Kiyoshi Kurosawa's PULSE (2001) Paired with Loneliness and Blackberry Cobbler

Dallas asked me: "What's the creepiest movie you've ever seen? Not the scariest - the creepiest."

I only had to think about it for a short moment: PULSE. A movie that is creepy, unnerving, unsettling, and so, so easy to sink into.

We dive deep into its themes of human lonliness, the rise of the internet and the moment of Y2K, and how PULSE imagines the human world might end. Or, perhaps, how it's already ended.

PAIRED WITH:

• 2016 Loma Prieta Amorosa Vineyard Pinotage, Lodi, CA
• 2023 Gambler's Ghost Cabernet Sauvignon, North Coast, CA

Transcript

0:00

let there be anxiety. Those were the words uttered by a physics professor at the moment of change in our collective odometer known as Y2K. I was at a party by the way when he said that but it's not important. For those who don't know Y2K was the last time anything felt fresh and new and exciting. You see the 90s was sort of a cultural adolescence, with the promise of adulthood up ahead in the form of the 2000s. The future was on the tips of our tongues. We could feel the change in the air and taste all the proverbial new shit that that change had in for us. Technology was about to give way to great new things because the frontier was open. Many of us found ourselves excited by these unknown possibilities. while others of us were filled with existential dread fueled by nightmares of cyborg and alien overlords thanks to the sci-fi of the mid-20th century. But there was another subset of those of us who were around for Y2K that were filled with both dread and excitement in equal measure. The Internet at the time promised human connection and the first hints of globalization. as we had already tasted the forbidden fruit of real-time conversations with people clear on the other side of the world. And, Minnie, that was a step too far. The Internet represented a connection to things unknown. Some saw the possibilities of connection as a cultural evolution, while others couldn't shake the idea that the Internet could possibly connect us with other worldly things. Collectively, we were wrestling with a new existential crisis. In Japan, An up-and-coming writer-director was also wrestling with these ideas. In interviews, he would allude to the concept that the internet was like a potentially menacing and unknown virus that fosters isolation rather than connection. That filmmaker's name, Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Kurosawa also had questions. Questions like... What if your computer, specifically a website, could infect your life with depression, sadness, and malaise that would push you to the brink and make you long for death and darkness? He also wondered whether the internet seduced society with its possibilities, while simultaneously overwhelming efforts to rein it in, just like nuclear power did in the decades before. And what resulted would come to be ranked by Slink. Damn it. Fuck me. Shit! Alright. And what resulted of Kurosawa's questions would come to be ranked by Slant Magazine in 2025 as the number one horror film of the 21st century. Written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, today's film up for pairing is known as Kaido in its native tongue, but to the rest of the world, it is known as Pulse. All right, Dave, get ready to play that fancy intro for the people, but before you do, answer this, if you will. Do you remember where you were or what you were doing on the night of Y2K? Fuck no. It's interesting. actually want to pull on this thread a little bit, because even though this movie is like a post Y2K movie, like 2001, like right after kind of a thing, like in your mind, does this really have a lot to do with Y2K? Yeah, Yeah, yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah, it's. Go ahead, talk more about that, uh even though you just talked and you're turning it over to me. I'm going to turn it back to you. Because this is curious, because Y2K for me was such a blip of nothing on the radar. I remember the build up to it. I remember the fears. remember the worries. It was a little Cold War-ish in that like, it's just like in the background of everything. And so it's like, what are we going to do? But as we're gonna find out, as we keep talking about this, like we did a fair amount. Like we did the work. We did what we could and we worried what would happen. But at the same time, it was a little bit like, know, revelation is coming. You know, it's like the end of days and there's always a date and that date just keeps coming and going and coming and going. And Y2K felt like just another date that came and went and it's like, uh-huh. And we're all still here. Good going. 100%. I think the difference is uh it's that sort of move from analog into the digisphere. That was the new sort of uh cloak for that, you know, that sort of argument that we've been having since, you know, time since we were a thing, you know, the idea of the Eon coming or changing the millennium coming and changing and bringing about You know, the four horsemen of the apocalypse or some great change or some great cataclysm. think what was interesting about was why why to K moment was that like Zeniel generation and the millennials. This was their first big existential moment that coincided with all those previous eras we were talking about. And on top of that, they were also the generation that was quasi native to this tech. So they saw it burgeoning and expanding. in front of themselves, in front of their own with their own eyes. And so they were also