Disrespectfully Agree
Disrespectfully Agree
DA: Ep. 22 - The Hazard of Duke (BlacKkKlansman review)
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Welcome to disrespectfully agree with Oatman and LJ. I am L.J. and across from me is Mr Oatman
OatmanOatmoninov the Great
L.J.We're talking this week about BlacKkKlansman
OatmanYeah, say that.
L.J.directed and co written by Spike Lee. This is a spike Lee joint and I think in the opening bit it said a joint based on a for real for Real Story.
OatmanYes.
L.J.I think I heard this story years ago on an NPR something or other. The movie's about Ron Stallworth. He was the first black police officer, I think in the Colorado Springs area back in the seventies, and he decides to basically go undercover on the phone with the klan to kind of infiltrate that network of perceived terrorists possibly at the time and high jinks ensue. We'll start off with some spoiler free or mostly spoiler free conversation. Then we'll switch over to spoilers. Let you know when that happens.
OatmanDamn that. He's a black man. He's not white.
L.J.Oh,
Oatmanspoiler alert. I gave it away.
L.J.This is the title problem again. You did see the title?
OatmanOh yeah, that's right. black Klansman.
L.J.Yeah,
Oatmanfair point. [laughs] Thought I was given something away there. Maybe not. Oh, David Duke is in it. He's a racist. I'm telling you that now. I'm putting that out there.
L.J.I think that's well known.
OatmanIs that well known?
L.J.I think people know that
Oatmanit's not a spoiler?
L.J.No
OatmanAlright.
L.J.I mean he was head of the KKK.
OatmanAlright? There's that. I mean, I guess if you're going to judge somebody just on their job, fine,
L.J.Well, it's like if you're the. If you're the head of a group of cobblers, you kind of expect them to know how to put a shoe together. Oatman. How was the film?
OatmanI enjoyed it. I think it's part of sort of a new, maybe not new, but expanding art form or genre, if you will. A good buddy of mine named David Williams, a fabulous playwright out of the Pittsburgh area, did a paper once I read on Ab realism about something that's essentially starts in a fairly realistic setting and pretty soon sort of spins out into this increasingly fantastic world and situations that occur and this reminds me of that. In some ways it reminds me of that Stalin moving death of Stalin. It has some elements of that. I think it also has some elements of drunk history to a degree where sort of a real world, but it's also very fanciful in some ways with almost a comic sensibility imposed on top of it. This is what this film has shades of. I don't know that it fits that perfectly, but I think it has some elements to it that remind me of that stuff.
L.J.It's totally kind of all over the map.
OatmanIt is
L.J.a little bit and I don't necessarily think that's bad.
OatmanIt's not. It's tonally all over the map. I mean it goes from almost ludicrous and silly to comic to serious
L.J.Yeah, there's certain scenes where it's just like, okay, we're doing prank calls. Everybody gathered around the phone, we're going to laugh
Oatman[laughs] exactly
L.J.to Oh, all right. There's something real happening here.
OatmanEven the visual language of the film has an over the top almost comic feel to it at times. To me, the way in which some of the scenes are shot, like the opening scene is him sitting here and these two fat guys on the other side, not fat guys, but these two older guys that are on the other side and they're kind of looking at him and they're shooting these questions. The whole feel of that scene feels like it's from a comic film as opposed to something more serious and then you get other films that are just deadly serious. I mean, and then they all mixed together in this hodgepodge of story making and some might be tempted to say that it's a mess
L.J.[laughs]
Oatmanand in a sense. It is, but it works, I think. I think it works here. I think it's a purposeful mess if you will, of different styles and. But all of it has a surrealistic sheen that's over almost every scene in some way.
L.J.It's an interesting hodgepodge. There are many very traditional scenes and kind of traditional narrative moments in editing stuff, scenes where the tension builds and there's intrigue and there's action and all of that, and then there's also a series of sequences here and there that are just kind of like, we're just going to do this for awhile. I'll give two examples. One is early in the film, Stallworth attends a speech given by a member of the Black Panthers
Oatmanand they do that whole faces Motif,
L.J.they do the faces Motif, which seemed a little bit indulgent for me, but
Oatmana little bit, [laughs]
L.J.a little indulgent.
OatmanIt's a lot a bit indulge.
L.J.You're right. It had the feel of like what you'd might expect in like a high production value mega church telethon almost. Or you get these vignettes of the silhouetted heads, you know, just with the wide eyes and everything.
OatmanWell, you know what I called it. I called. There are always these moments in a spike Lee film that are just signature pieces. There are pieces to say this is a spike Lee joint and that's what that is. He has certain indulgences that are very just spike Lee and that was a very spike Lee motif kind of moment.
