Groovy Movies

Fantastic Film Follies: How to finance a flop

• Lily Austin and James Brailsford • Season 4 • Episode 12

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Why talk about good films when we could talk about spectacularly bad ones? This week we discuss four infamous films that left their directors and studios in financial and/or reputational ruin. On the chopping block is Francis Ford Coppola’s One From The Heart, Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, Elaine May’s Ishtar and, of course, Tom Hooper’s Cats. Enjoy.

References
Hulk Smash’s takedown of Tom Hooper
Steven Soderbergh’s Butcher’s Cut of Heaven’s Gate

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Edited and produced by Lily Austin and James Brailsford
Original music by James Brailsford

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James:

If you want to torture your friends, put on Heaven's Gate, the director's cut.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

Welcome to Groovy Movies. My name is Lily Austin.

James:

And my name's James Brailsford. Hello.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

Hello, James. How are you on this very warm, finely tropical day in London? How is it in Manchester?

James:

Oh, you know, yeah, it's loo for once it's lovely and sunny in Manchester, just enjoying my brat summer, you know?

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

Okay, come on then. Come on.

James:

What?

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

talk to me about, Brat? All James can do Sorry, Brat. I'm showing my lack of knowledge. All I know James wants to do is talk about Charli XCX's new album, so come on, what are your

James:

I just think it's a modern pop masterpiece. I just think she's taken all the noughties pop classic sounds and re synthesized it into this concept album about what it means to be a woman right now,

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

Okay. I'm scared to make this conversion, but I, I will as you brought it up. I found the album. Okay. For me, I think it's just not my kind of music. I was just like, it's okay. And I'm sad to not be with the zeitgeist on this one. It's so fun to love what everyone else is loving that it didn't move me. I don't like that sound overproduced.

James:

So I think, especially for my short attention span these days, those tracks, they're just absolutely banging. I'm just glad that her career is going from strength to strength because I first heard of her in about 2007. 2008, where I met a director on a night out at an after party from a burlesque night. and he was a massive arsehole. And I remember just thinking, who is this horrible man? but he had boasted about his girlfriend at the time who he'd picked up by saying, Oh, do you want to make a song on my new album? And it was Charlie XCX. So, uh, And anyway, I just part of me was like, this guy is just, I hope she has a great career and eclipses him. So thank you, Charlie XCX for, uh, making my passive aggressive fantasies come true.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

I love it. When you tell me a story I didn't, I haven't heard before guys. That was new for me too.

James:

makes a change from the same old anecdotes. You know, got to keep, got to, got to, I was like, Oh my God, I've got something fresh, fresh plucked from the archive. Dust that one down.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

well, this isn't groovy music. This is groovy movies. So moving on from Charlie XCX,

James:

keeping it topical and zeitgeist.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

I know I'm very impressed. Okay. Yeah. For a moment, we did that because now we're going to go back to sort of business as usual, as you would say, James, because this week we are talking about fantastic film. follies. So just to clarify, we mean movies that were massive, massive flops, but in such grand style that basically everyone involved was bankrupted or, or at least someone significant was bankrupted. That is the key thread

James:

I think the word folly is, is a key here in the title because they can be flops, but maybe they weren't follies. I mean, I think right now the era we're in, we're having a lot of flops, but I don't think they're follies. the flops that we're having are big. sequels, big action films, big budget films, legacy sequels, and they're all just flop, flop, flopping. But I wouldn't say they're follies. They were precision engineered to make lots of money. That was the plan for them. Whereas the films I think we're discussing today, these were to some degree or some variation of this was a director leveraging their power at the time or being given an opportunity that they wouldn't ordinarily have had. And this is what they chose to do with it. These are the films.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

and not only chose to have it, but what they chose was to do something huge, big budget over the top bloated.

James:

He he he he.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

you can guess the rest.

James:

Ha ha

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

we will be talking about this week, Heaven's Gate, One from the Heart, Ishtar, and of course, the most recent in the list, Cats.

James:

Which just sprang on me. Well, it didn't spring on me, but I didn't think we were covering it. And then this morning I was like, no, I've just watched all these films. I can't.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

kept, James kept trying to not do cats. And I was, pretty set on it because it was just so, M when I said to one of my colleagues at work that we were doing this, she immediately said, are you doing cats? So this film in like recent history, it is infamous. So we had, we had to cover it, but originally I did say, don't worry James, I'll talk about it briefly. You don't have to watch it. It's not worth it. But actually is such a oddity that I've, I You had to, how much did you watch of it today, James?

James:

Less than half an hour, more than quarter of an hour.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

Okay, good. Thank you.

James:

I just, I didn't have much gas left in the tank after Heaven's Gate. That's all I'm saying.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

listeners, you are welcome. Because this is a really, really tough week. as soon as we settled on it, and I began watching this movie, I was like, why the hell have we done this to ourselves? We have a film podcast, we had the opportunity to watch the best films. And then discuss it. And instead, we've decided to watch the worst. It makes no sense. But

James:

feel like we really suffered for our audience here. I really feel like we took one for the team. this felt somehow like biblical, quasi mythical, you know, I just feel like I went on some kind of journey and I felt like I was atoning for some sins of somewhere in my life.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

But that's the point, right? Is that, you know, we've watched them now, we're going to talk about them. So you'll be across it and the fun stories that came out of these productions. And then you don't have to watch them, guys. Don't worry. Alright, well enough, enough explaining ourselves. I think that's just, that's just like, Pull off the plastering and get into it. It's kind of a gross image, but anyway, Heaven's Gate. We're going to talk about these chronologically, guys. So starting off with Heaven's Gate, directed by Michael Cimino, came out in 1980. I guess I did say, James, that I would do a plot summary. This is challenging with this one. It's set in colonial times,

James:

old time, the, the dying days of the west, the wild,

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

I wouldn't say the Dying Days are the worst, it feels like very much the worst, right? Eighteen something, I'm guessing? Yeah, eighteen, maybe? Okay. So it's set in, yeah, it's set in, uh, What was it, Ohio? I wrote it down somewhere, hold, hold, hold that thought.

James:

Listeners, in case you're wondering, didn't these guys just watch, both of you watch the film and yet you can't remember the details, trust me, try watching the film and try to remember anything because it's like, I was trying to think of a visual metaphor that summed up my experience of watching this film right. It's like, you're going on the diving board in a diving pool. And you, you kind of bounce off the board and you do this beautiful pirouette and you're like, right, and now I just need to go into the water, but you suddenly realize there is no pool and it's just concrete and you just hit the concrete. And that is what happens when you watch Evan's Gate.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

that's a beautiful metaphor.