they were the target audience for whatever tech was coming down the pipeline. And ah so that's one part of that sort of sandwich leading up to Y2K. The other part is the older generation. You know, they were so accustomed to living in a world that was for the most part analog that when this great sort of potential dragon of the future known as the internet came, came calling it scared the shit out of them. So a lot of that, a lot of that fear mongering, cause that's really what it was. You look back now and I do, I recommend anyone who listens to the podcast go and just Google Y2K archival footage. There is so much that we were inundated with in terms of like media news, pop and pulp pieces. As I'll mention later, uh lot of your sci-fi writers and actors and anyone associated with sci-fi jumped on the bandwagon and they started just beating that horse. And it honestly, it drove a lot of people into a fucking frenzy of fear and anxiety because, you know, we didn't know this was brand new territory and we did not know. So in terms of how it relates to this film, I think. You know, again, I'm not going to draw a direct sort of connection to the film, but I will say it was clearly in the conversation. um Clearly, our writer director here was aware of it. And, know, he was, you know, we'll talk about it later. His his roots and sort of that traditional Japanese storytelling. He clearly wanted to kind of find a way to imbue uh some sort of technological kind of tethers and create this sort of new method of storytelling. I do think there is some influence from the Y2K nonsense on this film for sure. And I know you wrote a little bit more of Y2K that we're gonna talk about here in the script. So we'll get to that in just a minute. One way, no matter what I think. But first off, before I tell you what I think, and then we'll play the snazzy intro, but do you remember where you were during the... You were at that party, okay. was at that party and it you know, I wasn't I was like you. It was I early very early on recognized. OK. This is just this is just our generation's version of, know, the four horsemen and the apocalypse and, the date in the Mayan calendar and twenty twenty. You know, OK, this is our thing. Got it. Got it. And uh go ahead. Oh no, I was just gonna say even if it had happened, like even if systems had collapsed and all that stuff, I mean, it would be chaos for a short period of time. But to some degree, it would have just had to have happened. And then we would start fixing things. It was always a little bit of a bullshitty thing to be like, you know, all of our systems world is ending. The world is ending and it's like, no, it's going to it'll be bad. I'm sure it will ground flights because like all the all the systems are down and whatnot. And I think things like that were that was where the worry really was, like things like flights and things like train schedules and it was a yada yada yada. And I will say, though, that I do think Y2K was a little less to do with the Internet itself, at least in terms of public users and how we think of the Internet today. The internet connected a lot of things, right? There was the internet and there was the World Wide Web. they were not, the World Wide Web is on top of the internet, right? It's not exactly the same thing as the internet. Now the internet was the problem because it was all these connected systems. The World Wide Web, which is what we think of in terms of fear mongering about users using the internet on a day-to-day basis. That's kind of its own thing. And I feel like that's more of what this movie that we're about to talk about has more to do with is like getting on the worldwide web and what that means socially for people. And to your point about that slant magazine labeling this as number one film of the 21st century in 2025, the little blurb they put under it. I think the first line was, does this even count as metaphor in indoor? Exactly. So on the nose, but back in 2001, it was basically metaphor. was basically being poetic about where they thought this internet thing was going. And now that we're in 2026 at the time of this recording, it's so exactly so much of what has happened and so much of what we think is broken about society and about social relations and our loneliness and our depression and our anxieties and all of it having to do with being perpetually online and doom scrolling and all these different things. We're gonna get to all of that, but you know what? Let's roll that intro and let's get to it. Here we go. What then to take? Real good times! Dave and I'm Dallas and this is entertainment. We have opinions on just about everything. Sometimes those opinions are spot on. Sometimes they go down easier with a glass of wine. This is entertainment. The why. next. And we're back. actually, one more thing, Dallas, before you we move on. I almost forgot to mention that you say right at the very top that this was the last time anything felt fresh, new and exciting. I'm going to push back a little bit on that, my friend. This was before the smartphone. This was um before really social media had even begun. know, we were only in like forums and chat rooms and things. Remember the simple days of chat rooms. I know. But the Internet like new like Twitter for the until very recent history. Twitter was an amazing thing. Like we thought it was a game changer. It's like me to happen. was Twitter. uh You know, we were on we were unearthing so many terrible things in the world like genocides and terrible political movements. And like we were