the coins that he has
Speaker 2: in his pocket because of the tight ass Belgian tower
Speaker 2: guard would not accept these one cent short or something
Speaker 2: in your work. In your work so good. And he's
Speaker 2: also been killed by Harry. But the lad because on
Speaker 2: the forehead, and that is so great because you know,
Speaker 2: we know who Harry is. He has no idea who
Speaker 2: Harry is. You know he's not going to get out
Speaker 2: of this. Buy about a third tap maybe in but
Speaker 2: a second tap. You know he's not getting away with this.
Speaker 2: And I love that it happens in the background as
Speaker 2: they like.
Speaker 1: Ken is like he's like, well, you're about to die,
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep walking. I don't want to be
Speaker 1: here for this.
Speaker 2: He jumps the coins below into the square so he doesn't,
Speaker 2: so he creates room for him to fall. Yes, you
Speaker 2: could argue that by dropping coins it could draw a
Speaker 2: crowd kids going I want coins, coins, But I guess
Speaker 2: I guess. You could also argue that people see these
Speaker 2: coins fall and they'll be looking up going, well, I
Speaker 2: don't want to get by coin.
Speaker 1: So let's take that at face for you.
Speaker 4: He's trying to be a good person.
Speaker 2: He's trying to be a moral for him to land on,
Speaker 2: absolutely and the only way he's doing this, the only
Speaker 2: way he can he believes he can stop is by
Speaker 2: causing a distraction.
Speaker 3: Sorry that the shot in the neck too was insane,
Speaker 3: like just loads with blood, Like it's extremely violent and visceral. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you really think that he's he's easy going to
Speaker 3: die on the staircase. But yes, he's managed to make
Speaker 3: his way up to the roof.
Speaker 2: Kenna Justice tie and he steps off the ledge and
Speaker 2: he falls down, and it's it's it's not a nice sound.
Speaker 4: Squelch is extraordinary, it really is.
Speaker 1: And Ray sees it.
Speaker 2: He races over, Ken tells him, Harry's here, take my gun.
Speaker 2: We think, okay, he's gonna have a gun because he's
Speaker 2: taken his gun off him before. And then we realize
Speaker 2: the gun is broken, which is so fucking greg at
Speaker 2: that moment when you're riding where you're going to go,
Speaker 2: give him some hope. Okay, this is this is the
Speaker 2: solutions here, we've got it, yes, and now it's not,
Speaker 2: and it's so great. He's where's my gun? Where's my gun?
Speaker 2: He has nobody's gun. It's back at the hotel, I think,
Speaker 2: he says, because he's put it in the draw. He
Speaker 2: goes back to the hotel the Getty's gun.
Speaker 4: You've skipped over one of the greatest slides of the film.
Speaker 4: I'm going to die now.
Speaker 1: Just brilliant final words, Such a funny thing to.
Speaker 2: Say, and his face has half the skin ripped off.
Speaker 2: But it's both gruesome and hilarious and heartbreaking because.
Speaker 3: Death is so often you know that that's a massive
Speaker 3: moment in any film when someone's on their deathbed or
Speaker 3: when they're passing away and saying, oh like that, but like,
Speaker 3: just got to die now, and that he does, and
Speaker 3: that he's dead and that's life, and that's sucking death,
Speaker 3: raised deathbed. He's cobblestones, and so there's the there's a
Speaker 3: chase back to the hotel that Harry sees Ray, so
Speaker 3: they're chasing. He gets back at the hotel, he sees
Speaker 3: we see Ken's last will and testament. So he had
Speaker 3: this as a as a he had an idea of
Speaker 3: what how this night might go down. Harry, he's fighting
Speaker 3: with the hotel.
Speaker 2: You mentioned this before, Yes, he says, I'm like, what
Speaker 2: does he say, I'm not going to shoot you.
Speaker 1: I'm going to shoot through you with your baby. I'm
Speaker 1: a nice persons.
Speaker 2: A stand up Harry makes, makes you know, makes it
Speaker 2: known that this is this is a shootouts.
Speaker 1: The shootout. It's always that.
Speaker 2: We've spoken about this a couple of times, the Fifth
Speaker 2: Walling movies, where there's almost characters refer to something like
Speaker 2: they know it's it's a movie.
Speaker 1: Yes, this is a good example of that. And then
Speaker 1: there's a negotiation.
Speaker 2: There's the negotiation and negotiat how to get out of
Speaker 2: this hotel so they can take the shootout away from
Speaker 2: the pregnant lady.
Speaker 1: There's again some honor and.
Speaker 3: He is saving the next little boy, right, yes, like
Speaker 3: Ray is not yes, is like no, we're not gonna
Speaker 3: do this shit out here, Like he lines up the
Speaker 3: shot like he could try and shoot Harry, but the
Speaker 3: risk of.
