Film Journal Podcast
George (Film Journal) and Ryan (Cinecrisis) dig through film history one oddball pick at a time—hopping from cult horror to forgotten blockbusters, art house to trash fire (sometimes in the same episode). Whether it’s dissecting Hammer Horror, roasting the latest Studio Flop, or revisiting 70's exploration fare- they bring sharp takes, deep trivia, and the kind of banter only good pals can pull off!
No film school snobbery. No hot take clickbait. Just smart, funny conversations for people who like movies and think they actually matter.
Film Journal Podcast
From Civil War to Challengers: Summer 2024's Most Talked-About Films
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Summer blockbuster season arrives with its usual mix of spectacle, star power, and occasional surprises, giving us plenty to dissect in this episode. We jump headfirst into Alex Garland's "Civil War," a visually striking but politically ambiguous journey through a fractured America that sparks passionate disagreement between us. While one sees a pointless exercise in nihilism, the other finds an exhilarating window into how quickly society could crumble.
The conversation heats up with "Challengers," Luca Guadagnino's sexually-charged tennis drama that has us both firmly in its court. Zendaya's magnetic performance as a tennis prodigy turned coach manipulating two competitive players showcases her range, while the film's non-linear structure and innovative visual approach to tennis sequences elevate it beyond typical sports dramas. We analyze how the film portrays complex relationships without moral judgment, allowing viewers to interpret character motivations from multiple angles.
"The Fall Guy" proves more divisive, with Ryan Gosling's charm carrying much of this meta-commentary on Hollywood stuntwork. While some action sequences impress (particularly the garbage truck chase), debate ensues over whether the film successfully balances its action, comedy, and romance elements or simply overstays its welcome.
We close with a tribute to the recently departed Roger Corman through analysis of Peter Bogdanovich's "Targets" (1968). This fascinating time capsule pairs Boris Karloff essentially playing himself with a storyline about a mass shooter, creating a profound commentary on how horror evolved from Gothic monsters to the mundane terror of modern violence. Corman's legacy of launching filmmakers' careers with creative freedom, despite minimal budgets, reminds us what's possible when artists are given room to experiment.
What films are you most excited about this summer? Share your thoughts and join the conversation about these uniquely different cinematic experiences.
Show Introduction
Speaker 1Okay, we're live. Hey man, it's summertime, all the summer movies from Hollywood are rolling out, baby, and we're here to talk about. Give you guys the scoop.
Speaker 2Summer begins earlier and earlier in Hollywood, right? Remember, it used to begin at Memorial Day and now it's beginning of May. It's the official start of the summer movie season.
Speaker 1That's okay, right? I mean, I remember that was cool when I was a kid, because it kind of meant summer was coming and it gave you like those last few weeks of school Every weekend. You usually had something good to look forward to right True true, true, and I always kind of enjoyed that.
Speaker 1We saw three of the newest big hit blockbusters hits and quotes though I'm not trying to rag anybody for not making money, but we saw three of the hits. And then, to close out the show, tonight, guys, we're going to talk about a great film, peter Bogdanovich's Targets, which was produced by Roger Corman. Rest in peace. And I think Targets is interesting for a multitude of reasons. First of all, it's a good movie. Second off, it's a great window into what it's like to make a movie for Roger Corman. The movie is sort of a meta commentary on itself. So I thought, I think, actually fortuitously, we sort of watched this, or not so fortuitously for the 98-year-old Roger Cortman, who had a great life, right, but we happened to watch this and then a few days later he died. Yes, but to start things off, ryan, what have you been up to?
Speaker 2Been catching up on a lot of movies. There's been a lot coming out lately, seen a lot but also missed quite a bit too. I did not make it to see Ghostbusters After.
Speaker 1No, I'm sorry, Not Ghostbusters Afterlife.
Speaker 2Ghostbusters Frozen Empire I missed that one. The First Omen I missed that one too. There's been so much, and then now, the summer's beginning, it seems like there's nothing coming out much for a while after Furiosa next week.
Speaker 1Isn't that weird? Yeah, I've got my IMAX tickets for Thursday. Baby, I'm ready to go for Furiosa. Very nice, I'm pumped. Did you enjoy Mad Max Fury Road?
Speaker 2You know what I'm going to be honest with you. I did not see it. I ordered the Mad Max 4K box set this afternoon on Amazon. I'm planning to just go through all the films in this next couple days.
Speaker 1Honestly, if I'm being real too, besides Fury Road, I've only ever seen Road Warrior.
Speaker 2Yeah, it was not something I was ever interested in very much, but I don't know, For some reason this one looks particularly interesting. It just looks so much different than anything else that's out there right now. Maybe that's because George Miller is kind of an old school filmmaker who's working, you know, with the newer technology in the modern confines of the system nowadays. He brings something different to it. But you know, it looks just visually very appealing.
Speaker 1I agree with you. I don't understand the idea of the prequel. That's not something I'm necessarily very interested in as a prequel. Um, and it really almost just looks like hey, like fury road. This here's some more. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2It doesn't look like they're visual, visual eye candy for sure.
Summer Movie Season Discussion
Speaker 1So I mean that's what I'm interested I wonder if they're going to be driving down in the middle of a desert and if there will be cars that explode and people on motorcycles that explode next to the car. Do you know I mean right? I think that might. I think that might happen I think that that may be in the cards that might be it, okay, well, hey, should we jump right into our first movie?
Speaker 2we're going to talk about alex garland's civil war must we we must the war is three hits, and I don't think that's really fair, because some of these movies I don't think are designed to be hits necessarily. Um, one of them, one of the three we're going to be talking about, was designed to be a hit. Uh, the other two, including civil war, designed to be kind of these like sleeper, pseudo indie films counter programming for adults.
Speaker 1Sure, sure, you know you don't want to see minions four. Then you can go see challengers and you can go see, uh yeah, civil war, um, civil, see. I would like to kick this show off because we're sort of like adrift here. I would love to kick it off with the trailer, but anytime we do that, the the video gets blocked or demonetized. Right, yeah, not that I'm exactly making a mint off these streams, but go ahead I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 2I don't even remember if I saw the trailer for civil war. Um, there was so much media hype and publicity about it, just irregardless. So you kind of knew what you were. Well, I don't know if that's true. If you knew what you were getting into going to see this movie, even by trailer or by publicity, it was a very different movie than I think most people anticipated when they actually saw it. Would that be fair?
Speaker 1to say, yeah, you made the point about how there was a lot of hubbub about it when the trailer was released and pre-movie and then, after the movie came out, nobody gave a shit to talk about it anymore.
Speaker 2I agree out.
Speaker 1Nobody gave a to talk about it anymore. It's a movie that has a lot of very striking, brutal and, uh, incendiary, potentially visual imagery imagery that would have been incendiary probably 10 years ago, not so much now. It's been very much normalized but, uh, we'll get to that. But, um, after it came out, everyone was just kind of like, yeah, and I think we'll differ on, I guess, how lived out. Alex garland got with the film. But go ahead and give your initial reactions and I'll bounce back uh, yeah, so hot, take alert.
Speaker 2I I hated this movie. I really, really did. I couldn't stand it.
Speaker 1I thought it was bored super bored.
Speaker 2Uh, this movie is excruciatingly slow. I don't deliberately to a point, and I just found it completely devoid of any emotion or any interest at all. What was the point of the movie? The point of the movie seemed to be war is bad, violence desensitizes us, it's bad to, you know, to rebel against the government. These are all fine, noble sentiments that I have no problem with, but does this have anything to do with this, you know, brutally divisive topic we're talking about, which is a potential second American civil war? What does the movie actually have to say or comment on this idea? Nothing. It actually stays away from it entirely, and because it doesn't have the balls to actually say anything meaningful, I found it extremely uninteresting. Even if you wanted to go from a extremely liberal point of view or an extreme conservative point of view, at least give me something to work with. This is just kind of cowardly in its execution.
Speaker 1I think it's a little I get what you're saying with of cowardly in its um execution. I think it's a little I get what you're saying with the cowardly comments. However, I do to a certain extent, uh, admire garland for not trying to, because here's, here's what happens to a guy if you want to make a civil war ii movie. Now, for me, the draw of this film was the spectacle of heavy military machinery tearing up a modern american city, and not in a transformer's way but in sort of like a uh, here's a little rod sterling window into what this might look like if this happened right now.
Speaker 1I think no matter what if you are going to outline like every faction and what they want and who is comprised in these factions and yeah, the movie is politically incoherent. Politically incoherent right, I mean there are it doesn't make any sense right Under scrutiny, and I guess that sort of does zap the joy out of the film a little bit, because you can't ever latch on to anything. There's a sequence, I you know, where we have a bunch of guys dressed like me but with uh military armor on shooting at american soldiers and they're having a little shootout in like an old building, right. Well, I don't know what any of these sides wants or what they think or why they're doing this. So therefore, why should I care? Now, I think garland's point is that, no, you should care about the journalist. It's like, well, I don't. You know what I mean. Because the journalist besides the main dude who I liked, kirsten Dunst's character is that she's depressed and sad and war-torn and weary. She's taken so many pictures of things that she's sad and I don't know.
Speaker 1It's just that's putting it mildly yeah, right, but like, what I did enjoy was the sort of spectacle of this, this idea of what it would look like to see a civil war in america, and that I thought it did look rather unfun. Now, like as francois truffaut said, it's rather difficult to make an actual anti-war movie because, like the pomp and circumstance of action and destruction and military might it's like impossible to portray negatively, there's something deep down in you that gets jazzed when you see it.
Speaker 2Right, I find it somewhat this movie, though I think in this, this movie, everything is pretty much just a kind of queasy feeling, negative, uh, emotion, no matter what, and and I agree with you what you said about they don't want you to know what they're fighting for, and that becomes a point unto itself. That the characters you know deliberately and explicitly tell us in the movie is that we don't know what they believe. We don't know, we don't even care what we believe anymore, we're just fighting to stay alive. And, yes, I get it. It gets to a point where, basically, we've been so beaten down and our wills have been crushed that all we care about is just perpetuating this and perpetuating the violence, to keep going on and on and on.
Speaker 1I actually disagree with you. I disagree a lot and this is why I push back on this idea that this movie has nothing to say or that there can be no conversation born of it. Because throughout the film, multiple times, we are told that the factions in this civil war are basically opting into it. Right, plenty of territory within the united states where people are totally untouched and going about their day. Right, we get two characters in the film who say my parents are living on a farm, pretending like this isn't happening, which I guess probably is working out for them just fine, as we see in the town that has sort of walled themselves off from any interest in this civil war. Right, this might be a message that alex garland is trying to say.
Speaker 1Of like, because we get the moment from the I'm gonna be feel comfortable saying that the press is sort of his mouthpiece. There's a moment when they walk into this town that's near the main battlefield, which is on the east coast primarily. Right, yeah, new york, and dc, yeah, virginia, it's like three states they're fighting. Yeah, right. And he has a moment where the, the journalists, are sort of like pressing this woman who's working in a shop, like don't you know that there's a civil war going on out there, she's like, yeah, but I'm trying to stay out of it. And this is sort of typical liberal mentality of how can you ignore what's going on in the world? Man, we're out there taking photos to show the people what's happening, but nobody cares right. And I think this is his remark on American apathy or something, but to me this is a positive development.
Speaker 2Wait, I'm saying that the people are apathetic to the, to the actual ongoing conflict.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2Okay, I think that's.
Speaker 1I mean, I think it's.
Speaker 2I think it's rather extreme to extrapolate apathy towards, you know, things that are ongoing currently, in our current political climate, versus going on to a situation where we have all-out war. I think it would be impossible to be apathetic in that situation.
Speaker 1Dude, you watch Twilight Zone, you know that the monsters are due on. Maple Street is an extreme example of McCarthyism. But that's what it's about.
Speaker 2That's what every good terrible that situation is entirely more plausible than anything that happens in this movie, because the way the people are actually depicted in something that Rod Serling would write who actually understood how human emotions work and how people interact in society is that, you know, in microcosms people do resort to mob mentality and they feel comfortable doing that, and they can gang up on other people. In this situation, it seems unclear other than the fact that the president has declared, I guess, that he's a ruler for life and that he's created, in a way, I don't think they ever say that.