actually winning is why Elon Musk had to take over Twitter is like it was happening like. I like that phrase. We were almost winning. like that. I know. And then of course the billionaire was like, oh, fuck this and just bought it. And we're like, right, you can do that. And just took the platform and ended it essentially. Nothing else has quite taken its place at this point. But at the same time, of course, social media, I think the newness and the freshness of it is what allowed it to be so big and exciting and impactful. And over time that has to fade and we have to come up with something new, like something more lasting. Got it all. failed so far. We'll see what happens. The pushback has all been in the last many years and the last decade or so. And we got to see if we can dig ourselves out of this pushback and really start laying down new groundwork. But we'll see what we'll find something as interesting as Y2K was. uh We'll see. Anywho. that's not a pandemic. Let's start there. um Alright, well thank you for that Dave. I do enjoy getting the opportunity to talk about Y2K because like most things, by the way, I'm just gonna have one more thing here. Y2K was like in the lead up to 9-11 by the way guys. Like it was this, it was a crazy little era. Anyway, as you can tell, thought that's what was going to be the problem with the plane. what the problem was going to be with the planes, precisely. And so when that actually happened, OK, I'm OK. No more soapboxing. Anyway, let's stay on. Because. OK, we to move on. Let's stay on this. Let's get to the fucking wine question of the week. We'll probably have to beat that bleep that fucking out. But if we don't, who cares now, Dave? Since Japan is our locale today, let's quickly discuss Japanese grapes. which I know nothing. Literally nothing. Because you know how expensive Japanese wine is? I can't afford any of it. So stupidly, at least, you know, importing it over here, like getting our hands on it. It's crazy expensive. Which of the following grapes is the most planted red grape in Japan and was created to thrive in the humid conditions of the region and is often called the Japanese Gume due to its light bodied, fresh, aromatic and bright fruit board characteristics? it? Nagano B. The Kakaido C, the Muscat Bailey, A? Or D, Cochou? Would like those options again? All right. Is it A, the Nagano, B, the Kokaido, C, the Muscat Bailey, A, or D, the Koshien? Okay, so I don't think the most planted red grape in Japan um Often called the Japanese game. I don't think it's a muscat Bailey eggs. I don't think any is there a red muscat. God damn. I don't know fuck um So we'll bleep that out too Koshu I'm pretty sure no Koshu is a different kind of alcoholic beverage I forget what, but I'm pretty sure that name sounds very familiar, that Koshu is something different. Let's go between the Nagano and the Kokaido. Watch it be the Muscat Bailey A. It's such a specific genotype type of thing, like Muscat Bailey A. like, I want that to be it. But I'm going to go, I like it the best. Let's go with Kokaido, final answer. For no other reason than I like the ring of it. I like the way it sounds, which is how we make most decisions. Anyway, anyway. It really is. You book by the cover, you buy the wine bottle by the label. We know, we know, we know. I bought four books today at the Book Art Fair, two of them because the cover was great. I am not proud of this. You never know, you gotta read them. Could be proud. a bit of a collector and sometimes it's a hair mess. alright, so Dave's answer is B, Kakaido. Well, the actual answer people is C, the Muscat Bailey. A. It's too genotype. Damn it, I knew it. The Muscat Bélier is Japan's most planted red grape. It was developed in 1927 in Niigata at the Iwanohara Vineyard. Their objective was to create a grape that actually ripens reliably in Japan's humid conditions. uh As late ripening Bourdeaux grapes were not always successful as they had tried two varying degrees of success to force Cabernet Sauvignon to behave as it does in the dock. So They went into the lab and created something better suited to their climate. And that is the Muscat bailey A. And you're so right. It's so like genus specific. It sounds completely made up. And as far as the other options, Nagano and Kokaido are basically just regions in Japan. And the Koshu is the most popular, most planted, I should say, grape. Aha! but it's not another beverage. Okay, cool. Okay. I think there are are wine varietals that are called of course. But I mean, Koshu sounds like I think I was thinking of something like. Yeah, it sounds like a soju. So it's like Koshu, like a type of liquor. I've done a wine. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. All right. So I know nothing about Japan, which is accurate, which is accurate. I do watch a lot of their cinema and that's it. And let me tell you. You do watch a lot of their similar cinema. They have featured zero Japanese wines in their cinema, so I'm clueless! That was how I would know. Maybe we'll do a little subset where we dive into wine featured in Japanese cinema, a nice little cross section. oh know, it's probably going to mostly be just like a drops of God, which was based on a manga. It's it's although it's not their local wines. It's almost never is because it's a fairly new thing for them. Yeah. So it's it's growing in prestige and popularity. And it's so expensive if it's exported and imported elsewhere. Like if you try and get your hands on a Japanese wine in America, good luck because you you pay in a pretty penny for