L.J.It's his hitchcock is getting off the bus.
OatmanExactly. I mean he just has sort of, you know, like even at the end of the picture, and I love the scene with that scene where there's a knock at the door and I think
L.J.I want to talk about that in spoilers. Let's.
OatmanOkay.
L.J.I have that moment specifically I want to talk about. And so I was sitting there and I was thinking, are we doing the whole speech? I was like, yeah, we're doing the whole speech.
OatmanOh yeah.
L.J.Okay, fine. I was with it, but there was a scene shortly after that, Ron and his love interest patrice played by Laura Harrier, who you might remember as the girl that Peter Parker takes to homecoming in Spiderman, homecoming. Michael Keaton's daughter.
OatmanI have no clue what your talking about
L.J.You didn't see spiderman homecoming?
OatmanI did, but I didn't remember the girl.
L.J.Michael Keaton's daughter
Oatmanis black?
L.J.Yeah.
OatmanMichael Keaton's daughter is black?
L.J.Yes.
OatmanWhen did that happen?
L.J.What do you mean? That was the whole thing. She, he, Peter Parker's lusting after are pining after this girl, the popular girl in school. That's this girl, Laura.
OatmanNo, I remember that. But
L.J.and he shows up to pick her up. And
OatmanIs that Michael Keaton's Biological daughter?
L.J.Yeah.
OatmanReally?
L.J.Yes. His wife's black.
OatmanNo, no, she's not.
L.J.Yes she was
OatmanMichael Keaton was married to a black woman?
L.J.Yep. How'd you missed this?
OatmanI don't know.
L.J.What the hell happened like that was a whole thing. He opens it. He knocks on her door and there's the vulture standing there. Michael Keaton opens the door and like, oh shit. And it was the whole thing and that's when the movie got good.
OatmanI missed all that. I don't know what you're talking about.
L.J.Wow.
OatmanI missed that whole thing.
L.J.Normally I wouldn't recommend this, but you're gonna have to watch spiderman Homecoming again.
Oatman[laughs] I think I fell asleep.
L.J.Oh, well there you go. [laughs]
OatmanSo that's his daughter in real life?
L.J.Well, in the movie.
OatmanIn the movie. Okay.
L.J.[laughs] Technically not real life. Not Literally.
OatmanOkay, Just caught it. Okay. I'm there. I'm with you.
L.J.In any case, they go to a club or a bar with a club in the back a disco in the back or something and they danced to a song, I forget, it's a great song, I can't remember what it was now, but the lyrics were all, you know, falling in love or whatever and they're singing along to it and that scene lasts forever
OatmanYeah.
L.J.and I guess that's kind of like a replacement for actual scenes in which we see these characters actually fall in love. Like from there, we're supposed to be like, yeah, they're in love. No, they never. At no point did I ever buy their relationship
OatmanNo. I agree.
L.J.and also, I feel like now I'm dumping on the film. I'll come back to things I like, but not for one moment did I ever by Laura Harrier as this militant black activist. The words never felt comfortable in her mouth. The language of the time and just the kind of anger of the time that I would expect to see personified in this character. Never felt real for me.
OatmanThat felt real. I didn't buy the romance. I did buy her as the activist that absolutely felt real and it's layers to it.
L.J.She seems way too sweet.
OatmanThat's why It felt real to me.
L.J.Really?
OatmanYeah. There's, there's sort of a trope [laughs] in the African American community of the angry Mulatto.
L.J.Look, I'm not trying to say she needs to be angry, militant. I'm just saying she just seems like her heart's not in it to me.
OatmanNo, that's why I bought it.
L.J.Oh, okay.
OatmanShe, she plays to me like a lot of tropes that I've seen both in film and also in real life where you run into, uh, this girl who is light skinned and she's gone to prep school her whole life and lived in the suburbs and then all of a sudden she discovers, wait a minute, I'm black. And she. She picks her hair out and she's this radical. and oftentimes.
L.J.So she's putting it. You're saying she's putting on a role.
OatmanThat's how I bought it.
L.J.I see.
OatmanShe's one of those people that, those people are always the most judgmental. They're like new converts. Like they're the, they're the most "You dirty pig!" and she's talking.
L.J.I would have liked to have seen that in this film.
OatmanI thought I saw it. I thought I saw that or for me I kind of.
L.J.I would like to see in the film address it.
OatmanI thought it did.
L.J.Well first let me ask you this. I have not seen a lot of spike Lee's films, so you're going to have to answer this question for me.
OatmanI've seen all of them. Every one.
L.J.Does Spike Lee have a subtle bone in his body?