Speaker 2Well, we get, we get office. I mean, that's why he's created a fortress around the White House that they have to take him out.
Speaker 1There is currently a fortress around the White House that they have to take him out. There is currently a fortress around the White House. My thinking was that the fortress was not. I was surprised it was so lacking. I thought there would be a bigger fortress. But and we get a quote from a character in the film who mentions three concrete things that the president has done that are bad. Right Now we get the hint early on that this is a cipher for Trump, because he's practicing his speech and he says we had one of the. There People are saying it was the biggest victory of all time and I'm like, yeah, OK, because you can only really make a movie like this if Trump is the person that is murdered. Right, Otherwise it wouldn't. Of course, you would be in this. You'd be locked away for life if you didn't about, you know, Joe Biden.
Speaker 2But like it'd be locked away for life if you didn't about. You know, joe biden. But like it'd be impossible to say this movie would ever have been made had there not been jan 6 and people you know with earworms uh, you know, obsessing about it well, I was just saying they say three things that the president did.
Speaker 1They said he drone bombed american citizens right, which is something, coincidentally, that obama has actually done, yes, uh. Secondly, they say that we're all lucky, correct yeah, I don't, we're all lucky, good memory.
Speaker 1Yeah, he um number two. They say he disbanded the fbi, which is a rather telling admission on the part of like Alex Garland that in his opinion that would be something that a dictator would do, is disestablish the nationwide secret police force. That that would not be something a dictator would do. I mean, maybe if they said, if he formed his own different FBI or something, that would be a different story, which, coincidentally, every president does. I mean. Sure, homeland Security was like Bush's guys, right. He was like, let me get a new CIA in here, right, but let's not get too political. But I would say would you agree with me that the Western forces, I think, are mostly coded as good?
Speaker 2Yes, very much so. I mean, those are the people in the end that take out the bad president. So, yes, those are the people in the end that take out the the bad president.
Speaker 1So yes, they are the heroes of the movie, even though their tactics are quite brutal, even in the confines of armed conflict, I mean you know, is that now, like when they, when they send out the no?
Speaker 2I found the ending of the film, when they send out Karine Jean-Pierre to to negotiate, yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, or they send out the dummy limos and they just open fire on like staffers and they blow up the Lincoln Memorial. I mean, now, is that something that Garland is like yes, you would have to do that if you were going to take down Trump. Or is this him saying you know their patina of angelic nature here as the Trump murderers is not 100 percent Like, they're kind of bad. Plus, also, they are pegged and referred to in the movie as insurrectionists. They are sort of they tried to break off from the country, correct, yes, and they weren't allowed to. And they weren't allowed to by the feds. So there have been, the feds have waged war on them.
Speaker 2What's also complicated and they don't really go into this in the movie too much is that there are multiple secessionist sections that have broken off. There's that Western thing, plus there's Florida something Alliance, and then there's a Texas California Alliance. That also makes no sense. They do this on purpose to not have, you know, that much contemporary, you know political ideology present. But also, why is there so much and why don't you explain anything?
Speaker 2I'm not saying that they need to have, like you know, a four hour lecture on what the history of in the last five years have been that happened to this. But, you know, since this movie does focus on journalism, you think there would be like a two minuteminute blurb, like a tv article, a tv news magazine thing or something that just says, oh, here we are on the fifth anniversary of blah, blah, blah and uh, on this day there was some massacre or something happened that said, uh, such and such state seceded and we've gone on from here and it's like, okay, I got it like this is what escalated to the point where we are now not like just well but, but in his, his, uh, his thing is it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2It doesn't matter journalists, just uh.
Speaker 1And here's the other thing too. I think that, first of all, I'm not trying to give garland credit for being smarter than he is, because everything he said in interviews has been wholly uninteresting, right, um. But I think that a wise move. And I guess the other problem with this is this is such a topical movie that is supposed to be inspiring current conversations. But by removing any sort of political optics from the movie, I think the goal was, first of all, we'll immediately date ourselves if we try to come up with like boundaries of politics based on current day predicaments. We'll immediately date ourselves. We'll be wrong in five years, you know when Texas goes blue or whatever. Right, you know what I'm saying, yeah, and or maybe not. So what?
Speaker 2but so what if the movie dates itself? It's it's predicated on being a timely.
Speaker 1you know a cautionary tale, you you being a timely, you know a cautionary tale, you, you would never have anyone talk about the actual substance of the film. All they would talk about was how your political prognosticating was not based not or stupid, you know, and and dumb right, which people are kind of doing anyway.
Civil War: Analysis and Critique
Speaker 2Well, then you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't with this movie, which is which is also very frustrating about it as well um but this is not why I don't want to I don't want to get too caught up in all this, because this is not why I didn't like the movie, even though I mentioned that part of it.
Speaker 2It is just painfully, painfully dull and slow. I mean there are yes, the last 20 minutes of the movie are thrilling, as they as they go into the urban warfare in dc like you just described, but for 90 minutes before that, I mean, there is nothing. There is a little bit here and there as they go on this travel log across America and see atrocity after atrocity that's occurring that they don't really comment on rather than they just observe and document. Because this is about how important photo journalism is as a profession and especially how wartime photojournalism is a very um, passionate and, um you know, important job, that those uh who choose to do it should be celebrated and lauded, despite the own, their own mental anguish and, um you know shattering up.
Speaker 1do you believe that? Do you believe that that was? That was course not, that was complete BS. How many war photos can you actually remember?
Speaker 2No. And also, if this movie is supposed to be a timely critique or commentary, why are we still talking about people who take still photos? Why are they not live streaming? Why are they not taking video? Why are they not doing it on social media? Why does this feel so old-fashioned for a movie that's set in the future? Actually, where we're talking about print media, the people work for the new york times and reuters, I believe, uh, shouldn't those because garland like obsolete at this point.
Speaker 2If there's a, if there's an ongoing conflict like this that's been leveling, you know, new york city or whatever well, I think that, like it, it's.
Speaker 1It's not obsolete. If your goal is to create propaganda, like when I brought up my earlier point about um, do you remember any war photos? The only war photos I really ever remember are world war ii photos, which were, by and large, taken by service members who the military was. Just like. Your job is gonna be a film film shit. There were no independent journalists showing you World War II as it happened. Vietnam, I guess, but the only point of anybody being over in Vietnam was to take photos of what's the most famous one the kids getting napalm or blew their clothes off and they're running down the street. All that was for was to be like let's get out of Vietnam. That's it. Anything from Iraq you can remember, no?
Speaker 2I only remember. I only remember when haraldo went over during the uh, the second iraq war, and he was outlining the map on the ground, in sand, of where the people were stationed and that was like top secret and he got in trouble for that. That's the only thing I remember I do remember that.
Speaker 1But yeah, like iraq was just something you saw on television, it's like well, thank you to the brave journalists.
Speaker 2For people who lived through that, Vietnam was also a highly televised war where people saw on their TVs at home what was going on rather than remembering a famous photograph, because it's the nature of the times. You know, and as we've seen in, you know, the current conflicts that are going on in the world, people are engaging in those through social media and other more digital forms of of communication for how they document these things. So it's, it's just a very yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1I can watch uploads of drone footage blowing people up. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2It's like yeah, so it's. It's a very old fashioned way of thinking about things. That makes no, it's just kind of off putting and it's like why are we talking about this?
Speaker 1Well, and you know, the one thing that bothered me was that you had an opportunity here and I was. Initially, when I came out of the movie, I made a point where I was like this movie is not as slavish, the press is amazing, they're great. Like I was expecting to have a monologue where someone's like we're doing this for the people and if we don't report it, nobody will. We don't. Thankfully, we don't get that right, but, um, it's implied. I think you're correct, it's implied.
Speaker 1But the thing that's interesting to me and I guess maybe this is not interesting to alex garland, but, like we, we stopped the movie multiple times for a visual flare, as there's an action scene happening and then the young ingenue takes a photo and the movie stops and we see the still frame black and white, grainy photograph of you know of. But you know, the thing that would be interesting to me is if you were to take, if she were to take, a photo of an incident where we saw it play out one way but the photo leads you to make another conclusion yes that would be interesting.
Speaker 1That would be a reason to show the photographs. But garland's not interested in saying that. Hey, sometimes you can be misled, or sometimes a picture doesn't tell the whole story. That would be very interesting, but not.
Speaker 2Manipulation of the facts and the story based on how you take the photo or how you perceive things.
Speaker 1Well, we couldn't do that because we don't know enough about what's actually happening, so we wouldn't know if we were being misled or not. There were moments you talked about how you thought the film was boring. People have said it's like a zombie movie. I thought yeah, it is, but it's a good zombie movie. This is the guy who wrote 28 days later. You know this is not an untalented guy alex garland. I really like ex machina. I thought annihilation was great, so twice um I think it's unfair to compare it to.
Speaker 2well, it depends what kind of zombie movie you're talking about. You're talking about something like the Romero films, which actually provide more biting commentary on human nature than anything that's presented in this movie, for instance, and more biting politically because he has an actual opinion.
Speaker 1He was a, you know.
Speaker 2Oh, yeah, no, I mean the sentiment of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead as well. Day of the Dead's my favorite. Oh, night of the living dead and dawn of the dead and day of the dead as well yeah, that's my favorite. Oh, day of the dead's a great underrated film. I think a lot more people appreciate it nowadays. But I mean there's a lot more, you know, kind of uh important social commentary in those movies than anything you're going to see in civil war, in my opinion. Plus you get all the great blood and guts from disemboweling people yeah, that's.
Speaker 1That's. That's fairly true. I did enjoy the movie. I thought that viscerally, it was very impressive. I found myself very impacted by some of the visuals of what it would look like if Washington DC was being torn apart. I thought this was profound, because this is something that we've seen on television, you know us destroying other people's countries, you know, for like the past 40 years, and it's rather jarring and striking, I think, to see it happen in Washington DC. I don't know.
Speaker 2I felt largely desensitized to it. I think and that's part of the problem, I think is that you could have set this movie anywhere. The themes and ideas that it's trying to espouse, that it doesn't really come across very well. Um would have been just as impactful if, like you, had set the movie in I don't know, zimbabwe or something like that, um and had implanted, you know, transplanted kirsten dunst and company to that setting um, or he had it be a sci-fi movie set on some alien world where the same thing is happening. I think you could, you could make an allegory about america and our society by doing that and you could have cloaked it in that and made it a little bit more, a little smarter than kind of be trying then then, rather than trying to be so on the nose about saying, oh, there's going to be an american civil war and here's how it's going to go down and you know stuff like that.
Speaker 2I just I don't know the entire. Let's talk about the cast and then what the actual plot of the movie is, because we've been dancing around talking about the context of the movie, which it largely leaves out. The actual plot of the movie is that these journalists are going to go from I don't know wherever New York to Washington DC, to quote interview the president, which is, which is an impossible or stupid. It's a totally asinine premise because the president lives in a walled up White House bunker and they apparently shoot journalists on site as they if they come near the White House. So they just happen to know that there's going to be this big bad incursion where they're going to break in and then literally at the you know spoilers for the end of the movie, like he was going to do it. He needs to do an interview before they execute him, and it's like such a stupid thing, such a stupid idea, sorry.
Speaker 1Like the idea that you wouldn't take him prisoner and give him a show trial Like you would you know.
Speaker 2Yeah Well, that's not the point of the movie is to be as brutal as possible to get the maximum shot.
Speaker 1And you want to kill Trump for everyone so they can have a little vicarious Trump death.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm not a fan of where they, where they unceremoniously execute. You know, political leaders and stuff like that, no matter what.
