With “Oppenheimer” hitting theaters today, Alex and Nick take a look at Christopher Nolan’s entire career. The guys discuss the props in “Following,” the structure of “Memento,” the editing of “Insomnia,” creative exposition in “Batman Begins”, twists in “The Prestige,” the questionable love triangle in “The Dark Knight,” and watching “Inception” on a plane.
Shots are taken at “The Dark Knight Rises,” a balanced debate is had on “Interstellar,” “Dunkirk” is dissected, and Alex has an about-face for “Tenet.”
Follow @WAYW_Podcast on Twitter and Instagram and Letterboxd.
Watch Alex's films at http://alexwithrow.com/
Watch Nick's films at https://www.nicholasdostal.com/
Send us mailbag questions at whatareyouwatchingpodcast@gmail.com
With “Oppenheimer” hitting theaters today, Alex and Nick take a look at Christopher Nolan’s entire career. The guys discuss the props in “Following,” the structure of “Memento,” the editing of “Insomnia,” creative exposition in “Batman Begins”, twists in “The Prestige,” the questionable love triangle in “The Dark Knight,” and watching “Inception” on a plane.
Shots are taken at “The Dark Knight Rises,” a balanced debate is had on “Interstellar,” “Dunkirk” is dissected, and Alex has an about-face for “Tenet.”
Follow @WAYW_Podcast on Twitter and Instagram and Letterboxd.
Watch Alex's films at http://alexwithrow.com/
Watch Nick's films at https://www.nicholasdostal.com/
Send us mailbag questions at whatareyouwatchingpodcast@gmail.com
Himself, and we shall be watching closely. Hey, everyone. Thanks again for listening. You can watch my films and read my movie blog at Alex Withrow dot com. Nicholas Dose dot.com is where you can find all of Nick's film work. Send us mailbag questions at what are you watching podcast at gmail.com or find us on Twitter, Instagram and letterboxd at WUKY w underscore podcast. Next time is all about Christopher Nolan's new film, Oppenheimer. We're going to see it in IMAX. We're going to talk about it right after. And who am I kidding? I will be talking about Barbie as well. Stay tuned. Wow, That was a lot of fun. Holy shit. This. We're venturing the longest pot ever territory here. We both got to get. Seriously. Good luck. We're going to move on to. What are you watching? Good luck, everyone. Are you watching closely? I want to let you know that you are listening correctly. That's all. Everything is correct. We'll go to. What are you watching? We can make it quick. Yeah, if you want to go first. It's not even Really. What are you watching? Tick. As much as it's just. I kind of want to just shoot this movie and more attention that we all. We do a good job of it. You said it earlier when we were talking about the directors of today, and then you brought Damien Chazelle. Oh, yes. I wanted to throw out Babylon one more time as my what are you watching recommendation? Because of something that my mom said that I just wanted to share on the pod. Please do. Please do. We just got back from a very long trip overseas, which was awesome. My mom and I and I told she's like, What movie should I watch? We've got these long flights. And I go, You have to watch Babylon. And she was like, okay, so she does know anything about it. She knows Damien Chazelle from Whiplash and Layla, and I don't think she's seen First Man, but she came up to me. We were sitting in different seats on the plane, unfortunately. So she had found her way up and cross all the way across the plane just to come and tell me that she said that she was blown away by Babylon. She's like this is a masterpiece. This is an artist who has something to say. That is she was just seeing all of the things that we've said. But I gave her she she didn't even hear any of those things that we said. She was coming up with all of this on her own. She's like what he is saying about the state of film today, what it was, what it could be. Everything this she's like, this was such an artistic achievement on so many levels beyond what he's saying, but just what he's also giving us this story and all of its visuals. I was just sitting there watching her pour out this this verbiage to me, and I was just sort of like, Oh, my God, this is amazing. And yes, you're so right. So everyone goes, See Babylon, Go see it. It's available to stream now, I believe. Paramount+ like, go watch it. It deserves you know, that's one I would not mind doing a commentary for because we did an episode about it, but we recorded that episode 45 minutes after we saw it, like right away. So we didn't all this like all this stuff, all this context and all this thinking that we've had with it all this time with it, we've had like eight months with it now. It'd be great to go back and revisit it in some fashion on the part, because when you texted me that about your mom, I replied and said, I think that is going to be one that kind of tipped people over because a lot of the reasons that movie was rejected were for ideological reasons that just it's like people this is a movie like this is a movie about a ridiculous time in Hollywood. And people who saw that movie, a lot of them loved it. Critics really loved it. The Oscars rejected it. And I think I think give it a few years. And that's going to be a classic that was oddly rejected, like bafflingly rejected. It's going to go, What the fuck are you people on? Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm wrong. But I do think that one will be regarded in much higher esteem than it has been for the past eight months. It's go watch. It is truly a masterpiece. I agree. I love that. That's a great pick. I'm going to move really quickly because mine I thought I was going to talk about it for longer. Our next episode is going to be on up and Heimer, just a review of that movie. We're going to go to the theater. I'm seeing it in IMAX. I hope you are too. It's going to be a hell of a time, hell of an experience. So maybe I'll talk about this a little more on that episode. But, you know, I watch a lot of movies and I'm interested in a lot of things, but I put on this fucking documentary series that I know a lot of people have heard of called the Vietnam War by Ken Burns, released in 2017. This thing is ten episodes long. The longest one is 2 hours. The shortest one is about an hour and 20 minutes. I burned through it. Burned through it. I got the PBS documentaries upgrade on Amazon. I'm obsessed this thing. Like, I guess I'm an old man now because one in the theater seeing asteroid city, seeing past lives, seeing no hard feelings, movies, all of which I enjoyed several times in each screening of that, where I'm sitting there in the theater going, God, I wish I was at home watching the Vietnam War. I just wish I was right now. I had seen one Ken Burns film The Central Park Five. That's a two hour documentary. I never seen any of these long ones. And now I'm just I'm really into it. And it was not slow. It moved so well. It taught me so much. And there's a bit of a Nolan connection because all that those interviews you see in Interstellar for the Dust Bowl, that was all taken from a 2012 documentary by Ken Burns called the Dust Bowl. So not the Ellen Burstyn stuff, but everything else is from that actual documentary. So he's kind of tangentially related to Nolan here. But yeah, we've kept people around long enough. Or maybe you're just getting started. Maybe. Christopher Nolan We did it. It wasn't contentious at all. That was great. I think we express ourselves eloquently, even if we didn't like all the movies, even if we don't think all the movies are perfect. Oh yeah, that was a lot of fun. I had a great time rewatching all these. I watched all the special features for them. I highly recommend that the Nolan making of documentaries on all of his movies will teach you a lot. Find us on Twitter, face on Instagram, Find us on litter box trash Nolan praise Nolan W aiw underscore Podcast. As always, thank you for listening and happy watching. We finished the Nolan filmography real quick because we are. We're running oh, we're running long Are we ever. I appreciate everyone being here with us for this long. Or maybe you're just joining us. Who knows? Either way, welcome. Are you watching closely some Christopher Nolan What are you watching? Awards. We're not. I didn't up into I didn't give like five for each category, but we're just going to go by category. I have two for each. I have first place and second place. You do not have to do that. But what I didn't have on here was best sound. So let's get that one out of the way. We both okay. It'd be Tenet or Dunkirk, rather. Not Tenet. Dunkirk for best sound. That's what we said. Yes, Yes. Fucking of us. All right, so let's start and we'll work our way down to the biggest one. All right. I didn't do two, though. I didn't. No, that's fine. That's fine. That's fine. I. I didn't give you that note. Best editing. All right. You're going to love this year. I love my answer. Okay. I can't wait. I thought a lot about it. Okay. Insomnia. Oh, wow. That's great. I for all, like the jump cuts and stuff, I did not expect that at all. I was going to go with Dunkirk. The one. He's a Christopher Nolan movie that has actually won the best editing Oscar. Dunkirk I think is the best that well that that was going to be that was going to be my pick. But when when I kind of went back to my whole note perfect thing, I kind of had to ask myself, I go, Why does every single moment of this movie work like not just scene every moment? And I'm like, that's editing. Like, that's just like, that's just especially that specificity. We're talking about props stuff. Yeah, Fall doing this very, very intentional and something you really have to pay a lot of attention to and for it to all work in that general piece that it is, I was like I think this is this, this is go to this. But yes, Dunkirk would be my second score. No, no question. Inception, really? No, I think you're going to go no question. Interstellar for me, it's Interstellar for the interstellar race. That's hilarious. I really thought you were going to go. No question, Interstellar. But Inception is the most iconic score of Christopher Nolan's career, without question. I mean, they stole it from every fucking movie trailer for ten years. Oh, my God. It's my. I have it on vinyl. Oh, yeah. And and the song time, even though that has been used in like 12 Years a Slave, it's been used in commercials. Like, to me, that is the iconic Inception theme. I will never not be emotionally moved by that song, and I will only ever think about Inception and honestly took me out and 12 Years a Slave. And that's a tender moment. Oh, right, right. I mean, Hans Zimmer had done doing both, so there's definitely be some familiar strains there. My number two would be Tenet. Actually, I love the Tenet score. Oh, lovely. Two great score. My number two would be Interstellar. Best cinematography, Big one. Wow, You go first. Oh, Christ. Why is he laughing following Tenet? Tenet? Really? I can't. I mean, yeah, I can't hate because this shit, man, I'm like, How did you do this? I've never seen anything like this in a movie before, and I can't tell if it's CG because you're I mean, they were using miniatures to blow up those buildings, like half sized miniatures. That's why it looks so real, because they were actually blowing shit up. They weren't using a green screen. I love it. Just the composition of the way that it looked like a James Bond movie. The just like some of those sweeping, like landscape shots like I and for being a movie that I have no idea what's going on and I'm okay with it something's got to be leading me the way that I can't take my eyes off of. And that's got to be the cinematography. Hell yeah. So I love it. Yeah. My number two are actually my number one Inception wins for me for cinematography. Yeah, it does. And my number two is actually Interstellar. Yeah. Yeah. My number two would be Inception. And then, yeah, Interstellar would be following that. Oh, that's cool. That's so cool. I love this. You're throwing me some curt, some surprises, but they all track like it's all fair. That's what I mean. It's all fair. Yeah. The next one. It was the only one that had a caveat because I have to imagine best supporting actor for both of us would be Topher Grace and Interstellar. Heath Ledger. We love you, The Dark Knight Recipes. We love you. I assume that would be number one for both of us. So I'll do my second choice first. And I thought a lot about this, but I'm going with Robert Pattinson and Tenet because I love that guy. I love him. That's that's a that's a good one. I this might be kind of shocking. I'm going Christian Bale The Prestige. Oh, okay. Okay. That's it's only shocking. That's a bit of a stretch for supporting. I think he's a lead in that. Do you think so? Yeah, I think I don't know. Okay. All right. Hook with that one. Okay. Okay. All right, All right. I think you might need to dig deeper. Okay? Okay, then let's come back to that one. Give me some time to think about it. And that's too much of a stretch. Casey Affleck is sitting right there for you, right? He's right there. Shut you shut shut your mouth. Best supporting actress Marion Cotillard, Dark Knight Rises, obviously, JK 100 Inception. I put Inception for her. I love her in that. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, I read so great section. I believe all of it through all the all the beats of what she was doing. Yeah, I love her in that. And she does some things in that movie too like that are like, I like that there's a look that happens when they're there coming back from the, the hotel scene. They're on the elevator. Yeah. And the elevators is rising up. And then she just has her eyes looking up at them and but her hair is moved to one side. She looks like a monster. Yeah, she looks like a real evil. Yeah, I love it. Great pick. I'm going with best supporting actress Carrie-Anne Moss in Memento. Oh, great. Yeah, great. That's. Well, okay, well, let's jump to it. Let me skip over ACTOR Let me jump right to actress because she was my runner up, even though I mean, lead actresses in Christopher Nolan movies are not very. Yeah I find if I'm being honest so this I would have allowed Carrie-Anne Moss here I actually have Elizabeth Debicki in Tenet even though I could very easily make the argument that that's a supporting part. But I was I was giving myself a little leeway because there aren't a lot of lead performers for females, a lot of lead cast. So females, yeah, my best actress was Elizabeth Do back. Oh, we've had one that matched. All right because that because I did because you're you're right there's not it's not a lot of of of leading performances for women in Christopher Nolan's movies. But I would think that that one would be the biggest one he's had. I can't think of another one that's got that much of a of a lead's weight in terms of the story. And Carrie-Anne Moss really isn't in. She's just the only woman in Memento. That's true. That's very true. Okay, let's move back up to best actor. Is that my one and two? I was like, Really? You're going to do this? Number one, bring it home. Guy Pearce Memento. Got to love him. Oh. Oh, God, I love him. All right. He was allowed to improvise a lot of that voiceover narration, by the way. He just let it sit in the booth and, like, let it sound human. You can hear a lot of, like, pauses, human pauses. Love it, love it. I love him in that. So give me your number one, then I'll give you my number two. My number one. It's Al Pacino. And then that's my number two. Fuck, yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. He's so good that dormer here. That's great. I love him in that you think, like, Pacino fizzled out by the nineties, Like he was done at 22. Insomnia Is. And obviously now with the Irishman like he got he got a bounce back. But I mean, he's so good in insomnia. He is so fucking good. Here's a big one. He's written them all except one best screenplay. My number one this was a no brainer for me. It was Memento. Mine has to be mine. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Do you have a second spot? Do you have a second pick? I mean, for screenplay, all mine actually was Inception. Yeah, It's an original story that he worked on for so long, and I appreciate it for that reason. That would be mine. Yeah. And I have an answer now for my best supporting actor, if you want to just cross back. All right, let's go back up to Best Supporting Actor. Let's do it. I said Robert Pattinson. Tenet, you say? I say Joe Pantoliano from Memento. Memento. Oh, good. Yeah. Lenny. Yeah, yeah. I thought about it and I was like, I was like, Oh, man, he's really good. And he does a lot of interesting things. This was the hardest one for me. Best director. This was not easy. This was not easy. I have I actually have tied for first place. That's what I have here. I have a tie. I could split into one or two. I cannot believe this. I can't believe when I'm you. Do you want to go first or best director? I'll go first because mine is because of this was actually my toughest one. And my answer might be a cop out just because I went with it, because it's my favorite Nolan movie. So my best director is Inception. Okay. No, that's fair. That's totally fair. You know what I put here? The Dark Knight again? Dunkirk. I did. Because I think for what The Dark Knight is, I think it is a perfectly directed movie, flaws and all, of course. But yeah, the genre that that fits into what he was able to achieve with it. The lasting legacy of it. Yep. I just go, Wow. And then Dunkirk. I mean, I can say this for Tenet too, but Dunkirk is on its face. It could be such a conventional war film that we've all seen so many times. And just by making the directorial decision and the writing decision and the editorial decision. But that all comes from the director of mixing it up like that I think is a huge achievement. And how he keeps the tension maintained for 106 minutes is a movie never lets up. I was surprised I put those that I was surprised. The Dark Knight was the one I was actually battling between Inception in The Dark Knight because I ended up going with Inception as my number one just because I was like, Fuck it, it's my favorite, you know, I'm gonna go with it. But for all the reasons you said, The Dark Knight, which were my reasonings for taking that one as well. The one and two. Yeah. Best picture for me goes to Memento. Love it. That's me. Is Inception. Yeah. Is were it. Those were spoiled? Of course. Yeah, they were. And then you may have thought that was our last category, but it is not the most coveted category involving Chris Nolan. Best Michael Caine performance. What do you have? I have the Prestige. Oh, cool. That was second place for me. I have. You're going to fucking hate it. The Dark Knight Rises. Well, it's because of the one seen on the stairs. I just. And then when he's crying at the grave, I love it. I love what he did with that. I didn't expect it, but prestige would definitely be number two. Yeah. I love how involved the is in that. I love is one scene in Tenet. I just I love Michael Caine. He's the most involved I think in the Nolan movie in the Prestige. He he's more than just I mean Oh, Alfred I mean yeah I mean, he's very involved in those movies, too. Oh, honestly, we've. It's been awesome. I know we've come a long way, and I this is maybe the one I'm most excited to talk about. We're here at Tenet, released in 2020. It was supposed to come out in May of 2020. The global pandemic delayed that. Yes. So I'm just going to get going because you've seen this. You've seen this one once. So let me let me kick off here on October 2020, the first movie back in theaters. They're opening theaters back up. And Tenet is the big draw. So I'm so excited. Holy God, it's been six months without being able to see a movie in the theater. I'm beyond excited to see this. It was brutal not being able to go to a theater for six months. I was itching to tell you how much I fucking hated this movie about, I don't know, 20 minutes in, I realized I do not have the slightest idea what's going on and clearly I'm not going to. And I made the decision there too. I guess I was mad and like COVID mad that this had to be the first movie in six months that I did see and I could not hear the dialog. And it seemed so important. I had no idea what was going on, and I hated it. I remember texting you and being like, I didn't like that I would give it a D. I thought John David Washington was awful. I just it was wild how much I rejected it. We did our top ten of 2020. No mention of that movie. We never mentioned it. Never. All due respect to lovers Rock, I'm watching Tenet now. This has to be my favorite movie of that year. It's all to you. Even lovers Rock is like a 51 minute art installation. It's a little long and that's like a 70 minute art installation that I love. I would still put it first, but my point is, the about face I've had on Tenet is is unlike I mean, it's it's one of the top five movies of my lifetime that I've done a complete 180 on and I absolutely love this movie now I still think it is confuse as all hell. I still think without captions you cannot understand a lot of their dialog. But I now think that he made his James Bond movie. A lot of a lot of the plot points in James Bond movies make no fucking sense, for better or worse, the way that John David Washington is playing the protagonist. I totally get what he's doing, the humor he's injecting into it. I love this movie. Now. The thing was because it was COVID, the movie didn't leave theaters for a long time. Long time, Yeah. So I just went back to see it because there was nothing else to see. And then before it came out on Blu ray, I wasn't even going to buy it. I rented it on YouTube once because it wouldn't leave my head and I watch and I was like, Shit, now that I understand this better and I'm a little calmer, I really fucking like this. And I just do. I watch this one all the time. Two things I loved from the beginning, even in that first viewing, was the score by Ludwig Goranson, which is just I mean, I work out to score the score. It's nuts. Love that thing. And Robert Pattinson, who I think is it's just remarkable is Neil and I love his character. I always have. But yeah, I love Tenet now that's my long speech of really rejecting it honestly, because I couldn't understand it. And then when I gave it another chance, several more chances, I really grew to love it and appreciate it. Totally understand that it's over the top and confusing. I get all that, but you just watch this. I did talk to me about Tenet. So this is the first movie I watched for our Nolan Pod because I was hoping to get in second watch because you had said you're going to have whatever experience you're going to have with it the first time. Yeah, it would behoove you to watch it a second time no matter what. And so I couldn't get that second viewing it, unfortunately. But I will speak to my first viewing of it. I really liked it good, but I can't really give you a reason why because I was okay. So also I did watch it on TV and I put closed captions on. I was actually following the thread of everything fairly well. Then the physics at one point got to me and I couldn't follow anymore. I was I was doing my best. I was following the time. I was following like what was going on. I'm like, okay, yup, yup, yup, yup. This is all like, is this? It's out there. But but I'm even if I wasn't exactly there, I'm like, I think I'm in the ballpark. But then some of the in inverse physics of everything. Yeah. Yeah. Got too confusing. And by the time we get to that whole end of battle and you've got one side going inverted. Yeah. And I was like, Huh, I have no idea what's happening now, but I think it's cool This, this, this is basically what the James Bond analogy I think is honestly kind of perfect. James Bond in every movie has to save the fucking world. Ethan Hunt In every Mission Impossible movie, he's got to save the world. How does it all makes sense? No, I cannot sit here right now and tell you verbatim everything that happens in Mission Possible Dead Reckoning Part one, which I just saw, because a lot of it is confusing. I forgive it. I don't know it well, and that's kind of how this was where it was like, okay, I don't know what's going on, but this is all really cool. Yeah, like, that's the word I use for this movie. I like this movie is super cool. And you're right, because John David Washington is is playing a James Bond. This is a James Bond, but just Nolan style. Yeah. No, like this is the most up his own ass Nolan's ever been. And he knows that. He knows that. Absolutely. Yeah. Does this game $205 million to go make this fucking thing? It's an original script. This thing is nuts. I can't believe they did that. I can't believe it is. It's. It's a sci fi James Bond Nolan thing. I honestly got even when I lost the thread of what was going on, it didn't matter to me. And this is the first viewing because I accepted it at one point because I was like, You know what? I did lose track of what's happening, but I still understand the stakes and I'm still invested in the saving the world component. So I was following everything and there were a few things that were making sense. And I loved Elizabeth, too, Becky, in this. Oh, she's so good in it. I love her in you know, how she got the role Widows. Was it Emma Thomas? The producer saw widows and was like, Chris, you have to watch this. And they went solo. She's in. Is she? She, to me, is the heart of this movie. Oh, for sure. Sure. And the to me, in my experience with the movie, when I lost track of everything, I remember telling Seth, I was like, just go back to the Becky. Just go back to, like, ground ground, my confusion and whatever's going on with her. And I didn't need anything anymore. I was like, I know, I know where where I'm at because I'm with her now. I guess this begs the question because clearly I did not need this movie to make sense to me in order to enjoy all 2 hours plus minutes that it was because I really did there. There wasn't a single moment where I'm like, I don't like this. I liked everything was happening. I just acknowledge that I don't know what's happening. Does that make it a good movie? Like, should that be the case? Should you have to abandon all understanding of what's happening? Can you allow yourself to still enjoy it? Clearly, I could. I would like to understand a little bit more, but I enjoyed my time with this movie so much. But is that is that something that's okay, yeah. Is it fair for a movie in order to fully appreciate it, demand repeat viewings from you? This is an age old argument. I don't know. I mean, there are a lot of classics out there. No one's going to understand. 