OatmanHe does
L.J.this film, does not have one. He hits. He hits his themes over the head multiple times. I mean there are scenes that are just like going back to our solo...
OatmanWhat's ironic about it is is you just stayed at one of the most subtle themes of the movie and then said, does he have a subtle bone?
L.J.Because I don't think it's in there.
OatmanIt's there. It's just, you know why you don't see it. It's subtle. [laughs]
L.J.No.
OatmanIt is. It's there. That tension that comes oftentimes and what's really ironic is because you know, Spike Lee is always playing with color games in terms of skin. You know, that's his thing. The wannabes and the Jigaboos and she's clearly a wannabee and he's clearly a dark jigaboo who's sort of on the darker side of things and here's this wannabe whose light skinned or a little lighter, who has some level of privilege probably and probably comes from a higher socioeconomic background, talking to an actual Jigaboo who's on the front lines of racism, getting judgemental to him about what racism is and isn't and all of that,
L.J.but neither he nor any of the other characters in the piece seem to imply that dichotomy.
OatmanIt's there.
L.J.I see that you see it there. It's a trope you're familiar with and you see it as there. For me, without that knowledge I have. The film offers no commentary.
OatmanOh I get it. It's subtle
L.J.on that.
Oatmanit's very subtle, but it's a. it's a thing that he's, that he's talked about over and over again. It's a constant theme in his work, so not only is it a trope that I've seen before, being familiar with spike Lee's work it's a theme that he has talked about in jungle fever it's a theme he's talked about in school days, certainly it's a theme that he hit over and over and over in do the right thing and all of these different films. He's always playing. He's. He's. He wrote an entire musical number that's all about that.
L.J.Maybe the reason it's not there enough for me is because he feels like, well, I've established this already.
OatmanYeah, it's there,
L.J.but then we get to all of this stuff where
OatmanI think it's clear with her character that she's a bit of a wannabe. She's not a frontline warrior. She's some college student in some mostly white suburb who has her hair picked out and she cares about the movement. No doubt, but she's a bit of a wannabe and she's a newer convert. That's why she's so.
L.J.Yeah. I just. I don't think the film portrays or is that. I really don't.
OatmanI think it does.
L.J.I think it portrays her as the orthodoxy.
OatmanNo, there's nothing in there that really sells her, is that.
L.J.I agree. I think it's. It doesn't work
Oatmanwell, but I think. I don't know that it's supposed to work,
L.J.Yeah, I got you, but I want to go back to if I may, back to our solo review. I said there should be a guy in the corner. Just pointing who's like, "Ehhh. Recognize that?" there's a number of scenes in here and dialogue moments that are just like, "Ehh, this is trump. This is the last election." There are moments or scenes just like, hey, we're going to have a conversation out of nowhere, about 2016.
OatmanI agree,
L.J.and it's as unsubtle and un-nuanced as it gets, and I've been going back and forth on this. I hated it. Initially. My Gut reaction was, this is bad. This is inelegant. This is unnecessary, and I've, I've, I've done some soul searching on this, and I thought, well, maybe that's appropriate. Maybe we need a cudgel on some of these, these ideas, but again, you're. You're much more of an expert on spike Lee than I just based on this film. It seems like the man, if he's got a point to make, he's just going to have his characters say it.
OatmanI think yes and no. I think spike Lee is, is very much a mirror of his films. I think he's a mixed bag. I think at times he can be super subtle and then there are other times in which he hits you with a hammer. I think he does both at the same time, so I think there are a lot of this movie. You're right. It's just a hammer, but I think a lot of it is fairly subtle. I think almost subtle to the point that you missed some of it, especially some of the visual language was really subtle. Some of it was interesting.
L.J.Give me an example.
OatmanI think the way in which everything in the film is done in hyper realization like every afro was super huge.
L.J.was really big.
OatmanWas was huge. I mean, it was almost like a fun house mirror of itself and I don't know that people pick that up immediately. how every image in it as almost a sort of a fun house mirror of itself.
L.J.Well John David Washington, the guy plays Ron Stallworth and son of Denzel. He is doing almost a cartoon caricature voice for most of it. Even when he's not playing the white guy.
OatmanAbsolutely.
L.J.He is doing something that's very kind of put on a little bit and heightened to an absurd degree.
Oatmanbut it's consistent for everybody.
L.J.I got Ya.
OatmanYeah. Every character is almost a hyper realized version, but it's one of those things where he doesn't go so far that it slips into farce, but it's far enough that it's not quite rooted in a straight drama
L.J.There's one scene that I I want to talk about when we get into spoilers.
OatmanOkay.
L.J.But yeah.