James:

It's like hitting a wall.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

Yeah, it is. It is. Okay. So it's set in 1870. We're in Wyoming. We're with a load of men. There is some kind of tension about immigrants. So it's actually kind of a, you could argue it's, it's an eternally relevant movie because it's about the tension between, emigrants and actually previous emigrants. Cause I mean, it's America, but whatever it's, it's people. fighting over land and, apparently everyone's hungry. There aren't enough horses to go around. Horses are being stolen, cattle are being stolen, and some men are angry about it. So a fight is going to ensue. But that is the most succinct I can be when actually what the reality of this movie is, is three and a half hours of. Everyone from Jeff Bridges to Christopher Walken to Chris Christopherson. It's an impressive cast, don't get me wrong. John Hurt is randomly a drunk man in there for some reason. And Isabelle Hubert is in there too.

James:

I think that's her first, American performance. And it's also got maybe one of his very first screen performances from Christopher Walken.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

yes, I didn't even recognize him actually, initially. He doesn't have that raspy Christopher Walken voice in this early movie.

James:

Yes, he's quite the most unaffected version of Christopher Walken you'll ever seen.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

Yeah, but okay, so that's, that is just a base. Plot summary just so you guys are across that a little bit, but James talked to me about the film itself Why is it infamous?

James:

Because I think, especially when I was getting into films when I was in my teens, I think this is one of the first films that kind of comes upon the radar as far as like big flops and things like that. I would say Heaven's Gate and Ishtar were two that just kind of would come upon the radar. and Heaven's Gate was interesting because it's infamous for quote unquote sinking a studio for United Artists, which was a very early studio. It was set up by a bunch of stars, including Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin. Because what they wanted to do was create a studio that, prioritized the creativity, that prioritized the artists, the filmmakers, and the actors. So by being set up by filmmakers, it was meant to support and nourish them. So what it meant is, You didn't get the money men breathing down your neck as much at United Artists. Which is all well and good, if you don't have an egotistical director, who just won all the Oscars, was a critical darling and had a huge box office hit with Deer Hunter, but also is a notorious egoist, who then decides to take advantage of United Artists, and literally spends every penny they've got, and then some, on Heaven's Gate.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

it's sort of giving Trump, it's like, yeah,

James:

What?

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

yeah, it's kind of like, the Supreme Court saying, oh, it's, it's, he can get away with anything. Because he's president that makes sense. and it's fine to have this ruling because no president would ever abuse that power.

James:

ha ha.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

and here we find ourselves with Heaven's Gate because yes, the the budget balloon to 44 million. And The box office taking was 3. 5 million.

James:

Yeah. We, we've especially suffered because the theatrical release was just over two hours, but we watched the director's cut. So we saw the version that Michael Cimino would have preferred you to have seen, which was three and a half hours, which I had forgotten about when I suggested it.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

Yeah, yeah, because I mean, that's part of the myth around. The mythology, around this film right at the various different cuts because it started out his initial apparently he had it was like Kubrick style. He had meters and meters of film to get through and he apparently like locked himself. In the edit suite, and whenever he left there, he changed the lock so no one could enter the edit suite. He didn't want anyone to see his process when he was putting the film together. And when he finally presented it, I think it was even longer than three and a half

James:

Oh yeah, he presented like a four or five hour version and he was like, this is it.

S4 E12 FLOPS pt. 1:

Yes, that was it. Yeah, five, five hours. I got, I mean, the cruelty of that. I mean, it was torture, just three and a half hours. I can't, I can't, I can't even imagine. But

James:

If you want to torture your friends, put on Heaven's Gate, the director's cut.

Lily:

yeah, exactly. but then he went back, right, and was strong armed into cutting a more, viewer friendly length of the film. but that went down quite badly, I think, whatever he cut it to at that stage. So then someone else, did a an recut in 1981, like a year after the film was made. and that was what was put out in cinemas. And that apparently was awful. That's what kind of tanked the movie was just very, very bad cut of the film. and since then, there has been like a reappraisal of the movie. it has been on list for best movie and talked about the crime that was this recut and the actual three and a half version that Michael Cimini wanted is actually a really great movie even though I did say it was torture because it's too long, the film itself, I don't think it's that bad. What do you what do you I think it looks good. I think

James:

Oh, thank you for highlighting the work of cinematographer Vilmos Zigmund, who I was fortunate enough to be taught by for two weeks in Budapest. he talked a lot about his time working on Heaven's Gate. and he, and he said, he'd read and heard about all the problems people had with Michael Cimino because he had a big ego and he was very temperamental. But he said he never saw any of that. But I remember just thinking, yeah, because you were the cinematographer. You just won an Oscar for, for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. You were like the man, as if he's going to be shitty with you. So, you know, it was, you know, so I'm glad you had a nice time, Vilmosh, but I still suspect a lot of other people didn't have such a great time. But it is probably his greatest work because this is. A cinematographer's dream. You've got essentially a director who will support you in anything you want to put on screen. So as much as I've given it a hard time, it is an incredible looking film and the scope and the scale of everything all of that money did end up on screen. I mean, it's notorious. Like you wonder why did it go so over budget? I mean, one of my favorite stories about why it went so over budget is that very early on in the film is a kind of a typical American Western town with a train station in it. All of that was built from scratch. It's not, it's not a location that they found. They literally built it all, including the train track, including the train station, which if you watch those shots, you see a train coming to the station. The camera moves, follows somebody as they go inside the train station. All of that stuff built. Michael Cimino saw it. Saw the set finished and it was had a couple of streets. It had like a intersection. and he said, that's that the streets not wide enough. it needs to be a foot wider. So he made them demolish one half of the street set so they could move everything one foot wider and rebuild.

Lily:

Yeah, it's actually even worse than that, because Chimino Demanded. Yeah, that it needs to be a foot wider. The set designer said, okay, we can demolish one side and then build it wider. and he said, no, no, I need both sides demolished and it'd be a bit wider on each side. I don't want just one side, even though that would, that would be cheaper. He was this level of kind of controlling egotism. There were also allegations of animal abuse on set. There are scenes with a cockfight where apparently those cock crawls were, or are they, is it cock, is it actual cock crawls in a cock fight?