2001, A Space Odyssey fully on first viewing. You're not you're just not going to. So well, can you even do that with a second viewing with this? No, no. I mean, you can't. There's no way someone can fully understand Tenet in the second viewing. I mean, I've seen it. I've kept count with new movies. I try to like if I think I'm going to watch them all, I'm keeping count. So I've seen Tenet 11 times. In fact. And I know and I fucking love it, man. I can't help myself. It's fucking lunatic. You put it on. It's just like, Oh, my God, it's so good. They torture Eminem. I do have it all. I got it all now. I did not get here on my own. I did not. I got here with a lot of Reddit threads, a lot of sleuthing on myself, but I pretty much get I get everything that Kenneth Brown, his character, is doing now. The stakes at the end, I get what's happening there. A lot of things. A lot of the whys are not explained on purpose. I don't get everything like I don't want to give away the end. But what is revealed in the end? In the end, a back and forth conversation. I don't know what the hell's going on with all that. Like, who knows? They don't show us any of that. But what they show us on the text of Tenet, I do understand in the way they made this was fucking nuts. I mean that I thought they did some digital trickery for all that backwards stuff. I watched the feature length making of for this No Robert Pattinson learn how to drive in reverse. I mean, there's some trickery, of course, but like that hallway fight, that was the first thing they shot and they had to shoot that for times. I don't mean coverage of it four times. I mean coverage of it from four different takes. They had to do it with John David Washington and his nice polished suit, first forward, then reversed. He actually filmed, like doing the motions in reverse, and then he had to put on that black up suit and do the same exact thing. And when they edited that scene, the both of the fight scenes, they didn't use any of the same takes. It's fucking crazy. Like, it's awesome. Yeah, this is a big lift to appreciate it. I get it. And is it fair? I mean, my argument in October 2020, I think I even had an argument to you that you should not have to see a movie multiple times in order to fully appreciate it. I would say that. And that's why if someone watches Tenet once and tells me it's a piece of shit, you're not going to get an argument for me. What I will say is, if you're interested in it all, I promise when you go back, you'll actually start to understand a lot more and it'll probably benefit the film for you. And like me, you may develop a relationship for like, Oh, I'm learning with this thing. Like, I feel like I'm getting smarter as I'm watching this because I'm figuring it out. So there's a joy in it for me. Yeah, I love it. I love Tenet. Yeah, I'm about to go put it on now. Yeah. For the 12 time. 12 to 12 time. Yeah, I know, I know. I mean, sometimes it's embarrassing to them at this stuff, but I am who I am. I have in my notes have a little the month and the year of every time I've watched Tenet and the Irishman as the only two I'm doing it for, I could do it for waves because I could backlog and keep it up. But those are ones I'm watching a lot. What do you do? You know what movie you've seen more than any other movie. Oh, ever. Yeah. Yeah. We've talked about this ever. It would be Pulp Fiction and Scream. Those would pop world. And honestly, if I'm being totally honest, I don't have all this memorized, but then I'd have to loop in when I was a kid, Cinderella and E.T., because I just broke those VHS as watched them so much. My one my one movie title answer is Scream. I know. I've seen that. I mean, that would be embarrassing to admit how many times I've seen that it would be in the hundreds. Plural. Certainly. Yeah, I've. I've seen it so many fucking times. I still have my VHS. I'm looking right now. I have it on VHS, DVD, Blu ray and 4K. Why? Why indeed? Why indeed. So that would be the then Pulp. Shame is really high up there too. Have you ever thought about Scream being in your top ten? Oh, I mean, it was up until I when I was like 15, that was like scream one, two or and my top five. Like I've thought about it for personal reasons, but there's too many other movies. I have so many movies in my top ten for personal reasons that are like that have all the prestige to care to, you know carry that through. Scream is my favorite genre movie ever made, though I would say that like, no problem. Yeah. And I don't think it's the best genre of horror movie ever made, but it's my personal favorite. The relationship I built with that movie was so singular to me, becoming obsessed with movies. I fucking love Scream. That's why you can talk all your shit on Scream five and six all you want. I like, I don't care. I love five and six. I did too. I did too. Oh, I'm such a fan. Fun one. Let's move on to Dunkirk. Because with Dunkirk, to me, it was like Nolan. Listen to some of his biggest criticisms and address them, but then also quadrupled down on others. So for starters, people were mentioning, especially with Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar is again long buddy. So then I remember when the news came out that Dunkirk is going to be 106 minutes long. I was like, Huh, is this is that like part one? And then we're going to get Dunkirk part two two years later? No, this is what it's going to be. I'm like, okay. And then another big criticism he gets. We just honed in on it a lot for Interstellar is the cross-cutting of action, which is a signature thing of the Christopher Nolan movie. It's just what he does. I have not seen Oppenheimer, but I it is a safe bet that he is going to be cross cutting action several times throughout the movie. This can work effectively, sometimes in Interstellar when what you're cross-cutting is something extremely thrilling, like what they're doing in space with that crop burning, it can lose a little luster to me. And then I start to feel like you're only doing this just because the crop burning thing is an interesting enough. So you're trying to ratchet up this false tension. It's like you heard that with Dunkirk and he's like, Yeah, fuck you all. I'm going to do that for an entire movie. Yeah, yeah. Good luck. And to me, Dunkirk, honestly, like when I watch it, it feels like I heard Tarantino hone in on this a little more, but it feels like the third act of a Christopher Nolan movie. Like we could easily have 90 minutes setting all this up. Where did all these boys come from? How did Kenneth Branagh get his mission? All of this stuff, you know, Mark Rylance making the decision to actually go, you'd be able to build all this story up, and then your third act would essentially be what we see in Dunkirk. But no, he just chops that out, takes this huge moment of history that I'll speak for myself. I just was not that clued into. I'd heard it mentioned in movies in passing, but I was not familiar with this battle at all. And Tenet gives it a run for its money. But Dunkirk is the most structurally challenging film he's made. It's so experimental in the way he did it. And what a fucking swing. Because the people who dislike this movie, that's all they go to. It's too confusing needlessly. I say, Bravo to you, sir. Bravo. But again, I'm not going to argue with people. If you think it's too confusing needlessly, I'm not going to argue. I think it works. I think it works too. But I'll be honest, I've seen this movie two times. Oh, that's it. Okay. Wow. I've seen this one a lot. First time in theaters when it came out, I actually think this is the best sound. No one has ever done. Oh, okay. Good, Clyde Good. QUEST. Good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would agree. I would agree. I would agree. Yeah. So much of the actual story telling of this movie happens through its sound. Just those planes, the air, the looming emotion, but also understanding that that's what this is always happening. Like they're just waiting to get bombed and the sound clues you in to when things are wrong or when things are happening as the excitement. I think he used sound more effectively. And this is a huge like statement to make you sound the most effectively for this movie than he's ever used it. And he is a guy that uses sound very effectively. Oh yeah. Now all that being said, when I did see this movie in IMAX, when it came out, we were a little close to the screen. So there were specifically in the nighttime boat sinking sequence, I lost complete thread of what was going on visually. Well, that's what happens to everyone on first viewings. You're like, Wait a minute, what the fuck? I killing is on the other boat. He's a shell shocked. Like, what? What is this? Yeah, yeah. And this is I'm just admitting this and I but the second time I saw it, it all clicked because I'm an idiot. In the very beginning of the movie when they he is the only gives you these title cards once to explain what you're about to see. So it's the mole. One week, the sea one day, the air, one hour. Hmm. I did not know that the mole was the ship. And everything that has to do with like this is the one place where the ship comes to get everybody. Yeah, like the docking part of the beach, essentially. Yes, yes, yes. I did not know that That's what that was. I didn't know the first time I saw. I had no fucking clue. I thought they were talking about like a detective, like a mole, like a designation was something else. No idea. Yeah. You're not dumb for not knowing. I No fucking clue. And I did not get that. The one week thing was the time stamp that he was giving us for this part of the story. Yes. So I got, as I think a lot of people did, I did get confused in that first viewing as to why we were cross cutting this nighttime sequence with two other moments that were happening during the day. I'm like, What Is the time frame here now? Second time I watched Dunkirk on my phone at 4:00 in the morning, it all became instantly clear. I was like, Oh, the mole. That's that must be the ship, the docking port. Oh, and this is all taking place in. Oh, that makes sense then. Is everything we're seeing is happening in the timetable he's giving us. So everything that's happening here is in the span of one week. Not. No, and no, you're not. What's happening? No, no, no, no, no. Everything that's happening on the beach is not a week. It's like a day in the night into like the next day. What those are telling you is that was the average amount of time that people who served in Dunkirk in this battle were at their posts. So you only had an hour's worth of gasoline in the air. So that's all that that battle lasted for you. Only you had a day to get to Dunkirk and back. That's how long the boat thing lasted for the people who were on the beach. Could be on for a week. But these boys are not on there. They're not on there for a week. That's not the implication. This is what makes a little a little more confusing. But they are not on that beach for a week. They're not Tom Hardy. Everything we see from him takes place over like one gas tank of fuel. So all of that. But the stuff on the beach is not one week that day that they would have to show us more of using the bathroom, which is a thing in this movie food. It's not it's basically it's like the the day of all them out there and then it goes into the next day. But it is not or maybe like a day or two. It's not a week. It's not a week. So I know. Sorry. I know you just pieced all this together, but that is a confusing part of it. It doesn't mean what's confusing is that we are actually in the air for, like, an hour with Tom Hardy. Yeah, it's cut up, and we are on the boat for, like a day with Mark. Day that is cut up. Yeah, but the idea is that the average soldier waited on that beach for a week to get picked up, but that wasn't. It's not saying that all these guys, you know, find White House. So and all them so it was it basically because they make that that they do it a few times where they're like my God, you can see it from here. Right? Basically. So basically was more of a thing is like this is how long it's going to take for you to get home. Yes, yes, yes, exactly. Okay. If you are flying the mission, flying, it will take you will be out for one hour at a time. If you were one of those extremely gracious citizens who took their personal boat all the way, that would take you a day to get to Dunkirk Beach. And then if you were on the beach, the average amount of time that someone was on there was a week of being. Now, I will say to the movie, you don't really feel like, Oh, they're on here for for a week because they're not supposed to be. But you do get the sense, especially early on, that they are just sitting fucking ducks. And I think, yeah, that's the point. And the week verse a day verse an hour is supposed to clue you in and help delineate that these are not taking place concurrently. He is messing with us with the structure to make it seem like Tom Hardy's been up here for, you know, 48 hours. He hasn't. He's only been up here for an hour. So yeah, you're like, Oh, when the boat explodes. Oh, shit, that's the same boat. Like there's not four boats exploding in this movie. So you go. And then, of course, the whole moment is when he's, you know, pulled up out of the water and that's when everything's supposed to click into place. But yes, the structure of this movie is confusing. And those title cards, at least the first one, doesn't really help matters much. Well, it doesn't, but okay, let's just save. And because okay, this this all does make sense to me, but it doesn't really decide up to the way that I was experiencing the movie the second time. Because once I, at least in my head for what I was confusing it to be, but what I was going with was that timetable right? It actually still helps me make sense of everything because I was able to watch each one of these storylines happen with the idea of a more understood sense of when this was happening. And so even when it hit nighttime, even my head, I mean. Oh, yeah, that's right. Because it's a week, but okay, scratch it that's wrong. But even still, I'm like, well, it does take more time over here. So that's why it's night. Exactly. That's why we're still seeing this. So I was able to actually piece together the structure. It just happened to be for the wrong reasons, apparently. Well, not exactly. As long as you understand that. Like, let's call it two days. Two days are passing on the beach or like a day and a half on the beach, a day on the boat, and then an hour in the place where it and you understand, like if he put all of this in order, the better said if he had it for every jump cut, if he put a title card up, which would be terrible. Every time we're back at Tom Hardy, it would be like, you know, I mean what the hell was it fight? It would be like June 1st, 1940 ten, 100 hours. And then when we cut back to him, it'd be like June 1st night, 1940 ten, 10 hours. Whereas on the beach we'd be making much bigger leaps in time. We're making much bigger leaps on the beach. Like we don't see that boat get filled with water, but then we jump back and it's full of water. So we're whereas we're not cutting any time out of any time. Nothing, basically, that that mission is is all there. It's all captured. But this is what makes it going back to rewatching. It's so fun because you know yeah there's no need for a movie like this to have that structure, but that's what adds another layer to it that I know annoys the hell out of some people I know. Like my dad, It's confusing and loud. Like, I get it, I totally do. But it it helps distinguish the movie unlike any other war film. Honestly, I 100%. And when it all comes together in the very end like it does give you like that. Oh, wow. Yeah. Now we're all together here. Yeah, now it's all like the. I love that. I thought that was really cool, even though apparently I was thinking of it the wrong way. But. But I still connected it the same way, which I hadn't certainly not done the first time. I really liked it. I thought this was especially for a movie that not a lot of dialog, right. But yet you are you do understand the stakes and the reality of what this particular war battle is doing and and the tension that happens in every bit of the scenes. Tom Hardy This is really great job. Just his eyes in this, in this. I mean, you see that fucking guy make the decision. I mean, see him decide. He's like, I'm out of gas. This is the moment. If I go back, I live and I'm at safety with my other men, or there's they still have trouble here. I need to go help out, and then I'm either going to die or get captured. And then that's I mean, that's it. And you see him make the decision with his eyes. It's fascinating. It's funny. It feels like Christopher Nolan just wants to constantly put mask on his face, hide his face every time. I mean, that's that scene when, you know, his buddy, he's like, he's on me. And this where he goes, I'm on him is so like, this gives me chills the way Art Yeah, just down there. And then Tarantino's talked a lot about this movie. This is his second favorite movie of the 2010 decades. He loves this movie, loves it, Social Network being number one. And he said when he saw this, you got to see this in a theater in London. And when Kenneth brought a you know, it's waiting. It's weird, that tension, the music. And he just says home with like tears in his eyes. Tarantino is like the place fucking lost it. Like that's how much this movie in that moment means over there to them. And I love that because I've always really liked that line delivering the music just it's so great. And it's also it also says something that like that clicking watch would be annoying as hell, but it's just not like it helps, you know? Yeah, it's a part of the score and it helps keep it moving. It's Oh God, I really love it. It's such a thrill. And again, surprisingly of my favorite to rewatch. And I want to you know, we haven't mentioned Hoyt to Van Hauptmann yet. I mean, God, he's just he is taken over the scope of Nolan's vision. So. Well, first with Interstellar Dunkirk, Tenet can't wait to see what he does with Oppenheimer. So excited. Yeah. He uses IMAX cameras better than anyone. I'm convinced it's he's he's incredible or. No, he's. He's a he's very credible. Very credible. Well, I mean, his skill set is a little incredible. Two in a row for you. Two HARDWOOD zero. Here we go, baby. Interstellar as a rankings reveal that I don't know to say I love it. This is a film I can openly acknowledge has faults. It is 169 minutes long and you feel that not every performance is even. I agree with that. But I don't know. Those faults don't diminish the film. Kind of like what you're saying with Inception. You acknowledge the faults and they don't take you out. They don't ruin it. And in Interstellar, they just don't matter. For me. I mean, far be it for me to tell Nolan how to assemble his films or who to cast in his films. But. But you're not going to get a fight for me on any issues that you have that I just you know, I've read almost every issue that's been raised about this film, and I think they're fair. But with that said about Interstellar, tell me how you feel about it, because this is the one I think we'll probably have the most back and forth on. But again, I'm not going to fight you, not going to fight, you know, and and I don't and I and I and again, like, I am in you know, I want to be a shit show. I get it. You're not here shitting on it. Yeah, but I do want you to be honest, because I love to talk it out. Yeah. Because I want to like this movie so badly. I think there's so many awesome things. Well, number one, I love space. I love everything about it. So when I heard Nolan was doing a movie in space, I was like, Oh, this is going to be so cool. And I love so much. I love the Times stuff. I love the I love McConaughey. I love. There's so much about this movie that I really do like. And when this movie does hit, it hits really, really hard. But there are just some things that happen in this movie that I just it ruins it. It ruins it. And I hate it. I hate it. Star Wars start. Pick one. The first one, the first thing that bothers me. So they get the coordinate s to the dinosaur through the like this. The dust storm comes and and the gravity thing happens and they get the coordinates. It was the ghost. The ghost had a chair. Yeah. Okay. First off, knowing what happens in the end, why the fuck does he give him the coordinates? Well, guys, you got to save the world, okay? All right. What do you mean? Come on. I'm not even here to argue with you. But that's. No, no. Then the whole entire thing. But then when you get to when he's in the fifth dimension, he's not going to thing. Everything is to stay. It's like, don't go, don't do. Exactly. But that is not what's happening. That's what I think. That's where the the very cheesy aspect of the movie, the love aspect, kind of comes in to it. Yeah. So I guess But I'm not here to fight you again. I know, you know, but I hear what you're saying. My, my point of contention with that is, is that if everything that we see in the fifth dimension part of it is all of that cheesy love stuff, then there needs to be a moment where we have is all right. Yeah, but we do need to save the world. I think you have to because you also got to keep in mind that in that fifth dimension stuff, McConaughey did not know what was going to happen if he was going to get there. So when he's saying like, don't don't let me, me, don't let me leave, Murph, don't let me leave, yeah, he doesn't know what's going to happen. He this could probably be the last moment of his life like so. Well, of course. Yes. So maybe he thinks if I don't leave, maybe I get to, like, go back and spend another day with her, and then everyone fucking dies. I mean, I don't know. I think that's just all he's thinking at the time because he doesn't know what else to do. But then I think he realizes, no, I got to give her the coordinates and do all that shit. Yeah, I have issues with it. Yeah. Yeah. Is this even the big one? I'm going to letting that one go. That. That was one that I. That I just. I'm like, All right, Yeah. The whole entire thing that you're doing over here is to this stay, and you're trying to do this, but, you know, whatever you want, the corners are fine. You go to Nassau, Top secret, the most secret space in the whole entire world. And according to them. And yes, like this was you're like Michael Caine. This was your like, pupil at one point, but then you just open up everything. Like just. Yeah, well, you know, it's that you're here, here's the whole situation. And then they ask him, like the equivalent of him being there for, like, an hour. We need you, McConaughey. You got to be the best pilot I've ever seen, So you got to go see, like, he wasn't even going to come here. Like, these were. This was a random scene. So who are you? What was your plan? Who were you going to get to do this mission? Right. You know, it's just so happens McConaughey shows up and then they preface again. No, no, no. It's it's very, very convenient. I think. Very convenient. I think when he reveals that there's some sort of gravitational pull in my daughter's bedroom, I think that clues them into like, all right, he's he's a step above just being a good astronaut. Maybe there's some other type of understanding here. Is it very convenient? Of course it is. And it all happens. The dude decides in like less than 2 hours that, yeah, he'll probably never see his kids again. He never does see his son again. Yeah. Yeah, he never does. And so. Okay, so there's that. But then, then really, I love all the stuff in space. Oh, you do? Okay, cool. Yeah, I love all the space stuff. None of that bothers me. I'm one of the few people because I've heard a lot of a lot of people who like this movie. They got one complaint with it. It's one of the things I like most about the movie is Matt Damon. I think Matt Damon's awesome in this. I think the read on him is people actually don't like that character and the character is a horrible coward. But I think he plays that perfectly. So I like him a lot in it. I will say the first three or four times I had no fucking clue what his motivation was. I didn't know the first fourth, three or four times I saw this movie. I did not get what he was doing. I And that's still a little hard. Do you get what he's doing like the first time you saw it? Well, not the first time I saw it. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah, not the first time, but like. Like even on upon rewatch, like I bought one, he was not counting and never being saved. Yeah, sure. So I love that first line where he's just when he comes out and he's just like, pray you, you never know what it's like, what it means to see another human face. Like, I love that. Pray you like what is it such a good when you know his character. It's such a perfect line. Like, Yeah, pray you never have to know this. No, because you can actually watch him. He is leading them in the direction he wants them all to go. Yeah, like he's even his people are even like his. His his robot. I forgot his name is like his equivalent of Tars. Right? It's like the guy's like, should I actually go in here and, like, you know, turn him on so we can get information? No, no, no, no, no. Don't do that. Like, that's that, that's Yeah. We use commissioned him. He Yeah he, he was forced. Yeah. Decommissioned him. Yeah. You can see all the ways that he is little by little plotting to get is he's trying to mutiny. Yeah. He, he's got his mission. He knows what, what, what it is. So I've always got the first viewing. It was shocking because I didn't know, but every other time I'm like, Oh, yeah, I see. His little, little subtleties is little, but his mission is to get to that remaining planet to try to set up the colony, right? That's what he's because he's like, McConaughey's like, Fuck you all. My daughter's old. I'm quitting this. I'm going home. We just found out planet was all bullshit from the get. So I'm going home to help you all. And then Damon hears that and he's like, I can't let you do that, because then you're going to trigger to the whole world This is futile. So I can't let you do that. I have to go on to the next planet. The first few times I saw it, I thought Damon was trying to go back to Earth and I was mistaken. And I thought he was being selfish in that way. But instead he put out this distress signal, which is where the cowardice comes in to get off of this planet, knowing that his planet was not inhabitable at all. So I get all that now. But it's just it took me a while. It's a leap. Yeah, it is a leap. It is a leap, but not as big as the leap I'm about to complain about. Give it to me. All right, So. So it basically starts where, for whatever reason, Casey Affleck doesn't want to save his son. It's. I don't understand. He doesn't want to take him to the doctor. But for whatever reason, Casey Affleck in knowing full well him and his wife know full well that their son is not handling the dust well. And the doctor, Topher Grace, tells them we need to leave immediately to get your son help. They're like, No, we're not leaving. Yeah. Casey Affleck is making a very deliberate but odd choice that is very muted and down low. That doesn't he's never really he doesn't do that much in his performance. But I don't know. I guess it's the Catholics fault. Yeah, I guess to throw that away, it would be because their first kid died already from maybe they took him to a doctor and he had does. They're like, Well fuck it, if he's going to die anyway, I'm not going to take a no doctor. But it is so hard. He's so hard nosed, he's so stubborn about it. It's like, Oh, you're so stubborn about. So you really just want your kid to die. Okay, okay. I get you. You. It really feels like they just needed a reason because Jessica Chastain has to give him that line of her. Like, you're just going to let your other son die. Like, you're like your first one. And so he's like, Get out and never come back. So the conflict is, is that Jessica Chastain needs to get back into this house after she's not allowed. So the only thing to do is to get Casey Affleck out of the house. So I'm going to go down. I'm going to go burn my brother's livelihood just so I can go back in the house for a reason. I don't know, like like she she doesn't know. She just wants to get back in the room and just is kind of like I there might be something here. And so she does this and then when she's in the room, I don't and I will never understand. She is given no proof like she's always had a theory like that. There's a ghost behind her bookcase. I'm not saying that, but how she connects with no giving evidence or anything, She's just staying there and she's like, Dad, it's the watch. It's. It's. Yeah, it's the watch. But this. Oh, I'm going to look at a watch and just because he gave it to me so, you know, it's jumping it everything. But yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. There's no this is the dumbest part of the movie. This stretch is the dumbest part of the movie from the kid getting sick. And of course, he's crosscutting it with other stories. Young kid getting sick, burning down the field. Topher Grace yelling, Hurry up, hurry up. Casey Affleck driving back. It's all in unneeded amount of tension that he's rushing with and and just the connections that we're expected to just accept that she's making without any logical help along the way. It just bothers me. But then it even bothers me even more where Casey Affleck returns covered in dust with red eyes and she comes out and she's holding the watch and she's like, It's dead. It's dead. That's where the sadness gets. So and then she hugs him and I'm like, He looks like he wants to kill you. And he's never believed any of this. Right? So to just see a woman who you are so angry with come out, it's been like it's been dead and it's dead in the thing. And him to be like, you're right, it must be. And then hug her and return. I'm like, No, none of that. That that none of that makes any sense to me. I'm shrugging and have my hands in the air because not only do I agree with you, I do agree. I don't I don't understand the choice that Casey Affleck is making in terms of his performance. I don't know why he has to get that. Tends to me I don't know why that all has to happen in like a 7 to 10 minute time period. It's a lot being connected then. I don't think that he would believe her. I agree with all this. It just ultimately at the end of 169 minutes does not matter to me. That's a no no. Yeah. And I understand and I don't think this this none of the characters are the problem here. The performances. This is all, I think in my opinion and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think it's all in the writing now. Perhaps there was more intended. I know Christopher Nolan has said that he wanted this to be a longer movie. I would have loved it to have been a longer movie. I would have loved it to have been over 4 hours and give us an intermission. And that way we can actually get that substance a little bit more, because that's my biggest disconnect with this movie is where it it battle's just making connections because the movie has to versus the ideas, the character development. Right. The character development to me in this movie is the thing that just doesn't work the most because we need I feel like I need a little bit more into why the whys of these people. Even McConaughey To some like you, like you said earlier, like he makes this decision in 2 hours, but I would have liked to have seen just a little bit more of that choice. Like there's no one that says to him, hey, we're doing this tomorrow. We don't get like that moment. He's like, Well, I've got a decision to make. It just sort of happens. I would have even liked to have seen that. But all of this being said, I cry every fucking time. At the end of this movie when he is holding his daughter as an old lady's hand and he's like, How did you know that I'd be back? And she goes, Because my dad made me a promise. I am. I am. God damn, my God, show the world the universe for you. And then I don't know if it's too soon to talk about it, but let's just talk about the one. In my opinion, one of the greatest cinematic moments of all time is that goddamned shocking scene that is, I think, in the nine years since this has come out. I think that's the most thrilling movie sequence I've seen. I don't think I think that has ever topped that. I was sitting there on the ground floor of the Arclight fucking Dome seeing it, and when that started and I got what he was doing and it took a little bit, it was just through the use of music, cinematography and fucking science. What? Yeah, When the rotation syncs up with the other vessel science, I just. I was sobbing. I don't. I don't even think I breathe. It was just the power of that. It's even of that one scene. Seriously outweighs the faults of any of the movie that I have and a note I had for this. It's always a good barometer for me anyway. Someone who's been obsessed with movies for their entire life and I get way far down the rabbit hole of movies and the nine years of people talking shit on Interstellar and all that takes this, take, this take and it's all good. But my wife has no insight into any of this, like, and she loves space. We were actually watching special features for Interstellar the night before on Saturday night, just showing her some of the space stuff and she was loving it. She was like, What the fuck? They're so cool. So then I showed her the movie and we usually break up long movies into two sittings and she was engrossed. The time and right before it started, she's like, All right, give me your one piece of trivia, because I'll give her like one highlight thing about the movie. And I said, This movie contains a sequence that if you look over during the sequence, you'll see probably tears streaming down my face or chills. At the very least. It's so then it became a running bit throughout the movie. Is that is that that fucking drone like flies over the field? It's like he's at the scene. I'm like, No, it's not. You'll know. And in my head I'm like, One of the reasons you'll know is because you won't be able to talk during it. Yeah. And then that happened and I, like I snuck a look over at her and her eyes were, like, bulging, and she's, like, nodding with the organ, like nodding just like I was. And then when it was done, she was like, That was the fucking scene. I would. Yes, it was. Yeah. Yes, it was. It. I mean, I'm getting chills talking about it. I am too. I am too. You can literally show that to someone out of context and it still works in like the special feature. So much is dedicated to like this massive fucking organ they use and they had this organ is doing all this and pulling out all the stops to get that in the hands. And Chris are just sitting off. They're like, Push it farther. Yes, more, more, more. It yeah, it really is. It's really just it it's a Titan scene. It's like the trip to Jupiter in 2001. I think it belongs right up there with that. We've talked about this scene because we've done, you know, favorite movie moments all that's a favorite song moment soundtrack that was really high, favorite pure cinema moments. But yeah, I mean, it just, it it's I don't think there's been another sequence that has topped that for me. And that's a crazy thing to say. I have to agree with you I this this is why I say that this is the movie I would want to see in theaters. Even moreover, in some ways that Inception. Because even watching that at home in my apartment, I still felt old. Yeah, but to be in a theater with that sound and to be completely locked in with a group of people that are all just transfigure, it's like that there. And the best thing about that scene is that it's purely just physics. That's it. It's science. That's it. You're just watching one thing, trying to catch up to another and then connect to it. And you can only do that in a certain way. And then but the the obstacles that are in the way of it and, and then like, yeah, just the simple reveals of what needs to be done. Like you just get goose bumps like, like, like, like when she, when he, when he realized, oh, you're just going to match rotation like that, but that's what you have to do. And he throws a line away. He's like, Tars, take over. If I pass out and you're like, Yeah. And then when she goes out, I remember thinking like, Is she dead? And I go, Oh, no, I've been fucking carnivals. I know what it means to go too fast to round and you just you and that's why he's fighting him. When you're looking at 2 hours, you're like, He's right on the edge of going out right on the edge. And just like some of the dialog, like it's almost silly, but it's, it nothing will like. It's it's hard to believe that the line it's not possible. It's necessary. Yeah. Oh does it. It's like when, when he says that you're just like I'm about to cry and right now I just like, hold it for years. Just go. Oh ho ho, oh, this is it. And then just Anne Hathaway, who I actually do really like in the movie. You heard Scott coming out of it and like, they're crying and he's like, Yeah. And I mean, the way Bill Irwin plays TARS, like he was on set, he was behind that guy, like actually voicing him and stuff. Like he's a really good character, you know, robots and sci Fi movies have a long lineage, perhaps starting with HAL 9000. Like they can be a big deal to the construction of these movies. And I love him. I think he does it great. And he's a big part to some of the dramatic, you know, tension of the movie. Absolutely is. And another thing that I'm going to say about this movie, that that upon all of my my, my nitpicking things for it, is that this movie has my all time favorite crying scene. Oh, really? Just in all the film when it's when he's watching, he's watching when he's back. Yeah, yeah. When he's watching the playback. That was like when Allie was watching it. She went when they came back on the ship and the other dude is so old and Hathaway is like, Why didn't you sleep? And Allie went, Wait a minute, how much time? I was like, like 24 fucking years. She went, Yeah, it's like 28. She was like, Oh my God. I go, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's. It's such good crying. You just put the camera there you go. Like that. And just watching him because you're also taking in the context of what's happened, because it is a scene where you are putting yourself in the character's shoes because you're imagining what it must be like to watch what he's watching. But you're internalizing that. But then just his, his performance during that, it's just it's I, I'm not a big fan of crying necessarily on film because sometimes I think it's never really a time where it's really needed. I think a lot of times people performances will end up crying just because I don't know. I'm always skeptical, skeptical about crying scenes and is also too like it's not just like that that that beautiful like sensitive tear moment this, you know, this sobbing, sloppy sobbing, wondering if I want to commit to saying that it's my favorite movie Cry of all time. But I'm really struggling to kind of think of something that beats it because I'm like, for all of what the scene achieves. So it's not just the performance. It's everything about what we're seeing, what we're gathering. I don't think anything hits is harder. Like that's just such an earned moment and it's all being done through his performance in and what the movie is led us to. It's just it's a breathtaking moment. Beautiful, beautiful work. I love when Chastain comes on camera for the first time and he just like studies, you know, the monitor and he's like hammer and just whispers out, Hey, Murph. It's like, Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, it's really great. And then what a great, you know, jump cut from Oh, yeah, her video ending to boom. Now we're in the studio with her or, you know, or Nasser with her. I wrote that. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, I love that cut. He's is very, very audacious. Ed He will cut out of scenes specially in Interstellar that he'll cut out in the middle of sentences a lot. And it helps. Yeah. Really move it along even even though what he's crosscutting to often like you know crops on fire and stuff is maybe a little bit silly as we mentioned but I'm glad I these are the type of conversations I love where you have faults with the movie, but then you're able to acknowledge some strengths about it as well. Oh, and even if it means in the long run, Interstellar is not one of your favorite Nolan films, you're still able to acknowledge that it has some tremendous achievements, which it does. And that's what I think is when someone like decides they don't like a movie, they're like, No, it all fucking sucks. I'm like, Well, then that's just not what are we talking about here? Like, you know, come on, this has some things that you have to acknowledge are really well done. Oh, my God. Be beyond more than modern. And even The Dark Knight Rises. I feel like that, too. Like there's certain moments that something about Nolan as forgiving is. Sometimes you might have to be with some of of his movies. There is just an undeniable l like these movie moments that he creates. Our movie moments that, like, are are truly one of a kind. They will live on forever. And this movie's got a few of them. Yeah, like that. Like that's the thing. So I'll never like I just want to like this movie so much more than I do because I have such a hard time as a whole with it. But I don't think I'd ever turn down watching it. Yeah, exactly. Because I also enjoy just it being on like going to watch it again, right? I know. I would watch it again. Dark Knight Rises. I don't know if I want to watch again. Oh, but this one, if someone was if we were all out together and you're like, Hey, let's watch a movie. And someone like says Interstellar and I don't have a say in the matter. Yeah, I can make that happen. I know. I like the last thing I said. There's so much for this movie that bothers me as a whole. But overall, the moments that are undeniable are truly undeniable, and I want to watch those again. And I actually enjoy watching the movie. I just can't take it seriously when it wants me to. That's it. Okay This is this is definitely a more balanced take than I was expecting given some of our text exchanges. So I like this. I like hearing this. I, I get to you acknowledge it's silliness. I totally get it. Eureka! Yeah. Eureka, baby. Well, I have one note to start off here for our next film, The Dark Knight Rises. The notices go off. Nick I to hear it because one of the first conversations you and I ever had about movies, you just. I was like, Oh, so you don't like The Dark Knight Rises? And you you were driving and you just went off about it, God, and you kept going were like, It's got to be one of the worst things. And I think you would you had just seen like Guardians of the Galaxy part two and you're comparing and you were like, I'd rather see that again than. Sit through the fucking Dark Knight Rises. And I was like, Really? And yeah, I mean, we talked about a little bit, but you, I think it's safe to say, do not like this movie. And I would just love to the reasons why. Obviously a lot of people don't. This is the most shit on Nolan movie. Our rankings were clear, which we did earlier, but yeah, I want to hear some reasons. Let's go. Let's do Dark Knight Rises. First, let's start with the positive because yeah, we can see this movie does have like it's not a it's not like a piece shit. It's a Christopher Nolan movie that when it fucking works, it works like you're the scene between Bale and Michael Caine on the stairs. Yeah, that is a great scene. The fight between Batman and Bane, where he breaks his back is a great scene. Like there are moments of this movie that I do think are really cool, but I think my biggest issue with this movie is that I do not think that this is a Batman story. It does not ring. And every time I've watched it, everything about it, I was like, this feels more like a story that would happen in a Superman universe. Mm hmm. Well, also, one. There's way too much going on. There's way too much going on. Like, there's a lot going on here. And I think it all gets convoluted into itself. And I've seen this movie a bunch of times because the first time I saw it, I went with all my roommates and we were all so excited as everyone was, everyone coming off. And then overnight, everyone. Yeah. And then we all walked out of there being like, I don't think I liked it. Oh, well, all of you. Okay. All of us. Yeah. Because then we just started breaking down. Just given everything that he gave us. Mm hmm. Just reordering the movie could have made it better. Like, just not even coming up with new things. Just being like, Well, if you did this scene here and then this scene here, that would have made better sense. This would have made this scene better. Just a complete reedit of the movie with everything that happens, I think would have been better. I think they kind of missed the mark on a lot of things. I didn't really understand what Catwoman's whole entire reason of being was for. She didn't really contribute anything. She throws a few kicks around, but I agree ish. She helps people escape right at the end. Yeah. Like, well, she kills Bane in the end it just comes out of nowhere with a Blake thing and then like, Oh, okay. Shit. The the Bane Batman back break fight is an all timer for me. The final fight with Bane is bad. It's just bad. Yeah, it's not good. It's not. It's not good for every for a lot of the pluses I have for this movie, I typically have a negative count or two. It's really a shame how easily he gets taken out at the end. And I go and they go back to that comic book thing. The reason that I think this is more of a Superman story is because basically as the story goes on, like really this Gotham has been completely taken over in a way that happens more in like with Superman, villains want to take over and then there's like a bomb that's going to drop and Superman always grabs the bomb and literally takes it to the ocean. Right? So it can it can bomb off there. Now, coincidentally, do I kind of wonder to myself, well, at the same time that this movie was being written, because they had to rewrite this movie because they had a whole entire part for this was going to be a continuation of Joker. This was going to be Joker part two. That's why it's left the open ended and The Dark Knight, they had it written. It was a go. They had it written. Yes. They had to do a whole new rewrite. And they were also writing at the same time. The first Superman movie with Henry Cavill. Yep. So I kind of wonder if there was a little bit of like, you know jumbled ideas that were being filtered into each other to kind of make this this story and just the scope because like Batman stories always kind of dealt with a little bit more of a grounded danger. It was always one criminal who had one little plan to kind of it was always to kind of like beat Gotham, but like Joker, like that was a perfect example of what a Batman villain does. I'm going to take this city and turn into something that it's not. And I'm like, I'm going to make them choose. I'm going to turn it against themselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, because Batman's a detective. He's the world's greatest detective. God damn right he's not the world's greatest superhero like is Superman. So now you've got this huge story where the entirety of Gotham is taken over by these two people. It was just a little bit much. And then, like, the way that, like, Gotham's people were living in shambles. Right? Right. And yeah, it's just a little bit much for me. And I didn't really get the whole Talia Bane. Like, I didn't really I'm one of the people that didn't really understand that choice, and I didn't think it was a bad choice. I just didn't really get it. I was sort of like, okay, Bane, you know, Bane reminded me of this. Bane reminded me of in The Dark Knight Returns, which is a really great graphic novel. There is the villain in that, and I can't believe I'm forgetting his name, but he is this giant monster type person that is trying to take over Gotham. He is speaking intelligently and he uses his might and intelligence to defeat Batman. I think this actually played much more like that. I'm like, Why not just do that? Why don't do that? Yeah, yeah. Like, so there were all of these things that were happening. I was like, Well, why don't you just do this instead and just do this instead? The whole entire theory of Gotham City's people hating Batman. I thought that could have been so much more like by the end, when you got the whole city fighting. Could you imagine if the whole entire time everyone hated Batman and then only in its darkest time that they're like, We need him and he rises, and then everyone, everyone's like, Yes. And they all fight together. What a missed opportunity. Well, a missed opportunity. Son of a bitch. Yeah. Anyways, I've enjoyed sitting on this movie for too. A lot of people agree with you. I just made a shitload of money. But do you like Tom Hardy as Bane? I'll put it. One of the things I like about the movie is I really believe that Duke kicked a shit out of Batman, so, I mean, he. He sells that. He looks like a huge chunk of meat. I overall like it more than I don't like it. That's fair. I think. I just thought the whole entire time was just confused because, again, like, I'm like, well, Bane is not a I. This is a little mean. He's not he's not a smart guy. Yeah, sure, sure. And until we find out that he is really just, you know, the big enforcer. But up until that point, we're to believe that he is the the brains and brawn of this operation. And and sometimes I couldn't understand what he was saying, but I didn't. I did not mind the choice. I guess I overall liked it more than I didn't like it, but it was just sort of like, huh, All right, that's a that's a that's a that's a swing. Yeah. I think my biggest surprise the first time I saw it was when they were know, down there in Bane's like lair and he explodes the ceiling and the fucking like. Batmobile drops down. And I was like, Oh my God, they're under the way. An enterprise is like, That's crazy. I just. I love that. That's a cool reveal. That always is fun, but all the issues that people have about this movie are things that I could point out about the other two. That's usually what I say. I enjoy myself, you know, fine with it. But you know, the rankings, what they are. But I yeah, I don't know. What else is there to say about The Dark Knight Rises So long. Really test people's patience. I like seeing William Devane. William as the President. Big William Devane, too, in Rolling Thunder. I don't know why go with that take for the death scene of Marion Cotillard. What? I mean, everyone's talked about this, but I. Why? Why do that? Christopher Nolan is a good director. Christopher Nolan has directed a lot of characters dying. Marion Cotillard has died a lot on film She dies in other Christopher Nolan movies on film and it's very believable. We've all seen Marion Cotillard die. I will never get it. Every time I rewatch this movie and like, just pay attention. Let's see if it's as bad as it is. It is the most unbelievable. Not in a good way, the most incredible, not in a good way. Death scene I think I've ever seen. It's so inauthentic. Why? Why? It couldn't have been the only take it. Why even focus on her coverage? Why not just cut back when she has her death, cut back to like Bale and then cut back to her, slumped over? Why show? I've never understood that it's bafflingly bad. It's a very bad death scene. It's probably my it's probably it I care about. That least is my problems with them. That's so funny. I probably care about that most in terms of my focus, but by God, that's funny. 2010 I was going to ask you if it's still in your top ten of all time Inception. Why don't you tell me about how this one noting, you know, the Alzheimer's, how does it hold up for you when you watch it for this podcast? Okay, so I betrayed Nolan a few times in my rewatches for this because I watched I rewatched Dunkirk on my phone, which I'm sure if I told Nolan Justice he intended the justice he intended. And then even worse, I rewatched Inception on my my flight with the world's worst earphones. So you can pay $3 for these earphones. I'm going to start painting fucking water on flights and. Oh, yeah, yeah. Start paying to use the bathroom. Just wait and per minute. I am not kidding when I say these were the worst earphones I've ever experienced. Like the I had to turn this sound all the way up just to even hear muffled dialog. And then I had to put the closed captions on just because I couldn't tell what the fuck anyone was saying there. The music hits and it's the huge dog and now it's too loud because my eardrums are about to fucking burst and it's all broken. Like none of the sound is clear. It was, oh, the worst I've ever had. But that all being said, it was the first time that I watched Inception with closed captions. Mm hmm. Captions fucking changed me completely, completely putting Inception on closed captions for the first time. I actually caught bits of dialog I never caught before. That actually clued me into more things that were explained and I go, Holy shit, I never even really thought about that. That was very cool. But even still, upon rewatch this movie, still, it makes me feel all of the things that I that I get with it before. Meaning you love it. You love. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Sure. One thing about captions, while it is very important topic, while we're on this very important topic, sometimes I feel like I can come off as a bit chastising for people. I'm like watching movies with captions. I've come to understand researching this topic quite a bit that it legitimately can be difficult for people to do that. And I think that's like to watch a movie and read the captions at the same time. It's hard outs back and forth and it can be from literally looking up, down uptown. That can be hard for some people. I, I like it. It's for me. But if it isn't for you, if it's distracting, you, don't do it. But I always I've always advocated for that because I just like to know as much about my movies as possible. And sometimes captions can actually be very revealing, especially as we move on here to when Nolan is going to get very, very creative with his sound. Mixing and dialog is not the most important part of sound in some of his scenes, but yeah, yeah, that's interesting. Sucks the sound sucked on the plane though. Oh is it? Was it is. Some of the most emotional moments of the movie were ruined just because. Yeah. Damn earphones. But no, you're right though, because every time I like close captions are not my preferred way of watching because I do get distracted I feel like I'm just reading where if it's another language, it's different. Like, I'm sure you're still following the visuals, but when it's English, I'm just sort of like, I'll always like, Why am I reading what I'm hearing? And, and, and I'm, I'm bouncing back and forth. I'm not even watching the visuals. But any time I have watched English movie in closed captions, I do discover things that I never caught and they are informative and they are revealing. So that it's very, very true thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, God, what else about Inception other than it's closed captioning? A lot of that we've talked about first reactions like when you're the first time you saw a Nolan movie and I've always treated them as an event and because of the Dark Knight, the Prestige Memento, I was extremely excited for inception as a lot of us were. It made a shitload of money. And I will tell you, seeing this on a massive IMAX screen at the Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, it was awesome that hallway fight when Joseph Gordon-Levitt just started crawling and I got what they were doing and I was like, This is not visual effects. They might be like on wires safety, but this they're doing a 2001 thing here, an in-camera trick and the chills I got and it just like nodding my head in like fervent agreement like yes, yes and the fucking music's going in the cars going off the bridge. I may have been like just one of the best set pieces I have ever experienced in a movie theater up in that time, and I never thought it would outdo itself. Certainly, I never thought Nolan went out to himself until I saw Interstellar, quite frankly. But still, that whole thing in Inception, I love a lot of Inception, but that hallway fight and just when the gravity goes, holy Christ, thrilling. I bet it even works on an airplane monitor. I bet it still works. You know, when you're watching that. Yeah. Still gets you like Yeah, it's it's more it's more what you miss out on at least on the plane is the the the emotional part of the story. Yeah sure sure. And that to me that to me above all else has always been the thing that I love the most about this. I love Leo's character not being able to let go of this love. And then you get to, like, see how like, fucked up it is. Like, yeah, like, yeah, like it's so funny because Leo's character in this movie is a complete fuck up. He totally is. Yeah. And I'm saying he screws up everything. So people have called this out as a fault of the movie. I think it kind of endears me to him a little more. Yeah, I think it's all intentional. I don't think he's like, you know, Nolan has a few dips his toe into James Bond territory a few times. This is James Bond ish. He's never did something that's like, you know, cool and dreamy and all that shit. But limbo, you know, James Bond ever did Limbo. Yeah, But yeah, there's some stuff of that where he's not perfect. And I mean, he's flat lies to all of them about why they're doing this. Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't even tell any of them that. Oh, yeah. If you die under there, you're fucking, you're cooked, you're going to work in one and I'll be How long do you have to live like that? He down there for decades. For decades? Yeah. Oh, my God. And. And there must be something about, like, the whole. Because this movie is also chock full of exposition and. But. Yeah, yeah, we'll get to that. Yes, but I loved every second of it because I thought it was all so like I, I love dreams, I love time. So all of these things that are happening every time I watch it, I'm not even scrutinizing, even though I know I could. I'm just like, Huh, huh? Oh, yes. Whoa. I am doing exactly what he wants. He intended the audience to just be blown away with every new bit of information and every little like thing that he's telling you to follow. I understand. And that if you are coming in from a not that point of view, that is probably a little bit daunting and probably a little silly. Yeah, it was never silly for me. The thing is, this was Inception and all the exposition scenes in Inception were probably the hardest part of my Nolan rewatch. But is that a fault of the film or is it because I've seen the movie like 15 fucking times and it's and I know all these scenes. I put myself through this so many times and it's like, I don't think that's honestly fault in the movie. It may just be like I watch it too much and, you know, 12 years or 13 years or something. Because also during a lot of those exposition scenes, that's when he's like folding the city in on itself for all that shit's exploding. Yeah. And he's showing you all this cool shit at the same time. So I can't even critique the movie for that. Honestly, it just. It, it moves. It's so original, and I, I just. My argument for Inception, for Interstellar, even for Tenet, is that in amongst some of other Nolan's films is that again, at least we have one guy who's able to get $160 million from one studio to make an original screenplay, which this was like, That's crazy. That's a huge swing. I don't even know if they would let him do that. We're going to see if he's given, you know, 160 million again to make an original movie. I mean, again, Oppenheimer is based on like it's not huge IP, but it is a true story. But I love that. I just love that we have someone who was able to take as big of a swing and inception as he did with Superman as he did. What's your what are your things about this movie that kind of irk you? That was it just exposition? That's it. Just it was just exposition. And that was honestly just at this on this watch. Nothing about it really irks me like I, I love the way Tom Hardy plays Eames. I think he's so just kind of wry and loose. I love that. I love Tom. I'm just a he's one of my favorite character actors. That scene when Ken Watanabe is like mistaking and think that thinking Tom Hardy is, you know, mimicking Tom Berenger. And then he and then he's trying to get his attention and Tom Hardy comes in like, does the wave off and whatnot. He's like, I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else. The way Bajaur goes. Good looking fellow. I'm sure. I love that. I think that's fucking hilarious. No, honestly, one of my favorite moments. Of course, the hallway fight. But I wrote about this years ago when Killian murphy spots Leo in the airport as he is leaving and does like that triple take with his eyes that so perfectly captures. Have I seen that go before? Or like what? Seen a dream like that fogginess of it. And it lasts for like a fraction of a second and that's that's it. But no, there's nothing. I think this is a movie that was so thrilling for me when it came out. I mean, The Dark Knight, I saw three times in the theater in four days, Inception probably saw like five or six times in its run. So just something like when you watch it over and over and over and it's a fun movie to show people for the first time. Oh, so much too. It's so I've seen it by virtue of just doing that a few times. But that's all it, you know, if you if you watch Inception two or three times total, you're going to learn something new every single time as I did. But now that I've figured the whole thing out, you know, I'm like, I'll probably take several years off until I watch this again. And that's fine. The only thing that I say about this one is that I think this is the first movie in Nolan's legacy where it really matters, seeing it on the big screen versus and not because. Yeah, yeah, because I obviously I saw it when it came out a bunch of times in theaters because I was obsessed with it. Then I got the Blu ray and would watch it at home and I would notice the difference. But then, you know, years goes by and, you know, you know, it's been I've seen it so many times. I don't think about it. In 2019, it played in L.A. at the Egyptian theater, and it's been the first time since I've seen it on the big screen since 2010. When it came out, the experience was so palpably different, being in a theater with it and getting hit with the music, getting hit with the visuals. I still watch The Dark Knight and on a TV screen and I'm cool. I don't feel like I'm really missing out. There are certain things that do look better. Like when all of this shit that's still in the IMAX, like when he's on top of the the huge tower in China. Oh, you mean, like, so cool. You like you can't beat that on a big screen. But as a whole of the movie, I can. I can. I can be fine watching that at home. But Inception, I think, is that first one that truly makes a difference. And I don't think that there's any movie Nolan's has done since starting with Inception, moving forward that works as well as it does on the big screen. Oh, cool. That's that's an prompt. Honestly. That's I Yeah, well, hold onto that. Well, actually, I'll just do it now. I'll do it now. Alamo, The movie theater chain is replaying every Christopher Nolan movie. Actually, maybe, maybe not the Batman's and not following, but everything else. Okay, Now, like, after we record this, like in August and just into September as a way to commemorate Oppenheimer, obviously. So if you only had time for one, which one would you go to? It would be Inception. You're going to you're going to you're going go crazy about this? Answer Yes, it would probably be Inception, but if I had an asterisk, it would be interstellar. Oh, awesome. Okay. Yeah. Hold table that for a little bit. That's awesome, because I have I have a theory upon my rewatch of that movie that I said to myself, I will never put myself through this experience again unless it's on a big screen. Oh, that's awesome. Okay. And now we move on to the movie that completely fucking ruined the Academy Awards. I love The Dark Knight. It's not the Dark Knight fault, but woe were a lot of people pissed when one of the biggest and best movies in all of cinema history. This thing was a titanic fierce. In the summer of 2008, everyone was talking about it. It was. People are talking about it for tragic reasons. People were talking about it for good reasons because the movie was really good. It got nominated for eight Oscars. But it did not get a best picture or best Director nomination. A lot of people were pissed at the exclusion of a Best Picture nomination. So the next year the Academy, for seemingly random reasons, bumps up their best picture, voting to up to ten nominees. And I and they changed to preferential voting ballot. That is all it's largely been accepted now that that is because of the Dark knight and they thought that oh shit if we would have nominated that and not nominated. Oh God I don't know the fucking reader like would either if we would have nominated The Dark Knight instead of the reader, or instead of the Curious Case of Benjamin Button or Frost Nixon. I think those are the best picture nominees were milk. I like milk or I do too. But is it better than The Dark Knight? If they would have nominated for that, maybe more people would have watched the Oscars. Instead, they nominated Slumdog Millionaire for a shitload of stuff. They give it eight awards. So that's always been the argument. And the Oscars have never been the same. But I love The Dark Knight. You love is what I thought this would be higher on your ranking, though. I did. I do, too. But I think that this movie is I mean, this is this is going to be tough one. He's not getting up. I think this movie's got a lot of issues in a lot of different. I didn't know about any of this. I thought, you love this movie. I want to go. I do know I do. This is the thing like I do. I love yeah, I love it. I didn't know you had any issues with it. I genuinely didn't, because I do, too. I have issues with this one that helped back up my counter arguments to The Dark Knight Rises because a lot of people hate on that one. And I think a lot of the shit people hate on it Rises is also in The Dark Knight, so I've always found it fascinating that no one what most people don't apply that level of criticism to The Dark Knight. But I would love to talk about this. I can't wait to hear. So the one issue that I have with it, and this is this is no big deal. Like again, this is again, like everything I'm about to say about this. I love The Dark Knight. And I think that it deserves all of the reputation that it has. But there were always a few things that just sort of like I always kind of pointed out. I'm like, Oh, you know, there's this exposition. Let's just start with the exposition, okay? I can't stand the first 15 minutes of this movie. Mm hmm. After the bank scene. Okay. After that, we get all of this very fast, explicit of the investigation for Batman is ongoing, and we're getting to know Gotham. We're getting to know what's going on then. And, like, but like that scene where Batman meets Gordon in the bank vault. Yeah, And. And he just sort of shows up. I'm like, would they really having a conversation this casually, like, right here? This was honestly something that I did think was handled a little bit better in the newest Batman with Robert Pattinson, where they brought Batman in to these stacks and some of the opinion. Right. Everyone's got an opinion. But Gordon Jeffrey right. Is like, fuck you guys. He's with me. Yeah, exactly like so so but just these very, very quick like the scenes that we need to just get to the story. I actually think Batman Begins handles this better and in exposition that I think The Dark Knight does. Oh, but all that being said, that's very nit picky. It does not ruin my experience with the movie whatsoever. But they were things that I still every time I watch it, I kind of was like, man, this is a we got to get to the big scene here. And then my biggest thing and I don't think this is a fault of the movie at all, but Batman, in my opinion, is not the protagonist in this story whatsoever. And I think it's a little bit of a problem because this is who is the way that the movie presents itself to me, Harvey Dent is the protagonist in this. I totally agree with everything you're saying. I can't believe we've never talked about this like it's so, because clearly Joker's antagonist, clearly because he's the one coming in. Yeah. Like, clearly this is the enemy for everybody. But Harvey Dent is the one that's trying to do something. He's the one who's on a mission. And even Batman, Bruce Wayne is just sort of like I love the that that plot of Batman wanting to give everything up. I love that dinner scene where he sighs. He's trying to find a white knight. I love that he's sizing up Harvey, you know. Are you? Are you? The massacre said, Yeah, yeah. And and all of that plays. All that plays. It plays. But there's an aspect to this that does not track at all, which I will get to. But you keep going with your point and I'll put on a thread that does not track. Batman is just there to fix things. Mm hmm. That's it is really just up because shit, this is happening. I guess I'm going to come in here and take care of this. I always wonder what could have possibly been done a little bit more to make Batman's hero journey in this prominent because I don't think there is one. He just wants to stop. He just. That's it. Yeah, he just. He just wants to stop doing this and. And that's fair and that's that all works. This is always been something I'm like, you know, Batman's not really huge part of this thing. He's just the needed thing. But then this is a complete forgiveness. It doesn't matter, but it is a giant like gaping hole to me is when Joker breaks up the the Harvey Dent's fundraiser party right? Mm hmm. The whole scene with Maggie Gyllenhaal. Yeah. Yeah. And because they're in there to find Harvey Dent, right? Yeah, Like that. That is their mission. They don't know Batman is going to be there. They are. There was a Where is Harvey Harvey Dent scene? Harvey Yeah, he's you know, he is So Batman Combs breaks up the Joker. Maggie Gyllenhaal goes down the thing Batman saves her. And then and then she's like, Oh, let's not do this again. And then it's over. Like, So where did Joker go? Where you Joker go and where it happened? Like he was there to fight Harvey Dent He just dispose of the one thing that was in his way, which was Batman. So now you don't have to worry about that. The mission. I can just imagine. Joker. I mean, up there. All right, Well, I guess this is it. It's just Bruce did get Harvey in the fucking chokehold and chokes about and smashes it. He put him in a safe room that joker could not get to. So they just packed up and left, I guess. I don't know. I don't know. Like, maybe the cops are coming and he doesn't want. I mean, he did just throw a fucking woman out of the window. Maybe. I mean, so. So. But no, I hear what you're saying. Yeah. So the one thing in me, that's it that I've always very silly. It does not track. Yes. It's very clear that Bruce Wayne wants to retire Batman. And to do that he thinks he needs to find a white knight to the city. Who is Harvey Dent? So if he can get Harvey then to that level and make him in charge and then Batman can retire, what happens if Batman retires? He gets Rachel. Why this doesn't track is because Rachel is clearly with Harvey Dent. So like Harvey Dent is in charge of it's put in charge of saving the city. The implication that Bruce is following is that Rachel is just going to go. All right, peace out, Harvey. Good luck saving the city. I want to go catch up with by my childhood friend Bruce. And we're going to live happily ever after. It doesn't make any fucking sense. Like she's not going to break up with Harvey just because Batman is out or out anymore. But that's what, like Bruce Wayne is reliable. They even talk about it on the balcony. Like you said. You promise if Batman was no longer thing, like, could we be together? She's like, Yes, Michael, That's your letter. It's it's like, Oh, come on, man, what are you doing here? But that's what kind of honestly, to me helps pay off that what I consider to be a very emotional, earnest and Dark Knight Rises with him and Kane on this stairs, like this whole this whole thing about Rachel. But still in this movie, that doesn't make any sense at all. It's like, Dude, she's not going to Harvey Dent for you just because you turn into Bruce Wayne. Yeah, that's just not it's just not going to happen. And then noting all of that. Yes. Notice you talk about stuff we do like, Oh my God, I love like, oh, this movie, I love it. And speaking of nothing, I mean, okay, here's another thing that doesn't make any fucking sense. Sorry. Sorry. The very first shot of the Joker makes no fucking sense because you see him holding his mask. But we know that he's already in his full makeup. So there's some dude standing on the street in Joker makeup, like, just hanging out, like, with a duffle bag. It does it. It doesn't make any sense, but it makes for a really cool shot. But anyway. Yeah, no, but it's it's so fun to go and rewatch that robbery when you know which one is Joker and you just see, you know, Heath was under there. There's no way that was a stunt person. Oh, yeah. It's like those slithery movements he has and shaking. Where'd you learn how to count? You know, shit. Shrugging and shaking his head. It's so good. But yeah, there's we're being nit picking in all honesty. Kind have a little fun at poking a little fun at a comic book movie that's all. And yeah but yeah, I mean as far this probably my favorite superhero movie. Honestly, I don't know what else it would be. I don't know what else it would be either. And yes, there I mean, like, these are all things that just like there are noticeable things, but it doesn't matter in the sweeping emotion that the movie takes you on because yeah, like the moments that land in Heath Ledger's performance aside, like the ride that the movie takes you on is just one of the most emotional experiences that you'll have watching a superhero movie, in my opinion. I mean, you care about everything that's happening and you're on the edge of your seat the entire time. And the action sequences are so good. Like the whole that whole truck chase thing is just one of the coolest things still holds up. It is still holds up even at home, just like putting it on as a standalone scene. You can put that on. It's I mean, watching that fucking thing slip over is remarkable. It's so really it was thrilling in the theater. I'll never forget that. Do you do you know that the first time that they filmed it, they. They crushed the IMAX camera. Oh, bummer. God, that would have been expensive back. Yeah. Holy shit. So there were only, I think if I might be a little bit wrong on the specifics here, there were either only two or three IMAX cameras in existence at the time. Yeah, I believe that. I mean, they can all this is back when they had like 8 minutes of IMAX footage in the dark night and it was a big that big deal. Shit. Yeah. So that first take where they flipped the truck, they miscalculated where that camera filming it was going to be. And so that thing kept cruising and then the truck just flips on top of it. And so Nolan has to go to IMAX and be like, Hey, not only did we destroy one of the very few cameras in existence, we need the other one. Yeah, well, try not to break it. I'm really pissed at Wally this week, but, you know, that happens. I mean, I love that this goes in the category. It seems pretty objectively to being a superior sequel. Like, pretty much everyone agrees this is better than Batman Begins, which is not a slight toward Batman begins at all. But I love that. I just love that that's kind of out there. And The Dark Knight is widely considered to be better. I mean, God, what else to talk about? Like, yeah, you can. When we did like our Heath pod? I just went and did like the Heath version of the movie and just watch every scene he was in. That's a hell of a way to spend, I don't know, 30, 45 minutes. It's so great. It really is. It's a towering achievement in acting, of course, made all the more infamous because he passed away in January. The movie was released in July 28. He passed away in January. And that, you know, hung over the entire movie. But we still didn't know. We still didn't know how it was going to be. And keep in mind, just 28 is like pre crazy Twitter. People were fucking pissed when he was cast in this. Oh, yeah. Not happy. Noble did not think he was coming off Brokeback Mountain. This is not the Joker that people wanted. And you know, of course, it's just so sad that he wasn't around to receive his accolades. I am of the firm belief that that Oscar would have been his other way would not have matter in that, you know, And still, I mean, it's a major Oscar for, a comic book movie. Yeah, wild. It's wild and well-deserved. I've said it on the pod before and it hasn't changed. It is my favorite on camera acting performance. Excuse me. I spoke about that and the clip that it was. Yes, that was my favorite singular performance on camera was Monte Clift. But my favorite acting performance I've ever seen in a movie is Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight that it's always been. I would always kind of begrudgingly say that because I always sort of felt like that was one of those things where you say something like that to another actor. They kind of roll their eyes in a way where it's like, Well, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think now that so much time has passed damn near almost 20 years, we're at 15, 15, you know, 15 years has gone by and that performance holds up and everyone feels the way that they do about it. I have no problem saying that that is because that was just the specificity and choices and the coloring that he does with what he does in this movie is just it's just the best I've ever seen. Yeah, I think his first line yeah. And it takes off that mask and stranger and then the music cues up it's like it's still gives me chills. You're like, My God, just so locked in and what a what a scary thing that was because Jack Nicholson was the only one at the time and people loved that. People idolize that. Oh, God, he did so well. When you're watching movies or this one specifically, do you ever like or after you're done, like, go on, what does this character do when we didn't see them? Like, do you ever think about, like, the Joker? I think about it all the time. Like, what was his day like? Like what? What did he do? Oh, yeah. Wasn't doing this shit. Like, did he? I don't know. I love thinking about that shit. Like, what is he doing? I mean, I know, like Todd Phillips with Joker, Joaquin Phenix. They tried to give us some insight into that and I appreciate it, but I don't think his days were a lot like the Heath Ledger Joker. I think there were some different stuff going on, but I just love I mean, that's what he brought to that character's. There's this whole like, how did he get those scars? I mean, just all that shit that you can go down, I love it. Did I did I ever tell you that fan theory that I heard? Is this a fan theory about the Joker Scars? No. So this is always assumed he trusted those himself, That's all, I assume. Well, this is a perfect thing to talk about with what you're talking about. So somebody came up with this idea, and time wise, it probably doesn't track. It's just an interesting thought is that when when he's in that one scene where he's impersonating the shooting guard and then we see him without makeup and we see the scars, they do look an awful lot like the scar. Edward Norton's character gets on his hand in Fight Club when Brad Pitt