Speaker 1Isn't it shocking, though, that it's so unshocking to people now? Yeah, exactly At the end of the movie, everyone's just like yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2I don't believe in movies and plots and ideas like this, where they you know you achieve your political means by you know executing leaders and stuff like that. So I had a big problem in Monkey man too. You know people achieve their political ambition through, you know, hostile assassinations and stuff like that. I think it's like we can do better than that as a society. You know, if the whole point of the movie is to show us that this is bad and that we shouldn't we shouldn't ever devolve or descend into mob like mentality, to that we would ever get to this level, then how about have a lofty ending that shows us there is a, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, there is something worth fighting for, not just this totally nihilistic ending, or or add some nuance to where the president's like, yeah, go ahead and kill me, I'm doing the right thing, fuck you.
Speaker 1You know what I mean.
Speaker 2Yes, right don't portray him as a cartoon. You know, super villain, basically right, maybe there's another side of the story, but of course there is never another side of the story. It's always uh, black and white, because he disbanded the fbi yeah, yes, can we talk about kirsten dunst? Sure does.
Speaker 1She a perfect rbf to an art form in this movie oh, transcend it the best to ever do it one note performance, the entire movie I liked the main dude, um, I thought he had a little nuance to his character. That was interesting.
Speaker 2Yes, he is probably the most complex out of all the other characters um.
Speaker 1I mean, he's just a straight up adrenaline junkie, like. So that's why people are like oh it's about, I'm like the. It's basically just showing that a lot of people in the press are just like this. These people especially, they just like to rush. Man Like. They're not like about telling the people what's going on, they just like to rush.
Speaker 2He, he is an adrenaline junkie, but he at least has some naivete not naivete like some personality flaws he's having fun. He's scared, though. There are times they show him he's scared, he's vulnerable. There's times where he's almost flirting with the teenage girl, to a point which is kind of creepy too.
Speaker 1No, that they didn't get together was was shocking to me. I thought they would totally get together and they should.
Speaker 2But but otherwise he's probably the more interesting out of all the characters of the. The teenage, you know, wannabe hanger on girl is. You know, exactly the kind of character you expect. Whatever's going to happen is going to happen. Her entire arc, if you can even call it that is is exactly as it plans out. Um, you expect it to be from the moment you meet her, when she's going to join their team, and what's going to happen by the end of the movie, what's going to happen to this character and what's going to happen to that one.
Speaker 1You can tell who's going to live and who's going to die, um, pretty much I thought they should have killed her, the young girl, not that I wanted her, of course. That would have been more poignant to say, wow, they, these, these psychos endangered this young girl and she was lured by this siren song of adventure into her death.
Speaker 2It's but we can't do that because, yeah, it's to give a false redemption for Kirsten Dunst, to show that she actually does have a heart. She's not as jaded as she thought she was. This, this young girl who reminds her so much of herself uh, you know, changes melts her heart of ice and she, she sacrifices herself for her yeah, not, not an interesting wiping away my tear, yeah yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1Yeah, you're right now I, you're making me. I hesitate to keep defending the movie, but I found myself gripped. I thought they were really good scenes. Jesse plemon's moment with the whole uh, hey, we're. You know what kind of american are you with his little red glasses? I like that. I thought that was an exciting scene. I was kind of on the edge of my seat. It was sort of undone in a sort of marvel-esque escape where the guy rolls up and just hits him with his suv, which I thought was rather dumb, a little bit of a deus ex machina. They're in an open field. You would see or hear this guy driving at you at 70 miles an hour.
Speaker 2But it's like how far have we devolved that we would have a situation like that? That's the context. I think that is missing is that how did we get from? You have one situation where as okay, as far fetched and as fantastical as this whole civil war thing is, now we have people that are just doing mass executions, and, you know, mass graves, indiscriminately, for no reason. What's what's going on here? What? What is this? What's the point of this?
Speaker 1what's going on?
Speaker 2here what? What is this? What's the point of this?
Speaker 1well, in the premise of the movie, in the premise that's set up in the film, there was no good way to get them out of that scenario. He wrote himself into a corner because that character would have just shot them all and thrown them all into the pit precisely. You know what I mean? Right, yeah, but and this is a totally unforgivable mega person who's just killing people. He's like a hillbilly hick, uh, nationalist. Right now, the way they could get out of that is to talk their way out of it. You know, or you know, but this person is written as totally unreasonable and like a mad butcher who's insane.
Speaker 1Now, don't get me wrong, there are people that would take advantage of this sort of scenario to do that kind of thing right, but like they should have been a way that they could work their way out of this situation, rather than, oh, I show up just in the nick of time and hit him with my car, like, come on, like that's yeah, that's dumb. That's like you know how we bridge ourselves into the second act in like a later terminator film. Oh, I just crashed into him. The the robot's been temporary dismantled. Now we're gonna run away and they're to go repair themselves while we hide, right. Um, yeah, I totally get it. I totally understand your complaints. I found the film to be, uh, rather exhilarating, thrilling and and frightening, so I think that it doesn't. I think it deserves to exist. Uh, we have someone in the chat saying you're the man. You always have more fans than me, but uh, yeah um so would you, would you?
Speaker 1ever watch this movie again um, yeah, I think I would really okay, I could see myself watching it again for maybe research purposes, for to talk about another movie, but then like not hating it and enjoying it. I thought there were the music cues. I thought we're good. I thought that he did a nice job with some of the music cues. Don't remember they lost soul song during the battle scene, you know, with the blue boys and their Hawaiian shirts. I don't.
Speaker 1I'm sorry, yeah, I don't remember there's, there's some quality needle drops Also. One thing I want to mention too is I thought the film was a fairly maybe unconscious rumination on COVID. I thought that the moment in the New York Hotel initially in the first few scenes of the movie were remarkably reminiscent of the sort of experience of COVID in which people just naturally degrade their expectations in public, right. So there's that bit where and also we see the person in the hotel who's like you might want to take the stairs because the elevator is not working, right, okay, you know, because I noticed that a lot of people may be in the service industry during COVID. They loved it because they could, like, not give you anything and talk down to you and make you feel like shit. So I thought there were a lot of COVID things in the movie. For sure, people rapidly adjust their expectations to less during this time, which I thought was surprising Thoughts.
Speaker 2Perhaps I don't know. I didn't pick up on that at all. I think a movie describing what you just described would have been much more interesting than this movie.
Speaker 1I remember that story of the person that worked at the grocery store that yelled at Bruce Willis to put his mask on. And a lot of people really loved COVID because it empowered them to be assholes to people they would otherwise never be able to be. You could never yell at Bruce Willis, but now you can because he's not being safe. But anything else on civil war, we want to keep it trucking along. We have four movies to hit.
Speaker 2I'd rather move on to something else I like the movie.
Speaker 1I thought it was uh well done one star and didn't hate it. I think I gave it three and a half. I didn't mind it so and I wrote a little twitter outline on what I thought Okay bro, let's move on to Challengers.
Speaker 2Oh, thank God, Loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it. This is one of the best movies of the year.
Speaker 1I'm with you. Did you think you would like it?
Speaker 2I did. Actually, there's something very magnetic about the trailer. When I saw this one this is when I actually did see the trailer in the movie theater there was something just exhilarating and kind of like addictive, but like just you had to see this movie. There was something very striking about it. You're like this is a tennis movie, but it doesn't really seem like a real tennis movie.
Speaker 1It's about being hot, it's about sex. You know it's fun.
Speaker 2Yes, yes, because otherwise I would not be interested in a tennis movie by any means. But yeah, this was. I thought this movie was just very like, super sexy, very fun, but it's also extremely tense and it keeps you on the edge of your seat, like throughout. And despite there's no actual sex in the movie there is no nudity, nothing like that but it just feels like it, it exudes, like attitude and I was like I loved it, loved it.
Speaker 1I'm totally with you. I'm on the same page. I thought the movie had an excellent energy. I thought it did something really fun, which is hard to do, which is to get you on both sides of you know. Obviously people might know the premise, which is that there's two, two brothers, for life, and actually I, I thought that, um, the movie did a great job of accurately portraying male friendships. Right, the guys are a little obnoxious with each other. They're a little gay with each other.
Speaker 2Um, you know what I?
Speaker 1mean like a little bit, but like not in a like. Obviously people will be like, yeah, it's gay that two guys make out in the movie. Like that's gay, it's like okay, I mean, but in the context of the scenario they were in, they were being manipulated by a woman to you know, right? I mean, come on right.
Speaker 2That's the most implausible part of the movie in my opinion, but it was very effective for dramatic purposes.
Speaker 1Yeah, I wanted to ask you do you think Zendaya was sinister the whole time? Because if I had one issue, I'm like they show her. Do that where she leans back after making the two friends make out with each other.
Speaker 2She's so pleased with herself at that moment.
Speaker 1I know.
Speaker 2That was the best part is that she's like I got them to do exactly what I wanted them to do.
Speaker 1I'm so hot. Yeah, yeah, but I thought that the male go ahead.
Speaker 2Oh, I was gonna say that's what's so great about the movie, is that she? I was going to ask you, do you think that she would qualify as a femme fatale? I mean, this is not a noir by any means, but she certainly exhibits most of the characteristics of a femme fatale, and she even describes herself as a homewrecker in the movie Absolutely. And she manipulates the hell out of these boys. I, the hell out of these boys. I mean, she has them wrapped around her finger.
Speaker 1she doesn't really seem to care what happens to them other than um can I, you know, to get ahead of?
Speaker 2them both. Maybe she does, but she loves them so much that she's willing to use them to uh, achieve her and I don't think she's using her husband to get ahead per se right now.
Speaker 1Do I think she's a stay-at-home mom that just wants to sit back and clap for her husband? No, she wants to be actively involved in his rise and ascension. She is sort of vicariously living through him, almost like your typical sports dad in the Midwest, right, yeah, because of her injury. But she also wants to love and be loved by a man who has some passion and drive, right? So when her current horse is showing signs of flagging, she's going to lose interest in him because that's not the kind of man she wants. She wants a guy that's going to go and go and go. You know I'm saying what does that say about?
Speaker 2her. What does that say about her as a person that she's willing to? I mean? I don't think that's unreasonable well, I think it's very unreasonable that if you, if you actually love someone like that, that you're willing to just get toss them aside like a uh, you know, a used, used rag or something like that?
Speaker 1no, I don't think so, and I think I, I don't think that's what what that means, but I think what it is is, if you're going to keep a relationship and I'm not like an expert here, but as you know, it seems like reasonable advice you want to keep it fresh. You, you both got to stay fit. You both have to stay in the game. I think you both have to be desirable to other people. You know and I'm not talking like swingers, throw your keys in the bowl here, but I'm talking like to make to say, hey, I'm still desirable, I'm still out here, I'm still working. Just because we're together and we're married, it's not game over, right, yeah.
Speaker 1I mean you know what I mean.
Challengers: Unanimous Praise
Speaker 2Part of the problem is is the guys themselves are so heavily flawed as well, and that's what that's. What makes the movie great is that all the characters are heavily damaged and flawed people and they have a lot of baggage behind all of them, made even worse by everything that happens, of course. But, um, the guy that she, she's, she marries art, who's played by mike faced, um, I mean, he's great, definitely the, the weaker, the beta of the two. I mean this is definitely um, one who got, who ended up with zendaya just kind of through, um luck, right, I mean she, definitely, there's definitely something there, but it was a matter of circumstances that the right, we was in the right place at the right time to capitalize on the breakup between Patrick and Zendaya and he and he, you know, here's the deal, right then and there. But I mean he's a very weak, weak guy and he falters all the time and she, she senses this and she's like a shark, right, so she's. I see what you're saying at that point.
Speaker 2Well, the fun thing too is on paper he's the most successful. Yes, but it's a very tentative house of cards though, right well, and but it also portrays this.
Speaker 1so I would show any nice guy this movie, right? Um, oh, why do girls always like assholes? Whatever you know it's like, watch this movie, you'll get it. You know, right, this guy on paper, he's the number one success. We. We didn't believe it in here, right, whereas you've got one guy who's sort of down and out in a bum but he believes he's the king in here Right, and he acts like it. You know, I mean, that's, that's the.