James:

I don't know. I don't know. I've never been to one I was watching the cockfight just thinking how Animal safe. Could you do all that in reality? Yeah, you

Lily:

I can't imagine in

James:

because you watch it

Lily:

I skipped through that scene because I thought this is not very nice to watch. It's not adding anything to the story This is completely redundant yes

James:

percent of the film. it's an exercise in self indulgence. It's like being fed a really ornately, richly iced cake. It's great for the first few bites. Then you're like, is every bite going to be like this? But they are all beautiful. I often think of the 1970s as being the golden age of Hollywood cinematography and it does, like, Heaven's Gate does summarize that quite nicely, but it just fights against everything else. It fights against its own self importance. It's how overblown and how, how long and slow everything is and I just don't really care about the characters because everything's so, I don't know, low key.

Lily:

Mean, on that note, it was a quintessential Bechdel test failure. Because this movie was just a load of men. We have one named woman in the movie and she plays a madam of a brothel. And Who, of course, gets raped in one of the scenes by the baddies and then gets rescued by one of her love interests. it's like amazing and how retro, like it feels like it wasn't made in 1980. It feels like it was made around 1870 when it was set. It's like extraordinary.

James:

the whole thing just smacks of essentially male ego gone wild. It just, feels like it when you watch the film and it is like it. It's the ultimate expression of this is somebody who's achieved the pinnacle and decided they can do whatever they want. I just can't believe that Michael Cimino really felt that this was a film that he wanted to go all out on. I mean, that's what he says in interviews. And when he's been at retrospective screenings of it, he's like, finally my vision. But I can't imagine he had the burning desire to spend this much money making this I don't get it, I don't get why he made it.

Lily:

I get it. Like he's, he is an American And there is so much romance about that. The West and this particular time, you know, the mythology around cowboys in this time period, it's there. That is a thing. And so I get I get it for a certain kind of American man with ego and money. I feel like that was such an 80s vibe to want to make this like lush, sprawling, movie about this time period, you know, a sprawling epic is what I'm trying to say. And unfortunately it just doesn't really work.

James:

I do wonder how much of it was a part of Michael Cimino's ego was that, in the seventies, all these younger male American filmmakers, the movie brats were all kind of making their marks and making their hit films. And it's almost like his was the ultimate, yeah. But have you spent 40 million pounds making a Western film? And it's almost like they were trying to outdo each other with the kind of films they could get away with making. And this was the ultimate one. So much so that it cost way too much. Made way too little to the point they bankrupted an old studio.

Lily:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, have you heard about this Butcher's Cut?

James:

It feels like this could be something like, Steven Soderbergh likes to re edit films that didn't quite work and put his own spin on them. So is this like a film where it's been done to try and make it better and shorter?

Lily:

James, did you, did you look at my notes without, yeah, Steven Soderbergh, yeah, in 2014, he, he created the Butcher's Cut. It's still available on his website. We'll put a link in the show notes. You can watch his version of the movie, which is a cool 108 minutes long.

James:

Oh, we should have watched that. I wouldn't be in a hurry to recommend this to anybody. However, if you want to kind of have a taste of this, but a better film, I think just as a watch, I would recommend made around the same time in the mid to late seventies, is, McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Yeah. also shot by Vilmos Zygmunt. So the same cinematographer set in the kind of frontier about a romance between, kind of a pioneer guy and a woman setting up a brothel. So there's a lot of similar elements, but it's stripped down. It's simpler and it just works much better as a film. It's like an hour and a half and it's done.

Lily:

Okay, perfect. I love that. Great recommendation. I think the thing that links these movies is the press attention around them and the victory all around it. Because it Like I said, this film was really vilified. It's like, Oh, my God. There was so much schadenfreude about this film being so over budget, so ridiculously over the top and being so, so rubbish. And actually, I feel like most of the trashing of the film itself was about the fact that people had heard so much bad stuff. There was so much bad press about the director and and everything around the it. the filming, the production of the film and that kind of had this knock on effect for critics because it really isn't that bad.

James:

This is very much seen as the end of the 70s excess is this Heaven's Gate film. the studios were just giving young directors films to make their own passion projects and just to take these big gambles. now this was a, this was a folly and it bankrupted a studio. But the next film, I mean, this is one that I've been dying to see because of the podcast. This was different in that it more bankrupted an individual. It was a Francis Ford Coppola's one from the heart. And most of the money that was used to finance this ultimately was his, or he was liable for. So this was a swing and a miss, but rather than doing a swing and a miss with somebody else's money, this was a swing and a miss where he was personally invested into it.

Lily:

Yes, because, okay, so initially it was going to be financed by MGM, right? And apparently Franz Kafka was given a record 2 million just for the job of directing that. But he initially rejected that offer, then himself bought the rights to this script. and then self financed it with his own Zoetrope Studios. so he basically like took it back so he could have control and then find money another way. Well, they, they weren't offering him enough money, a bit, not a big enough budget.

James:

Initially he wanted to, after, after the spectacle and the location hell that was, apocalypse now, he wanted to do a smaller, uh, personal film about like a little romantic drama. And so initially, from my understanding, he conceived One from the Heart as being like a two million dollar little low budget film, but as is the Francis Ford Coppola way, everything just gets bigger and bigger and more and more. So this two million, the initial idea why I get this is that it was meant to be filmed on location. You film it on location. On the Las Vegas strip, right? This film, by the way, it's a romance. It's kind of a lovers going, having a tiff and going off on adventures set in Las Vegas. So obviously you film it on location on the strip. You go inside some of the Las Vegas casinos. You shoot it for 2 million, but he got burnt out by going on location for apocalypse now. So he's like, no, we're not doing that. We're going to build it all in the studio, all that neon, all of that Las Vegas strip. We're going to recreate it. We're going to build it all. And we're going to have the world. Biggest electricity bill to keep all that neon on for like seven days a week.

Lily:

Yes, because, as you guys might have remembered from our previous episode about amazing failures, Francis Ford Coppola's A Pocket Now would have bankrupted him if it was, no, not self funded.