OatmanBut yeah, he uh, he finds this, he operates in this weird middle place and it comes back to where I talked about my friend David Williams, ab realism, where it's in this weird place where it's not quite rooted in reality, but it's not quite far enough to be open farce and it's operating in this weird middle space. But he keeps that tone consistently and he holds it pretty much throughout the film
L.J.Well. He keeps the wildly inconsistent tone - very consistently.
OatmanYeah. [laughs] Exactly. And I think that's, that's a skill thing because after awhile, once you, once you realize that it permeates throughout the whole film, it's not by accident, that's something that the filmmaker is intentionally doing that as a lever he is intentionally pulling time and time again.
L.J.It almost feels Brechtian in some senses,
Oatmanabsolutely. It definitely has some, some shades of Brecht certainly,
L.J.which worked against me at times.
OatmanI thought it was okay. I mean, it was one of those things that once he made the, he made the contract with me so early in the film that I finally just said, okay, I'm going to give in to this weird thing and just let it...
L.J.Let's talk about the opening of this film, which I forgot about until I looked at the cast list. Alec Baldwin is in this movie at the beginning plays Dr Kennebrew Beauregard
OatmanI hated the beginning of this film.
L.J.What's going on with that?
OatmanI did not like the beginning. I didn't get it and not only that, what really pissed me off as it as Alec Baldwin. That's what angered me more than anything
L.J.Why?
Oatmanbecause Alec Baldwin is such a multiskilled, multi-tool, multifaceted, amazing actor. He's amazing to look at. He's a really good actor. I just felt like, what a waste. If you're going to take out Alec Baldwin and pay him two or three weekends to do a shoot on your film, do something with him. Don't have them do that shit. I mean, anybody could have did that. I was like, what is this?
L.J.It seemed like just the first salvo against: look at how absurd and stupid these people are,
OatmanBut I didn't even get that from it. And it was just, it was weird. It just, it was one of those things where, and I've had this experience as a director where you have a, you have an idea and a concept and then you're going to do and you're like, well, that didn't work. [laughs] I knew where I was going when I started, but boy, that just went nowhere. And I've done that. I've seen it. we've done that together L.J. We've traveled, [laughs] traveled that road together.
L.J.Yeah. that was an interesting experience.
Oatman[laughs] Like wow, boy did that not Work, but he kept it in for some reason. I guess it's one of those things where it's like, well, it's Alec Baldwin, where am I going to cut it?
L.J.Yeah. that's fair. [laughs]
OatmanBut it didn't work, whatever they were shooting for, it didn't work. And uh, it's one of our greatest living actors. I love Alec Baldwin. I think he does really good work, but that was...that was some garbage.
L.J.I'm not sure what happened there.
OatmanYeah,
L.J.let's jump into spoilers. There's a scene in this movie that I love. It's almost out of place in its sincerity when Ron Stallworth shows up at the precinct with his membership card to the KKK, and he hands it over to Han Solo's kid. What's his name? Adam Driver. And he has this kind of monologue about being Jewish in that community and not really thinking about what that meant and thinking about passing kind of for the first time. And he ends that moment with, "I don't want that." He hands it back. "I don't want this." I thought it was a really strong, poignant... of all the characters in this movie, He's the one that kind of has the biggest arc. I don't think any of the other characters really changed that much, but his moment, that moment right there with him I thought was really strong.
OatmanIt was okay.
L.J.Really?
OatmanIt was fine. I mean it was a little. It reminds me of a scene from don't drink your juice in the hood or whatever that movie was
L.J.[laughs] It was a
OatmanDon't drink your juice in south central or something.
L.J.It's like don't... Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood.
OatmanExactly.
L.J.Got It.
OatmanThere's a scene from that film where they come in and like, "message!" and it just felt like [laughs] it kind of felt like that kind of moment to me it was a real. It was a showy moment in a quiet way, and not that it wasn't good. It was well done. I liked the scene. I'm not knocking the scene, but it just had that I kind of felt, and this is going to come out wrong and I'm going to say it inelegantly first.
L.J.[laughs]
OatmanI could feel the emotional manipulation in that scene. That was the director pulling my strings and I could feel it. It was so sentimental in a way and I was like, okay, I'll go with it. I mean, I'm enjoying it. I'm enjoying the ride. So fine. and Driver's such a good actor.
L.J.I thought He was great in that scene.
OatmanI thought he was wonderful in the whole film.
L.J.Oh yeah, for sure.
OatmanHe's great in this. What is the deal with the other actor though? It was that actor in costume or something
L.J.Which actor?
Oatmanthe other actor that played the other cop on the task force, the older guy.
L.J.You're talking about not Steve Buscemi?