Speaker 2Well, there are two extremes, right. I mean, the Patrick is is too much in that direction and art is artist too weak, he's too passive. It's like you have to believe in yourself to some level in order to keep going. You can't just like fall back and and you know passively, you know uh, exist through osmosis here he's passive, though, but I'll tell you.
Speaker 1I'll tell you this if the shoe had been on the other foot and he had dated zendaya first, right, he would have never let the relationship fall apart ever, correct, like patrick did right, he would never. It would never happen. Because he needs her. So he would have never let their relationship fall apart ever like Patrick did Right, he would never. It would never happen. Because he needs her so badly to succeed. You know what I mean? That's her approval is what's driving him Right. And like Patrick, the other bad, the sort of bad boy right, he let her go. You know, he was like, oh well, fuck it, I got my own thing going on, right, he didn't necessarily need her to, like, make his life happen right Correct.
Speaker 2Yes, and that really I think that really pissed her off.
Speaker 1Exactly he did that. Yeah, that he could take it or leave it. He didn't come crawling back to her so I don't see patrick as a victim in this or the, the what was it? Mike face character as the victim yeah, no, he signed.
Speaker 2He knew what he signed up for. Not at all. Not at all.
Speaker 1I mean when she said when he is in the hotel with him, her and she says I want to retire and hey, if I don't win tomorrow, will you hate me? And she's like, well, uh, if you don't win tomorrow, I won't love you anymore. It's exactly what he needed to hear and wanted to hear oh, I don't feel sorry for him at all.
Speaker 2I mean, that's a, it's a better filmmaking for sure. I mean you, you put yourself in that situation by acting the way you did. So I feel no sympathy for him, but uh, it's some guys just like to get their ass beat.
Speaker 2It's true I don't know. But um, yeah, there's, there's a um by way of the movie doing the, the non-linear narrative we jump back and forth through you know majority chunk of these people's lives and you know it can be a little bit jarring and discombobulating at first, I think, and it might off put some people, but I think when you get to the end of the movie it fits together like a you know, a well designed puzzle that you finally get what's gone on in these people's brains for the entire movie and it in the end it makes the ending so much sweeter and so much just juicier for what you see happen. That was the ending so much sweeter and so much just juicier for what you see happen.
Speaker 1That was. That was remarkable for me. You know what, though and it's also a great lesson to like filmmakers like, hey, you don't have to make a tarantino bank robber movie to have it be, have visual flair, to have an unconventional fun narrative to keep people juiced in and involved. I thought this movie was fucking gorgeous. The score is incredible. It's got something that I always talk about is something I really like it's a sense of place. Um, do I want to be on the east coast, nantucket island tennis world? Yeah, I love being there, right, I love the country clubs. I love that. You know waspy, high class leisure sports stuff. I love it. You know what, dude? I loved the, the sweat. I love the big gym bags. It made me miss high school sports. I. I was like damn. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2This is the sweatiest movie that I think I've ever seen. People are just wet all the time. It's just like you don't see things that look real in most other movies and this felt like the people were real, the situation was real. It's not that far-fetched that this couldn't be a real story or something that would actually happen. Also, those POV tennis shots freaking fantastic. You felt like you were with the ball going back and forth and it's like this is thrilling for this type of movie. I mean, I would never expect it.
Speaker 1The editing gets continuously more and more extreme, especially in the final match, to where you'll see hit, ball hit, and then it gets choppier and choppier to where it's almost like the guys are having a sword fight yes you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1Uh, cut, cut, cut. And there's so many spectacular moments like when they they obviously put the camera in the ground, built a plastic or plexiglass fake field with the tape on it and film them underneath for like three seconds, you know, and they it's filmed outdoors. It must have taken them 10 days and my wife was like oh, wouldn't that be fun as a director to direct something like that. I'm like no, that would be an absolute nightmare and miserable. It'd be fun to edit.
Speaker 1Did your wife enjoy the movie, loved it, I thought it was terrific. It also shows, too, that you can have movies like okay, civil war. Every woman in the movie is like, oh, but knighted, you know. Like clean as the driven snow. Oh, the older guy wants to have a drink with me and have sex with me. I don't think so. I'm all about being professional, right? Not in this movie. Zendaya is a very complicated, not great person, right. She has contrition when she's bad, you know. I mean she goes and sleeps with Patrick and obviously it's like very heat of the moment. Nobody watching the movie is blaming her in that time because the filmmaking is so incredible, right, it slows down to that Like they filmed it in 24 frames but then slowed it down, right, peter Jackson likes to do this kind of shit. It oftentimes doesn't look very good. It works so well in this movie. Has sex with Patrick to help her husband to give him back the eye of the tiger. Comes home, he's asleep with the baby daughter and she's crushed and feels like shit.
Speaker 2It's also because she is a very likable character, despite all the bad stuff that she does. Everyone here is likable. You root for and you feel sympathy for each character at the appropriate time, because no one is made to be the actual villain here. Everyone is the hero and everyone is the villain. It just depends on what time you're talking about in the movie here.
Speaker 1All is fair in love and war.
Speaker 2Because life is complicated. Also, my favorite point, and I was just waiting for this, the entire movie, and they finally did it. They finally did. I think it was in the final match waiting for that. Strangers on a train, tennis match homage, did you notice?
Speaker 1oh no, I did not know yes, where you're?
Speaker 2the tennis match right, the two people are playing. Everyone's head is going oh yeah, except for zendaya, that's right that was such a hitchcock moment.
Speaker 1Dude, you're so right, that is your train that's.
Speaker 2It's like the umbrellas and forward correspondent. It's like, yeah, totally yeah, and I was like oh, thank god, they, they got it, they they nailed it, they got the joke. You know, it's like how can you not do it movie and not do that?
Speaker 1it's like it's just so perfect I saw someone clip that and put on twitter and say that was stupid and I'm like you are a fucking like Philistine.
Speaker 2This is called cinema. That was like the cherry on top for this movie.
Speaker 1I really and you know what else I love too the I don't know if you could technically call this a Brian De Palma homage, but the split focus diopter right where they have. You know I'm talking about split focus. Split focus diopter is something that brian de palma would use too extensively. If you saw it, you know what I'm talking about, where, like, he would shoot with a with a deep focus lens, but he would put on a special accoutrement onto his camera so that the, the thing that was in the foreground and the background would both be in focus at the same time. And it looks jarring and you, it draws your attention to it right now. This isn't done. This was obviously done in post to an extent, but it's like her head is in focus from behind and then both the guys are pulled up unnaturally close and they're both like in focus. They're all three of them are in focus, despite the fact that they're over here and she's here right, whereas normally the you know the bokeh would be whatsoever in the foreground would be in focus and the back would be. You know, I'm saying yes.
Speaker 1So there was that um, which I thought was great. I thought the movie was just sumptuous, gorgeous, channeled like um, it channeled so much. We walked through the airport and you see, like the armani, you know brad pitt, like perfume, like commercials. I thought it was so elegant and fun and people were sexy in it. You know, it was just, uh, it was terrific. I thought it was exactly what we need right now in the culture why are we not getting more movies like this?
Speaker 2I mean, what's the deal?
Speaker 1I mean are the gen z's going to see it?
Speaker 2well, they don't think they go to movies at all anymore. I mean, I don't know about where you are, but when I go to the movies I'm trying to think. For this movie in particular, there were some people there, but not very many, I don't know.
Speaker 1I saw it in Dolby Sound, which I would recommend because all the other theaters I've got an IMAX in my theater and then I have a Dolby sound, which is, it's like, better sound. It's basically how movie theaters used to sound, all of them but now they're all falling into disarray and it's almost impossible to watch a movie in a regular theater. It's so bad. So you have to like pay the extra five bucks to see it in Dolby, or else why bother? But it was somewhat full young people my age, okay well, that's good.
Speaker 1Probably young.
Speaker 2I don't know what the reaction or the reception of this movie was. It did not generate a lot of revenue at the box office. I mean, I wouldn't expect a movie like this to be a big blockbuster. But you know we'll see come awards season if they actually acknowledge the movie or not. That will be, I think, the real test to see. Will the Academy actually acknowledge a movie like this or will they kind of let it slide in favor of something more traditional? I don't know.
Speaker 1I doubt it because their memory is so short, but I think the movie was a great boon for zendaya to do something like this. Right, this is my sex symbol movie. Right, but it made me upset because I'm like you know robert redford made a million movies like this. You know where it's like, I'm the star, this is my movie about how hot I am. Right, uh, or come with a better example of a woman, but you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2But we need movies like this as well, where, yeah, the premise is like if you read the premise on IMDb or whatever, you'd be like, I'm not interested, but then you get somebody who's a not necessarily a huge star, but somebody who has name recognition that you've seen in other things you like.
Speaker 2You've seen Zendaya in the Spider-Man movies and you're like, okay, I know who that is, I like her, and you go and see this movie. It's like that's what clinches the deal, to get your butt in the seat, and that's why the whole idea of movie stars and the star power, which has been diminished, you know, since we've been focused on IP for the last don't know 20 years or so I mean, that's a. It's a sorely lacking thing to the film industry anymore where you could go see a movie. Oh, I don't know what the movie is, but tom cruise is in the movie, or brad pitt's in the movie and it's like that's good enough. Good enough to get me good enough for me.
Speaker 1And you know what. She got this movie made. She got this movie made. I guarantee the script came across her, her, her, the desk of her publicist, or you know her, her right, and they were like you got, you got to do this. Yeah, the movie wouldn't have gotten made without her. And she did it. And now we have it, thank you right. I remember I saw some philistine on supposed film twitter where they're the new stories that joseph kaczynski um hero of top gun maverick, his new brad pitt star-led formula 7 movie, oh, it's so over budget, it's costing this much money. And someone tweeted out yeah, this movie's not gonna make a dime, lol, it's gonna flop. I'm like fuck you. So what aren't you happy that exists?
Speaker 2I bet it's gonna be great right well, we can't all be, madame webb, you know I guess.
Speaker 1But I thought the film was incredible. I especially really appreciated how realistic I thought the friendship portions were at the beginning of the film and how much you believed their falling out and how much you believed that they were genuine friends and that they had conversations that real men actually do have with each other.
Speaker 2The only thing that was also just a little weird, um, and I think probably the other thing that was far-fetched beyond the makeout session thing, uh was that I found the churro seemed to be particularly bizarre.
Speaker 1Uh, I don't know if you picked up on that or not did you get the idea, though, that patrick maybe a little more gay than yes?
Speaker 2yes, and sharing the churro biting off the same churro from both of them, that was a little telling.
Speaker 1Which I thought maybe was the wrong choice, because Patrick struck me as the one that was more masculine, right. No, I understand the director is gay, so maybe he's a little biased, but like I would think that the Mike faced character would be the one that maybe would be more feminine, or one that would be almost jealous doubly about his Patrick datings, and you know what I'm saying Like right.
Speaker 2Well, isn't Patrick the one I recall correctly when he goes on the dating app, he he almost swipes on a guy. Yeah, what? What was good about the movie is that it puts those little touches in there and it's it's not enough to like be like.
Speaker 2oh, come on, this is like overdone but it's like right it makes you like second guess it and think about it and it's like this is this is what. This is the level that you need if you want to put all the stuff in. You don't over, you don't bang the audience head over with a, with a, you know a hammer or you know whatever there was weird stuff in there too.
Speaker 1There's the moment where Patrick tries to get by the older lady at the hotel to let him stay in the room, and then two elderly gay men walk in. Oh yeah, there's sort of a comical goofy.
Speaker 2Whatever?
Speaker 1And then I noticed too that when Patrickrick was driving his car and this had to have been a deliberate choice he's driving in his car to go park in the parking lot and he's listening to like laura ingram talk about hillary clinton funding fusion gps, which is such like a like a very particular conservative little talking point and concern.
Speaker 2I totally forgot about that moment.
Speaker 1It wasn't that he was listening to just some news person talking about Trump. It was very specific. It was like Laura Ingraham talking about Fusion GPS, hillary Clinton.
Speaker 2I was like that's a very peculiar thing to add, right, that's great is that it throws in all these little things to like throw you off balance and it doesn't dwell on them.