James:

I'm not, I don't know if it was self funded, Lily. I,

Lily:

He put his house on it. I remember from the documentary. Okay. Guys, tell us if we're wrong, but I believe his, if you watch Hearts of Darkness, the documentary his wife made, like the behind the scenes documentary she made, she filmed of him while he was making this film. I'm pretty sure, I remember her saying he had, maybe he didn't fund the whole thing, but he'd staked his house on it, and their family home, where their children were growing up. And he would, he would,

James:

sounds like a very Francis Ford Coppola

Lily:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was gonna, they would be in serious financial difficulty if the film didn't work to only to add to what was an infamously stressful and difficult production. But the gamble paid off. You know, there's a great payoff in the BTS documentary because the film was a huge success. And so he had another crack at it with One for the Heart, and unfortunately, did not have quite the same outcome with this one, right? Because the budget. As we said, it was 26 million, and then in the end, the box I was taking

James:

From, from an original 2 million, it ballooned from 2 million to 26. That to me is just the mindblower.

Lily:

if that budget stayed at two million, they still would have been like a bit fucked because the box office taking in the end was six hundred and thirty six thousand seven hundred and ninety six dollars.

James:

Ouch! Because, you gotta look at Frantz Foucault play. He had the, the dream run of the 70s. He won Oscars. All of his films were huge box office successes. There were often troubled productions, or at least, you know, Apocalypse Now is this, well documented one. But they all paid off. The 70s was this golden, charmed time for him. And then this was the 80s now. and so he took another swing and a miss. And I just wonder if there were versions of you and I going to the cinema in the 1980s, like, Oh, great. we loved Apocalypse Now. Can't wait to see his new one. Don't know much about it. And you go and you sit down and it's one from the heart.

Lily:

Okay, but let's talk about it a bit because it's a very interesting concept one from the heart, because as you say, it's a love story and it's almost a musical, but it's not a musical. Because it has an original soundtrack by Tom Waits and Crystal Gale. So in every scene, pretty much, you hear their voices, them singing these very, like, it's like, really dominates each scene. You get these lyrics coming through, which are obviously meant to kind of reflect what's

James:

And they kind of commenting on what's happening.

Lily:

but the actual people in the scene are not singing. It's very odd. it's not like anything I've ever really seen.

James:

That to me is the great pleasure of, of One From The Heart is far as all of its flaws. And it's very naive at times. You've not seen anything like this, you know, like, Heaven's Gate. It's impressive and it's epic, but you will have definitely seen things a bit like it in places. But One From The Heart is what is this mad adventure?

Lily:

Yeah. And that's the thing is that again, it was really lambasted as a terrible film. And I think people really enjoyed that this incredible director who'd made the epics, like the Godfather could make a sappy love story with two quite kind of inconsequential leads. I think that is kind of the issue with it, that there are these quite dull, quite very normal, couple, Hank and Franny, but actually, the film is much more than just that. And I think it's all deliberate. Whether or not it actually works is another thing, but I think it was very deliberate that the story follows these two, this normal couple that do normal jobs. Franny, Franny works in a travel agent and dreams of going to Bora Bora. Hank, I don't know what he does actually. Is he a builder?

James:

No, I don't know what it does,

Lily:

handyman or something in this world and he just wants to settle down with Franny and and have a housekeeper and that is the conflict in that she wants more from life and he doesn't want more from life.

James:

And they decide that they want to just have a bit of an ad, both of them have a bit of a sexy adventure with other people, don't they, essentially, for a

Lily:

Exactly. So yeah, essentially, I think what he was trying to do was create this like, amazing contrast of this very fantastical, these incredible sets incredible lights and everything is over the top and synthetic looking like sort of deliberately artificial. And then in the, and then the foreground, we have. this couple who are just, very, very normal. I feel like that, he was deliberately trying to do something with that. I just don't know if it always works.

James:

Absolutely agree with you that that was by design, but yeah, I was watching this film and just thinking, Ah, it. he does feel like this is, Francis Ford Coppola, his films that work best when he's doing them about the mafia, but it's not really a gangster film, is it? It's more mythological than that. It's more about the corrupting influence of evil. Apocalypse Now, is it specifically about the Vietnam War or is it about war is hell as a general theme? He's good at these big, slightly mythological things. It's like he's making a film about love as if he's making Apocalypse Now, essentially. It's like everything, poof, and that's what makes it thrilling, but I think that's also its weakness.

Lily:

I just don't understand why he couldn't bring the same kind of complexity to this subject though, because at its core, this idea that, People want adventure and often relationships feel like they inhibit your freedom and inhibit your chance to explore like that's Everyone has but that is a universal tension and I think most people but it It just comes across so flat and they're just so not particularly nice. It's like, where's the tension? Just break up. You guys obviously aren't happy together. No problem. Problem solved. Like, I'm so disappointed when they get back together at the end. I'm like, but you guys don't want to be together. What's, what's going on?

James:

the two actors, Frederick Forrest and, and Terry Gard, they're both great actors. they're solid actors. It's just that I don't think they had much to work with. I do think it's essentially the script just

Lily:

no, I

James:

other drafts to get up to speed.

Lily:

I think they're good actors. I don't think either of them are leads, to be honest. I just didn't. And I know that was the whole point. It was like, we want very normal, a very normal couple, but I found neither of them particularly captivating to watch,

James:

Yeah, so the central performance is essentially fundamentally kind of kick the feet from underneath it from the get go. You just, never quite connect with them and they're a bit of an unlikable, both of them, central pair. But, there's so much, invention and colour and life around it, like, there are moments in this film where He definitely nails a special movie cinematic moment and there's these fleeting moments throughout the film We're like, oh, this is something special and it all comes together where in a way where heaven's gate is just beautiful and epic all the way through. Heaven's Gate doesn't show you anything that you haven't seen before. In One from the Heart, it's like a semi pop video in places. I love the bit where Natasha Kinski's face becomes full screen and there's the various neon light, you know, it's a bit like a music video sequence.

Lily:

Well, yeah, I was going to say the moment when Natasha Kinsky does that dance routine

James:

She learned for this film to not only do like a little silk scarf, juggling thing, she learned how to do a genuine high wire act with no safety net underneath it. And then she learned how to balance on a ball while delivering dialogue just for this film.

Lily:

I thought it was impressive in the film, but I actually, I didn't even think about the fact that she probably wasn't already a circus performer when she was hired.

James:

Our two leads have little dalliances, romantic encounters with another man, another woman, um, respectively. And they are definitely way more colourful, and I would, you know, they would have been much more exciting, perhaps, if the films had orbited around them a bit. But I know that's not the point of the film.

Lily:

so

James:

And, and,

Lily:

sorry, go on.