puts that acid on him. Yeah, it's it it heals up in the exact same way that Heath Ledger's scars look in the movie. So the fan theory was, is that Heath Ledger's Joker was a part of Project Mayhem. Oh, my God. Same universe. So they're the same. Yes, I'm taking it to my taking it to the face. I mean. Yeah, chaos, destruction, anarchy kind of thing. I like that they do look the same. It's more of like a bubbling over effect as opposed to a one clean cut with, like, a razor blade a few times. Yeah. Yeah, like that. Score it. How about a magic trick? I mean, we could just go on forever and ever about The Dark Knight. It's great. It's great. Why don't we move on to the Prestige, noting all that one that sounds like we both really like. But we both want it to be a little higher on our rankings. But I will tell you in my rewatch, because I rewatched them all, I did it, you know, I did it a fun way. I just watched them in whatever order I wanted and then I watched them all in chronological order. I'm talking his whole filmography, so I was doing it a couple of different times, but had not seen the Prestige in it had been honestly all the way through, maybe like ten years. I wrote about Nolan on my blog in 2012, so I had watched everything then and it had been a while and I had forgotten some of the beats of it. Not all the beats, but some of it. And this is a twisty. Yes, it really pays off. Pays off in the final shot. So I don't think we've ever talked about this while we have either or if we have not really in depth. So Tell me about it. I love this one. So I, I remember when I first saw this movie, I had a really big issue, like, really big to the point where I actually found the book. And in the end I want to know this issue. So it's now, as I've watched it again, there's not an issue. They could have done a little bit better of a job explaining it, but it's really not it's not a problem. So my biggest thing that I was hung up on was when Hugh Jackman gets the machine, like the machine to like the Tesla's machine from Tesla. Yeah. Because you still we, we don't really know when he under is it him that shows up elsewhere or is it like him that that that. Where's the other one appear. Yeah there's a tiny takeaway line when they're showing the hats and I guess I must have missed this every time I watched the movie because my biggest my biggest problem with the movie is how the hell does when he's performing the trick, know where he's going to end up? How does he know he's going to be outside Hey, how does he know he's going to be right in the balcony? Like where that like it doesn't make any sense that he just constantly keeps showing up in the right place. When I gathered, you have no idea where the other one's going to pop up, because in the end, the first time he does it, he shows up right in front of them. Yeah. And. And then. And then all of a sudden, he's. He's trying to explain to the owner of the magician house why we should have our show here. And now he's in the balcony. I'm like, how the hell is he like figuring out where it's going to be? Because they don't explain that. Then there's a takeaway line with the hats where David Bowie and his assistant and his circus. Yeah, yeah. Any circus are either looking at all the hats and it goes, Oh, it's us. Have to work out the calibration. And then that's yeah, that's the line. So I missed that line apparently every time I'd seen it before and it would always really bother me. And now one could say, okay, just based off of that, Hugh Jackman, his character, figured out the calibration and now you know, everything's hunky dory. That was a huge hole for me because I was like, How the hell is he pulling this off when there's been no explanation as to how this works? Yeah, and what's cool is that they actually clue you into that. The very first shot of the film of all those hats on the ground. And yeah, Christian Bale's voiceover comes up and he goes, you know, are you watching closely? Yeah. So they're cluing you in to like, why would these all exist? And yeah, I mean that's part, this is one I mean Dunkirk has a construction that is very like confusing on the first several watches, but it does track the prestige constantly jumps around. Yes. Like the whole time in a way that tracks and adds up. But this is one where it is a puzzle. It is like a magic trick the way it's pulled off. But yeah, so you, you get now that he calibrated it correctly to Yeah. That he did even though we don't ever get that scene because I don't know how you even it but we get the idea that he did have to do that to figure it out so it was all good. So now knowing that don't have any issue like there's a couple of things like in here that I can kind of like. I think this is the first Nolan movie where I had to make some forgiveness. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Now that being said, this movie made my top five for Nolan movies. Yeah, but was just really this. This. I think this is his most Hitchcockian of all of his. Oh, wow. Thank you for the throw clear there. Yeah, you're welcome. I'm a big influence. A big influence on Nolan. I'm trying to. I'm trying to just think. Yeah, I think there's some validity to that. You know, it's interesting that Hitchcock ever do anything. It's like magicians and this seems perfect for him. This sort of material does. That's Insomnia is very Hitchcockian, though in certain aspects. It's a good but if Hitchcockian was allowed to put something out of order Memento but it's definitely one of these more early on, once he gets to the Kubrick phase of his career. Later. Later. But yeah, yeah. I mean, prestige. I like that. That's a fair cop, I think. Hipp I'm happy I'm hit. Funny. You don't look at Nicolas Roeg It's a is a big one to another influence. I think it's because Hitchcock's movies are always really fun. Like, even like at least to me, like, even even psycho. Good ones. Yeah. Yeah. Good works. Like there's. There's a certain still, like, we're not in the trenches of drama. There's still a entertaining feeling going on and. I feel that in this. I feel like even though we're dealing with a really, really intense revenge story, like, that's what this movie is like, you can talk decades long. Events like this is like this is like Count of Monte Cristo type level of revenge. And I love that. I love that. Like, it's I think the magic actually a backseat to the revenge. You've got two guys that are obsessed with outdoing the other one or getting one upping. Yeah, one upping. It's constantly like that. Hugh Jackman Can this do do no wrong? Like, I have a note here. This could be my favorite performance from him. What? You know, I want to be a little careful but I you know in how we talk but what he does especially when you go back and rewatch yes you can catch all the and that's true for Christian Bale as well. I really go back and watch you can you can tell all the changes, I'll put it that way. So I love Jackman. This this was on this watch because I'd seen this movie about four times this watch. I went with the intention of like I just kind of really want to focus on Christian Bale because. I don't want to give away because obviously that would give away the ending of the movie. But I really wanted to watch everything he was doing. You if you know what happens, the movie, yes, you can track it. It's very clear what he's doing in every scene. It's very clear. Yeah, it's very clear. I'll just put it that way. The a fun one to watch in that vein is when he has to dig up Fallon and then when Bale is all drunk at dinner. Yeah, that's the kind of fun one to put together. Like, okay, you wonder why he's all drunk. Yeah. You know, that's what makes rewatching this one. Especially if you give it a few years and you don't go watch it. It's what makes it cool to put this one back on because I'd forgotten all the beats, you know? Yeah. Yeah, though. What am I fucking. So this is the thing that I had to forgive and I want to try to find a way to say this without ruining the the ending of the movie, but, like, I can always edit or bleep. Okay, Is this about fucking no? Well, in a way. Okay. Isabelle Fucking okay. I'm just going to put it so that way you can figure out what you wanna do with it. But couldn't. Yes. Yes. Well, and so that's what I'm saying. It could be. There's some very if you want to dig, there's some very interesting sexual dynamics going. Yeah, yeah. But that's just, it just goes to that obsession. That's the level of obsession that they put this first. Magic does take a backseat to the movie, but I mean, the main revenge getter in it is Hugh Jackman for an understandable reason, but I don't think Christian Bale's intentions were murderous. No, look, there were homicidal in doing that. I think he just wanted to push it a little too far. With her permission. With Piper. Yeah. Which she. Christian Yes. Yes. And they were both in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't yeah, clearly there is probably a better way that these characters could have done this, but they didn't. And you forgive it. This, this is a forgiveness for knowing that I've got no problem forgiving because the rest of the movie adds up and it almost always comes becomes comical. I couldn't. You guys could have figured this shit out better. Come on, let's. I mean, like, let's be real, right? But. But that's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. No, I think that's fair. That's. I do think that's fair. Another thing that helped sell this movie so much is that it's set like in the Victorian era era, but it doesn't feel like that. It never feels like a period piece. No, it doesn't. It doesn't carry with it the cliches that most every other movie set in this time does. It's like a kind of slower, duller plot. It's just it really moves. It really, really cooks. When I saw this in the theater for the first time, as soon Tesla came out from those, you know, lights. So everyone was like, murmuring, murmuring. I had no fucking clue that was David Bowie. I just didn't. I had no idea that that was him. It took me a couple rewatches that I think talking about the people, I would Oh, and he's so good and he is in it. He's so good. This is what I don't own on Blu ray, but I would love to see it on Blu ray or 4k to see like his different color eyes, like David Bowie. So captivating. But yeah, him and Andy Circus, the way they're playing off each other. Michael Caine is really good here too. This very good tiptoeing in and talk about exposition. There's that's that's his job and a lot of that's his show a lot of Nolan movies and he sells it so well here it's just a cool construction how like you know, they have these different terms for it to turn the prestige. You know I, I really found myself latching on to this one in a way. I liked it more on this watch than I ever have before. I think that I think that's the overall theme of this movie, is that this is a this is a movie that better with every rewatch. Yeah. Yeah. It really it really does age. So now if we're really talking about staying the test of time, I think this is a Nolan movie that really does stand the test of time. And it's one that I think people forget about. I don't think people really recall that this is a Christopher Nolan movie with Christian Bale. That's not Batman. And. Right. It's I can't say enough about Christian Bale like his performance in this movie is towering and so is Hugh Jackman. They're both amazing. That's what I mean. There's so many different twists and turns to it. This is one I have not, you know, read it. Twitter wasn't around back then, so I gone in, like, done those deep dives on it. I've like, I've done for Tenet or Inception even, You know, this has been a great conversation. We might have spoiled the movie throughout, but I probably won't include a lot of that. Oh, exactly. Or I'll give a spoiler warning. We'll see. We'll see. But it's fun to talk with you about it. At any rate, as as you. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Josh, you're not Roselle Ghoul Yeah, I mean. Biggins Big deal. As, say. And as I said, I want to apologize for this low ranking by Christopher Nolan ranking. It is not a slight against the movie at all. It was okay first as a way to start conversation. One thing I noticed when watching this, I had not just sat down and rewatched this start to finish no distractions. It had been a while and I'm watching it going, Wow, they did not. They trusted Nolan with the franchise, but they didn't trust him enough to go like as fully practical with his effects as he eventually will. Yeah, because some of the CGI in Batman Begins is not that good. It was fine in 2005, but it doesn't really hold up that well. And I'm like, That's interesting. I bet he knew that when he was making it. And that's why the CG and, you know, The Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises is it's so much better because he's using as little of it as possible. That was just something I noticed. But yeah, I mean, when this movie came out, like it was a huge sensation at the time I was really excited for. It was a big deal. It was, it was being yeah, Batman was being revived. Also, keep in mind, where was the comic book movie at the time? Yes. Was like an entire one. Every two years maybe. And like Sam Raimi's Spider-Man in 2002 definitely started a huge uptrend of these types of movies and how audiences respond to them. Spider-Man two and 24 was even better received, and it really felt like they wanted to replicate that with Batman. So they do the same thing. Sam Raimi was offered Spider-Man one, two, three. So they do that with Christopher Nolan. And yeah, it was a big deal and I remember thinking, okay, we'll see. Like Batman was just open at that point. Yeah, like I don't think they're going to do the Joel Schumacher thing. I don't think they're going to do the Tim Burton thing. So here we go. It was a clean slate, essentially. It was a clean slate. And I guess I should preface this a little bit for these conversations is that growing up as a kid, I was a giant Batman comic fan. I felt like and still to this day, like especially at that time, I felt like I was pretty well versed in the history and knowledge of Batman and its different types of graphic novels and history as a comic book. So when you're looking at the history and legacy of the movies, well, first you've got the TV show with Adam West, which is bam pow. I mean, the the Fifties with comics did have a little bit of that. Like, yeah, this is silly. It's a little cheeky. The show took it to a whole other level. Yeah. And then my dad always had that on like, you know, TV Land or Yellow Night or whatever. It would. Come on. Yeah, we'd have that. On growing up and. And then as there's a giant break, no one really tackles Batman until Tim Burton gets his hands on it and he brings in a certain darkness to it that we have not really seen. I'm not seen his movies were gritty or anything, but there was there was just a little bit more of a seriousness now. Yeah, I think they were gritty, especially Batman Returns by the standards of that time. Yeah, yeah. And still over the top because you've got the Joker, you've got Danny DeVito is the penguin, you've got all these. It was entertaining. It was it was a little bit gritty and a little bit fun and a little bit of all of that. And then the Schumacher ones really kind of take it into a cartoonish type of level. Oh, yes. The animated series honestly was one of the more serious and darker versions of Batman. Anyone? People love that animated series. It's fantastic. And actually when I think about the comic book movie franchise, I think Spider-Man is what really did it. But the first one was X-Men. X-Men came out in 2000. Shit, that's a good call. You're right. And it did. And it was received very, very well. And then x two, season two, and that was a fucking smash. Smash movie was awesome. It was right. You're a Jesus sadist. We're now two for two with these comic book movies being taken a little bit more seriously. We're not trying to have fun. We're trying to actually make some, like, heroic and and captivating stories with some substance. So now Batman's coming. I had been so into the darker versions of these stories that I was like, Man, I really hope they take this into this place. And Nolan did exactly that. It was an origin story that works. Sometimes Nolan gets a little exposition. He Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I see. So we'll see about that all the time. Oh, yeah. Coming up, I mean, and yes, and then Dunkirk, I think is an retaliation against that. Like, you want to blame me for being expositional? Watch this shit. Yes, I'll take all that out. You take all that out, and. But you kind of needed to do it a little bit in this one because you have to cover so much information and ground in order to get to where the story needs to get. I actually think that this is probably one of his best uses of exposition in trying to just move forward, just getting the pieces that you need, like even the training he does in up in the mountains. Like, yeah, some of that stuff that Liam Neeson says, like if you were just to look at that in the script, it's stupid. It's stupid dialog. I know, but when you're seeing it playing out, you're seeing the action sequences as you're seeing him, you know, then battle on on the ice. He's balancing on the on the wooden planks. You're seeing him in the music. Well, that's happening you're on the ride. You're like, Oh, my God, yes, yes, you're there. That's here. Yeah. And that I know green screen background, folks. I just kind of want to put that into context because writing a script when, you know, you just have to just cover information and quite frankly, bad dialog just to kind of move this along. It doesn't feel like that in Batman Begins. It really doesn't to to latch on to that point. Another note I had here is I remembered he told this. I mean, remember, this is like a huge, big budget movie and almost the first half of it, the all the parts were describing are told out of order. He's doing non chronological and he's jumping around in these timelines. How did the parents die where this training in the mountains. You know now he's like this college student and he has to get revenge and we're jumping all around. But it all really tracks and it's like this propulsive engine going, going all to be able all reaching to the clips of like becoming Batman, you know, actually learning how to do it. But at like, I don't know, 30, 45 minutes. Yeah, it's a different take on that standard. We're building out the plot, we're building out this story. We have to explain all this shit. Yeah, the character building, that one that is required in the first of a comic book movie trilogy like this. Yeah. It moves at a pace where fast, but it doesn't feel like we're plowing through. Yes, really quick. Did you know the story about how Christian Bale got cast as Batman This Well, I mean, God, it was all I mean, it was so much up for debate, but I don't know exactly. I don't know. I've heard a bunch of different versions. So but I do know that he officially, like, got the part when he was on The Machinist. Yes. Which he lost about £100 for. And I it's something like he had I'm not even kidding. Like six weeks from when the Machinist wrapped to win, Batman Begins started. So he had to gain all that back. And if you go and look, he's like, he's kind of chunky. In the beginning, Batman begins because he over he overcorrected in a way too much at a machinist. But no, no, I don't I don't think I know the story. Well, we'll it basically is that and I think this was on the Batman Begins special feature where Christian Bale was the first person to audition and he auditioned. And in his state of as being in The Machinist and and Nolan tells the story where he's just sort of like Christian this is great, but like, how can I seriously, like, like, consider you I mean, look at that. Like, like it's just to be fair here, how can I really take you seriously with how skinny you are? And Bale basically just told them he's like, I will get to where we need to get to. Do not even worry about the physicality. I know what Batman is. I believe that like you, like he just basically gave him the pitch. Like, I understand I'm in the shape I'm in. But if you cast me, not only will I get there, I'm going to like, I'm going to I'm going to kill it. They went through all sorts of things. Killian Murphy was actually really cool. Was Yeah, he was testing in the suit because he was a thing because of 28 days later, Killian Murphy was having a huge pop. Christian Bale Huge pop from American Psycho. Yeah. So finally they made a decision to go with Bale and, and then in the beginning, yeah, there was an ongoing joke because he put on so much weight that they were like, Christian, we're two in Batman. Not Fat Man. Fat man. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I love that. You could tell, like in those scenes. Yeah. Yeah. Where do you really Pudgy He's he's really great and great shape for The Dark Knight. Just like the whole time. Just. Yup. Herb shape. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we're still about maybe get. You know how I first saw Batman begins? I saw Batman begins at a fucking midnight screening on a Thursday, and I had to go to work the next day. Just no problem at the time. Could Easily do it. You know, you get home at 3 a.m. from a fucking movie, have to go to work in a few hours. Not now. Yeah, not now anymore. Most important question related to the Dark Knight trilogy, of course, is Katie Holmes or Maggie Gyllenhaal. Please give me your answer. Hot, take Hot. Take Oh, my God. Holmes 100%. Wow. 100%. Oh, interesting. I Is this a Dawson's Creek hangover, perhaps? Well, I mean, I mean, let's be fair. I mean, I was I was a creek head. The butt creek head. Jesus Christ. There's a term I didn't know. I actually I just I came, if that is if that is the thing. I don't know. I've never heard that. But coin it now. I'll take it. Yes, but no, I was I was always kind of rooting for Katie Holmes, like in her career, like I, I really did love her performance in that one piece, April movie. I think that's one of the better Thanksgiving movies that's out there. The movie so good huge fan of Go. She never left. It blew me away the gift. Yeah, the gifts. Oh, my God. She never, like, blew me away. But I was always like, you know, just riskin. Like, come on, let's. Let's go also. And Logan lucky her. Yeah. Very good, Logan. Lucky brief part. Yes, but I actually. I actually really liked her in Christian Bale's chemistry. I know there's some debate, and like, that scene where she slaps him. Double weathered piece. Yeah, the the double slap love. And I don't know what it was but I just really I really I really dug their vibe I really felt his shame in that. I really felt like she kind of she she was the one that was all of the buttons that he that his character needed. And I thought she did it really well. I liked Maggie Gyllenhaal's take on the the bad ass like woman worker like that. She was she she had a job. She was on a mission. I liked that strength.$5 to donuts. I Katie Holmes 100% would have been interesting to see how Katie Holmes would play off Heath Ledger's Joker. That would have been interesting. Oh, it would have been. You know what? Yeah eight because Gyllenhaal does it so well. I really like the way, you know, her interaction with him as well. But yeah, I just I mean, yeah, it's a tough one. I love that take. That's a good take. I love that scene of my rewatch. I always die laughing when he pretends to be drunk. Oh, kick everyone out of the party. Yeah. He's like, just go. Just. Just. Yeah. I love it. I love the way he does that. Yeah. Again, no shade based on it's ranking in on my list. I really do like it. And I think as far as you know, usually these movies are the my least favorite. The first one, because of just all that building. I think it's a hard thing to get right for all the reasons just talked about. It's hard to nail that exposition and they do it well. And, you know, we were getting to meet Michael Caine as Alfred for the first time, Morgan Freeman as Lucius. Like all these characters that are really going to be endearing to us. Gary Oldman who the when I first saw Batman Begins, there was almost a gasp in the audience when we first saw Gary Oldman because he always played shitheads, but then like always, and I'm like, Oh, and then you find out is going to be Gordon. And he's so like, gentle. And that carries through. I mean, honestly, even The Dark Knight Rises when he when it clicks for him and he figures out who he is, I think that's really moving. And I'm like, Oh shit, I love this. Yeah, he's honestly like, if you like you read the comic book, which I think was the graphic novel of year one for Batman, that was a huge influence on this movie. Yeah. I mean, you cannot get a better Gordon than Gary Oldman like in terms of look the downtrodden, just like I just am just a piece of shit right now like that. That, that kind of like that. That was Gordon and You could feel all that and Gary Oldman's performance of it and Liam Neeson just really, really good villain in this. Yeah, Yeah like a very believable I like very believable and very cool Like I love that the facial hair that he's got going on and yet like, you know he basically just wants to like climax all of Gotham City. He wants to put a climax on him. He's like filling the water with, like, drugs that, like, make him trip out. That's what happens in the most like a climax directed by gasp. No, I'm not using climax. Okay. Sorry. You. He wants to climax all over Gotham. No, he is trying to get people to trip the fuck out of Gotham. This is what I would say. Yes. And by rewatch, I was. I made a note of that, like, Oh, this is kind of like a nationwide climax, but not climax in the fornication way. I'll have you know, I'm not talking sexually, not in the biblical sense. Drug trippingly. Well, well, all right, let's move on. I know you just watch this one, too. I was I was in love with Memento. And again, we got to see that into thousand one. So the very next year he's making a studio movie. And Insomnia was a remake. But the remake script written by Hillary Seitz was something that was bouncing around town. Jonathan, to me, was attached with Harrison Ford set to star. Wow. George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh were producing partners back then. Soderbergh loved Memento and he pitched Nolan to the studio for the directing gig. So, you know, it's all simpatico. I just love hearing that shit. I love, like, yeah, Soderbergh's always been great for that, too. Like helping people get jobs where he think they would fit. And I love insomnia. I think probably second to following this is the movie that people have seen the least of Nolan's filmography. Some of that is because this is never available to stream and it is very difficult to find the Blu ray. The only way, I guess the DVD would be for sale, but the only way I was able to purchase the Blu ray, which I did for this episode, was in a seven and The Devil's Advocate director's cut triple pack. So now I have those two on Blu rays. Well, that's was like, All right, that's that's fine. That's fine. Yeah. Before I get going, I want to hear your high level thoughts. I love this movie and I want everyone to go see it. I thought this was a as I always like to say, I'm going to give it. Oh, here, come here it comes. In the classic Nick, there's still seal of approval. A note. Perfect movie. Yes, sir, I. Sumnima There was not one moment of this movie that wasn't just firing on all cylinders for everything that it was intending to do. And it's from the the editing to the performance to the writing. There were even times where I was like, thinking to myself, I wonder how they're going to, like, tie this up. I wonder how this is all going to kind of like because there's a lot of well, we're talking about insert shots and we're like, Yeah, girl I mean, there are things where he is testing our not necessarily our attention spans, but how quickly we can clock something he's shown shit for like five, six frames with this with the volume heighten and you're like, Yeah, okay, is what is this? But it pays off. It pays off and, and it's and to be fair, though, I did have to when the movie was over, I had a couple of lingering questions just because I was like, wait a second, I know I understand how everything happened, but I need go back and track. Sure. So I had to go back and rewatch the the big scene in the fog. Yes. Yes. And I was like, I just seen the clock, everything that happens. And then when it when I rewatched it, I go, yup, everything checks out and then everything that subsequently happens from there it all checks. And I mean, even just the idea of taking a place, movie taking place in Alaska, there is no night. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a really cool concept just to kind of have as a underlying, you know, it's like a character in the movie, but I mean, it is. It honestly is. Yeah. That's he uses the manipulation of time as a character in all of his films. And I mean, manipulation and insomnia is that our lead character, Will Dormer, played very well by Alberto cannot fucking sleep. So he's gone six, seven days without being able to sleep. And that is completely distorting how he sees everything and his sense of time, his judgment of it, all of it. I cannot say enough about how fucking good Al Pacino is in this. It's a real shame that the Oscars were still very much in their prestige mode because it would have been nice to see him sneak in there. Robin Williams for supporting actor. He is a perfect and convincing villain, which was a huge part of the marketing. And you were like, What? This is before one hour photo. This was released for a few months before it, and there's even like some very slight, slight shades of dry humor in something like one hour photo. There's no humor to this guy. He's just a textbook sociopath who does not think there's anything wrong with him. But he's a raging, fucking murdering sociopath. It's great. He's great. It's so great because there's that. I Just don't want to say what happens in the movie. No, I don't. Yeah, this isn't right. This isn't one to spoil because this is not, I don't think very well seen, unfortunately, but is there is a conflict that Al Pacino has throughout the movie. It's one of the more compelling conflicts I've seen a character have in almost anything I've seen recently. Yeah, it is. I have a theory that the more deep rooted you can make a character have a conflict now, whether it's plot based or if it's just something that you kind of devised for the character, the more that that can be prevalent to the audience's awareness, the better everything gets, because the actor can do what the actor does in the scene, you know, especially because he's also playing Sleep deprived. So he's playing a state of being. But at the same time, we understand that he's got this whirlwind of a conflict and he's playing a juggling act. It was one of the most riveting performances I've seen in quite some time. I thought he was so good and it's also great. It's also funny because Pacino So, yeah, it's just some of those moments, like there's that scene where he has with Robin Williams, where they're on the ferry and he's got his head, like leaned up against pole and he's in and out of consciousness. Oh, he is. He looks like he could just fall asleep right there. It's like and then Rob Lowe's would be like, God, you're really losing it. Well, like, yeah, what do you on day four? Wow, you're about to beat my record. He's like, You got it. It's. It's fucking great, man. I don't. You don't really think about it. How many times? You've seen a sleep deprived performance, but this might be the goat. Well, let me. All right. I've so much more to say. Let me jump right to this, though, because this is really important so. The reason why I bought that Blu ray is because there is a commentary on it, a director's commentary, and that's Nolan's last one. He doesn't do him anymore. Commentaries are few and far between. Very, very sad to see that Damien Chazelle did not do one for Babylon, which is why I haven't bought it yet on 4K. He always does, and didn't do one. And I was like, Oh, that's sad. That is a little heartbreaking, honestly. Christopher Nolan not only does commentary for insomnia, but in the first and only time I have ever seen this in the history of movie watching. When you hit play on the commentary, you watch the movie in the order in, he filmed it. Wow. So you get to see he goes, okay, here. So like the first thing they film day one and they tell you the scene, scene 36, Hilary Swank gets stuff in her apartment. He's like, We did this first. Do you want to give your crew something easy to do on the first day? So he's going through and I'm like, Oh, this is cool. I'm going to be able to see how they constructed it and how you have to, you know, establishing editing. Because when you film a movie, you don't film in in order of the shooting script, you're almost filming it based on two things for a very low production movie. It's based on location. When we get that location, that's when we film that scene period. If that scene happens, if it's the last scene in our movie, but we have to film it first, so be it. That's what we have to do. It's based on the location and then everyone's availability. So on a movie like this, Pacino's in almost every scene. I think he is in every scene, so he's got to be there the whole time. But Robin Williams does not have to be there the whole time. And a good production manager is not going to schedule Robin Williams to be like on one day or four days on five days off, two days because you're in the middle of Alaska. So you get to see how like they all of Robin Williams stuff from the middle. The main point here, this is one of the most impressive things I've ever seen from an actor because they did not shoot this in order. Pacino to track how tired Dormer was, not from day to day, from scene to scene. The police station was the same place that they shot like the morgue, for instance. But they would like, go upstairs and shoot at the police station in the morning. And that would be like in the beginning of the movie. Then they go down to the morgue and that would be toward the end of the movie. But that was just in the afternoon after lunch. And Nolan is on this commentary going, I never had a single conversation with Al about that. That's Why you hire Al Pacino? Like I knew that was going to be a huge issue, but that's why you hire him. I never talk to him about like, make sure you're playing this one. Like, really tired. He had to track all that knowing that they didn't shoot this in order that Pacino is literally taking a break to be like, okay, where is this in the story? Okay, it's here. This is how tired I am. It's it's astounding because like, the first thing he shot, he's dog shit tired, like he's in jail. He's in. It's such a tired state of mind. And then, like, the next day, he's just driving around with Hilary Swank and, like, not that tired in the jeep. It's fascinating. Made me appreciate the performance so much more. And this is how movies are made. It makes you appreciate the art form of acting that much more because that's the skill of an actor. If you ever watch in a movie, if you ever watch in a movie and you go, Why was the accent really good? Like in the beginning? And then it got really bad in the middle and then it got good again in the end. This is why, because they're shooting movies out of order and hopefully the actors accent has gotten stronger the longer they've been filming. So whatever scenes they film last, those will probably be the strongest accent wise. Happens all the time and it takes a really, really good actor to not show that continuity. And I it's just it's incredible and it not. One point during his performance did I feel like it was over the top? No, it always tracks always tracks. It always tracks. And it does. It does from as time goes on to his dear point in his credit for tracking his his level of of sleep deprivation, it all makes sense because you feel each scene as it goes on and on, like you see how it's affecting differently, but it's always deeper. It's always a little bit worse. Sometimes there he's a little bit more like light with it. Yeah. And sometimes he's more down with it even as the movie goes on. But these are all just such interesting choices, and I just played so well. I love when he's baiting because you said, you know, he does have like a dilemma. There is there's a conflict within him, but that's just one he's got. This is his guy in Los Angeles. Yeah. He's got the fact that he can't sleep. He's got a current case. He's got the other thing that we're not talking about, but I love early in the movie when he's trying to like push Martin Donovan, who plays his partner, she's trying to push his button to he's like, fuck, you can. Yeah, there he is. There's out he's still there. You can. He could still do it. Oh, man. Yeah, but I love that. And I mean, we've kind of mentioned it so far, but some of them later in his career, some of the casting choices might be hit or miss. But I always love the swings Nolan takes with his cast. Like Nicky. Kat is so good. This is so far, so good at it. Donovan's good. You know, Nicky, Kat, Nicky. Kat's last movie performance, I believe, was as the SWAT partner in The Dark Knight when he's in the truck. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Big actor who's in, like, big roles. I don't know what happened, but, like, Martin Donovan is the one that gives John David Washington his assignment. And Tennant So you see, like, kill. He'll use them again. I mean, Ben Mendelsohn in The Dark Knight Rises. I like his Tom Berenger and exception. LUCAS Oh, I love that. Eric Roberts in The Dark Knight. So it was Joker killed your Woman Anyway, David Bowie, The Prestige. Anyway, great one, right? One thing I got to talk about, got to see if you notice this. We are talking about the editing and insomnia you know, you need Pacino to sell that. But the sound and the cinematography and the editing. Yes. What? There's a technique that Nolan uses here, he does it a few times. Never seen it in a movie before or really since. And I swear to God, I'm stealing it for the next thing I shoot. I promise to help us lock into Dormer Al Pacino, State of Mind. He'll be like, looking around the police station and we'll cut to his point of view in the back round will be in focus. And then we'll cut a frame out and we will jump cut to the fan in the foreground in focus. But the backgrounds out and it's doing these quick shrink like cuts and it really helps establish this the haziness of not being able to sleep. I've never been up for six fucking days, but I've been up for long enough to know that I should be asleep. And it's so weird. It's such a weird ass feeling that comes over you. You're not making the right decisions. Like I said, your judgment is impaired and I love the way they visually capture that with editing, with cinematography. And it's very, very simple to do. This is not like they're not using digital effects. This is just simply like school editing. Honestly, it's great. Especially like the following days, you know, back like, yeah, do something cool. We're doing it in-camera. There's no trickery, but just with a simple cut and a little sound effect, we're selling it. Well, there's that. There's that whole entire sequence where he walks in the police station and we focus in on the that are making sound. Yeah, there's a stapler tape in and, and the things that are going in and out of focus and that is just exactly it to give us the idea of sensory wise what this guy is honing in on and what he's not and how that's going in and out. I mean, yeah, that's what I mean. No, perfect. This thing was just so fucking good. I, I, there was one moment where I'm trying to figure because I want to put some praise to this, because this is one of the things that was like it had to be in the writing, but it was something that it's never talked about in this story. But there's a scene where Hilary Swank is like the the, the cop that's trying to she she's the rookie cop, basically just a rookie cop, the Alaskan cop who's helping out the veteran LAPD detective try to solve this crime in Alaska. The reason why he has been brought in by Pacino's been brought in two reasons. One, he's really good at his job. They're not used to murders like this in Alaska. Two, he's in some hot shit in L.A. We don't know what, but he may have done some bad things, and Internal Affairs are on his ass to the point where they are calling him in his hotel room. So that's like we're just to set that up a little bit. Yeah And she is such a pure soul. Like that's the type of character that she is. And without saying too much like Pacino's quite a bit of controversial things and she's trying to do this police report. She just needs him to sign off on, Oh yeah, and he tells her because he knows certain things, but he's also trying to protect himself. He tells her don't be like, you know, blasé about this, basically like it's your name's on that report. Go back and like, rethink and relook and reinvestigate now. Mm hmm. I remember thinking that I'm like, maybe he's just tired, Maybe it's just this. But I think in so in a lot of ways, that was him actually almost like a cry for help. The jig is up. It's the things he's up. He is. He's putting himself out there a little bit. And if he has sins and if his sins have to catch up with him, why not? It happened at hands of Ellie Burr as a badass to the fucking LAPD. Yeah, exactly. Or Nikki Katz character? Yes. Yeah. Like who? Hey, Dauber. Yes. So, yeah, exactly like, that was him handing him that report. He had been like, All right, here's my shirt. Looks good. Looks good. Fine. Yeah, it looks good, But fuck yeah. And then it all comes back the end. Yeah. And she's about to do that thing. And he tells her, don't lose your way. Yeah. Like he was trying to protect. But he knew that if this is going to happen, I want it to be her. And I'd like. That is just such a tiny little through line. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people fucking miss, but I remember getting that. And then I got chills at the end when it happened, I was like, Oh, this, this was it. Because I have actually wondered why her character was the way she was. I was like, Why is she so naive and improvised So seeing just an innocent. Yeah. A girl from next door who's, you know, clearly probably doesn't have the easiest of jobs. She's clearly the only woman her crew probably facing daily misogyny, all that stuff. But she but she also idolizes Dormer. You know, she's right. Yes. First, this is papers about him. He's this old, hardened veteran detective and she idolizes him. But, you know, she has a job of also investigating a girl's murder. But maybe she should be looking a little closer. Dormer, too. Yeah, I like Hillary. I don't think Hillary. Oh, I would like to have a conversation about her at some point. We could do it now. I mean, I like her in this. I love her. And boys don't cry. Million Dollar Baby Never. I fucking love her. Little stint in Logan. Lucky she was so good. Oh, yeah. I mean, it was just great. I've always I like her, and I think I thought she was really good tennis shoes at the height of her fame. She was at the height of her fame. I've always liked her too. And the end made her character make all the sense in the world. Yeah. Yeah. And it was one of those things where it's that you kind of get it all at the end and it just hits you over the head. And I was just really blown away and then made me appreciate her performance because it's a very subtle like she's not the star and she is playing a very specific person, but she's not making herself known. So you're almost kind of wondering, like certainly not a bad performance. You're you're I was kind of wondering. I'm like, why isn't this more here? And then it's all clicks. And yeah, then I realize I go, Oh my God, you Hilary Swank played this part perfectly like you did exactly what you needed to do to make everything work. And for me to have that aha moment. At the end. Beautiful, beautiful work. I think she's amazing. I think she's really good. And all the things I've seen her in. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love that. I'm so glad you liked insomnia. Just please, everyone go check that out. If you haven't if you haven't seen it. We didn't really talk about Robin Williams much, but he is great in it. I mean, Maura Tierney's in it. Pacino and Tierney have a great scene together in the hotel. They do so good. It's so, like, warm and gentle when she turns on the lights of the room and he's like, Yeah, please, please, you know. Yeah. Oh, it's great. Speaking of which, you know, that's a following is a small movie, But then he scrapes a little more money together, has somewhat of a budget to make memento. No one, this isn't the type of movie you hear about as it's being made. But when this thing hit indie cinemas, this is one. Like as a kid, I did drive into D.C. to see or have my dad take me to D.C. to see, and it was just a sensation. I saw it so many times in the theater. It was so new and unique. I'll never forget seeing it that time. And by like the fourth or fifth jump back, I sort of figured out what they were doing. And around like the seventh or eighth jump back, my dad leaned over and he's like, Do you have any idea what the hell is going on? Yeah, I'm like, I think so. I think so. But yeah, it could lose you, but it's something at the time. And too, I mean, American audiences could see this in 2001, despite what IMDB says, keeping it true it in the year 2000, it was nominated for two one Oscars. Anyway, it was a huge deal at the time a huge deal and the novelty of it still holds up. There is a hidden special feature on that DVD where you can watch it in order and I was. And it's really fun to do. It's really fun to put this in chronological order. All the black and white scenes are first. I love Memento All Timer for me. I remember renting it from good old Blockbuster. Oh yes. And not knowing anything about it. Like I remember seeing the cover of, it was sort of like this. It was like a black cover with Guy Pearce and he was like, holding us back or something. Yeah, the Polaroids. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I just remember it kind of looks like a classic, like mid-nineties cover. And I think that's even why I did it. So I had no idea what I, what I was getting into when I put it on. And then all of a sudden I can't remember in that first viewing of when it took me to realize what was happening. But at some point it does. At some point, yeah. Everyone who's never the movie, it dawns on you. You're like, Oh, we're going backwards. And yeah, it seems so silly. But that revelation that you with it is so special. Like, like when you realize what's happening, you're, you're immediately like, leaned in forward. I jumped it, I jumped up in my chair. I'll never forget it because it's not just that realization. It's also that the color stuff is in. We're seeing it in reverse chronological order, but in the black and white stuff is chronological order. So you're like, okay, wait a minute. So yeah, once you piece it together, that's also what happened with me with Dunkirk once it Yeah. Oh yeah. Once I get it, I get it. Yeah. Yeah. A movie about a man. Leonard. Don't call me Lenny Shelby attempting to find the man who raped and murdered his wife. But the problem is, he cannot remember anything for longer than 15 minutes at a time. I mean, what a movie concept. Jesus Christ. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, this was a question I had. No, because how long is his actual memory? Well, like, because I was kind of clocking a little bit and it seems like he can't really go more than 5 minutes. Well, if you. Yeah, if you pick apart the movie like that, there are certainly some stretches when it is lasting a little longer is not a consistent thing. It's not. Yeah. Yeah. It's resetting every 7 minutes, every 15 minutes. It's not it it kind of shows that he can maybe even hold on a little longer if there isn't something like crazy going on. But obviously, you know, when he gets flustered, it can just go, yeah, really, You can go in a moment. But I think the idea is 15 to 20 minutes, but it is not like a timer being reset. Yeah, it it seems like that. Like they're like there are things where you're like, okay, but it was a question I wanted to prompt to you is like, how long do you actually think it is? But I think that's right. But one thing I notice and think this I don't know when this decision was made, but if you notice the sound of a door closing is a trigger for him damn near every single time, whether it's a room door or a car door. That sound, he loses it, it's gone. Yeah, Yeah. And then that is what he does, that a lot of times. And other times you're cut to him. He's like, in bed and he, you know, he doesn't remember. Like, how the fuck did I get here? You know, it's it can be like any number of things. But I love just that concept for a movie. I mean, it's pretty brilliant. And it can also be like a comedy. It could be like a slapstick detective of a guy you can't remember anything for longer than 15 minutes. But instead of telling the movie straight, he creates two narratives. Like we've talked about a black and white narrative that is going in chronological order, the time of which it's only it's a real time phone conversation that is happening. Even so, only about 15 minutes pass in black and white stuff. You really get a sense of that when you watch it in chronological order in that hidden special feature. So that stuff's all happening and you're supposed to believe one that's all contained in one memory byte for Leonard. So it's like a 15 minute chunk. And then Nolan is intercutting that with a timeline, another timeline in color that is playing in reverse. And he goes, You end to this by like though the end of each segment will kind of be the beginning of the next. And that's how you keep seeing it as you keep tracking back. I don't even think he would do that now. I think if he made this movie now, I don't think he would give you those clues of like we've jumped back like I don't think he would be having the Yeah. Repeat dialog and things like that. I think that was just to really help a 2021 audience along because needed that help at the time because we weren't used to this. And it does help though. Yes, it does. Because by having those visual checkpoints, it does keep you along, but it doesn't feel like he's spoon feeding you. It doesn't feel like it. It's almost that in their way, they're you're the audience experience. You're like, oh, oh. And I think that's actually a really great way to keep the audience because really, when you're dealing with a confusing movie, any time the audience can be clued in and they get that aha moment, it's like, it's like, it's like a dopamine rush. Like, like you feel good. Like all of a sudden you're like, oh, like your mind is blown every single time. So what that does is that just re ups your investment, your, your capacity to be compelled into what you're watching because these scenes happen. Like they're less than 5 minutes, it seems like 5 to 10 minutes for these things to end and then begin again. And I think one of the beauties of the editing of this movie is that you never feel bored. No, you're even on the rewatch. And I think it's because you're getting that constant like validation that you know what's going on. I think this movie honestly would play better to younger audiences who just need quick that constant thing. The constant change. Yeah, yeah. Black and white color. One narrative. The other narrative. Yeah, that's a good point, too. Good point. Well, we should do a test all the genders out there. Let us know what you think of Memento. Yeah. Is there is the public Never heard of it. What's funny is that we're only talking about structure right now. That's it. Yes. Just like we just talked about props for following like we're only talking about structure and there's so much more I could have about for following and there's so much more I could talk about from Memento and I will I'm not done talking about Memento, but yeah, that's how much I love this movie. It's just one aspect of the movie that we love it. Yeah. Okay. So if we are moving on as another component of the movie, this is what I also think is so cool is yes, we're just talking about structure, but what also keeps you so engaged into the film is that you're dealing with a guy who cannot remember. Like I think every time I watch it the whole entire time, I'm just wondering, what is that like, though? Like I'm like waking up from a dream and trying to remember a dream? Yeah, it's like a perfect description. We were like, Wait a minute. No, we ha did it. You're you're constantly engaged with how he must be dealing with this. You're you're coming up with questions for yourself. Sometimes the movie answers it like he gives you, like, little things, like it helps writing things down and. Like all the little breadcrumbs that he gives you along the way. Like, once you realize that he's writing all of the information on his body, you're like, Oh my God, like, this is crazy. Like, this is wild stuff. And that he has to look at all that shit in order to remember everything. He looks at that