Speaker 2It doesn't dwell on any of these things it lets you pick up and interpret what you want to from the movie. So if you want to interpret it this way, you can. If you want to interpret it that way, you can. It's left open for the audience to come up with what they will from it, which is perfect, which is what, what it should be, rather than the last movie, which I think was more the regular, which tried to be nuanced but ended up not being. No, it was lacking in its nuance, but it failed on that level.
Speaker 1So anyway, I would highly recommend this movie.
Speaker 2I would highly recommend this movie to everyone. I think it was fantastic.
Speaker 1It definitely will be on my top 10 list, um there were so many moments like when I and we can move on. But when they're hanging out and they get invited to and obviously they're not big stars, but they're up and coming tennis players as kids and they get invited to that after party where zendaya is there and she's being courted by nike and all the pictures are being taken of her and it's a party thrown in her honor because she's such a star, and they look at her from across the room and like, oh my god, she's so fucking hot. Oh my, I'm like I've done that a million, did that a million times with my friends growing up. Right, it rung so true. And that moment where they actually convince her to come hang out with them on the beach and smoke cigarettes terrific, terrific, yeah, terrific stuff.
Speaker 2It felt very real. It did not feel manufactured or put on. It felt like someone who actually whoever wrote this actually had an understanding of human nature and how people interact and what goes on, rather than certain other movies that feel more AI generated or a fake idea.
Speaker 1This is a person, and maybe I don't know if this is the case, but can gay men be a little more free with how they portray interpersonal relationships, because they're sort of out of the game, so they can kind of be real and sit up top on the hill and say, yeah, this is kind of how it happens, Whereas if a man or a straight man or a straight woman directed this, it would be perceived as misogynistic or pushing a feminist. You know what I'm saying, right?
Speaker 2I don't know, I don't know who wrote the movie. I don't think the director wrote it, but he didn't. But I mean he got it right.
Speaker 1I mean, he directed the performances to be true, because I think that what we get here is a real story about how many women interact. We get here is a real story about how many women interact. It's obviously, you know, blown up a little bit, but it's not like a prescribed hr version of no, this is how relationships are supposed to be. They're supposed to be like this and they're supposed to be like this, and this is bad behavior and this is good behavior.
Speaker 2Right, which is what we so often get that's why when you mentioned about you know, gen z going to see this movie. I don't know, would the kind of the puritanical viewpoint we have amongst more younger people these days be this movie not be to their liking, not being politically correct, or you know.
Speaker 1You know, I think that millennials are more puritanical than Gen Z. I think, that there is a certain strain of that with Gen Z, but I think that the other extreme of Gen Z is that they're nuts.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1Which I wholly endorse. Fair enough To transition to the next movie. I want to be happy. I want to go to the movies. I want to like them, I want to have fun. I want them to be back. I want to go see a non-superhero film and have it be a success. I like the Fall Guy. Go ahead.
Speaker 2Okay Well, fall guy go ahead okay. Um well, I'm glad you like the fall guy, because, uh, it didn't do anything for me. I mean this, this movie was. I hate to, you know, say the same thing over and over again, but, man, this movie was boring. Nothing happened. For the majority of it, it's like what? Is this an action movie? This is a comedy. Is this or is this a romance movie?
Speaker 1you used to be able to do all three baby, come on, I don't think.
Speaker 2I don't think it does all three, I think it says we want to be I think it wants to be a romance movie more than anything else and it felt like we were watching the notebook more than anything else here. So I found this to be quite a dud, a bore. Uh, this movie could have chopped off easily 30 minutes and I think it would have been a lot better. The action scenes are are thrilling, don't get me wrong. I mean the action set piece where he's going through. I guess they're in Sydney, right On the garbage trucks, like surfing on the garbage truck while he's fighting the guy Like best scene in the movie.
Speaker 2Hands down, that's it. Like that was like okay when I was watching that. I'm like okay if the movie I'll be. Like I was wrong. I didn't mind suffering through the first whatever hour at that point. But then it continues to drag down again. All the scenes where they're just talking about their feelings and all about this and oh, will she love me, will she not? It's like boring, snooze. I was checking my watch like about every five minutes here. Sorry.
Speaker 1I think it's totally fine that it's more of a romance with a little bit of action in there for the guys right. Um, I think that the editing in this film is terrible. And people say that and I say what the fuck are you talking about? You don't know what they had to work with. How do you know that the ending is bad? What do you know? But I'm talking about the moment with the garbage truck. That should have been a scene wholly divorced from any other moments in the film, because we continue to cross, cut back to the um dj lounge and the cuts are horrible. They'll cut back to like um who's the emily blunt for like three seconds and she'll go oh, is he coming? You know, the cutting is like so disjointed and jarring.
Speaker 1I like the romance. I thought it was fun. I thought the movie had some fun ideas. I thought that the choice to have a narration where we're recapped like 10 million things was could have been better, you know. But I on the whole thought the film was carried by the star power of ryan gosling, who I love and support and want to see succeed, who often doesn't, and I think that this was a lot of fun. It reminded me of a very watered down, g-rated Shane Black movie. Right, there's a lot of very meta, fun dialogue commenting on the nature of movies or on crime and action films. I thought that the action scenes were fun. I thought that it made me laugh.
Speaker 2Two action scenes that are in the movie.
Speaker 1Okay, bullshit. There's like two hand-to-hand combat fights in the apartment building. There's a boat chase. That's great. There's multiple times where I thought some of the greatest action moments in the film were when we get to see what it's like to shoot a car chase in a movie. I thought those were excellent and fun and really good. Like to shoot a car chase in a movie. I thought those were excellent and fun.
Speaker 2Well, we needed good. We needed more of that and less talking in this movie. Okay, um also okay okay, did you? Did you find that there was any chemistry between emily blunt and ryan gosling in this movie?
Speaker 1I didn't think she was the right. I thought there maybe was some comedy chops between them, but I didn't find there to be any romantic chemistry between them, and partly because I hate to say this about my boy, ryan, and about Emily, but did it look to you? They're too old for the parts. They're both too old.
Speaker 2How old are they?
Speaker 1Ryan Gosling's got to be close to 50. What? Absolutely. Look him up, Really. It looked like they both had work done and it was distracting to me okay, he's 43.
Speaker 2Okay, it's not close to 50.
Speaker 1Okay, sorry, ryan but like he's obviously had some kind of work done, and she is, he's still handsome.
Speaker 2He's, he's still, he's still gorgeous yes, okay, I thought they were both a little too old 43, to be doing all those Kung Fu martial arts stunts, which, okay, I get it, you're a stunt man and then you can take a beating and you can do all these things like this, but you're also you're also a martial arts Kung Fu expert too, and you can do all sorts of jujitsu and a hand to hand combat. I mean, that's, that's a totally different industry, is it not?
Speaker 1But they get people to do. I liked emily blunt because she wasn't. She was a girl boss without being a girl boss. Right, she was never like mean and pleasant.
Speaker 2I know that sounds like sexist at one point in the movie. She was when she was cute it was cute. Yeah, I mean but it's like did you, did you? Okay, so second second to that. So we agree that there was the lacking of the chemistry, which I think is a very problem, problematic part of the movie.
Speaker 1I didn't buy their romance. Yeah, no, yes.
Speaker 2Okay, that's like that's a huge problem. Okay For this, for this, for this movie. That's designed to be primarily and I got you to admit this that it not an action or comedy. Now let's talk about the comedy. Did you laugh at all during this movie? Many, I think a lot, yeah, really wow, okay, I did not laugh once, I'm sorry to say okay, okay, all right, all right.
Speaker 2Neither did anyone else in the theater that I was with, except for the one weirdo guy who was sitting two seats over me who laughed at literally every single line in the movie full disclosure I never laugh at movies.
Speaker 1I there's. I've never, I've hardly ever, been watching a movie where I laughed, right.
Speaker 2But I will smile and say oh man, I was laughing out loud during uh, anyone but you during that I have not seen. I don't see it.
Speaker 1No I don't even laugh during, like the hangover. I mean I don't laugh, I don't think I, I I find them amusing and I I appreciate what they're doing was your audience.
Speaker 2Did you see this with a large audience?
Speaker 1Yeah, I did, and they were laughing and they were having fun and there were covers there, my audience was not.
Speaker 1And I thought there were many great set in peace moments like with I get high on drugs in the club and I'm fighting those guys. I thought that was a fun bit. Visually I thought the movie was interesting. I liked fighting those guys. I thought that was a fun bit. Um, visually I thought the movie was interesting.
Speaker 1I liked the referential cross-cutting scene joke which went on for a little too long and also distracted from brian gosling detective stuff. But I felt like there might have been reshoots to add more emily blunt so she wouldn't just be the love interest and would be a real co-lead because he was definitely taking up. You know, I'm saying because that might be. That might be why the movie feels a little over long. It's because they're like we need to add in a little more emily blunt and like cut her into the action scene, you know, so she's not like just doesn't disappear from the film for the entire second act while he's solving the mystery. But there was a scene where I laughed, where I thought that aaron taylor johnson someone who's impugned a lot for being flat and wooden was funny. I thought thought he was funny. I thought he did a funny Matthew McConaughey impression Very irritating.
Speaker 1And I liked when he was like hey look what I did for you and what are you going to do for me, and he goes, I guess, die. I thought that was a funny line, I liked it.
Speaker 2I was going to say that was a great love letter to movies and action. You mentioned the dialogue, which I also found particularly nerve-grating as well, the constant referential nerve-grating. Okay, yes, I mean, what does every movie have? To be like a joss whedon style uh, meta commentary on every movie, where everyone knows every movie ever made and they constantly reference them in the heat of the moment and where people are referencing the last of the mohicans of all things I mean.
Speaker 2mean, and people and the weirdo guy next to me laughed at the last of the Mohicans and I was like there's no way you got that reference, buddy. Like there's no way.
Speaker 1Okay, this is Shane Black style referential stuff.
Speaker 2And.
Speaker 1Drew Pierce wrote it. Who wrote Iron man 3 with Shane Black?
Speaker 2With which I can't stand Iron man 3. I think it was terrible.
Speaker 1I think it's great.
Speaker 2Well, good for you.
Speaker 1Logging off. No, go ahead.
Speaker 2Also, god, can they learn a new tune already? Do they have to use Kiss? I Was Made For Loving you in every movie. I think it was in Godzilla Kong as well. I didn't debase myself by saying that that movie was also trash, sorry, but anyway Hold on Hold on Let me see what.
Speaker 1We got a comment that needs answering. George, I tried getting in touch over Twitter regarding an invite for my Plex server. Over 6,000 movies, lossless quality, some very hard to find, inter find interested. What does that even mean? I don't know. Uh, go ahead.
Speaker 2you were complaining uh, plex can mean something very, very different. Um, in my line of work, but, um, okay, who was gonna say, um, yeah, the movie overstays his welcome way too long. There's no charisma between the stars, oh, oh, yes. Also that screenwriting 101 that shows in the movie, where every single thing that's referenced at early points in the movie certainly comes to pay off later on.
Speaker 1That is called a setup and a payoff. That's good screenwriting and fun.
Speaker 2Oh my God, it's like what it was so obvious. When they're scanning his face and then he's like, oh, you can put your face on a bit. Oh, like a deep think.
Speaker 1Oh, okay, I didn't even notice, dude, I was. So here's the thing I consider myself such a savvy movie watcher guy. I fall for everything. I swear to god, if I'm in the movie and I'm liking it and I'm having fun, I fall for everything. I'm a perfect audience member.
Speaker 2I'm great how about, um, how about where he's like? Oh yeah, miami Vice. That was my first stunt work that I ever did. And then they proceed to do an entire Miami Vice-style boat stunt in the bay.
Speaker 1Love for Miami Vice. It's the Miami Vice theme song by the way. Fine with me.
Speaker 2And I was like oh well, I'd much rather watch Miami Vice than watch this movie.
Speaker 1They should have played Phil Collins, but no, I thought the movie was fun and enjoyable and a good time. I liked the dune parody movie they were making.