James:

I was just going to pull it back because he did mention as well, the cinematography, I mean, this is Vittorio, Vittorio Storaro, who shot, um, Apocalypse Now with Francis Ford Coppola, again, a bit like in Heaven's Gate, the cinematographer was completely indulged. He clearly was allowed to light things exactly how he wanted to light them. I mean, a dream from a cinematographer. And everything was on faders, and they even did things where they built sets next to each other, and then they had, like, sheets that were painted to look like walls, and then they could Fade the lighting between the two sets. So it would look like you were dissolving between two scenes when actually they built the sets next to each other and they just changed the lighting cues live. Uh, you know, so there's plenty of little secrets, you know, throughout the film, there's little moments like that when they're talking about each other, you'll see, the guy in the foreground, it'll fade to a Franny in the background in this different set.

Lily:

God. And yeah, and those scenes look amazing. It's such a shame that this incredible every it's like it's so set up for a fantastic film and it's waste on such an insipid storyline and a couple of characters.

James:

So, I completely agree with that. that's my overall feeling of that film. It's just like, Oh God, all the bits are there. the fundamental central performances just weren't strong

Lily:

And I guess everyone agreed who went to see it because, like we said, it, was absolutely disastrous at the box office And led to, like, when we look back on Francois Coppola's career, it's his early work up until this point is described as the golden phase. And then from then on, from the after one from the high, he's kind of like in the next 10 years are absolute turmoil when he's trying to pay back the deal with the finances of Zoetrope

James:

Yeah. He bankrolled this massively. I mean, he took out a, I think from Chase Morgan Bank. They basically took out a huge loan, which by the way, is what George Lucas did with Empire Strikes Back, which cost about the same amount of money in about the same amount of time. But one of them is Empire Strikes Back. One of them drawn from the heart. So

Lily:

God.

James:

26 million can get you a science fiction epic, or it can get you a small, you know, anyway,

Lily:

A tiny musical about one night, a couple breaking up for one night.

James:

but he, because he was personally indebted. I think it was something like every year on October and November for the next 10 years, he had to deliver 2 million, otherwise they would take away his house and all that kind of stuff. So he was just a gun for hire. So all the, that's why he's, he's, he's a oeuvre becomes very patchy is because he went from essentially choosing his projects. It's just like, I need the money. You need the money.

Lily:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then ultimately the studio, Zoe's Hope Studios, closed in 1990. Well, it was, it filed for bankruptcy.

James:

We say, where did this 26 million went, but you can see it all on screen if you watch, because what you've got to remind yourself is everything you've seen was built in a studio and everything was manufactured and made. And so when you're watching people walk. In one continuous shot from outside of a street with caravans and other houses. and then when they walk inside their house, up a flight of stairs into a bathroom that's got water that runs when they run the taps, right? That was all built in a studio and they had to put in real electrical, real plumbing to make it all work. That's, yeah. Insane. And then at the end, when they're in an airport, remind yourself that this is a studio set. That's not an airport. They actually built that on the exterior of one of the sound stages. And then they bought half of a jet plane, like a 747. They bought one so they could stick it in their manufactured airport. You know, they show it all off. Like it is the most insane amount of scale for what's meant to be a night out in Las Vegas.

Lily:

But it's just like for such a small story, it doesn't, it just seems like baffling, right?

James:

Oh, yeah, but that's, that, that is why I love it. this is the kind of film folly that I love. Uh, this is one out of all the films we watched, this is one that I just enjoyed it. As much as they were cringey, awkward dialogue and the romance stuff between the couple just is, like I say, very flat, very underpowered. There's a lot to enjoy in the film.

Lily:

Yeah, I agree. I, I did enjoy it too as like something to behold.

James:

I've watched the 2003 version, which is like his first proper director's cut at it. the reprise version by far is the best version to watch. It's the least painful. It's the best version of it. So if you are going to give it a go, the reprise version is definitely the best version.

Lily:

Well, again, that's, I mean, it's easy. It's easiest to watch that one. I would have liked to have seen the version that actually flopped with kind of like, with both in both these films, we've not actually been true to the title of, because we've watched the, the new and improved versions of both, but they're quite bad in themselves. So maybe it's for the best.

James:

So, we've watched, One from the Heart, which, which, it's one of my favourite kind of grand follies, and, uh, there's a connecting thread with the next film that I only just spotted when I was doing a bit of research last night, which

Lily:

Oh, I wonder if we spotted the same, the same connection, but sorry, sorry to interrupt you. Yes. Go on.

James:

cinematographer of One from the Heart, the excellent Vittorio Storaro, was also the cinematographer on Ishtar,

Lily:

my gosh, that's crazy.

James:

and it, contributed to one of the many factors that made it a difficult shoot because he was used to shooting projects like One From The Heart, or Apocalypse Now, which are these grand, epic, colors. Arty angles and apparently he clashed with Elaine May massively because he was looking to get the artiest angle and she wanted the camera where it would make the comedy the funniest and those two things were completely incompatible.

Lily:

yes, yes, yes, and I read that as well and I, and you can actually really see it in the film because I noticed it particularly in a very early scene where the two leads, so, Warren Beatty, we're getting ahead of ourselves, but Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman play, a couple of friends, Rogers and Clark, they're a singing duo that liken themselves to Simon and Garfunkel and they have the height at least the difference in height between the two of them. And there's a scene at the start where they're looking at posters of musicians and the camera kind of pulls away in this really quite beautiful way. So we see the back of their heads as they're talking to each other as they're looking. So we're seeing what they're saying. These posters through a glass of different musicians they want to be like, and it's a very beautiful way. Nice shot and I did think oh, yeah, that that's not really like a comedy shot it's just quite a beautiful moment of them in the like twilight of the evening and It feels a bit jarring with what is a broad comedy. So yeah, this movie Yeah, along with Heaven's Gate is, is considered one of the worst films ever made, which I think is utterly insane and bonkers. It's really not that bad at all. I know you, I have, I'm getting the impression you didn't enjoy it. 100%.

James:

I enjoyed it more than Heaven's Gate, it was just pure enjoyment, um, right, you know, so I can't, but I didn't enjoy, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as One from the Heart, I just found myself cringing it, like,

Lily:

I didn't find it cringy. I thought it was fine. Like it was, I did think it was funny. The film is quite clever because they do this sort of fun little reverse casting where Warren Beatty, you know, the famous Lothario plays this kind of awkward bit. Slightly dumb, very kind of sweet, timid guy who has no luck with women. And his friend, Dustin Hoffman's character, is the kind of lethargic character who's the one in charge in their dynamic and, and more in kind of, Warren Bates character just kind of follows him around. And I thought that was, that in itself was just a funny thing. And I loved, the bad songs. I thought they were funny and I loved the best bits in the movie are when they are performing their terrible songs and they're trying their best to get, you know, this is a movie where two guys are trying to, make it as songwriters by performing very bad songs and they end up being booked as lounge singers in Morocco and then somehow get involved in some kind of communist CIA plot. It gets crazier from there. And that's the thing that I feel like doesn't really work, but I kind of admire Elaine May for trying. I like her ambition. It's just, it's like, really random and jarring and odd.