Speaker 2: Shooting that unborn child is him saying, no, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to do that. I'm saving the next little boy.
Speaker 1: That is excellent. You are good at watching movies too.
Speaker 2: So he jumps out the window and jumps onto a
Speaker 2: boat and we think again again, we think, great, he's away.
Speaker 4: He's away.
Speaker 2: He's not going to make that shot. I think even
Speaker 2: says you can't make that shot. Drops he's going into
Speaker 2: the canal as well.
Speaker 6: Ye.
Speaker 2: Then Harry makes the shot. He shoots him straight through.
Speaker 2: You think he's probably dead, but he's not. He stumbles
Speaker 2: off the boat and he goes into the town, the
Speaker 2: city square with Harry in pursuit, where they are shooting
Speaker 2: this film and it kind of it's gothic, it's fairy tale.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's a whole lot of references going on
Speaker 2: that I probably haven't they completely understand religious and.
Speaker 3: Like I think it's supposed to be herodymous Bosh esque,
Speaker 3: like that artist excuse me of the painting they were
Speaker 3: looking at before Furgetree.
Speaker 4: I think he's trying to evoke those those same yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's it's beautiful again. I mentioned him in the
Speaker 2: in the Carter Burwell score is incredible. He's my favorite composer.
Speaker 2: He does a lot of the Coen brother film and
Speaker 2: he's just is the guy you want if you're making
Speaker 2: it film And in this ballpark.
Speaker 4: And a reading and it's so there's so much sort
Speaker 4: of they feel like siblings these these.
Speaker 2: And after reading the two scores that I often just
Speaker 2: play right, they're both incredible. So Jimmy then Jimmy ces Ray.
Speaker 2: Ray sees Jimmy the school in the school uniform. He
Speaker 2: starts saying, the little boy, the little boy. Harry hears
Speaker 2: this and goes, yes, he doesn't he doesn't see Jimmy
Speaker 2: in the in the school uniform.
Speaker 4: He says, yes, the little boy, this is happening.
Speaker 2: That's why this happened. This is why you're about to die.
Speaker 2: He shoots him and because he's bought these bullets that
Speaker 2: he knew. He said, I know I shouldn't, but I'm
Speaker 2: going to buy these bullets. The head explodes.
Speaker 1: Dumb dumbs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he shoots the bullet. It's so powerful it goes
Speaker 2: through uh Ray and blows the head off young little
Speaker 2: Jimmy in the school uniform. Colin Farrell's Ray goes over
Speaker 2: that the CV's okay. Harry comes over standing over him
Speaker 2: and he says, oh, this is oh I see, I
Speaker 2: see yes, Tolon Farrell's trying to tell him, no, this
Speaker 2: is not a little boy.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's still terrific, right, This is like the
Speaker 4: question of children are innocent?
Speaker 3: So what a which is it okay to kill someone
Speaker 3: because they're like old enough, I guess, so they're not
Speaker 3: a chart, they're an adult.
Speaker 2: Like we don't necessarily care about the priest, we don't
Speaker 2: care about Jimmy the racist dwarf, Like what what who
Speaker 2: is supposed to care about? But Harry doesn't hear that
Speaker 2: he's leaving his own morocode. You've got to stand by
Speaker 2: your principles, he says, and he ends up putting a
Speaker 2: gun into his mouth and shooting him. So it is
Speaker 2: just the most incredible. Ray gets stretched off and he
Speaker 2: you know, he talks and then he talks about the
Speaker 2: idea that this maybe maybe hell or purgatory is living
Speaker 2: in Bruges, and he wants to live. This is important thing.
Speaker 2: So this is another thing that I think that mart
Speaker 2: m don does really well. We begin with a character
Speaker 2: who wants you know, basically has he wants to die.
Speaker 2: He's talking about killing himself. You know, he nearly did.
Speaker 2: We don't you know if he would have pulled the trigger.
Speaker 2: We suspect he might have because he's talking about he's
Speaker 2: in a pretty low place. We have a character who
Speaker 2: wants to die. Ray wants to live, race full of life.
Speaker 2: He's like, he's embracing life. He's in this small town.
Speaker 2: He's seeing the culture, respects the history. And then these
Speaker 2: two kind of you know, they cross party, you know,
Speaker 2: they change position, and in the end we have a character,
Speaker 2: the character who wants to live is actually wants to
Speaker 2: die now, and the character who wants to die now
Speaker 2: as except you know, wants to live to live.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: Also, he talks about, you know, he fantasized about going
Speaker 3: to the mother of the child of that he killed
Speaker 3: and asking for her judgment and saying whatever it was,
Speaker 3: if she wants him to go to prison for life
Speaker 3: or for him to die, he'd accept it because at
Speaker 3: least in prison or dead, he wouldn't be in fucking bruge,
Speaker 3: but he said, and then I really hoped I wouldn't die.