Speaker 2I thought that was funny oh god, that was like the ugliest, most hideous looking thing uh ever. I was like that looks like some, something that would uh coming out next in the theater next week yeah, yeah I asked you did you see David Leitch's previous film, which was bullet train?
Speaker 1I don't think I've seen any of his movies.
Speaker 2Okay, bullet train was fantastic, phenomenal, loved it Really.
Speaker 1I was like shit it was good, oh, no, no, no, no, no Bullet train was hilarious presents itself as a complete farce.
Speaker 2It's. It's a complete action farce that um will constantly tries to shock and a one-up you like. One thing after the next. What more ridiculous thing can happen? One thing after the next and it's filled wall to wall with action. The comedy works really well. It's got brad pitt I would highly recommend it. He also produced violent night, which was also excellent. Loved it in that same vein. Was that good? Oh, violent Night was excellent. It's a Santa Claus action movie man. These movies are all superior to this. This was trash.
Speaker 1Well, I saw John Wick.
Speaker 2Yeah, but he listed as a silent co-director or something like that I think I saw Deadpool 2.
Speaker 1I don't remember. Yeah, I turned.
Speaker 1Deadpool 2 off after like five minutes, but anyway, yeah, I liked it. I enjoyed it. Very disappointing Thought. It was fun Thought. It made me laugh. I didn't think it, it didn't blow my mind. I'm not going to put it on my top ten list but I like to see. Like I said, I'm purely ideological when I like to see. Like I said, I'm purely ideological when I go to these films. I want to see attractive people having fun and I want movie stars to win. I'm a pleb that wants the movie stars to win. I'm an elitist. I want the movie stars to win, not the IP.
Speaker 2Okay, okay, okay I'm not going to call myself an elitist here. I like movies. I like Madam Web. Okay, oh, I'm lead us here. I like movies like I like madam webb.
The Fall Guy: Divided Opinions
Speaker 1Okay, sorry, sorry, you know, but like, yeah, you did. You like fucking madam webb, dude you're.
Speaker 2I would rather watch all over the place I would rather watch madam webb on like infinite loop than watch this movie ever again.
Speaker 1Okay madam webb was boring not boring it was boring as shit so freaking ridiculous.
Speaker 2Everything was so bad, it was so good no, it wasn't bad enough. I would rather watch Dakota. Whatever Johnson just say like thanks for the spiders mom.
Speaker 1Yeah, okay, this movie has got a lot of charm to it. You take your girl to it, she's going to like it. This was like the Fast and the Furious movies are better.
Speaker 2The Fast and the Furious movies are an example.
Speaker 1The Fast and the Furious movies are an example of how to do better dumb action than this. Wrong. They don't have Ryan Gosling in those movies.
Speaker 2Yeah, but they got everybody else.
Speaker 1They got Vin Diesel. Exactly, that's how you do it we're family. It's got like 10 other former rappers that are like we're family. What's up? It's got the Rock going. I'm the Rock, that's the whole shit.
Speaker 2I hate those movies. It's got.
Speaker 1Paul Walker, who just is there.
Speaker 2That's what makes it so good.
Speaker 1No, those are the worst. Those movies are worse than Marvel movies. I hate the Fast and the Furious, hate them With a passion. Fast and the Furious 7 was one of the worst experiences I've ever had in a movie. It sucked.
Speaker 2It was so boring I did not care, that one is bad, that one is bad.
Speaker 1That was the one that everyone saw. That was the biggest hit, wasn't it? I think, when they drive a car in between two fucking buildings in Dubai, the tax haven for Vin Diesel.
Speaker 2I think that's six, but I can't recall. I could be wrong. I saw one of them. You should see number 10, where they drive down a I don't know Hoover Dam or whatever, while it's exploding. Oh sweet.
Speaker 1Yeah, I saw two meat wads, the Rock and Vin Diesel, like stepping on a parking lot and it like exploded Like it was horrible.
Speaker 2One other thing we didn't talk about this movie and it was something that I'm ashamed that I didn't know is that this is loosely based on a television series of the same name, fall guy loose. It's a very loose, very loose. It's a glenn larson c tv show from the 80s that starred lead majors of all people but that was a very good no, hasn't the same basic concept of a stuntman who solves crimes, uh, in his spare time and with the same names, but they basically just took the ip.
Speaker 2I don't think it has any cachet value, to be honest with you. And they gave it that basically that like starsky and hutch 21 jump with the same names, but they basically just took the ip. I don't think it has any cachet value, to be honest with you. And they gave it that basically that like starsky and hutch 21 jump street treatment where they mock it and make fun of it well, I think even starsky and hutch 21 jump street are bigger properties than yes this.
Speaker 1I mean like people were like oh, this is based on a property too. I'm like, I mean, not really no one remembers the show. I mean like really, yeah, I mean, they cut by the way I looked this up yeah, it was on for a long time well, it was kind of like at the end there was an end credits, because I watched all the stuntmen do all the stats stunts at the.
Speaker 1Oh, I left, I couldn't and I will tell you this I did think for a movie that was about stunt people, there should have been like zero cgi and it should have been all stunts right. I mean like there should have been. Now I think they broke christina royale's record for a car flip. Yes, admirable, but I thought there should have been a guinness record for most car flips.
Speaker 1Yes, should have been a little more hands-on. I mean stunt, you know, right. I mean like there were moments during the car chase, like you know. Come on, there are car chases from the 80s that are superior to anything we see now. They didn't have CGI. Just do it for real, how about?
Speaker 2Bullets.
Speaker 1Bullets' car chase is boring as shit and is not Sorry, and I'm not saying that because it's old. The French Connection is better To live and die in.
Speaker 2La is better, that's a great car. The French connection is better to live in. That's a great car chase.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, and, and. To live and die in LA is my personal favorite but let's see.
Speaker 2So yeah, I did not care for this movie at all. I was bored to death. I couldn't wait to get out of the theater. So I guess after the credits they had a Lee majors up here.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2He up here? Yeah, he just looked like some old guy and I was like uh some old guy.
Speaker 1Come on, man lee majors.
Speaker 2Six million dollar fair faucet yeah, that's why, you know, I was like wondering why they played the uh, the six million dollar man sound effect at one point while he was doing some kind of action scene, and I was like did they really? Yeah, they did. You know what?
Speaker 1you're right, they did, they did the yes, yeah it the Interesting choice.
Speaker 2I didn't catch on as to why that was there until I looked it up afterwards as what it's based on.
Speaker 1Chris Crocker apparently was offering me Plex just to be a nice guy. I thought he was trying to sell me something. He says Fall Guy was a bit too smarmy Smarmy, I don't know about that and desperate to be inside baseball without enough clever satire.
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2Yeah, this was like whoever was writing this. They thought they were writing Aaron Sorkin dialogue and it ended up being just not even close. A little too pleased with themselves, I'd say.
Speaker 1Targets a little too pleased with themselves.
Speaker 2I'd say, uh, targets, roger corman. You have anything to say about the guy roger corman? Yeah, I mean, what a what a guy, what a career, what a legacy. Um, absolutely, I think the entire film industry owes a huge debt of gratitude to this guy. Um, and most people in the industry, I mean the industry looked down upon him, I think, for probably his entire career. They considered him lesser than everyone else, but he was a real rebel. He worked outside of the major studio system. He launched the careers of so many major stars, major directors, by working in, you know, extreme low budget movies across a huge array of genres. I mean every genre you could ever imagine, but probably, most importantly, science fiction and horror, but there's also, you know, action, comedy, uh, noir, even westerns. I mean, my favorites would be the Edgar Allan Poe films from the late 60s. I mean those are just masterpieces. I think he would probably agree and he said in past interviews that those are his masterpieces. I mean those are the best work that he ever did.
Speaker 1One of my personal favorites and one that you've done a great review for on your channel, which is X, the man with the X-Ray Eyes. Oh yes, Fantastic movie favorites and one that you've done a great review for on your channel, which is x, the man with the x-ray eyes.
Speaker 2Oh yes, fantastic movie, terrific, yeah. And what was great about those movies is that at the time period they were being made, he was able to scoop up these some stars who were big deals back in the 40s, 30s, um, who were now has-beens. They needed work and so he could use them and he, he legitimized his movies in the eyes of the public by getting a major star in them like that.
Speaker 1So getting somebody like Boris Karloff or Peter Lorre or Ray Milland- or Ray Milland, who had 10 years earlier, had won the Academy award 15 years earlier.
Speaker 2Yeah, right.
Speaker 1It was a has been. He's a terrific actor. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2I mean, but all I mean that was a different time. I mean, uh, where now it's cool to uh bring back, you know, linda hamilton for terminator, whatever, um, but right back then it was even.
Speaker 2I mean it's still toxic to put somebody like that in a movie. You wouldn't see her in a regular mainstream movie other than a terminator movie. But like back then, I mean, no major studio movie is going to want to put somebody that old they're not that old these actors at the time but like no one's going to like Mark Hamill would be a good example, like you're not going to be in a regular movie.
Speaker 2You know he was good in star Wars, I thought, but you know I mean but like we would not, ford would not be still in a major blockbuster movie at his age. They would be like too old, bye out. And he would be like with roger corman doing you know x, the man with the x-ray eyes or bucket of blood or whatever you know yeah but uh, yeah, there's so many great movies that he did, um there's so many.
Speaker 2There's so much junk too, I mean because just for the sheer volume and what he directed, like 300 movies or something, but um bucket of blood Bucket of. Blood. That's a great movie. That's a great movie if you've ever seen that.
Speaker 1I have not seen Bucket of Blood but, going off, what you were saying about there was a lot of junk. I mean Targets is a movie that without the talent of Peter Bogdanovich, would have been a film that was junk. I mean it was a film that Corman said, hey, well, what I want you to do is direct a movie, but you have to use. You know, you only get Boris Karloff for two days and you have to use 20% of an old, shitty movie and like work off that.
Speaker 2Okay, this is the best part. So you have to use 20 minutes of a preexisting movie the Terror. What was the Terror? The Terror was a movie that was made From that same entire idea. They had Karloff for an extra, like two days on set, and they're like let's make a movie with this. And so they created the Terror, which makes no sense. It's a totally incoherent movie, but it's great.
Speaker 1And then they're like, let's cannibalize it. It's one that I saw. Yeah, it's one that 13.
Speaker 2I thought it was great oh yeah, I love the terror.
Speaker 1I love the terror the first time I saw it but the fact that they reused, the reuse, you know, like that's, that's, that's just right.
Speaker 2How many times can we cannibalize the same movie over and over again?
Speaker 1but if you guys haven't seen targets, it's a movie that is, uh, it was one of the the first film of peter bagdanovich, yes, um, who of course went on to do the last picture show, which is an incredible movie. And um, uh, he's also a film historian and just a really interesting character and a great interview. You know, he's a wonderful character in film history, um, who I think has a lot. You know, I think any young youtuber, guy, filmmaker can look at peter bagdanovich and find a lot to like, because this was a guy who was one of those kids that was such a big fan that he just like wormed his way into hollywood by interviewing people who nobody gave a shit about anymore and for posterity he saved these amazing interviews with these people and then just got into hollywood because he actually cared and was a real film fan, right, and a nerd and this is what used to be that people would get into the industry.
Speaker 2I mean not so much for film, but I? I liken it a lot to the comic book industry, where that second generation of creators were exactly in the same mold as you just described for for bogdanovich, right? So people like roy thomas or len ween, marv wolfman, these were all like the super fans, right they? They just loved the medium so much that they inculcated themselves in with the creators because they loved it. They worshiped these people and they learned the craft that way and they eventually all became professionals in the industry. I mean film. The movie industry is a very different animal entirely, but his origin in that regard is very similar to those yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1And and he made a movie that capitalizes at once. It's sort of a meeting of time. You know, it's a very unique film in that it's, um, it's at once about a young filmmaker trying to celebrate the old movie idols of the past and also wrangle with modern day uh, neuroses and concerns and not neuroses.