James:

I think that's the thing that just kept putting me on edges. Like for the first 15 minutes, it's like a goofy comedy about two trying to make it down on the look, um, music composers. In New York, right? And then it suddenly hard cuts and, uh, there's a treasure map kind of thing being brought out. And I feel like, have I suddenly gone into The Mummy?

Lily:

Yeah, I didn't realize that Ishtar was a made up I thought it was a made up city within Morocco. I somehow missed the There's a whole fucking Made up country in the Middle East. It feels very weird, like

James:

country, but with a real Cold War in it.

Lily:

It's definitely like the sort of cultural sensitivity is lacking for sure. that part is uncomfortable. Definitely, definitely.

James:

I can watch a lot of films. Don't get me wrong. and I can also say, well, they're a product of their time. And I could have, but this, it really was quite challenging. I really had to, you know, just. Boulder through it.

Lily:

What I love about this film, and what makes it all worth it, honestly, is the backstory behind how this film got made, because I just think it tells you so much about the way Hollywood worked at this time. Because basically, here's the link that I found, Warren Beatty felt really indebted to Elaine May, because she had done a major rewrite on the Oscar winning Reds. And so he was hell bent on kind of making it up to her by getting her a directing job on a big movie. So the connection to one from the heart is that Francis Ford Coppola was really pissed off when paramount pictures initially were going to do the distribution. Of one from the heart. And then they had planned to do some Oscar consideration screenings of the movie. but then pulled out basically because the movie wasn't any good, but Farnsworth Coppola felt sure that it was because they wanted to put all of their focus on getting Reds Oscar nominated. And Reds is another film that was crazy big budget and got a lot of bad press because of Warren Beatty's like the rumors about Warren Beatty's. behavior on on set with this movie. So This is definitely a time of a lot of directors being given a lot of lead and a lot of money. And okay, work with Rez. It won the Oscar. Great. But then you get to a film like this because yeah, so Elaine, Elaine May was basically being, repaid for the fact that she wasn't credited on Reds. And similarly, she also did, she was a script doctor on Tootsie, that amazing film by Dustin Hoffman as well. And so he felt kind of indebted to her too, because she also didn't get credit on that. So this is a movie made because men do not give women the credit they deserve. And this is the harm that it causes because I find it very interesting that Warren Batey, apparently during the filming, it was a nightmare. All three of these people are very, very dominant characters. They were being paid very well to do this film and they all wanted to have their say on how the film should be made. And Elaine May is a very, was like a well established comedian, and Yes, but and also writer and she had done some directing but never something on this scale before so she was a bit out of her depth But I think that kind of the tension there between that and and Warren Beatty feeling like he knows so much better and then Dustin Hoffman piping up every five minutes with what he thought Apparently just tensions on set. It was an absolute nightmare

James:

I couldn't imagine any stage in a director's career that it's ever going to be easy Directing both Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty, you know, especially for someone who you look at a, directing a career and it was much smaller kind of films, character based films. But she hadn't done anything close to this and she had done absolutely no action based stuff as well. So there was a lot of elements of it. I think that were certainly for any director who hadn't done that kind of stuff. It was a huge undertaking to go on. And I think as well, it's interesting that Warren Beatty, you know, he wants to give Elaine May This kind of opportunity and he pushed for it and he got it for it. But then when he's on set, apparently, because he'd worked with Vittorio Storaro on Reds. That was the cinematographer Reds. When Vittorio Storaro was having these arguments about, well, the camera looks better here. And she's like, well, I want it here. Cause it's funnier. Warren Beatty would take the side of Vittorio Storaro. So suddenly you've got your lead actor and your cinematographer ganging up on your director,

Lily:

exactly. And then things basically out of hand because the budget just kept ballooning because Elaine May was actually being incredibly demanding about how the film should be made. Apparently they'd found a location on a desert with the Basically, you know, sand dunes behind and wanted a perfectly flat scene. So they had to dig and move all the sand to make miles of flatland. the film got really out of hand. This, I mean, we were talking about how crazy the budget on One from the Heart is of 26 million, but this was a budget of 51 million only six years later. And it was slightly more profitable than one from the high. It made 14. 4 million,

James:

You look at one from the heart and I can see the budget. I can see it. It's like the madness of where the money went, but more from Ishtar. I can't really see it. Like, like, I mean, I get essentially, it must have just been lots of mistakes, reshoots. I think they said as well, because they were shooting in Morocco, that if you needed a piece of equipment that you'd missed or something, somebody would fly out to bring the one piece of equipment. They would stay up in a hotel. So just expenses off the, off the, off the charts.

Lily:

and apparently the reason they were shooting in Morocco was because Coca Cola, the parent business, had some money tied up there that they couldn't get back. So they're like, let's film it in Morocco. But there was no production experience. by anyone in Morocco. So local crew just didn't know how to make the film happen. So I think it was all that kind of stuff that made it balloon like crazily. and that's the thing is that you're right, the film, you can't tell really where the money went. The film doesn't really deserve that kind of budget. But I think so much of the way it was treated once the film was released is about the fact that they just didn't, they didn't like the fact that these big names are being paid so much. Warren Beatty has such a bad reputation that the press around it was just kind of riffing off of that and just loving the fact that this film had cost so much and they were kind of disgusted by that. I'm really wanted to like. Ram home the fact that like, Oh, you know, these stars aren't worth it when really the film really isn't that terrible. It's just not a particularly brilliant film, but it's, you know, I find it generally inoffensive in sensitivities around the Middle East side. And okay, that's a big, but I admit, I

James:

That's a bit,

Lily:

I think it's core isn't, isn't bad. It's like, I think it's a perfectly well made movie. You know, it's not like a fan. It's not like the

James:

yeah.

Lily:

you know, it's not like. terrible to watch. It's just, it's, it's just okay. And definitely doesn't deserve that kind of budget. You know, it's just an experience. Poor Elaine May.