that, like a penny. the wine will probably be fine to good and you'll pay a lot for it because it's getting better but it's also, it's not burgundy, it's not like the cream of the crop of Napa Valley or any of that shit. It's just kind of like getting better and it can be very nice wine. I think some uh small vineyards in Japan are like excellent, excellent and they don't really make it out here and you will. you will still pay an amount where it's like no matter the quality, it's just not worth that price. Like, yeah, just go Google Japanese wine variety. Exactly. Guys, it's. Now getting to the movie, my friends. So Dallas already told you to go Google Y2K if you're unfamiliar with Y2K. So definitely go do that. And yes, also Google, you know, Leonard Nimoy stars in a fantastically melodramatic one entitled The Y2K Family Survival Guide. If you've never heard about that, Google that as well, because yes, that is entertaining AF and you need to do that. So let's talk a little bit about because we talked about Y2K. But what was the central fear surrounding Y2K? So the problem was that old software and hardware used a two digit year field, meaning 1999 was written as 99, right? And experts figured or feared that computers would interpret the upcoming 00 for 2000 as 1900. They feared that this would cause date sensitive infrastructure malfunctions throughout the computerized world and even shut down up to 5 % of our computer grid. That doesn't sound like much, but it would be enough to cause some serious issues. So the United States even appointed a Y2K czar. And I remember that a Y2K czar and collectively the world spent 100 billion dollars, half of what, you know, our, our department of peace wanted to continue the war in Iran. So 100 billion dollars to prevent any. massive shutdowns to the grid. It should be noted that there was debate about the exact date on when the 21st century should begin as well. Was it December 31st, 1999, or December 31st, 2000? That was a question on many people's lips. We don't cross centuries very often. And by the time we get there, everyone from the last one's gone. So for the most part, Pepperd and the ones that are left are not doing so great anymore. it's always that question. I think it's always the eternal debate is like, does it end on the last year of the previous decade? Like, what is the last year of the previous decade? What is the first year of the now decade? Right or wrong? The date was marked by cultural celebrations and great technological anxiety. But that is enough on Y2K for now. On to the background and team for the 2000 release of Pulse. For writer-director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the 1990s were prolific and a busy time. Having nearly a dozen short films under his belt, he started 1997 off by releasing the critically acclaimed full-length feature film called Cure. This was the movie that put him on the map. It is what most cinephiles uh mention and quote. oh I have tried to watch Cure. so many times, I can't even finish it. What? Bores me to tears. Two tears. Two tears. And I need to try again sometime soon, because it's been about as long as the last time I saw Paul since I tried 1997. But I've tried about two or three times to watch Cure. And somewhere about halfway through the movie, like my eyes are. I'm like, they will stay on the screen. I will watch this film and my mind checks out. And the next thing I know, I'm thinking about something else and I cannot finish that movie. But Cure is the one that people are like, this is possibly it's his first truly great masterpiece kind of work. And a lot of cinephiles think of it as like still kind of his best film, his greatest film and everything else kind of being a riff on that. But in any event, 1998 saw the release of three films, including Eyes of the Spider, Serpent's Path and License to Live. Then in 1999, he followed up with two releases, Charisma and Baron Illusions. And when it came time to consider a new film, he leaned on those old classic Kaiden methods of traditional storytelling, of demonic ghost stories in Japanese storytelling, but also integrated the burgeoning technology that was taking over the world, perhaps inspired by the chatter surrounding Y2K. says Dallas, I don't know about that. I don't know about that. At in some small part, I'm sure. Rather than bloody antagonist rather than bloody antagonistic mythic creatures, he opted to explore non spectral beings of coexistence, thereby taking the ghost story into new technologically horrific depths. And it should also be noted that in Cure as well, he's kind of the king he's thought of as the king of atmospheric and dread. And so that is that definitely continues on in into this movie that we're to talk about today. So once the script was done. The puzzle of production companies materialized, which included some heavy hitters coming together for the production, including Daiei Aiga, I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right, who 1981's Possession. That is The Possession with Sam Neill, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. OK, interesting. Haku Hodo, who produced 1988's Akira, the animated film, the animated feature film that is infamous for everyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s. and Imagica who would go on to produce 2011's Spirited Away. Distribution would be handled by Toho. Now the casting. Opting for a cast of unknowns, Kurosawa saw the benefit in removing any shadow of notoriety from the actors as to intensify the notion that ordinary individuals were