Oatmanis that Steve Buscemi?
L.J.No. It's Michael Buscemi.
OatmanOkay. I mean I was like, why does he look like somebody else?
L.J.He looks like Steve Buscemi [laughs]
OatmanI was like is he wearing... I thought he was wearing some kind of costume or something or like
L.J.I think all of the characters technically we're wearing costumes,
OatmanOh, you son of a bitch. [laughs] I'm saying I thought he was doing something with his face, like he was hiding his face and he was wearing makeup or something
L.J.He's a Buscemi.
OatmanOh well no wonder. That bothered me the whole film.
L.J.[laughs]
OatmanBecause I was like, is there going to be some kind of reveal with him because he looks like
L.J.like Mission Impossible, he's gonna take off his mask
OatmanYeah, he looked like he had...
L.J.[laughs] it was tom cruise the whole time.
OatmanI was seeing Steve Buscemi's face peeking through his face.
L.J.Yeah well. There's a reason it turns out [laughs]
Oatmanand Topher was great by the way.
L.J.Yeah, he was good.
OatmanHe was a very good David Duke.
L.J.Let's talk about ...
Oatmanmaybe a little too good.
L.J.Oh
OatmanNo.
L.J.Me thinks he does protest too much.
Oatman[laughs]
L.J.Let's talk about the birth of a nation scene. There was an interesting article I was hipped to on screencrush by matt singer where he talks about the way spike Lee used this film in this film, and if you're not familiar with birth of a nation, it is one of the one of the first or the first blockbuster in American cinema
OatmanIt's considered the first modern film.
L.J.Okay. The director there employed a lot of new techniques,
Oatmantracking shots
L.J.tracking shots, and one of the techniques he used was parallel editing. Now this film, birth of a nation is racist film and
OatmanOoooh yeaaaah.
L.J.it's incredibly racist and is credited for helping to give rebirth to the KKK in this nation
Oatmanbased on a racist book.
L.J.Yeah,
Oatmanscreened in the White House for Woodrow Wilson
L.J.yeah. and interestingly, during the scene in which the members of the KKK screened this movie, there is a parallel edited scene with Harry Belafonte giving an account of a real lynching, and It didn't occur to me at the time. I mean I understood what he was doing. I understood the technique and why he was putting these two scenes together, but it didn't occur to me until I read this article, I was like, oh, well that's okay now. That's clever. He took the technique that one of the techniques used
OatmanIt was subtle.
L.J.Yeah, it was. I'll grant you that it was. And use that tool to demonize as a tool against the oppressors in a really interesting way. Now that I look on it in retrospect,
Oatmanit was a wonderful scene. Yeah, birth of a nation that was such a groundbreaking film and what's so amazing about it is I think it also speaks to another truth that no matter who you are, black, white or green, you can't be a film maker and not be influenced by that film. That as racist as it was. If you're a black filmmaker, you still cleave to some of the techniques introduced by that film. So even though you may be black in some way you're still a child with birth of a nation. Uh, when you go to make films, which is a fascinating dichotomy and that basically speaks to the history of America. You know, I may be Mike, some black guy from east Cleveland, but I'm still in some ways a child of slave owners. I'm the Child on George Washington and Jefferson and some of the things they do. I'm a child of that, that culture that they created. As a filmmaker, he's a child of D. W. Griffith, which is fascinating.
L.J.Yeah.
OatmanWho by the way, made another film after that to make up for it called Intolerance,
L.J.Really
Oatmanwhich ended up destroying his life. [laughs] He wanted to. He wanted to dispel racist notions, so he made this other epic film called intolerance, which became a disaster. He became an alcoholic and ended up having his life destroyed by this film that decried racism actually in all its forms called Intolerance.
L.J.Interesting.
OatmanLittle bit of Trivia.
L.J.So for as much as I was giving spike Lee grief for being perhaps to bludgeon-ly with his messages,
Oatman[laughs]
L.J.the final bit of this movie was footage of Charlottesville and the
Oatmanmessage!
L.J.Yeah, so we get Charlottesville. We get the footage of the guy. Who was it, who ran over. People forget his name. The guy ran to the crack, killed Brendan to the crime to kill that woman. Uh, so we get that footage and again, it's, it's bludgeon-ly, but I was thinking about it again and in a Laura Ingram, I don't want to get too political, but it's a political film. I guess we have to talk about it. Laura Ingram's, just a couple of weeks ago, Laura Ingram, just a couple of weeks ago on the most popular news network in this country was talking about how portable it is that this country has been subjected to demographic changes that the American people, quote unquote did not ask for and didn't vote for him. Just like, you know, Spike Lee's right. It for as much as I'm, you know, I look at this film like, Oh yeah, we get it. Okay. He's right. I mean, things have gone from underground, this kind of rhetoric to dog whistles to just saying it. People feel comfortable saying this stuff they've created,
Speaker 4which in which they can express that, and it was started some years ago with dog whistles and has graduated to a full articulated language that you can shout at the top of your lungs in the public square.