Speaker 4: I really really hope I wouldn't die.
Speaker 3: Yeah, brilliant ending, a brilliant way to leave it in that. Yes,
Speaker 3: I want to live. I want to keep going. I
Speaker 3: want to find some way to keep going.
Speaker 2: And if that means being judged for my actions, or
Speaker 2: you know, facing up to the consequences of my actions,
Speaker 2: then I guess you know they're so brilliant.
Speaker 4: But I suppose that tension.
Speaker 2: I want to get away with doing this horrible thing,
Speaker 2: but I also know that I should face up to
Speaker 2: the judgment of having done it. It is it's incredible,
Speaker 2: it is incredible. Well done, Martin McDonough.
Speaker 4: I'm sure he's listening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll get back to him. He'll get back to him.
Speaker 2: Some fun facts before I'll let you go. Here's some
Speaker 2: fun facts abouting Bruce. I did mention that Matt Smith
Speaker 2: played young Harry in some flasht there. There are quite
Speaker 2: a few deleted scenes that are available online.
Speaker 1: Check them out. The word fuck did you did you
Speaker 1: notice that? I? Did you come up every one to
Speaker 1: the end?
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred and twenty six times in a one
Speaker 2: hundred and seven minute film, which makes it one point
Speaker 2: one eight per minute.
Speaker 1: The f bomb get strong. Oh nice. So there you go.
Speaker 1: Five actors.
Speaker 2: If you're a Harry Potter fan in bruges Worth checking out.
Speaker 2: Five actors also appear in the Harry Potter franchise. I
Speaker 2: won't go through who everybody played. You can work it up.
Speaker 2: At Brendan Gleeson, it was in at Clemens. Posey who
Speaker 2: played Chloe. Was in Syrian Hines who almost sort it's
Speaker 2: kier In Heines or Sirian Hines. He was the priest
Speaker 2: shot that in two hours and people would know him
Speaker 2: from Peaking Binders and Game of Thrones. He is an
Speaker 2: amazing Irish actor. He was also in Harry Potter and
Speaker 2: Colin Farrell's also in Harry Potter. Yes, they are the
Speaker 2: fun facts. I covered a few during our conversation.
Speaker 3: One shout out to another great line. I always hated history.
Speaker 3: It's all just a bunch of stuff that's happened. Fucking great.
Speaker 3: You two are weird. Johnt some cocaine that was really great.
Speaker 2: And when Bredan Gleason appears gacked out of his head,
Speaker 2: look the varrel so so good man.
Speaker 4: I want to watch it again. I want to watch
Speaker 4: Seven Psychopaths again. I want to watch Three Billboards again.
Speaker 4: And I've been fascinated to know what he does. You
Speaker 4: know he's dating Phoebe waller Bridge.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, I think I didn't know that. Actually yeah.
Speaker 1: And also check out Cavalry. Yes I have seen that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I wasn't one of the audience.
Speaker 2: I did point to you when I said it, which, yeah,
Speaker 2: gave you a sense of that I was talking to you, mate.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: This podcast comes with homework. I really appreciate you watching
Speaker 2: this and pleasure watching her twice in fact, so here's
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Thank you, mister.
Speaker 4: Pete ong load.
Speaker 1: Of an autumn day.
Speaker 4: I saw her first on the new.
Speaker 2: Tom Ballard. He's a smart kid, funny kid. Like him,
Speaker 2: like him a lot. Go see the show it is
Speaker 2: I touring around the country. He's fantastic.
Speaker 1: He's the best it is. I go see him comedy
Speaker 1: dot com dot A.
Speaker 2: You can also take a tickets for my new show
Speaker 2: Deconstructed Our Garment, playing around the country in cities and towns.
Speaker 1: I look forward to seeing you there. You may realize
Speaker 1: why I'm away at the moment.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I'm sure I'll have something to say about
Speaker 2: that as well. Next week on the show, our final
Speaker 2: replay before we kick in to season six. Lloyd Langford
Speaker 2: very funny man and was great to hang out with.
Speaker 2: He's doing a show also around the country right now.
Speaker 2: Go see him Comedy dot com dot a you Lloyd Langford.
Speaker 1: Check him out.
Speaker 2: You can also buy tickets for my new show Deacon
Speaker 2: Structed our Gami also playing around the cities and towns
Speaker 2: around Australia. I've got a bit to say about lots
Speaker 2: of stuff that's been happening recently. So next week Lloyd
Speaker 2: Lankfort watches The Princess Bride. Finally somebody covered the Princess Bride.
Speaker 2: We had a great time with it. Enjoy next week
Speaker 2: and you won't say nothing yet. And so we leave
Speaker 2: Old Pete save Lan Salt and to our friends of
Speaker 2: the radio audience, we've been a pleasant good name.