being overwhelmed by the dread and horror of this world. The cast would include Haruhiko Kato, Kumiko Aso, Koyuki, who would go on to star in 2003's The Last Samurai, and Korome Arasaka, Kenji Mizohashi, and Masatoshi Matsuo. Apologies to all of them. Production. With a modest budget of $1.3 million, production began in June 2000 in various locales around Tokyo. Cinematographer Junishiro Hayashi, who also worked with J-Horror Staples Ring and Dark Water, used 35 millimeter for... the production. The film is noted for its dreary color palette and the use of quote unquote black stains on walls to represent those who have disappeared. visual nod to the shadows left by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And the production encountered difficulty in recreating that early 2000s on-screen tech, especially without the aid of CGI. What resulted was a quirky blend of low-budget practical effects and jerky moments which would prove horrifically effective. my God. The iconic ghost scene, which should be mentioned, the famous scene featuring a slow, unsettling walk by ghost. This is the scene. Even the first time I saw it, I'd never read anything about this film. Me and my best friend, my best college buddy at the time, we rented this, we brought it home. We were J-horror fans. And this thing blew us away. And this scene, this is the scene where you're like, I'm in, fuck, whoa, ha, I don't, that. Not much even happens. Yeah. And you're just like, what was that? It's kind of slow motion. It's single shot. And then that little dance move, which should just be kind of like a dance move, but it's done at the exact moment in just the right way. And that slow motion, the way in which it's so effective, you're just like you don't see any of it coming while it's all slow as molasses. That's right. And there is something about it. um Kurosawa rejected the digital approach hiring professional dancer Akiko Kitamura to create the disturbing unnatural movement in Yeah Like I said, it's dance-like ah which suited Kurosawa just fine as he showcased a style focused on long and slow methodical takes Takafumi Hakata's musical score of ambient computer sound furthers the annoyingly mechanical tread of the world And Pulse, or Gaido, premiered in Japan on February 10th, 2001, then in the Uncertain Regards section at Cannes in 2001, as well as releases throughout Europe, Canada, and Asia that year. It would then go on to make the rounds of the international release calendars until its eventual American release on November 9th, 2005. Pulse grossed about 200 million yen or roughly 2 million dollars upon its Japanese release. Pulse was remade in the US in 2006 by Jim Sunzerro and followed by a host of sequels all directed by Joel Sosson. Dave, did you see any of the remakes? Yeah, the remakes I suppose. oh I did see the American remake. didn't see any of the sequels. The sequels were all the American sequels, right? Japan never made a sequel of this, ah Yeah, I saw the first American remake. The one thing I kind of give it, so the American remake tries to give like a mythology behind the horror of what's happening. Like they're like, here's the story, here's what's happening. ah The Japanese version, there are one or two characters that in passing are kind of like, They kind of give a thought of kind of, sorta what might be happening in very broad strokes. And they're like, but who knows? And that's just something like that. That's what I hear. It could be something like that. The American remake is like hardcore. They're like, no, no, no, we gotta explain this. And they explain it. And it's not a bad explanation. The problem is just the rest of the movie is really boring. like they try for a bunch of jump scares that are like. I mean, they're fine, they're jump scared. And you're like, okay. The heroes are like triumphing in the end. they actually, think they kind of sort of beat the thing. Like it doesn't really work. And they missed sort of the whole point of the original movie, which we'll get to when we start talking about it. But the remake I saw once in the theater, because I loved this movie, I had to, right? I bought a ticket. Meet me and my best friend from college. We saw the remake in the theater and never again and And definitely not the sequels the DVD sequels I'm not sure I saw the remake. It is possible, but it's also possible that it was really unforgettable. When did you first see this one? I'm curious about this one. I actually started watching this. I guess it saw this for the first time probably around 2010, but did not finish. Because at the time I was like, okay, this is already a decade old and the technology was always, it looked a little, it looked. terribly dated then but there's enough time now so upon this viewing i was all in i was just like this is it's it's so It's funny, he of doesn't use technology technology, you know, in that way. Like he forgo, he forwent CGI at the time. well i mean the technology in terms of the actual design the production design oh And of course the computers and what not. Yeah, that's what mean. Yeah, the actual design of it. Yeah, that's what we had. Right. what's amazing is in that decade from 2001 when this film was released and 2010 or 11 when I saw it that that shift in technology was massive at the time because like you were saying earlier, Ten years later you reject everything, 20 years later you embrace it all. embrace it. And that's textbook, you know, the sort of the idea of, know, how I met this film. So so watching it this time, watching it now and actually