Speaker 1But you know what I'm saying, like you know um feelings that are out there in the ether, like you know, things that were making people anxious in the 60s, which were the proliferation of mass murderers and of political assassinations, and sort of bringing in this matinee idol that was a former scary person to sort of help guide this matinee idol that was a former scary person to sort of help guide this new generation through this modern terror. It's sort of a comforting movie in that way, right.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, no, this is a fantastic movie. I mean, this movie is meta before meta was even a term or a concept or an idea.
Speaker 1right, you can only do that with Roger Corman, yeah.
Speaker 2Yes, I mean. So we're talking about a movie where Boris Karloff essentially plays himself. He plays a character named Byron Orlok, who's an aging movie star, an aging horror movie star, and, to his credit, most some of the the actual roles they talk about in the movie are roles that Karloff himself played and in fact they even watched one of his original movies in a scene in the movie the Criminal Code, and it serves as a reflection on Karloff's career. I mean, this was not the last movie that he did, but it was the last like real movie. I mean, I think he made some like Mexican horror films that came out after he died or something like that, but this was like his last real movie and it's it's the only one of like a new Hollywood style that he made and it comments on the state of horror as it was from back then in the 30s to where it is now, and it seeks to comment on what do we view as horrifying and scary in 1968 compared to 1931? To 1931.
Speaker 2And in that regard it's very poignant, because no one's scared of a monster lurking around in a mask and wax makeup, and all that anymore in a Gothic mansion in Eastern Germany. Now we have much more terrifying things to worry about, like mass shootings, gun violence and things like that political unrest. And you know, he gives a very poignant monologue at a scene during one scene in the movie where he talks about they used to call me Mr Boogeyman and all this stuff like that. And there's a very poignant emotion to this movie that he's reflecting on his own life and his own career and it's like he died shortly after this, I think before the movie was released, and it's just it's like he didn't. He died shortly after this, I think before the movie was released, and it's just, it's very, very powerful.
Speaker 1It's a very powerful comment too on the topicality of the 60s and political assassinations, and charles whitman, I believe, was the name of the guy in texas who this, this, our antagonist in this film is based on, who is a rather normal person. I don't if you remember the name of the actor who played the role in this film or not but somebody who didn't didn't do much ever else but he's not bad in this.
Speaker 1He's sort of like a if you couldn't get sam bottoms, like you know, get him. But uh, he plays a person that's like lives in relative normalcy. But if you watch the criterion blu-ray, I hate to riff on everything that basically richard linklater said in his 30 minute commentary video he does for the film, which is fairly good, it's a great release, um, but he's a character who sort of like lives in such like oppressive normalcy, which I think would be a very appealing idea to an artist like peter bagdanovich. Right, everything's normal and fine at home, but they just watch tv, there's no art on the walls, everything's bland and terrible, and ultimately he just cracks.
Speaker 1And something link later does is he compares the very stark, dark colored, you know, like sort of like blue hued world of this like murderer, with the warm, sunny world of our two artists peter bagdanovich, who basically plays himself also, yes, and byron orlock, right, um, and how like, by being artists and loving life and having a passion for art, like they have a more fulfilling worldview and this person is just like a workaday, stiff in ticky tacky, and I say that as like that would have been a modern knock on a pejorative for, like you know, suburbia in the 60s world that our murderer lives in, and he there's no motivation for the murder.
Speaker 1It's very similar to Whitman in that he kills his wife and his mother and puts them in bed together, which is what the actual murderer did, and I imagine to recreate that on screen for Bogdanovich would almost be a way of like working through that trauma for lack of a better word of the time because it's so shocking and bizarre that that's what this guy did. And apparently this Whitman had a brain tumor that was pressing on his head that forced him to do this, and he actually, uh, made the point that after he was killed which he knew he would be that they should study his brain okay, I didn't know that part yeah, yeah yeah, there's definitely a pathology to the, just the banality of his life, right, it's so.
Speaker 2It's so boring that it is enough to drive you crazy, which is an interesting comment on society and domestic life, right.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2He has no interests, no creative outlet, no personality. I mean he's got a wonderful family for all intents and purposes. Everyone's very loving, nice. He's got a beautiful wife. What is there to go wrong? But something up there is not right. And apparently in the commentary track he mentions that there is a slight hint, slight hint, that he may have some kind of PTSD related to military service.
Speaker 2And there's a metal on the wall that you can barely see at one point, but it was not made to be explicit in this, in this situation is meant to just kind of throw that in there.
Speaker 1Um, but anyway, um because bagdanovich makes a point. I read an interview with him where he he he says explicitly it's not an anti-gun movie, it's not an. It was just sort of a fever dream at roger corman's studio where it's like how can we make something dynamic out of the the task I've been given by roger right, and this was just swirling around in the ether and available to him and it all just exploded out. Do I believe that? I don't know, but I don't know.
Speaker 2I think it's actually a rather effective anti-gun movie um in that regard and makes you really sit back and think about the issue in the in the um the ready availability of weapons right yeah, and you know, we've, we've, you know, for as much as we've come a long way since then, there's still many problems and faults in the system as well.
Speaker 2I mean, we're talking about what? Uh, 40 years later, we later, we had the um, the Aurora massacre at the for the dark night rises, right, very reminiscent of what happened in this movie, right, yes, uh, where in this movie, at the climax? Uh, I think his name is Bobby the killer. He stalks, uh, stakes out inside the screen at a drive rifle, and you know how far off is that from what happened in 2012?
Speaker 1I mean, tell me, and also it's very disturbing. It is. It really is not. I mean it very much. So I mean it's not, like you know, putting on the terror, and it's obviously not very frightening by today's standards. This is brutal when he's on top of the grain grain bin or wherever he is, the oil company shooting at people in their cars. It's. It's incredibly frightening because you put yourself vicariously into that position.
Speaker 2I mean it's incredibly frightening also you read about the conditions in which they filmed that correct I did, yeah, they stole it I mean that is that is that is remarkable and impressive on its own, beyond anything else.
Speaker 2That's in the movie that they, you know they were trespassing basically to go up there. They filmed that. But they also Remarkable and impressive on its own, beyond anything else. That's in the movie that they, you know they were trespassing basically to go up there. They filmed that. But they also filmed it entirely without any sound and they dubbed in and put ADR for all the sound effects later in, later on, which is terrific. You know, a huge task.
Speaker 1Yeah, totally. But you know what Fun? Yeah, maybe not back then, but it also gives you a certain amount of control. I mean, like I wish I could dub. I wish I could film a movie completely soundless and dub all the voices under my actors myself.
Speaker 2But uh, um, I hate to say it but I deal with as much as as much as I love the movie and the way it is, I could have almost had an entire movie where it's just Karloff doing his stuff and contemplating his role in the world and his role in the film industry and aging out and what's the point of my life? I think you could have had an entire movie just about that. And I know they didn't do that because they only had him for five days to shoot the movie. They needed to have an entire other movie to then mash them together. But man, I could have had that as an entire movie and I would have been satisfied well, and this movie reminds me a lot of like once upon a time in hollywood.
Speaker 1For that exact reason where it's like couldn't there have just been a movie about rick booth and his friend leonardo dicaprio, do we need to add in the charles manson part of the you know? You know I'm saying yes, um, but it also. But I mean, I think that movie and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Targets would be a good double feature.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1There's a lot of similarity there. Absolutely. I was going to ask you do you think that when our two leads, Boris Karloff and our killer, finally meet, does it stick the landing?
Speaker 2Yes, yes. Okay, I wasn't quite there when I first saw it, but the way they got around it is the disorientation of the killer by seeing the movie screen version of Karloff approaching him from one direction and then the real Karloff approaching him from another direction that throws him off completely to actually land it and sell it, whereby he's so confused he's seeing a real life movie monster who to him apparently is, is threatening and um, terrifying enough that it stuns him, it throws him off that karloff can go and slap him across the face a couple times, knock the hand out of the gun out of his hand I was shocked.
Speaker 1I thought that was very effective and cool and uh, actually it was sam fuller's idea. The director sam fuller, um, but uh, but that was very because karloff has incredibly meta point right, he has nothing to lose.
Speaker 2He's an old man. Yeah, he sees something going on. He's like this is this is so serious, this is what can I do? And so he just he risks his life, he gets grazed by a bullet.
Speaker 1It doesn't stop him keeps going to that greatest generation, civic nationalism. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2yeah, uh did like that, the people at the drive-in. They got their guns out of their cars to go after the guy too oh, I mean.
Speaker 1I mean just an incredibly scary and frightening moment when people are just sitting and watching a movie and being picked off and murdered and you see, see parents with their children in the car is very, very.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think it's still a very effective movie and I felt good for Boris Karloff because it gave him an opportunity to act. I love his little soliloquy where he tells a story about the guy going to Aleppo and running away, of trying to run away from death. Yes, it was just, it was terrific and I was like hoping I saw that it was the table there in the shot and I go, are they going to dolly in all the way to him? Are they going to whip that table out and then keep the dolly going? And they did and I was like thought it was great and I love the sort of Peter Bogdanovich you could tell is like I mean, what would you call him?
Speaker 1He was a boomer, but would he have been like the greatest generation? Like you know, calling someone a boomer now, like he obviously had a little bit of contempt for like this sort of like hip, hippie, cool guy that's obviously one of the villains of the movie is the guy who's like what's up, byron Daddy-O, the guy that really looks like shaggy from scooby-doo in the movie. Yeah, and I thought bag donovich was great in the movie. I thought he looked handsome he looked, he was having fun. I, I love the moments where he's watching the old howard hawks movie that karloff was in and he says all the good movies have already been made. You know, I, I, just I love that sentiment because it's the sentiment of like you and me, you know. But it was sort of refreshing to see it from somebody back in the 60s who was just on the precipice of something brand new and exciting that was happening in the hall in the movie industry and he didn't know it was going to happen and it did right and he helped.
Speaker 2he helped bring it to life, you know yeah, it was a huge loss when he died, to be honest too, because just the amount of scholarship and um contributions to the world of film history.
Speaker 1Well and something sad. I was looking to see if I could buy any new editions of his books that he had published in the 60s, and they're very difficult to find, which is unfortunate.
Speaker 2I really am sad or disappointed in myself that I wasn't familiar with this movie until relatively recently. I don't know why that is because I'm pretty deep into Karloff's filmography and stuff. He's one of my favorite actors but I had never heard of this movie until maybe a year or two ago I can't remember when I saw the Boris Karloff documentary that came out a while back. This was heavily featured in it. They have interviews with Bogdanovich and other people from Targets and they talk about it. And I'm like, wow, I've never heard of this movie. I didn't even know it existed.
Speaker 2And the part that really got me is when they described the scene that you just described, which is the monologue where he talks about the guy fleeing death. And after he delivered that monologue perfectly like on the first take the entire and they cut, the entire crew stood up and applauded for karloff, yeah and um. And then somebody whispered to bogdanovich like when do you think the last time that boris ever got an applause on set was? And it's like it was. It's just like so poignant and it's so perfect. It's like this legend. You know, people still respected him and they were impressed a legend and a very powerful.
Roger Corman's Legacy and Targets
Speaker 1You know, and in some ways I think that the uh, chris crocker refused it, um referred to it here in our chat as the geezer teaser genre, which is like you bring back the old guy. You know what I mean. Yeah, like, in some ways that's not been so bad and it's. I'd like to see that more than putting these guys out to pasture and saying boris karloff, you're a bum, now go be in mexican horror movies and do trash right. Yeah, I mean to have an appreciation for these type of guys and to have how lucky it was for him to make something like this. You know, like bello the ghost, he never got this kind of opportunity. No, unfortunately.
Speaker 2Well, that's the thing also is that he, carlos, still had the chops for it, right. I mean, he was still a great actor when he wanted to be, and he didn't necessarily give it his all in all of the work that he was given in his later part of his career. But when he realized that there was something special or something actually good about the script that he was going to do, he put it all in, and this is an example of him giving it his all. I mean, he's not phoning it in here at all no, something like frankenstein 1970 or some crap like that, and he's.