Speaker 1The mainstream effication of white nationalist rhetoric is real.
Speaker 4Yes. It's just sort of a. In some ways it's kind of nostalgic. Flack is going back to our room.
Speaker 1Oh yeah.
Speaker 4Yeah. That's just. That's all. We're just going back to our roots, which was always there. We just were pretending for 50 or 60. Now we're just kind of settling back into what our history is, what our roots are, and so it's no different than what people were saying in 18, twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, 19 twenties, 19 thirties. The same thing, same rhetoric. A matter of fact, America first, which Donald Trump uses that something he took directly from sort of a racist race based nationalistic, nationalistic idea.
Speaker 1But I don't. I, I want to go out on some kind of positive. No, racism is the new black.
Speaker 4No, didn't
Speaker 1I want to go out on a somewhat positive note here? There was a protest recently. The white nationalists, you know, rally. They were planning it and not as many people showed up and a whole lot of anti protesters did. It was, again, it's a moment in time to scare discouraging. How so?
Speaker 4Because it just means that the reason that that you don't have as many protestors is because they don't have to protest anymore. They can score on Fox. Well maybe that's the reason we're trying to go out on a high. On a positive note. I wish I could. I mean the reason that you only have 20 people gathering there is because they don't have to go to those places to embody those ideas. All they have to do now is, is run for Congress or go on, but instead. Anyway. I mean a year ago that was a lot more fervor. No, they haven't had the level of language and freedom to express their views like five years ago. I don't think a host could have came on there and deal with more anger, did not have any uprising about it. Even on Fox News, you even seen a shift, they're like, you literally have. I have watched in a very short span of time, people go from being tea partiers who hate Barack Obama and not sure that he is a member of the American citizen from reading that he's in some sleeper agent. I've gone from those guys coming out screaming at the top of her lungs to the fact that those guys aren't conservative anymore. They're being ran out of the party now because because they're not stringent enough, guys like corker and the Freedom Caucus, the freedom caucus guys are on the run because they're not conservative and whatever. That means that they're not stringent enough on things like affirmative action or stringent enough on things like immigration. So I've gone from those guys being the far right edge of the party to now almost being liberals. So you got the jeff flakes of the world and the and the corners of the world. They're the establishment now. They're getting rid of so. So that's a shift. That's happened really in the last trip we went from. We went from, we're getting way too political. This movie reviews show. No, but I mean that's the. That's the context of the movie. You're right. I mean that's where, that's where spike Lee's coming from the scene. That's what he's commenting. So yeah, this is sad that there are only 20 people that show up for that rally. So many 20 people because why I go do that when you can run for Congress and you can say the exact same thing David Duke is right. He's right and he's pressing it and when he says, Hey, Donald Trump just stole my material. Everything that I've been running on, he's running on everything. He uses the exact same language. He used the exact same news sources. He is just me with worse here. That's all. But yeah, that's, that's the point that the film is making and you're right. He even has his characters at one point says that we'll have a guy in the White House that are espousing these views and right now that's what you have. We have a white nationalist tutors in the White House and I'm not even saying anything. That's something he hasn't said. I mean, he's, he's a skilled people on both sides. Yeah. He's espousing and defending right. Nationalism and he's done that openly and he never criticizes them, really criticize them. Um, he said that Mexicans are breeders. He called them rapists and murderers first black president didn't belong to this city. I mean, he's been pretty open, you know, Cori, I want to get back to for a second back to the movie. So I'm going to briefly talk about the narrative of the film, which I think doesn't
Speaker 1add up that well. It seems like he's trying to have a traditional kind of thriller conclusion, climax to this thing. But oddly, like if the heroes had done nothing, the same thing would've happened because the bad guys were so bumbling that they'd killed themselves. It was a weird moment. We've got a white woman in this movie. She can't plant the bomb at the house because there's too many things go on. Too many people around. So she goes to the girl's house, but it's too big for them
Speaker 3mailbox. So it was a fun scene and I mean it was almost coen brothers esque that'll thing, so she goes and plants it underneath
Speaker 1the car and then ron style worth you know, and this is actually a great moment, run stallworth stops her and tries to arrest her and then cops come and try to arrest him, which was all very telling and message and all that, but it was fine and then the, the other bad guys show up and park next to the bomb car and surely would have an eye line to the other cops. Like they're going to just go blow up this house. It didn't make any sense in the first place. And then they blow themselves up. Of course, ironically because they're bumbling idiots and it's just like if nothing had happened, if none of the good guys did anything, the same result would have happened.