not checking out after the first 10 minutes, I was all in, man. Everything about this film is just seamless and perfect. It's just fucking beautiful. All right. In 2024, by the way. The Kodakawa Corporation oversaw a 4K restoration, which Umbrella Entertainment released as a limited edition UHD Blu-ray collector set in late 2024, including a 150 page book on its production and themes praise for revitalizing its eerie visuals. And I would love to get my hand on a copy of this. if anyone is listening and they want us on this film. There's a reason I love it. For sure. With things like fear, loneliness, and isolation, this film released 25 years ago seems even more pertinent than ever. Often linked with the J-horror films of the day like Ring Gyu and Juwan, Pulse is less about old world mythical curses and focuses solely on new world inevitabilities and has retroactively been termed a techno-horror. Yeah, I see that. Yeah, yeah, for sure. All right, folks, this is the point where we start breaking the movie down into three acts. We're going to give a brief synopsis for each act. If you have not seen this film yet, go watch the film because we will be talking about all of it. um So now that there's this is not a movie that has spoilers per se, but I mean, you know, you're going to know where it goes. And you might not. You might want to go see the movie first. So make sure you do that or. Listen to our brief synopsis, then in between each act, we're to talk about what our thoughts were in each act and our wine pairing thoughts. What were we thinking would pair? Where were we going with that? And how does it change from Act 1 to Act 2 to finally Act 3, where we will reveal our ultimate wine pairing, respectively, for this movie. And now to begin Act 1. Michikudo, played by Kumiko Aso, has recently moved to Tokyo and begun working at a shop that sells plants. Her co-workers include Junko Sasano, Toshio Yabe, and Taguchi, who has been missing for several days while working on a computer disc for the shop's sales. Michi goes to Taguchi's apartment and finds him distracted and aloof. While Michi is looking for the disc, she notices Taguchi's apartment is eerily quiet. She then turns back to speak with Taguchi and finds him dead after hanging himself, his corpse visibly decaying, making Michi question who she was talking to initially. Great imagery. Yeah. Fuck. Michi and her friends inspect the disk he left behind and discover it contains an image of Taguchi staring into his own computer monitor on which Taguchi staring into his monitor can be seen, creating an endless series of images. Mirror inside of a mirror, kind of a thing. In the other monitor on his desk, they discover a ghostly face staring out into Taguchi's room. Yabe receives a phone call and hears a distorted voice saying, help me,助けて. which is Japanese for help me, it's wonderful. Upon checking his phone, he sees the same image found on Taguchi's desk. He goes to Taguchi's apartment and sees a black stain on the wall where he hanged himself, as well as a paper with quote, how to make a forbidden room unquote. He notices a door sealed with red tape and enters it, where he encounters a ghost. Yabe becomes depressed and tells Michi that he saw something horrible in the forbidden room. So thoughts. um Act one is for me the perfect pacing, right? It is so atmospheric. We are dropped down into these like odd little tableaus with no background and the characters just take off in their little worlds. And um I love that shit. I adore it. I adore that style. um I don't like a whole lot of background and exposition. I like that atmospheric kind of emptiness. um That scene. when she discovers the body, because it's kind of done in shadow. I don't know if you remember when they do that reveal his body is almost completely dehydrated even like it's when it's hanging there. That's the moment when I was like, oh, okay, this fucking this is brilliant. mean, everything, I don't know how to describe it. It just seems so accessible. This seems like a world you're actually walking. You're actually walking in. Sighed out right were And I say that because, know, he, of course, I, you know, he had that statement saying he used no name actors because he didn't want their sort of brand to kind of pull away from the idea that these could be just average everyday people experiencing this world. And as I'm watching this, I get that because I'm like, this is more than most other films. I'm actually pulled into this film. I'm actually good. That's a that's a. generally a problem I have when I'm watching films. It's rare that something actually pulls me in to the world of this film. And this did that so effectively. And I'm still not sure why it did it so effectively. But I think it has something to do with the fact that not everything is perfectly lit. Not everything is so digitally sort of sound and perfect. So go ahead. What were you saying? No, was just gonna say, think it's split the way it's meant to be. I don't know if I'd agree to say it's not perfectly lit, it's like, is a, shadows are huge part of this movie. It's meant to be that this movie does two things really well and you start to get this right from the get go. One is that there are lots of shadows in broad daylight, right? It's not, there are some kind of night scenes, but it's rare. Like most of the scenes are middle of the day. And you enter someone's apartment and sometimes they have like the windows boarded and things like that. um You have the, you know, we're gonna get back to the how to enter a forbidden room