shit. It's like seeing it for the first time. He has to be reminded of what happened to his wife. He has to be reminded that he's on this huge hunt and and as his condition unfolds to us and his process to deal with it unfolds, it's intriguing. But you start to realize more and more, this is futile like, of course, this this guy cannot win. Like, there is no way because you have. Yes. Yeah. What you realize. But by the end, which is what's so interesting, watching it in chronological order is that he's set basically like Teddy just sets him up to go kill someone for Teddy and then he does that. And then Leonard is so pissed by this that he sets up this false investigation for himself to maybe, perhaps eventually murder Teddy. So the tension of it is, is Leonard going to get caught for just killing for just having murdered this Jimmy guy? And is Leonard eventually going to kill this Teddy guy? But in reverse? The tension is what the fuck is going on? Who is this guy? Where are these manipulations coming from? Can I touch? Can I trust Teddy? If you watch it chronologically, you know right away you can't trust him. But yeah, it's like it starts with Teddy's murder. And then we're thinking, Is this? Yes, this is a real guy. And you get that fucking hammer on the head. It's really interesting that it works both ways. It is not as effective chronologically, but it still a really cool experiment. I love Guy Pearce this so, so much. It's a shame they've never worked together again. There's no bad blood. They've talked about it a lot. But like, it's my understanding that there's every one in Oppenheimer, like, couldn't cut a role for my man. Guy, My guy guy. You know. But he's one of my favorite performances in the movie. I love him in this. You really believe everything. But yeah, like putting yourself in his head. Like, what must this be like? It's just great. Yeah. One thing I had a thought on when I was watching, I started to laugh at one point because when you kind of remove yourself from the story and the character and everything, you're there's no way a man with a limited memory like this could solve any crime. No, I'm not saying it's impossible, but there is like a dawning of, like, the humor you're talking about in a way. Yeah. And it's interjected into the movie. Like, there are those scenes where he's running, and then all of a sudden he goes, It's very dry. But is very dry. Yeah, but yes. Oh, I'm not doing, oh, I'm chasing this guy. No, no. You see it, it, it, it is, it's the performance that sells it and, but you just sort of realize that this guy is just like, this is not going to go well for him. But we sympathize. Yes. Yeah, We sympathize with him so much in reverse. Then when we get to the end slash beginning of the movie, we're like, no, dude, you to sabotage yourself. Like you're and this is not the first time he's done this. There's a very clear that he's been doing this for a while, probably since his wife has been killed. He's just going, yeah, snuffing out these jags, maybe for Teddy, maybe sending himself on wild goose chase is. I don't know when you're I don't know. And he's clearly a perfect mark for everyone else who wants to use him for something. Because, like, think about if you're involved in a life of crime in any sort of capacity, you need to set up a fall guy like you just happen to meet a guy. Can't remember anything for more than 5 minutes. You're like, You're not going to believe who I met today. Yeah, I'm charging this poor bastard for eight hotel rooms at this shithole motel. Check it out, man. Yeah. Yeah, We could get it for all sorts of shit. Now, I don't know how you feel, but speaking of performances, Carrie-Anne Moss in That's Greatness. Yeah. I love in there. She's so good. It's a little reunion matrix reunion of her and Joe Pantoliano, even though they don't have any scenes together in Memento. But she is so good in this. There were some, I mean, Memento got a screenplay and best editing nomination, I believe. But there was talk like, you know, they're they're still in there. Oscars were still very much in their prestige and they didn't want to give like Guy Pearce or Carrie-Anne Moss acting nominations. But there is loose talk of it. But I love her in this. It's a great sense to tell like that's exactly what's going is great. Yeah. Yeah. But not was she too fancy dresses and hair. Not like that. No, like that. A much more gritty kind of version of it. But she plays it so and there's one scene that I remember that if we're talking about all the components of movie where the music that entered into it, there is a there was a it was the scene where we know that she has just shown her true colors and she's being so mean to him. And then he forgets. Yeah. And then she's playing nice and there's like a music swell that happens and it's just completely manipulating the audience, but it's also her manipulating him. And the music was so beautiful that you just couldn't help but kind of feel for him in a way was just all that makes movies great. Every part of it is happening in this movie. It's. It's so good. Yeah. David Julian, Hope that's how you say his name. He did the music for all these early Nolan movies following even Memento Insomnia, and then he came back into the music for The Prestige. I like what he brought to Nolan's work. It's like, you know, a little more horn based, obviously. Now he goes much, much bigger. He's with Hans Zimmer. Oh, yeah. Do good guards and like, doing these crazy, easy, crazy things. But I've always loved the score. A memento. It's really haunting in that perfect way. And he hits you with it right away. You know, when he's shaken the Polaroid and the opening credits, it's is great. Yeah. Wally Pfister This was his first collaboration as a cinematographer for Christopher Nolan. That's a, you know, big deal. I love that he shot all of his earliest films and that before he switched over to a different DP. Real quick story. I'll keep it quick, but I, I've, I've never been able to tell us so there's never been a good time to. I was in Salem, Massachusetts, the first time I went there in like 2021 and with another couple. And we the four of us went out to eat at an Italian restaurant. We're just sitting there and Salem's like a real cool town, very chill. Well, people are, you know, tatted up. So our server, she has a bunch of tats. She's putting like our, plates down. And I look at her and I just get a flash of something. I'm like, Holy shit. And I, you know, I don't really like I'm not trying to, like, talk like, in that way. I don't want to make them feel uncomfortable and like, ask them a personal question. But she comes back over and I was like, Hey, I just want to ask you on your left thumb, does it say, remember Jenkins from Memento? And she stopped what she was doing, like paused and said, You were only the second person in my entire life who has gotten that hand. Like, Yeah, yeah. So it was it was cool as nice. It was a fun moment. Then we talked, we had kind of we were just starting the podcast, what they told her about the podcast. I wonder if she still listens to it. I don't know. We'll see. Did you tell her that you only have tattoos of like, words on your body to. Oh, yeah. But I mean, at the time it was I think I had no I had three Yeah. At the time I don't have any from Memento but I said if I ever got one that's the one I would get from it. That's awesome. Yeah I would, I would get that one. I mean there's some you know license plate. I don't need that. The one across his chest is not fine and it's not something I'd want. I was going to say that that's the one that I would get. If you Google Memento tattoos like have gotten those in real life like they're they're they've like gotten every single one that he has. Every single one. That's that's a little Google it. I swear to God. I like the movie I don't like that fucking much. Oh no it would be fine as if you were like, you know, kind of going willy nilly with your tattoo, getting if you just picked one. Yeah. Remember, Sammy Jenkins would be mine. Yeah, that would be. I really wonder. Women would be. I have to go and examine everything that he says because I remember there were a couple in there that I was like, Oh, that'd be kind of an interesting one to have. I mean, there's some of those. Like, you got to wonder when the movie is done or rather when it begins. What's what's happening next? Like, is the dude getting those tattoos like crossed out or like completed mission completed because that. Yeah, I don't know. Because you got to think about that. Yeah. How long will you keep himself on his own rat race, John Grace? If my mother calls me Teddy and then we'll move right into following. Yeah, baby, let's do it. So you have just watched this for the first time, Like in preparation for Cool. Cool. Yeah, It seemed like a little backstory. Just about Nolan as how he got to following the guys seem. It seems like he was interested in making movies. Birth took over the family camera at age seven, announced he wanted to be a director by age 11, Got an English degree in literature, but he was helping out on corporate videos, industrial films. He makes a few short films, Doodlebug in 1997. Probably the best scene. I think it's out there. I think it's actually a bonus feature on following. Then he then that leads to following his first feature, which he makes for a $3,000 production budget with his friends. They film it on weekends because everyone had day jobs. Doesn't this sound familiar to how you and I have made movies in the past? There no one in his crew. Again, it was just friends. It included his then girlfriend, now wife producer Emma Thomas, who has produced all of Nolan's films, which is really cool. As I said, he stole shots on public. They use their apartments, they use public spaces, and they created a very twisty 70 minute black and white thriller. So I want to hear what you thought about this. One criterion did pick this up in 2012, which is great. Highly recommend buying that for reasons we're going to talk about. But yeah, what did you think? The first thing that I wrote my notes when I popped down the movie, I was pretty much grabbed immediately in the opening title cards with the props. Yeah, I don't and I can't even really explain why. I don't know why, but I just remember thinking I was like, Oh, wow, this is, I don't know, like, maybe you can kind of speak to this like the I feel like there is an art to when you are filming props in a movie, like it seems so simple. There's like, Oh, we need to show certain things. And sometimes you remember the visuals of the props in your head, and other times they're so and this is this is a this is a crazy thing you're pointing out. I do know how to explain this for Nolan specifically, but yeah, I keep going. This is the thing that I was like, all of a sudden I'm like, Huh, I am really invested into these props right now, which is pretty cool. And then I was just it was I was intrigued from the whole rest of it, and I really kind of dug that, that voyeuristic vibe. There wasn't a lot of explanation to this guy who just started following people. Like, like, like what I liked about it was the because you can let your imagination go with it. You could almost put yourself in his shoes. You just he gave you enough of why he did it, to let you kind of be like, I get kind of see that I could kind of see like the the the curiosity in doing something like this. And then the story takes over. As the movie was going. I was just really, really connecting to that. It feels like a first time film, but it feels like one that's made with so much confidence. And I also think that for all of the little plot holes that Nolan kind of has throughout the rest of his career, I didn't find any in this. No, he he wraps everything up like when you get to the end so tight. Yeah, it's, it's such a tight construction. So I just kept thinking I was like something. I was like, Jeez, Chris, why don't you kind of go back to the basics and some of your movies and just I've been saying things for years. I appreciate a lot of his later work, but Interstellar is Oppenheimer has a long runtime. We're going to see how it plays out. I would love for him to go back to a twisty under one minute noir like following or or something. I mean, can you imagine even if he did it for, you know, 30 million or something? Oh, my God, it would be so good. I would love it. I would love it. But then again, however, then to to discredit myself right away, he is the only director they are giving hundreds of millions of dollars to make big budget movies. And I a director to be able to do that. So it's yeah, it's a total push pull always and I love the noir aspect of it. I loved I got faces vibes are now faces shadows vibes from it. Yeah. Just, just everything that was going on, I didn't feel like there was a wasted moment. I think all the performances were great. So I think that's the reason why it came so highly on my on my watch list was because for it being what it was, I was like, I just I just don't think you really could have done better. Like what? An outing for what you had to work with what and then what was the final product. I mean, do that thing that everyone does today. Chef's kiss. You know, I that annoys me. I just find it. What I don't like, it's like either the cereal smack their lips. Either you make the gesture with your hands and you don't say chef's kiss, or you just say Chef's. But don't make the gesture. One of the two, one or the two is fine. Or you just say it's fucking good or Yeah, move on. Yes. Okay. Props. Yes. Go back to that. Yes, I will go back to props. Props are shot differently on different movies. For bigger movies, it is very common. You know, actors, they're really busy. They have trailers to get back to in business, calls to make and distractions to keep them from the movie at hand. So when they're done with their coverage, meaning being on camera, some will go back to their trailer when the other actor has their coverage. And there's a stand in there, you know, doing filling in for the lead actor. That happens a lot. They do the same thing with props. Most you rarely see when props like close ups of props. You're talking these insert shots. What I'm trying to say is Christopher Nolan shoots all the insert shots right there. It's the last thing they do in the scene. So after everything's done, he goes, okay, we need one more take. You fiddling with these props in the scene. That way, the lighting matches that way. It's actually your hand. It's actually Al Pacino's hand in insomnia. Yeah, some pay. Who? You know, they're trying to match for Pacino's hands. And then. And you tell. You can tell that you may not be able to tell like exactly but you had an inkling about it and that is why it's why Soderbergh does the same thing All of his props are shot right there with the actual actors. I mean, some prop setups, they do them at the end of the fucking shoot and they're like, Oh yeah, we have to go back to that set and get to a closeup of that beer can. Okay, Okay. And they, they don't like reserve the last few days for just insert shooting and there's just something about like, especially because a lot of following what happens in it actually does rely heavily on some of the props like there's placement of them that the earring for example. Mm hmm. Yeah. Even when it's not even a sub necessarily. He he shows it to you in a way where. I just don't know why. But, like, I, I will remember that earring. I will remember what it looks like, and I remember where he places it. And this happens in insomnia as well. And. Oh, my God. Like. Like, Yeah, like there's just a certain thing where it's like, if someone was to ask me, Hey, what did that earring look like? And following, I would be able to be fairly specific and in terms of like, Oh yeah, it was, it was like a medium size. It was kind of long, but it was that the ball and it had like a little and I'm like, Why do I remember this earring so vividly? Because I need because he wants you to know what it looks like. So that way, when he places it here and then it comes back at the end, you're not going through that audience thing of being like, Whatever the fuck An earring. I don't remember an earring. Yeah, because. Because with a movie, this if you lose track of something like that, that ending's not going to work because you're not, you have to keep track of all these Macguffins. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And This is a crazy conversation to have. All about props. No, but it's really cool. I mean, they're so important and so little to especially his early stories. No, I love it. Love talking about getting really, really, like, granular about something like this. I don't know. I don't want to go into too much of what it's about, but I'm I'm sure of all the movies we're talking about today, this is one that is the least seen. And I really want people to go see. It is only 70 minutes long, very high level plot description. It is about a young man known only to us as young man. And he we don't really know why, but he just follows people around seemingly for no reason. And as a result of this, he meets a house burglar named Cobb. That's a character name Nolan really uses for Leonardo DiCaprio and Inception. Nice. I didn't catch that. Yeah, Yeah. And we take off from there, as you said, the construction is so tight, it's so well-edited. That's what makes it so fun. Part of why having a subscription to the Criterion app or owning this criterion is that you can watch this movie in chronological order, which is a lot of fun to do. It not as effective as the non-linear cut to me. And Nolan also does a commentary for it, which he doesn't do anymore. So those are always fun to listen to. But yeah, really good movie. I'm glad honed in on it, but it fools you. It's like it's smarter than shit. It fools you in ways that seem when when you watch it. I mean if you've only seen it when you go and watch it a second time, you're like, God damn, that was obvious. That was just smacking me right there on the head. But it's like not. It's the way they've set it all up. It's really something else. It's really good movie you see in such a contains filmmaking showcased by Nolan, you can see all of his isms that he will bring out later in his even more micro work to his work. It's it's all in there like it's all and I love that I love the early directors work where you see their things and then you see how they graduate to making them bigger and better and they're in their following films. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Okay, real quick, just to get a prompt going because I actually, I have a guess, but I don't know this. What was the first Christopher Nolan movie you watched and went like, when did you become aware? Aware of Nolan? Oh, what a good question. Um, it's right there in the outline. Yeah, I know, But sometimes I like to be surprised. That means he opens it right before we start recording. That's not true. 100% not true. I have all of you know. You know what I'm naming? I'm not even going to. I don't. I'm not going to. Don't take the bait. Don't take the bait. I'm not going to take the bait. I shouldn't. I shouldn't. Dating you. It had to be memento same. It had to be. Yeah. Yeah. Because I didn't I just didn't know if you got in that early. Yeah. Yeah. It was definitely that. Because I remember when Batman Begins came out when I was like, Oh, who's directing the new Batman movie? And is Christopher Nolan? Christopher Nolan? Who the hell is Christopher Nolan? Know that name? And and I was like, Oh, that's the Memento guy. Yeah. And that's when I had a feeling. I was like, Oh, okay, maybe we're going to get something a little cool. Dallas. I mean, we'll get to that whole Batman thing. But I mean, that was a big deal at that time was huge. You're coming off of the Joel Schumacher or versions of Batman, which were, I mean, as entertaining as they were, they did not put Batman in the best light in terms of the way that the public viewed Batman. But anyways, we're getting ahead of ourselves until. Yeah, until our guy brought him back. Okay. Yep. My first Nolan was Memento as well. Certainly. Oh, God. A second prompt here. But I mean, yeah, they're. They're in tandem. I want to know why you like Christopher Nolan. Why do you like these movies? Very general. Basic mine. I've already actually made one of my big points, which was that I loved that he worked with Warner Brothers for all that time and was able to make all those movies. But I loved, you know, that he started out by making a micro-budget movie with his friends, and that led to a smash indie that got nominated for an Oscar. Then he remade a beloved foreign film and nailed it. And then, yes, he takes on a relatively dreaded comic book hero to write in terms of how he's been portrayed cinematically at the time. He takes that on, and then he just moves on to make these really big original films. Like I know Oppenheimer's based on something, but it's not as high of IP as Batman or Superman. Yeah, you know, he's making this much more original content and we've already gotten into my main reason, which is that there's really only one. Christopher Nolan I have in my heart, I believe that maybe Damien Chazelle will get there, God willing, given bigger budgets to make. I mean, Babylon is out. As outrageous as you get. Love you all hail, Babylon, all hail. I hope that he is one who's emerging. I don't know. We're to see. But Nolan's like, I'm not interested in TV. I'm interested in making movies. I'm interested in really pushing boundaries in terms of time structure. So yeah, that's why I like him. I have never seen a Christopher Nolan movie that I didn't like, at least in some capacity. This is a guy who's who has ideas, huge, complex ideas, and he does his best to put them to film. There hasn't been one Nolan movie that I've seen where I don't admire the ambition and creativity in original, and if he doesn't actually succeed, he comes really close to actually nailing what he set out to do. He tries every time. Yeah, big swings, huge swings. I mean, and, and we go from this micro level of doing that with like Memento and even still following following. It's got some crazy, unique original ideas in terms of time and things like that. As he gets bigger and bigger and bigger, now he's just this guy that's like, All right, I am operating on the biggest scope of any director living currently, and I think that that's true. I don't think that there's any other director who is putting forth big blockbusters with these huge types of ideas. No There are, like him emerging. I forgot a big one Jordan Peele would love to be doing. Oh, Chris Brown. And he may. I mean, nope was a huge swing. They gave him a ton of money for that IMAX. He had the same cinematographer that Nolan currently uses, you know, So there's some similarities there for sure. So that that is what I like about Nolan and I. And some people say some of his stuff is unoriginal at times. I bark up against that because I'm like, okay, he might be taking things from other things, but that's what every artist does. And are they doing it like him? Are they doing it as cool as Nolan does it? Are they doing it on this scope that no one does? No, they're not. They never have and they probably never will. So yeah, so that's my argument when anyone kind of comes up against his, his scope in in and ideas. Yeah I love that. All right next question. My answer short. Why do you in parentheses sometimes hate Christopher Nolan? My short answer is I don't I don't hate any of his films. I'm able to acknowledge some of them contain very silly elements that I cannot There's just no denying it, that whether it's a plot point, whether it's a performance whether it's the way that someone dies on camera, some of the stuff that he puts in his movies, I just kind of shrug and roll my eyes and go, okay, that had to be in there. I mean, that that was a choice. But it doesn't ruin the movie for me. And that's so I wouldn't apply the word hate to him. I'm not going to apply the word hate. Okay. There are two particular movies that one I really don't care for and another one that I want to like so much I want to like. It's so much more than I do, but there's just some things that happen in it that just I'm like, I can't see the plot holes that are there are a little bit too much for me to forgive because I actually think that the most part there are all of these flaws in all of Nolan's movies. Almost all of them. Oh, there's there's a few that are they're pretty perfect. And one of them being in my top ten favorite movies of all time. Right. And I forgive it. Yeah, I forget it. So I guess the question that I frame for myself when I'm watching one of his movies is where is my line for what I'm willing to kind of forgive in terms of some of these holes? Why am I not able to do it for some of these? Like, what is that? And that's all my stuff. But at the end of the day, it's really, really hard for me to like come out of some because even one of these movies, the one that I have big issues with, there are moments that happen in that movie that I'm like, Well, fuck it. That's just one of the cinematic moments I've ever seen in any movie ever. Yeah, he and it's like, it's undeniable, right? He can remind you how good of a filmmaker he is, even if what watching isn't your vibe. Like, you know, I ask, whenever we're going to do a director, I always ask my dad like his thoughts on it, and he goes, Memento changed movies. The Dark Knight is a masterpiece and Dunkirk was too damn loud. He just does it. Yeah, it wasn't for him. He didn't like it. He's like, I got it. I got what he was doing. It was just too loud. Too much noise, not enough character for me. And he considers himself a Nolan fan. And that's, you know, I think that's fair. That's what so that's why he makes for having such an interesting conversation about because we can go down so many different roads about flaws here, flaws there, and, you know that there will be no Cape Fear level discussion today. That's a callback to our armed Forces pod. No, because I can't. I know the two movies you're referencing the ones you have major problems with. And I'm not here to, like, fight you on them because I will likely agree but be able to forgive, that's all. And I'll do my best to not be mean That's okay. That's what that's another thing. It's like this is going to be a loser directors episode because a lot of these movies are very popular and they've made lot of money and they've, you know, in a lot of people have engaged in fierce discussion about them. So it's just going to go where it's going to go. You know, I will guide if you're being impolite or inelegant, guide me, guide you. Nolan has a writing credit on every