Speaker 3I suppose that's a point I suppose at some point it just seems like he's
Speaker 1trying to make an action movie or a thriller climax where none exists.
Speaker 3One of our questions would be, and I don't know if this is relevant or not, is what actually happened. Yeah. I had that question too. Sometimes the reason you get an awkward, stupid scene is that the director is foolishly trying to adhere to some level of truth. Yeah. I wondered about that. I thought, well if you're going to do this, just do it. Yeah, that's what I said. If you want to do an action thriller, just make it an action thriller. If it's going to be real, make it real. This was Kinda like trying to do both and it doesn't work, so I'm wondering would actually happen. Is he following some schematic of truth that he's trying to dramatize or whatever because you're right. It was a very awkward scene in some ways and I, and this was
Speaker 1first thing I wanted to bring up, I forgot about was there's a scene where it seems almost out of nowhere where they're at a bar or whatever and the racist cop comes in and start saying some racist stuff and
Speaker 3that was, it was awful. It was awful. And they recorded him say that. That's the worst end of the play or the feel of the film and the chief of police comes out almost like it's a candid camera thing is like, oh, we got you. You're under arrest. Little Rascal. Yeah. And I'm thinking, well first of all, what did he say that is a crime. Exactly. What did he say that is the scope of it. It made no sense. It was just like, Hey, what feel good? Kinda. But it. But it wasn't feeling good. It was so stupid. It was dumb and it didn't make sense for any of the other characters in the scene that none of the characters acted like their
Speaker 1characters. No, it just seemed like a sketch member. I remember when he was saying and stuff too. I'm like, why is Ron Starr? We're sydnor taken that, that makes no sense. Rostow work that we've seen throughout this film would have a deck that guy long time ago. So it was just such a. At first, you know what I thought it was what it looked like. It looked like some kind of weird dream sequence or something. Which brings me to my third point, which you mentioned was the weird kind of Dolly shot. Yes. Were the two. There's talk of some blaxploitation films and stuff and this was the two characters kind of with great songs. It was a great shot, but they're on this Dolly and the camera. They're going along with the camera down this hallway and they see outside the window, this a burning cross of course. And I, and I thought to myself, is this a dream because it was like the stylized thing out of nowhere and maybe as you were saying, it's like this is one of his things with access thing, you know, that's his signature shot. Okay.
Speaker 4Uh, he has a great one. He has them all throughout his films. There's a real great winning Malcolm X, Malcolm X is about to go die at the audubon ballroom. He's on this Dolly and he's just floating. And so he does this shot time and time and time and time and time again. It's a spike Lee shot.
Speaker 1Yeah, it just seemed. I guess he does that with his endings to will. He'll open his endings up to sort of this weird. It just turns into this magical. Yeah, he does that all the time.
Speaker 4Like in school days. The last scene is the character getting up, banging a bill, telling everybody to wake up and then everybody gets up and all the characters come, come out and gather around like what's happening and then he's looking into the camera, say, wake up. That's the end of the film. What the Hell is? And I, I tend to hate those endings. Right. I want something more concrete. I thought this one of the ones that he does, it looks good. I thought it looked good and then it did that transition into the burning. That's okay. That's the spike Lee then I guess.
Speaker 1Yeah. And then there's that scene back at the precinct when they're all lights patting each other on the back and high fives and shaken hands and laughing and all that. And I'm just like, this doesn't seem right. That one was
Speaker 4a little closer for me, but I get what you're saying. The tone of it was weird. Was Weird. Like you could almost do that same scene, but it's the way in which it was done that just seemed totally off
Speaker 1and maybe it's just because it came right after the scene where they, but not only that, the lead actor is totally interesting. He's kind of. Yeah, it he. He shifts tonally in weird way. He goes back and forth between being in a comedy. It's like his performance is like. It goes also from comedy to drama back and forth, but it's been brought up before that, but that Chappelle show schedule of the black guy who's secretly a Klansman, the blind, a black klansman. There were times where I Washington almost dived into that kind of Chappelle show when Chappelle does a white guy voice.