bit kind of a thing and what a forbidden room is, but it constantly has shadows deep in the middle of daylight. And then people are fading and feeling depressed and lonely and disappearing from the world while being among other people. Right, you're right. I misspoke. It's not poorly lit. It is lit intentionally. And I think that intention is exceptionally effective. And that's the thing I'm sort of responding to. You're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right. But yeah, that lighting is meant to like it is that weird contrast where it's like this is not what a day room is supposed to look like. But that's part of the point is like. Especially in a film. Yeah. And even for a horror movie, you know, we decided to tackle this movie because Dallas asked me, what's the creepiest movie I've ever seen? And I had to think about that because it's like not the scariest, the creepiest. And those are two different things. And this movie sometimes. people watch the movie, I saw a Reddit thread where someone's like, people said it was like the scariest, creepiest, uh most uns, like made them unsettled and disturbed. And I'm like, not the scare. I'm like, the scariest might be throwing you the other three things. Yes. Creepiest, unsettled, disturbed. Yeah, absolutely. Scary. Not exactly. There are like a moment here, a moment there, but this movie is not trying to scare you. It's not trying to get you. There's no jump scares. There's no sudden. moments, hardly throughout the entire movie. It's so uh steadily paced and carefully paced and it's play of light and dark. But then also my favorite thing, I think about this movie is as it goes, you don't know what's going on. You're not really certain why. And also going back to that theme of like it being dark in a very bright lit room. Like there's a scene we're going to get to here in just a moment where there's a ghost in the library and. The one of the one of the side characters is just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's there. He's real. He's there. And you're like, wait, I'm sorry. What? And like everyone's just like, you can't go trying. He's like, have a game. Like, try and catch him. You can't. He'll disappear if you try and catch him. And these weird things are happening, but it's just life. And people are just kind of going about their day even while kind of commenting on we're not 100 percent certain what that is. We have our theories. but we can't catch him and we can't prove it. So we're just kind of letting it happen. But even when bad things are happening, no one can stop it. So they're like, well, keep going. We'll talk about it a little bit, but there's a fascinating element to this movie where people are trying to figure out what's going on and what this weird sort of pseudo supernatural thing is that's going on, why people are killing themselves or just disappearing. into the ether, which starts to happen in Act Two here. But the unsettling part of this movie is there's kind of no absolute explanation. And certainly as you're watching the movie, there's no absolute. Everyone kind of has their little theories. But then it is in broad daylight and life just goes on. Right. And you just have to accept that it's happening. Right. You have to accept the shadow that shouldn't be there. just that's that's what I kept thinking watching this film. It's like, OK, this is a film where you just have to accept the shadow that shouldn't be there. And, you know, that imagery pairs well with what we were experiencing with the future of tech possibilities of the technology around Y2K, but also with traditional sort of ghost stories. And it kind of does, you know, mirror both of those concepts. So wine wise, what are you thinking at this point? So for me, I wanted a wine that was dark, smoky, to go with that sort of, there is that thing where they fade into the stain against the wall, right? The ash kind of a thing. And that's huge in this movie. And the shadows, the shadows, no matter how daylight a scene is, the shadows, shadows, shadows uh are happening all the time. So something dark and smoky, something to drink when alone. um Or even when surrounded by people. So you have alone wines? I need to know more about this. uh I definitely do. I call it a my alone wine because even when surrounded by people, you're probably the only one drinking this particular wine. You know, which is also we'll get again deeper into act two and three, but that's going to be perfect for this. So uh this grape I was thinking of is somewhat dismissed by most and it's hard to get people to join you with it. There was also the loneliness isolation element of the movie, which I wanted the wine to represent. didn't exactly wasn't 100 % certain on that how I was going to get there, but I had an inkling. um So I knew of a winery high up on a mountaintop, away kind of away from the red, not horribly away from the rest of civilization, just a little away from the rest of civilization, but something that is going to make you lonely if you're up there, you know. um Mountain top wineries are like that. They're just far enough removed that like uh we, just watched a documentary about a winery high up on the mountain top, not the one I'm talking about right now, but like these two, this couple decided to buy the winery, start working at the winery. We're actually going to have the filmmaker of this documentary on, I think next week after you listen to this episode. And they, when they had kids, The kids hated being up on the mountaintop. It was so lonely. had no