Speaker 2He's clearly just like give me the check. Where's the check?
Speaker 1is the documentary you're talking about boris karloff, the man behind the monster yes, it's an excellent, excellent documentary.
Speaker 2I will have to check that out did you ever listen to the?
Speaker 1you must remember this podcast. When they did the uh boris and bela retrospective, it was like a seven episode podcast on it's. It's worth listening to and you might enjoy it.
Speaker 2I'll definitely be.
Speaker 1I'm curious to hear your perspective on it, but I was going to ask you as a Boris Karloff fan besides, obviously, frankenstein or the Black Cat what would you recommend for the audience to check out if they appreciate his work? Black Cat's good, I mean, that's a good one.
Speaker 2The Black Cat is just my absolute favorite. That's such a badass movie that's my favorite role for him that I think of as Pearl Zieg, a mad Satanist who's going to sacrifice the virgin girl at the Black Mass. It's just such an eerie and stark performance. I really like Son of Frankenstein as well. I think that's one of his more underrated performances in there. I think he's stolen by Lugosi. The show is stolen by him, but okay it's the monster.
Speaker 2That's a great, that's a great role, anything that it's in the classic universal canon. I mean he played other characters, like he played the, uh, mad doctor in house of frankenstein, um, but yeah, I mean he made some stuff. He also made some movies of roger corman, uh as well, that were like straight up Roger Corman films. I think was it the Raven he made as well, right With Vincent Price and Peter Lorre.
Speaker 1The Mummy.
Speaker 2Oh, obviously the Mummy and the classic Universal cycle.
Speaker 1yeah, Wouldn't it have been terrific if he could have been in Arsenic and Old Lace?
Speaker 2Oh, well, he was in the broadway play, he was in the broadway adaption.
Speaker 1Yes, he was, and that's why they always say you look like boris carlott. Right, you know?
Speaker 2yes, they go into that in the documentary. As to why, I can't remember exactly why, but there was some some reason why he did not end up in the film production version of it and it kind of tormented him that he never got that yeah, because wouldn't it be a treat to go back in time and see that on Broadway.
Speaker 1What a great.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, and he also he also played captain hook and Peter Pan on Broadway, which I would have loved to see adaptation as well. Yeah, he was a tremendous the Broadway thing is like a total. I can't believe people that they dedicate their entire careers to that and it's never saved, it's never captured on film, it's never preserved for posterity. It's so sad.
Speaker 1I know my parents actually went and saw Bruce Willis in Misery.
Speaker 2Really.
Speaker 1On Broadway. They said it was great. Yeah Said he was terrific.
Speaker 2But it's like you can't I mean after time you'll forget, or you can't remember and it's like you can't I mean after time you'll forget, or you can't remember and it's like, if it's a film, you can watch it again and again, and again.
Speaker 1I know, I know, well, yeah, a great movie Anything else on targets.
Speaker 2I think that's pretty much it. I had originally planned to do a full video on that and I wrote quite an example yeah, go do it. But yeah, I mean video on that. But and I wrote, yeah, go do it. But yeah, I mean I still I have most of the script done, but you know things get in the way.
Speaker 1You're hyping people up for it. They want to see it. I mean they want to do it. It's a great movie and it's it's right up your alley, it's perfect yeah, no, I mean I, I adored this movie.
Speaker 2I watched it again when you um mentioned doing it for this, for this show, because I had watched it on a couple months ago and and I was like I'll just give it another watch. Just as good, just as good as the last time. I mean it wasn't that long in between, but I had no problem watching it again. I could watch it again right now. I'd be like love it.
Speaker 1Yeah, I was incredibly struck by the effectiveness of it and I always really appreciate low budget movies where you can see the seams a little bit sometimes, but I like that. I mean they had a little bit to work with and they turned out something that was far better than it should have been right and and it's a testament to to Corman letting people just do what they wanted, and he gave him a cut him a little small tiny check and said try to be creative. And they were. You know, I agree, I agree.
Speaker 2Do you have any other Rogerger corman um movies that you want to uh recommend?
Speaker 1that's a good question, you know I've been a filmography here yeah, that's a good question. I uh the top of my head I mean you can.
Speaker 2There's also ones that he produced that didn't that he? Didn't write which are also, you know, fair game. Um, let's see, you've seen like the 80s, um star wars, ripoffs, like battle beyond the star yeah, absolutely yeah. Those are great pendulum, terrific uh, oh yeah, the poe movies.
Speaker 1Yeah, pitting the mask of the red death. What is striking, that's a low budget, cheap movie. I mean you could have fooled me, okay, you know.
Speaker 2I mean it looks terrific I've got the poster for mask of the red dead, oh like the wild angels, all the biker movies and stuff for good.
Speaker 1You know the mask of the red death especially, I mean the.
Speaker 2The use of the color in that movie is phenomenal and the way it accentuates the different emotions in different areas of this, like the human mind and stuff like that, it's just fascinating. Love it. It's just so striking, absolutely. And anything with Vincent price I mean I can't, you can't go wrong, you can't go wrong with that.
Speaker 1I'm with you. I'm with you. Well, hey, dude, you want to wrap it up?
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1I think so. Did we have anybody actually watching? I don't know. I mean, it says a few, but I got really excited last time about it, but then it was like they were all from twitter, so I don't know how real that is maybe they all turned out when they said civil war was terror.
Speaker 2This guy didn't like civil war. I mean like what's no dude.
Speaker 1They were all mad at me for liking it that all my followers they were people love civil war.
Speaker 2They think it's great, you know, and do they I? I don't know, everyone should love challengers.
Speaker 1I will stand by that. If you don't like challengers, fuck you, right, you don't like fall guy fine you know, rotten tomatoes.
Speaker 2I'm not that I use this, as you know, the gospel or anything like that, but uh, civil war got pretty good audience and doesn't everything get good reviews.
Speaker 1Now it's either everything gets a 90 or everything gets a 20 percent yeah, 81 for critics and 71 for audience.
Speaker 2I mean, only madame webb didn't get. Good, madame webb, let's take a look. Apparently madame was doing quite well on netflix. It just got.
Speaker 1It just got um on netflix and people are watching it yeah, netflix is a trough dude like everyone, will just scoop out all the trash, you know madame webb on netflix.
Speaker 2It'll be, it'll watch in the background. Just have madame webb on the background. You come in, you're like, oh, what's going on? Okay cool.
Speaker 1What you need to do is like would be the equivalent of putting an old movie on the new release segment section of blockbuster, just like put the black cat on netflix and say it's a new release and everyone will watch it, right, I mean, would that be great?
Speaker 2oh, but it's black and white. Oh, I can't watch that terrible yeah, maybe you're right.
Speaker 1Yeah, maybe you're right. All right, um next one.
Speaker 2We should, uh, if you're interested in doing, I know we could do mad max. Uh, yeah that we could do mad max, or I don't know we could do Mad Max.
Speaker 1Yeah, we could do Mad Max, or.
Speaker 2I don't know what else.
Speaker 1One I was thinking about doing which would require a little bit of work, and if you don't want to do it, let me know I'll do it, probably on my own. But I'm doing a big Michael Crichton deep dive because I'm doing a review of his movie Coma, and so I've read the book State of Fear, I'm reading Andromeda Strain right now and I was going to review his movie Westworld that he directed, yes. Then I was going to review Future World and then the five episodes of the failed television series Beyond Westworld.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 1And I was interested you actually get that it is on DVD. It is on DVD, you can actually get it. It's five episodes.
Speaker 2Beyond Westworld. I knew it was world. I knew, but I didn't know you could actually interesting.
Speaker 1So yeah, you can. You can get it on dvd. I haven't ordered um, so but what about?
Speaker 2I was gonna go west world, the new one, which is much better than everything else I like the first season a lot.
Speaker 1I thought it was good. I couldn't stand it.
Speaker 2It's like too okay too, like I like to involve.
Speaker 1For me that was good but yeah I didn't watch season two or three. A friend of mine who was very much into west world told me just do not watch two and three and just watch one and enjoy it and it ends just fine. Just ends like a long movie and you don't need to see anything else.
Speaker 2So you know what I mean did creighton direct future world or not?
Speaker 1no creighton directed west world and he did not have anything to do with future world or beyond west world.
Speaker 2Okay, I was kind of interested in let me know because, um, I I wanted to get actually a couple of his books that were not the big ones. He wrote under a pseudonym, I think, when he was in medical school and he wrote a bunch. Yeah, he wrote a bunch of pulpy detective novels which I'm reading in that hard case crime series.
Speaker 1Yes, Like he wrote one called I can't remember what it's called Pursuit maybe or something, which was based on one of his John Lange books, and that was his first movie and it was a TV film with Martin Sheen. And then he directed Westworld, which was a big hit. I watched it recently, Didn't love it. But you know I really like Coma and I think his movie Looker is good and Runaway. So I think he's not a bad director really, and I have yet to watch the movie.
Speaker 2No, I mean, he's certainly an inspiration for myself. I wish I could do that.
Speaker 1He's an incredibly accomplished person. That's just like so dope. Yeah, I love Michael Crichton and I just finished his book state of fear, which I enjoyed him. I'm reading the Andromeda strain right now.
Speaker 2Quite the avid reader. I am trying to read more books because you're just putting me to shame reading all these novels, dude books, because you're just putting me to shame reading all these novels.
Speaker 1No, dude. His books, his books. You'll whip through them in two seconds.
Speaker 2They're like 500 pages long, but they just go. You know what I mean. Well, you should check out some of those uh paperbacks from hell as well. Those are, those are I'd love to yeah, a lot of fun reading those.
Speaker 2Uh, hellhound and the auctioneer which the auctioneer? Why that has never been made into a film is beyond me. That would make. I did not think it was going to hold up as well as it did. Running through the entire book. I'm reading, I don't know like 50, 100 pages into this book and I'm like what is the point of this? What is going on? And then it just starts sealing the deal and you're like this would be a phenomenal movie. I have no idea why it's never been made.
Speaker 1Oh, I'd love to read some of these and do a show on them.
Speaker 2Definitely. I'm reading let's Go Play at the Atoms, which is a movie it's a book where these little children abduct their babysitter, who's taking care of them while the parents are away, and they start doing horrible things. Oh wow it's apparently like very shocking.
Speaker 1By the end, I have only okay no, I'm pumped because I've got that uh grady hendricks book and I've read a few of those books in there just over time. But I was just captivated by not just the covers, but I was like I should. I should probably read a bunch of these books they're fine.
Speaker 2Isn't it something that the cover can sell you?
Speaker 1on the book yeah, you know what else too that no one apparently understands, because we're in kindle world now. But, like, if I'm going to pick a book sorry, I judge it by its cover part of what I'm doing is it's going to be an object that I carry around with me for like a week or two and I want that to be something that I is pleasing to me to put on my nightstand, or you know what I'm saying I was at barnes and noble looking at the.
Speaker 2They had a horror section which I didn't know they had until recently. And I was just browsing, looking. Everything looked like crap based on the, the current graphic design artistry. And then I saw hellhound and I'm like this has this bright picture of this demon dog on the cover, nice lettering, this looks interesting. And then I look inside and it's it's from like the 1970s and I'm like there's no way, like how is this even here? And then I saw it was the paperbacks from hell, reprints, and I'm like I'm sold. You got me now I'm buying them all.
Speaker 1And it's like, just from the cover, art Like that's all you need, yeah exactly yeah, and it's a totem that you want to carry around with you and have.
Speaker 2It looks beautiful. Is that so wrong yeah?
Film Recommendations and Wrap-Up
Speaker 1Yeah, like that's great. Hey, I'm sorry I have to let you go because I forgot to bring down my battery charger on my computer and I'm about to automatically log out here from lack of battery. But it's been fun, man, it's fun, as always it's fun man. It's fun as always, of course. Chris Parker says any of you ever seen Race with the Devil? Great movie? I have not. Lauren Oates and Peter Fonda it's a devil camper movie.
Speaker 2All right guys. Good discussion.
Speaker 1Yeah, I agree, I agree, We'll see you guys next time.