Speaker 3Absolutely. There are times when we could have easily been a chappelle sketch. Yeah, easily. Not just by the situation, but by the actual tone and performance that we're seeing on screen. I can say it occupies this. It doesn't white tip into Chappelle, but boy, it's a. it's a. it's a hair off boys. It's right there. It gets his feet, but it definitely gets his feet wet in the end. You know, it's. It's a mixed bag of a film. I enjoyed it. I think it's good to. I give it a solid b. sure. Yeah. I'll go with a solid B. I wouldn't give it an A. I wouldn't give it a b plus, but I give it a solid b. it's entertaining. It's interesting. Got a lot of good things to say and the visual language of it is interesting. Like for any filmmaker, I will bring them this as an example of film. Not only can tell stories, but it could also be beautiful because you can also be visually interesting and arresting and times. There are a lot of things in here that are visually arresting. Yeah. He is an artist and he takes chances. He does. It doesn't always work out, but good on them. Yeah. Good. Keep swinging for the fences, brother. This one, one of the things I always liked about Kevin Costner, when he misses, he misses me. I did not think we'd be talking about Kevin Costner in waterworld, but he didn't direct that one to be fair, but postman that was in him, that was him and the water world. He didn't direct it, but he was heavily. Absolutely. I was rough and if somebody asked him would he ever make a water world again? And he was like, yeah. He's like, I believe in swinging for the fences and if I miss, I miss, you know,
Speaker 1there's that one scene and the postman, the worst scene in the whole thing. It was so self indulgent. It was him. You know, he, he, there's that boy who just misses him and he goes past and he gets the six senses. Like, did I miss somebody? It was a turnaround. There's a boy there, he's got a letter and I'm going to go full speed going the wrong way and grab that letter only so I can turn back around again. I assume and go the direction I intended it. Rifles beat. That's why you. Why is that necessary? Why are we don't full speed? And then of course we more that dumb moment that nobody else saw with a statue, my God. And you know, what else has worked? What makes it worse? That boy was his son, his real life. Some. Oh my God, I didn't know that. That I didn't know. It was tough in case that does for us as we can buddy. We went on a wild ride, give us a review on the apple podcast APP to be. So kind of tell a friend about the show, make sure to us up to trump supporters.
Speaker 3Oh sure. Yeah. Tell me about the show and we will talk next week. Buy piece of chicken grease.
Speaker 4A lot of people complained about his Wyatt earp, which was
Speaker 1the agent. Did he direct that? I don't think a director directed, but you know, it was a Kazdin movie.
Speaker 4It was a Cannes damn movie. But when I found out a lot of customers don't like dental. Is that Argentina she produces or he is heavily involved in the film and division of it. Sure. And uh, Tom Cruise, like, yeah, Tom Cruise, like in that way, he's, he's very heavily involved in this film, so he's one of those people that believes in the project and will help feared it to the screen and wider it was one of those pictures he had always wanted to do historian. And from what I understand, that beginning part was because of Kevin Costner that they didn't have that beginning part of him growing up and with the brothers that their original piece had it starting kind of when the movie really starts right
Speaker 3where it should have started where it started, but he wanted that whole beginning where he's buffalo hunting him and, you know, he's just a kid who cares and just get a pistol and shoot somebody. I mean, that's, that's really why we're here. That's what this episode's. Okay.
Speaker 1Already over an hour long. Uh, so I'm going to have to cut it a lot of this out, but I was thinking of our discussion of the last mission possible. We fall out. I learned that movie was basically improvised. It was like improvisational filmmaking. Like Tom Cruise had scenes, action scenes he wanted to do and Macquarie was like, okay, all right, we'll figure out the rest as we go. Now it all makes sense by the MYP. The blue. Oh, okay.
Speaker 4The guy who was the show runner there dirt, uh, Jimmy Smits years, he developed. It's not fun. He developed a heroin cocaine habit. Okay. And so what would happen, Jimmy Smith, they figured out what Jimmy Smith's enough to share was that he would get these full scripts and he would do the script and tape it, and then pretty soon the scripts start getting smaller and more sparse. And, and they were improvised.
Speaker 1This was, you're talking about the Creator got on?
Speaker 4Yeah. Who, who's, who did a NYP blue,
Speaker 1I can't remember. Yeah. So at the crater got on a drug habit,
Speaker 4got a drug habit, and he said by the end of the, by the end of his addiction,
Speaker 3but there were no scripts that do, would just show up. And he's like, Focus Jimmy, you've got to come in, you're going to be like her and then it. Then you're going to come in and get hurt. I could turn drenamine ticket, would talk to him, and so they said that the Gao play simple widths. I forget his name. He loved the process. He thought it was fresh and it took him back to his days and theater and he thought was like, this is madness. This is bad. It's not quite. I don't think it's drug addled so much as make an APP and we know how to do this now. It all kind of makes sense. That does make sense. Doesn't make sense. We have a basic story. We have a framework for what roughly going to happen and we'll figure out why it happens later.