James:

Poor Elaine May. Yeah. I mean, just, just, I can't imagine what that must've been like when this huge opportunity of being given just ends up like that. I was just doing a little bit of research on that. Yeah. I noticed. That one of the things that was highlighted was her, uh, doing take, doing 50 takes, but I noticed what it was in reference to the 50 takes. And I would like to say on this one example there citing, I think it's perfectly reasonable if she took 50 takes. It was the quotation was from the sequence where vultures land next to Dustin Hoffman in the desert. And I was watching that going. Wow. That's a real vulture and it's landing. That must've been very difficult because I don't imagine there's that many trained vultures, so 50 takes of that. I get it. That's probably just how many takes it took.

Lily:

I mean, that is definitely the misogyny of the whole thing creeping in because Stanley Kubrick is famous for his many, many takes and he wasn't ever told that he couldn't direct. Whereas Warren Beatty apparently at a certain point said she can't direct but apparently he would not let her be fired because he wanted to preserve his reputation as being

James:

yeah

Lily:

of women. The irony of treating her this way. Yeah, trapping them. And then I love it because it's like that reputation really did he ever have it? I mean all I know of Warren Beatty is how many girlfriends he had and what a thorough he was. So, sorry, I think he failed on that score. But that's the thing. I think all three of these movies, okay, they're epic for the amount of money it costs and the harm it caused. Because yeah, I mean, okay, it is sort of a, a reductive term, but Elaine May is always cited as a director who was in, like, director jail after that. she couldn't direct after that. and so, you know, one way or another, the cost of these movies was high. But I think at that core, none of them are like terrible, terrible movies. But then we skip ahead to Cats, Tom Hopper's movie of 2019. And it's, it's a similar story in that this is a director. Well, it's different to Le May, but similar to Coppola that, you know, this is a director who just won an Oscar for Les Miserables. They were like, what do you want to make now? And he's like, yeah, I'm going to do another musical. let me stick with that genre, but let's go bigger. Let's do Cats, the perfect musical to create a film with.

James:

And of course, this is the classic case of the money men are like, well, you did Les Mis and that made money. That got awards. That did well. So no questions asked. We're not going to go. Are you sure this is a good idea? We're going to go. Hell yes.

Lily:

Yeah. So, I mean, there's not really much to say. to say in a way, uh, other than I'm

James:

It's nightmare fuel.

Lily:

it's a, it's a what?

James:

It's nightmare fuel. Just so many questions with no answers.

Lily:

Nightmare fuel. I love, I love that as a phrase. Fuel for your nightmares. Yeah. It's just, the uncanniness of cats that have the bodies of human beings, but CGI fur. That in and of itself is a crazy, creepy concept. And then the other thing is like, It's a baffling musical for most of us. I know it was huge. It was a big theater production, but it's an odd, odd concept of cats taking it in terms of introduce themselves and then singing and dancing

James:

There's no story. It's just, he has a bunch of different songs.

Lily:

Yeah.

James:

Because I was watching in lockdown, I was watching a lot of them. My mum was watching Cats, the, the filmed version of the musical. Singers and actors in makeup and that works, your brain can handle that, you're like, okay, it's the theater, they're actors and they've got pit makeup on.

Lily:

Yes, because the thing is, it's an odd concept. But what I understand is that the thing that people really love about it are the songs and the dance performances. But if you're watching CGI dancers performing a musical, like, there's nothing impressive about that because you know, it's not real. You know, it's not. It doesn't. The human eye does not find it impressive to watch CGI performances. I'm really sorry to SFX people because I know what your, your work is intricate and complex. And I know, you know, famously on this movie, they were put under so much pressure to make this and did not have enough time to do a good job at it. But even if it had been the best job in the world, it's just not an interesting thing to watch a CGI dance performance. I feel like it's only impressive when you know that a human being is doing this amazing dance,

James:

I completely agree with you. it's the idea that, a real explosion using pyrotechnics feels, um, dangerous and a CGI explosion, it just doesn't feel dangerous. Even if you might not know the exact thing that's happening, your brain just knows if something's real and dangerous or not, I think we've got, thousands of years of evolution, of that kind of thing that we, we're not easily that fooled There's an uncanny valley ness to having human statured and human shaped cats that no amount to, even if the CGI, I think the CGI, it definitely, that's not the problem, is it? It's the design, it's the choices that were made, you know, I was watching thinking, what version of this film would work? Should we have just regular cats that sing a little bit, you know, or should

Lily:

just.

James:

we just not have bothered? Should we really not have done this?

Lily:

it doesn't make anything any any sense at all. And then yeah, I think what really added again to the victory or the kind of the buzz around this film was just hearing what an awful production it was because apparently The VFX department were given six months to create the two minute trailer for the movie, but then only four months to actually make the movie just to finish it. And there were sort of simple things like Tom Hooper didn't understand, How, how this works, how producing a, a CGI film works. So, one of the things is that they would show, what they'd produced so far, but without any of the, uh, the CGI. Right, right, without any of the color, without any of the, you know, fur filled in or whatever, just to, just to get approval on what was happening in the scene and, and Tom Hooper would be like, well, what is this? Why don't, why don't the cats have fur? Well, He wanted it to be fully rendered. And so this kind of thing just like held everything up because he was putting them making them do such crazy hours and so much work. there were members of the team who were like sleeping under their desk just to get this film. finish and then when it finally gets released, everyone laughs and talks about how terrible the special effects are. And so I really, I really feel for them on that set because yeah, apparently he was, like awful to work with and really putting them under pressure and the result is quite shocking.

James:

Because that's the worst way to work with VFX, is not basically, um, not being able to imagine what the finished thing will look like, because by insisting that essentially it's much more finished, then the amount of work you have to do for that, and then there will be notes about, oh, that dance routine doesn't work, or you want the cat to jump higher in this moment. Well, You've just spent ages rendering all that with first. So what you need to do as a directory is just be able to say, yes, with that wire frame model I can see the motion. I can approve the dance and it just makes everything more efficient. Yeah. So that was a case of a director's unwillingness to engage with VFX, just completely fucked it over. I remember how much of a panning the CGI got. Judi Dench's human hand was mixed in with some cat fur, but basically, I think a week into its run, they updated all of the files for the film around all the cinemas in the world. So if you went to see Cats about a week after release, you've gotten updated to CGI. But the thing is, I was watching this film thinking, The CGI is not the problem. The, the the, The, the the, problems are way more fundamental. It's like you're making a film with these weird anthropomorphic singing, dancing, human cat hybrids. And they look like famous people every now and again. You're like, is that Rebel Wilson? Okay. And she just pulled her cat skin off and she's got a costume underneath. every, every new shot was a new question.