movie he's made except insomnia. Insomnia which was written by Hilary Zits. But still. That's awesome. Like, that's crazy. That's why there's a kinship between Nolan and Tarantino that Tarantino talks a lot about and Paul Thomas Anderson, because they're all writer directors, not just directors. I love that no one has made 11 feature films. Oppenheimer will be his 12th. But of those first 11, ten of them were eligible for Oscars. Following, of course, was not. Of those ten, only two of them have not been nominated for Oscars Insomnia and The Dark Knight Rises. Well, their most expensive film, The Dark Knight Rises, reported$230 million budget biggest box office, The Dark Knight, which had 1.006 billion in gross but then rises, had 1.081 billion. So apparently rises barely wins out there, but it was much more expensive to make. So you do the math. Three Nolan films tied for the most Oscar nominations. The Dark Knight, Inception and Dunkirk all received eight, But Inception is the most awarded with four Oscars total. Will Oppenheimer be nominated for more than eight? We're going to see I Better could. I think Oppenheimer might have a real, real Oscar contender if it ends up being as good as as we all think it's going to be. Yeah, who knows? Like serious Oscar contention picture director? I don't know. But it is a period piece made by inarguable Master filmmaker. So you're talking costumes, art, direction, talking to all those Oscars. Cinematography is undoubtedly a given score. Perhaps, you know, it could get all those technical editing. Of course, if you get a lot of those technical ones and still maybe beat eight, I don't know. We're going to see. I think it could, though he's collaborate with his brother, Jonathan Nolan, on a number of scripts, Memento, which was based on Jonathan Short story, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar. Jonathan is probably best known now for creating HBO's Westworld. But that's cool little brother Combo there. Yeah, interesting to see interviews with them because Jonathan talks with a fully American accent and Christopher does not. So that's fun. Oh, that's interesting. Just some fun trivia there. Now we're doing things a little differently. It's a slightly different format. We've gone past 100 episodes and that's what we're doing. So the beginning is the end or the end is the beginning. I don't know. But we're going to write Christopher Nolan right now. Nolan of you. Yes. How? Nolan of me. Everyone will know we're going to rank them right up top here. Before we talk about the filmography up to you, how much explanation you want to get to knowing that we will eventually get to the explanation. Or have we already gotten to the explanation? Have we? It's all in versed. It all is. We're not including Oppenheimer here. Obviously. We haven't seen it and it would be fun. I'll put that in the outline for the Oppenheimer podcast, kind of predict what Oscars it could be nominated for. But for now, let's rank them. We'll go back and forth 11, ten, nine, leading us all the way to one. You want to go first? You know what? I've been going first for 100 episodes. My number 11 is going to surprise you. Is it really? Yes, it was hard fought battle, but it is indeed. The Dark Knight Rises. Oh, yeah. My least favorite Nolan film. However, I know you don't usually give like letter grades to movies. I, I always did on my blog. So I just want to put into context that if I was giving a letter grade to these movies, I would give the Knight Rises a B. So while it is my quote unquote least favorite Nolan film, that is not a movie I dislike, I quite like it for reasons we will talk about or we already have talked about. But yes. What's your number 11. My number 11 with a bullet is The Dark Knight Rises. Yeah, I figured I figured in where Oh, we're going to get to the reasons why I can't wait to hear that. One of the first conversations you'd I ever had was about that movie. Boy, did you get passionate. I was like, I'll never forget that. We were driving down Sunset and I was like, God damn, he's fucking fired up. We're drive down Santa monica scouting for there I go, Santa monica. And I was like, Man, he's fired up about this movie. I remember the number ten. For me, this is crazy, but it's Batman Begins. And yeah, this is something that I realized rewatching for this pod. Yeah. Batman begins again. Not talking smack. It's I give it a B or higher, but yeah, Batman begins my number ten. I hate I hate to say it, but I'm going to. It's Interstellar. Oh, wow. Can't say I'm surprised. Yeah, Yeah, I'm yeah. That's a tough one. That's a tough one. That's a tough one. But hey, it made the top ten hardy fucking hard. It's only 11. All right, help me out here. The dark Rises will get to. If you had to give a letter grade to Interstellar, if you were grading it, like, what would you give it? And you can use pluses minuses. I'm just curious for context and. You can say anything. I don't care. You can give it a fucking D-minus. No, no, no, no, no. Because. Because that's the thing. I don't think Interstellar is a bad movie. Here's a hint. As we go down our list I have given one of these movies a D minus at one point in their lifetimes. And I will explain. I, I will give Interstellar a B minus. Okay. Okay, cool. That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. Just wondering now. Yeah. It's getting crazy for me because I love these. I mean, one through nine. I just love these movies. Number nine for me is following. Oh, wow. I know, I know, I know. I really like that movie. I watched that movie three fucking times in, like, four days. It was great. Wow. Didn't. That's kind of high up there, though. Thanks. I know you feel worse. Well, I know what you're going to put here. No, I don't. I don't think you do. You know, it's funny that we're doing this and we're talking about these movies because I don't really like my placement for any of these because I had trouble visiting. I had trouble I my top three locked in. It's always been that way. Always. It got dicey for me around four or five. Six. Yeah. I'm actually in in the middle of like reprocessing my four or five and six. I really, really like this movie and I don't like that I have it in my number nine spot, but I'm putting number nine and putting Dunkirk. Oh wow. Okay. Okay. That's that one hurts. That one hurts. Number eight for me. Yeah. A movie I love had a fantastic time rewatching it. The Prestige. Oh yeah. Yes, yes. I don't know. I get it. I get it. What about you? Number eight? I'm going with a movie that I need to see a second time. But upon first viewing, I liked it. That's Tenet. Yeah. Oh, God, I can't wait to talk about that. I'm so excited to get into that one. I am. I have I have a lot of thoughts and just, you know, leading right into my number seven Tenet movie that I fucking hated the first time I saw it. Oh, my God, We'll talk about it. Holy shit, I hated that movie. And what an about face I've had with it and I honestly wanted to put it higher then I was looking. I was like, It can't get knocked out. It can knock that out really. But yeah, seven for me. Tenet a movie I adore now and watch constantly. Yeah God all my number seven Batman Begins. Okay. Okay. All right. Number six for me. Wow. Way higher than I imagined. Inception. Oh, no, man. I don't know, Donald. Say, I love it. Yeah, I mean, give it an A. I would give it. We're in a status now. I'd give that movie in a Inception. All right, All right. My number six. And this is kind of crazy. I, I didn't think that this would happen. Number six, The Dark Knight. Oh, fuck. Thought it'd be way higher. No, no. Wow. So more of a fan of Heath as opposed to the movie overall, perhaps? Yes. Yes, but. But I have it's tough because, like, there's a there's a there's a really personal like, moviegoing experience moment I've had with that movie. So I'm also thinking about has that has how they age over time too. So but we'll get into all of that. That's a huge one. That's a huge aspect of the how all these rewatches did for the past, you know, 3 to 3 weeks younger, five for me, Dunkirk. I'm like your top five. Really like it? Yeah. Yeah, it did. It did. Which surprised me? I did not know. Inception. I thought Inception sure. Make the top five. But you know, Dunkirk it is. So now that we're breaking the top five, I have a similar. I am shocked that this movie made my top five and that's the prestige. Wow. Yeah. I mean, I love that movie. I love it. It's it's tenuous right now. Yeah, I bet this is a big about face. Oh, really? Not a fan. Originally, I was a fan, but I had a giant issue with and I had since kind of figured it out. And this last rewatch that I had, I was just like, This is this is good shit. Honestly, that was my favorite rewatch of the past few weeks of his work. I mean, I a lot of I had not seen following in ten years. I had a really fun time with that. But the prestige I, I had forgotten shit. Yeah, for sure. Number four for me, The Dark Knight. Yeah. For, for rewatch alone it is endlessly rewatchable, remember? Well, I don't want to the full story, but you know, you've never been in that apartment you're sitting. It varied out. Yeah, Yeah, just. We were trying to find a movie to watch very late at night or early in the morning, I should say. We had just come home from, I believe, a show of some sort and just said, You want to watch that dark night? Yeah. Yeah. Just like that. 330 in the morning. Oh, memories. You definitely had to be there for that one, but. Well, all right. Number four for me, I felt weird putting this one here just because I had just seen it. And I was like, This might be one of those impulse ones. So I'm a little I'm a little hesitant, but that's how much I liked it. And that's following. Cool. It's a movie. It's great. And the fact that he made it for $6,000 total, 3000 of that was on production. Another three was in post is wild. There's a lot of the reason why I like it is for reasons like that. It's the fact that this was his first movie. What he did with it. What? Like there were just tiny little things about this that I was like, I'm just eating all that up as a first time filmmaker. So I'm kind of reading it on a certain level, but I that's how much I appreciated it. So we'll see if that changes over time. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't have the technical bravado of Tennant, obviously, but they didn't have the money for it and what he achieves with that budget. Yeah, fascinating. It's like what Primer did with time travel following does with you like the noir film. Yeah. It's you know this on. Wow. It's so, it's so cool. Even that final shot I was listening to the commentary this is not a spoiler but how they achieved that. He's like, Oh yeah, if you need to do that, shoot someone in a crowd without the crowd knowing, just put the camera way down and then you point up at them in the crowd like, can't tell what you're doing. I'm like, Oh my God, quick and smart. And then smart. So that's all they did. And they put him so far away and used a huge, a very, very long lens. And they just put the camera down at like waist level and pointed it up. So no one knew. They filming and you can't see anyone's face like that. It's like, oh that, that's, that is something I could very practically use on the next thing I shoot. If we're doing something, you know, guerilla style, like in the wild, do shit like that. I love that. So I think it's cool that it ranked that highly. The reasons why I love the movies you haven't mentioned yet, so this is exciting. Number three for me, insomnia. More people need to talk about insomnia. I love this movie. We're going to get into it. Oh my God, do I love it? A director for hire job. And he it and a remake at that and he nailed it. Funny. It's your number three because it's my number three as well. Oh, very good. It was an amazing watch. I yeah, I have some fun shit to talk about that related to the extras on the movie, what was it, a remake of Insomnia, a 1996 film starring Stellan Skarsgard in The Lead, A Norwegian movie directed by Eric Stuhlbarg, is, I believe How You Say It's a Norwegian film follows a lot of the same beats. I obviously solved Nolan's version first, but then it's a Criterion release so you can find it. It's probably on the Criterion Channel, but it was an early criterion release and it's great. It's very, very, very similar. It doesn't have the same cool shit that no one does with time or yeah, with focus or putting you like in that state of mind that dormers. And it's just. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So I love. That's your number three. Number two. Oh, let's duke it out. It's Interstellar. Oh my, guy, I'm dead serious. Oh, we'll get into it. Oh, we'll get into it. I everything I can as Sue, we've talked it before. Over our years of friendship. I have assumptions about all the points you bring up on it, and I can't fight you on any of them because I agree. They just don't hold as much weight for me. They're not as severe. That's. I don't know. I don't know. I have another reason why I found a newfound appreciation for it in the past couple weeks. So, yeah, Interstellar, in my opinion, the biggest swing of his career thus far. And and when we do talk about that one, I will talk about not just the things that I have issues with, but also the things that, God damn it, like there are things in that movie that just get me in ways that his other movies don't. So like, that's why it's a very, very strange, strange thing. But number two. Wow. All right, all right, all right. I know we get it, man. You fucking love Topher Grace. We have. Yeah, it is. Does it for you? Absolutely. Does it for you. You, Rebecca. That's my number two. Number two. Number two for you, I guess number two for me is. A solid, solid number two spot memento. You can be my John G. I figured. I figure my number one surprise, surprise. Yeah. You know, of course, he's done bigger movies. He's done movies that much more people have seen. But I agree with my dad that Memento changed cinema really did. It really messed with structure in a way. It wasn't the first movie to do the reverse thing, but man, he brought it into this case in a way that like almost every director tried their hand at in some fashion to be like, All right, he did it. So now we all have kind of license to do it. But again, it was an indie movie made for next to No Money. And I just got done rewatching it and it fucking rocks. It does. It holds up like there's nothing like that first time viewing with it. But Then the rewatch ability of that movie is still great. Like it even when you know what happens, it still works. Yeah. Number one for you and my number one, there's no surprise here. Any one of our mad movie buffs know that Inception is in my top ten favorite movies of all time. And so it is number one with the bullet inception of It's Air. You go. I was going to ask if it was still holding strong in your all timer status. Christopher Nolan Well, it's been, it's been a journey, folks. Has it ever love him or hate him? He's got a new movie coming out up and Heimer, I have been very excited to talk with you on Mike about Nolan for since we started the pilot because Nolan Christopher Nolan, again, love him or hate him, is a very, very big filmmaker and almost everyone who watches movies seems to have an opinion on him. One Of the things I love about the Nolan aura is that a lot of his most loyal fan base will like cite you if you dislike a movie, But then some of those same people, some of the people in that fan base fan base will wholeheartedly rejected Nolan movie. Yeah but you hate that movie more than anything so they'll go for these total pollers of this is one of the best movies ever made too. This is one of the biggest pieces of shit ever. And I enjoy that spectacle as a spectator. That's one of the things I love about it. But we're here to talk about it. How you feel it? Oh, I'm feeling great. I mean, he's such an interesting guy to talk about with this. He's not really our typical director profile that we would do. No, he's a huge, big budget director. Yeah, I think he's an important one because I think he's the one director that we have today that his name directing sells the movie. Yes, there used to be directors that could do this. I think Quentin Tarantino was one, you know, anymore. Spielberg was I mean, yeah, back in the day, it's like Spielberg. I mean, directors used to be event ties in a way that does not exist anymore, I would say, except for the man we're talking about today. Exactly. Because it doesn't matter who's in his cast like he really does. And he's going to star. He's going to put a bunch of stars in it. But honest to God, it wouldn't matter if they were no name actors because they're like, Oh, well, I mean, one of them was Dunkirk, Dunkirk. I mean, he essentially did that with all of the leads in Dunkirk. One of them is a very, very famous pop star. But he didn't know that really at the time. He just cast him because he doesn't want to get auditioned. Yeah. Yeah So it's really amazing in a time where movies are we're in a very, very unstable time with movies that we have one director that people will to the theaters no matter what the content of the movie is, just because it's the new Christopher Nolan movie. Well, that theory, I agree with what you just said that's going to be put to the ultimate test. We are recording this just a few short days before Oppenheimer is released. His 12th feature film, It's a $100 million movie, about a guy born in 1904. A lot of it is in black and white. It's rated R, his first R-rated movie since Insomnia. So going to it's coming out the same day as Barbie. A lot has been made about that. Barbie going to people shouldn't be like, what's going to win the box office? It's a competition. Barbie's to blow it out of the water. It's PG 13 and as anyone in everyone's going to go to that from little kids on up to even some grandparents, I bet. Oppenheimer is a tougher sell. It's long, it's 3 hours. It's rated R, so we're really going to see how the fan base shows up and reacts to this one. I'm excited as all hell I get very excited for any Christopher Nolan movie, so I'm pumped. I'm ready. Well, this is an interesting thing. Before we even move on to knowing this, the whole Barbie Oppenheimer situation, because I remember thinking when I found out that they were going to be released on the same day, I go, How could the studios be so stupid? Like taking two movies that are guaranteed to be big box office successes and you're putting them up against each other? I was like, You're going to cancel each one out because I don't know how many people are going to go see two movies in one weekend. I just thought it might have been a misfire. But in last month of leading up to all this, the whole narrative is which one are you going to see first? Are you going to see Oppenheimer? Are you going to see Barbie? You to double feature it? Even Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise, it's like the best thing ever used. Like, I'm going to do both. I'm going to go on a Friday night in a jam packed theater the way movies are intended, like selling it, just selling the whole thing. I go, I know damn well Tom Cruise is not going into a movie theater. No, no. Go say hi. Get some press photos that leave. He's not going to sit there for three and a half hours of previews and watching his ex-wife introduce the movie before he gets that. No, absolutely not. Can I put this into a little more context for you? Well, I sure hope you would about why Barb and Heimer is happening. Christopher Nolan plans his movies out very far in advance. He has booked the release date of Oppenheimer. I'm going to see it on July 20th. Its official release date is July 21st. That Friday. This has been planned for years. Tom Cruise is currently a little mad or a lot of mad at Christopher Nolan because Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning part one, which I have seen, is only in IMAX theaters for one week because Oppenheimer is knocking it out, because Oppenheimer had dibs. It was there first because Nolan books his dates out so far in advance. Oh, my God. Warner Brothers and Christopher Nolan have had one of the most sacred relationships of recent Hollywood history. They've made all of his movies post insomnia, all of them. They've take it. They let him. He negotiated a deal with them where he would do three comic book movies. And in the middle of that, he'd be able to venture off in between each movie. He'd be able to venture off and go make one of his weird original movies. They let him do that. Then the pandemic happens and he gets pissed that Warner Brothers essentially announces, We are releasing all of our theatrical movies on streaming. They were the first company to do that. I don't know if you remember that. And it was going to be on HBO. Yes, they were going to release them in the theaters and on streaming at the same. Yeah. For decimating the box office, which is kind of what happened to Tenet. I mean, it was also October 2020. Not a lot of people showed up. Okay. Christopher Nolan, while he is a very known director, he's not like an enfant terrible director where he's going around talking shit all the time. He doesn't do that, but he goes to the press and talks mad shit about Warner Brothers, says, How dare they do this without asking directors permission? And they put it on the worst streaming service. HBO Max literally said this. So Oppenheimer is the first non Warner Brothers movie Christopher Nolan has directed in decades. It is being released by Universal. Would you like to take one goddamn guess what studios releasing Barbie Warner Brothers? Well, yeah. So there's a huge sub back channel fuck you's going on with. This is Eddie saying Patty, Patty And no one knows this. Nolan is he has two, but he's not going on the offensive. There's no reason to just own it. I mean, they could have. We've had a pretty dry summer in terms of releases. The mission Impossible movie helped a little bit. We're going to see how much money it makes. I mean, it was good to see that it was it's a really good movie, so it was fun to go to that. But it's been a pretty bare few weeks. They could have released this two weeks ago, two weeks from now. It's just it's hysterical. It's all Hollywood pettiness. But that's why Barb and Heimer is happening. Christopher Nolan didn't do anything, did trash. He did trash Warner Brothers in the press. He did do that. But he had this release they booked ages ago, ages. So so really the the shit talking that he did to Warner Brothers is now Warner Brothers revenge for with Barbie. Correct. Oppenheimer's Date Correct. That's great. That's the underlying narrative to all of this. Yes. That is why is so so fucking Tom Cruise though this is crazy. I love this this is this is great stuff. I didn't know any of this yet. So, I mean, I can't help but feel for the Tommy see right here, because. Well, I mean, that man's on a mission to save movies, and this is a huge deal. This Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning part one. And you're right. Like it's getting one solid week in IMAX theaters before Oppenheimer takes over. Now, however, here's the meaning. Yeah. Let me add another caveat. Oppenheimer Strictly, because it is rated R in 3 hours long and dead reckoning, part one is it's no slouch. It's I think, 2 hours and 47 minutes, but it's PG 13 and it will undoubtedly get more asses in seats than Oppenheimer. So it could very well end up back in those IMAX theaters. Another thing, another thing I got to say, Mission this new Mission Possible was not shot on IMAX. It was not or I did not know that I went and saw it on an IMAX screen. It did not take up the whole and it was filmed for IMAX. So they're very careful wording there. I don't if they shot it on IMAX cameras, they scaled it down to the Cinemascope ratio to 35. I don't know why you would ever do that. I was talking with Dan about this like all day yesterday. I don't know why someone would do that, but it read it is a huge stink about it. But now to my memory and recollection, there were no scenes in that movie that took up that whole giant IMAX screen, whereas I'm told the entire fucking thing is shot in IMAX. It was like how many rolls of film was like the negatives, like millions of feet or something like that. It's crazy. Like, it's a lot a lot of film. So that's a different tomb. So I just counterbalanced myself there. Maybe Oppenheimer will stay in longer because it's going to look a lot cooler than dead reckoning. I can almost guarantee that. Oh, I am pissed. I just. I'm going to see Dead Reckoning today with Dan, and we bought tickets in IMAX too. Well, this is why he and I were talking about it. He's like, So did I just pay for IMAX tickets with a movie that isn't in IMAX. And I go, well, they this is what they used to do all the time is scale movies up to make them look and sound good on the IMAX screen. But the the Oppenheimer trailer, for instance, is in IMAX and in IMAX sound. And that trailer sounded better than anything in debt reckoning and I'm not talking shit on Dead Reckoning. I like that movie. I like it a lot. I had a lot of fun with it. It's a great Mission Impossible movie. It's exactly what you want it to be, but it was not shot. If it was shot with IMAX cameras, it was not being projected that way. I don't it don't ask me, man. It's some weird shit. The internet is really crazy over it, though. Well, I think that's where that technical language comes in, where it says filmed for IMAX was Oppenheimer says shot on IMAX. I don't know. I don't know. You know, wouldn't we all like to film something for IMAX? Even if we shot it on our phone? Wouldn't we like to film it for IMAX? It's just it's all Hollywood bullshit, man. Welcome to the show Battleship Corner. This, this, this is this is. This is just. Oh, my God, I am. I can't do anything. So we've got a long ways to go, buddy. Back to Christopher Nolan here is going to move forward. Hey, everyone, welcome to what are you watching? I'm Alex witt. Third, I'm joined by my best man, Nick Dostal. How are you doing, John? Jeez, you can be my John G here. I feel like you've been accepted me to be here. So I'm an accepted to be here. Oh, you're got ah, you said you didn't want to do this, that I'd go at some crazy fever dream. I mean, how much did they spend on that mission? I mean, seriously, you calculate when Ken Watanabe buys the airline, they must have spent, like, billions of fucking dollars. You pull that off. Oh, billions. I love it. Yeah, it's billions, whatever. But once you got a corporate that who's just got the money, it doesn't matter how much. It's just all happening. It just all happening. You got to do it. You got to do. Business goes forward. No, I was I.