Lily:

so when I was doing my research, I found this very interesting blog by a film critic blogger who calls himself the Hulk or the film Hulk or something. And he did this amazing takedown of Les Miserables rather than, not yet cats, but, but talking about the ways why the film doesn't work, the ways in which Tom Hooper. doesn't really understand how to make a film. He doesn't understand cinematography. He doesn't understand the, it sounds very harsh, but I found it very fascinating because it does. I'll link it in the show notes because it tells you, explains it's all probably stuff you know, James, you went to film school, but For the lay viewer like me, you know, I watched that movie and liked the songs, they're beautiful, but didn't find it an engaging watch. But I wasn't totally sure why. And he really breaks it down. So certain things like the fact that Closeups. They're meant to create intimacy and kind of intensity in a moment. But if you use'em in every single scene as Tom Hooper does in layman's rathers, that impact is completely lost. Similarly, if you, at the same time as you've got this like major closeup on a character, have them look like, break the four four and look at the camera. He clearly thought that was meant to create some kind of intensity and intimacy too. But actually, no. That, that is an uncanny, creepy thing. So, so when you're watching it, you don't really know what the film is trying to do. It's confusing you. As a viewer, we understand, intrinsically we understand the language of what these, what these different film techniques do. But Tom Hooper does not understand them basically. And, and he talks about how he's a huge fan of Stanley Kubrick and he mentions him in lots of interviews. And it seems like actually in his films, a lot of the time he's trying to employ Stanley Kubrick's techniques, but he doesn't understand why he used them and what they're used for. And I actually saw that in Cats. I noticed that the film begins with this like, soaring, uplifting, opener, musically, but then we have a cat in a bag being thrown into, into short and being abused. So you've got this jarring thing of this like horrific thing happening in the scene, but then this kind of uplifting music. And I feel like It's basically why this film doesn't work is that it's all confusing and nonsensical because everything that's going on in the film is kind of competing with each other.

James:

There's just too much going on and too much that doesn't work going on. I did stop watching before James Corden appeared because I think that would have broken me, Lily. That would have broken

Lily:

so you didn't see Taylor Swift doing a British accent as she sang. You didn't miss much, honestly. But, Yeah, we're rounding off with the worst of the four,

James:

if it was recommend one to watch, one from the heart, I think out of the lot, but, but I was thinking if there's one that I could like fix and make good, would it be Heaven's Gate? It's definitely not Cats. So it's between Ishtar and Heaven's Gate. I'd probably make Heaven's Gate

Lily:

Mmm.

James:

that I would like to see.

Lily:

I wouldn't like to see it, but I think you could definitely make it good. I think I will give that Butcher's cut a view, Steven Soderbergh's version, just out of curiosity. Just to see how we piece it together, because

James:

still chuffed that I did remember it.

Lily:

a good guess, yeah. Alright, well, to finish, shall we take a trip to the film pharmacy?

James:

Absolutely.

Lily:

Dear Lily and James, Do you guys think films make more of an impact when we're young?, I found that most of my favorite films, and the ones I always go back to, I watch between the ages of 18 and 24. Is this the most impressionable age or should a film hit home whatever? And which films have stuck with you when you were young?

James:

What a great question. I, I, I often think about this. I'm like, when was the last time that I genuinely had that magical feeling at the cinema? I think that as you, Get older that sense of wonder just like you know the fact that you know Father Christmas isn't real It's the same kind of thing that just is somehow that magic that you can't quite get back disappears

Lily:

I know what you mean, but I'm not sure if I agree. I think that I think there is something about when you're young and you discover the magic of cinema. and for me, I remember watching Lost in Translation and being so kind of moved by What that story was and the way the film, conveyed the feeling between them visually in the movie and, and just like following them through Tokyo, you know, everything about that film at that time, I know it doesn't, some of those scenes don't really, don't have an age very well, but on the whole, I think that movie still like has that impact when I watch it, of course, you're never going to get that exact same feeling, but that was definitely something of like, Oh, wow. The magic,

James:

Okay,

Lily:

I was 16. And I had that last year when I watched past lives like I remember feeling like so, so moved by it and loving and just, being like so. But I think the thing with that movie is that it really speaks to where I am in my life now, you know, like those protagonists of the same kind of age as me, the same kind of life stage and similarly, you know, I wasn't that far off of Scott Johansson's age. And, you know, I had, ambitions and dreams to like travel and stuff when I got older. So, so I think to me, it's not really that it's only when you're young. It's just that certain films are going to hit you at different points in your life. I, feel like you can still feel those feels as you get older too.

James:

Oh yeah, and you keep coming back to the same films, I mean, I guess the one for me is Adult, which I've covered many times in the years of 2001, but, um, for me, I think certainly it's sort of something that has that movie magic feel to me that's very memorable, was seeing Empire Strikes Back at the cinema for the first time, because this is 1982 when it came out, there were no spoilers, there's no internet, so getting to watch that incredible space opera and then finding out the biggest plot twist in probably modern cinema history and not having any idea, it coming out of nowhere, I mean, that was mind blowing to be that young, that into a film and then have this big plot twist that you didn't have any idea about. Oh, it's great. think as I've got older, that sense of wonder, I get it now and again. I mean, with my old favorite Christopher Nolan, when I'm watching an IMAX film on the biggest possible screen, the best quality, and it's one of his bigger blockbusters, then I get, I get the closest I can get to that feeling of wonder as a child I get that, I guess, in those moments.

Lily:

Right, but it's never quite that exact, like, intensity, right? I think you're right. I think it does, yeah. It's a bit dulled, sadly, but we get those moments, don't we? That's why we've got to go to the cinema. I feel like you only really get that when you see a movie. On the big screen, I

James:

Absolutely, when you see it on the big screen and, there may be an audience in there and you're all locked into the film and you're all feeling the same feelings together. Those are the moments we go to the cinema for, I think.

Lily:

Absolutely. All right. On that happy note, thank God we brought it back after Cats. Thank you guys for listening to another episode of Groovy Movies.

James:

and if you could find your way to leaving us a nice five star review or a like, that all helps get the podcast out to a bigger audience.

Lily:

So we will see you in two weeks time. Bye!

James:

Bye!