friends. They couldn't get their friends to come up there. They always had to go down there. They had to find how to bribe their parents to take them down the mountaintop to go see other people. It was for kids growing up for that social experience when you need, I think for the parents, once you're an adult, you're like, this is great. No people. You know, and for the kids, they're like, we're dying. They're like, no, no people. Right. need people to socially grow properly. So a winery high up on a mountaintop, that is just enough away from the rest of civilization. So I cracked this line open, you know, first to sit with the movie after the initial few scenes. I thought maybe this would be uh right. And we'll see if it makes it past the opening act. But that's my thinking so far. All right. I like that. uh For me, this this wine is about stains. Really? It's it's I don't know how to describe it. It's about stains, right? And the immediate imagery I got, of course, you've got to get the ghosts sort of parallel, which, you know, ghosts are essentially sort of stains on existence, right? That's the concept of the ghosts. It's sort of a a carryover, a leftover. There's some sort in this Right. um And uh the immediate imagery that jumped to mind is I'm a baker and my one of my favorite things to bake and I have actually haven't baked in a long time. But one my favorite things to bake is a cobbler. And uh with cobblers, the best fruit are your dark, jammy fruits, right? Your blackberries, you know, things like that. And If you make them correctly, they will stain everything they touch. And it ends up being just so beautiful. Like I love serving a cobbler on a white plate. Calm down. And if I did, it'd be just as valid for everyone out there who enjoys wine. very sweet. So I started thinking. All right. So, you know, if I'm in the jam, if I'm in the jammy space, if I'm in the cobbler space, those fruits, your blackberries, your carons, your, you know, all those darker, darker, bloodier, you know, berries. I, you know, I started thinking about those, those wines, those grapes that generally associated with that. And specifically, I remember having a glass of Oh, God, what was the white wine? I just wrote it down. I don't feel like looking it up from a a vineyard. Don't worry, we'll circle back to it, of course. But a vineyard, which is called which has a central theme of this film in its title. I'm not gonna reveal it yet. But it is from the North Coast here in California. And you've probably heard of it. And so that's where I am. Dark, jammy, cobblery stains. So yeah, all right. All right, people, on to act two. So Michi receives a call like the one Yabika. She goes to check on Yahweh and finds a black stain on the wall like the one to Gucci's apartment had. She panics when she realizes Junco has unsealed and entered quote unquote a forbidden room. Inside she witnesses Junco being cornered by a ghost and rescues her. Junco becomes catatonic from the encounter. She later steps forward. She later steps toward the wall and becomes a black stain. which then dissolves and scatters as Michi tries in vain to stop it. Worried, Michi goes to check on her mother, who lives outside of Tokyo. The second plotline follows Ryusuke Kawashima, a university economics student who has recently signed up to a new internet service provider. His computer accesses a website by itself showing him disturbing images of people alone in dark rooms exhibiting bizarre behavior. That night, Ryosuke wakes up to find his computer on again with the disturbing images displaying and frantically unplugs it. The next day, he visits the university computer lab looking for answers and he meets Haru Karasawa, played by Koyuki, a postgraduate computer science student who suggests he either bookmark the page or screen capture the images for her to examine. Ryosuke attempts to do so, but finds that his computer will not follow his commands. Instead, a video plays of a man with his head in a plastic bag, sitting in a room with the words, Help Me, written all over the walls. A graduate student who Haru is working with explains to Ryosuke his theory that the souls of the dead have begun to invade the physical world. Haru confides her lifelong feelings of isolation to uh Ryosuke, then begins acting strangely, suggesting that ghosts would want to trap humans in their own loneliness rather than kill them. By the way, great concept. That ghosts would want to trap humans in their own loneliness rather than kill them. Ryosuke tries to escape with her to a faraway place on the train. However, their train stops and Haru, seized by a desire to return home, runs away. Upon returning to her apartment, she witnesses the man with the plastic bag shoot himself on her computer. Haru then presses the Enter key and sees a video of herself in the present moment on the screen. As she embraces the invisible figure watching her, Haru happily says that she is not alone. That's such a creepy act, by the way. That was it was so wonderfully creepy. Like, just And I think that was the act where uh we skipped the library. We skipped talking about the library scene. That's the library scene where the ghost appears in it, because it's at the university and whatnot. yeah, this is where the themes really crystallize in this act, where you start to realize what this movie is really about. And I think the thing for me, the kicker of all of this, is that the movie seems, even though, yes, there's all this element of like, the internet and what computers do and technology and all that fun stuff. But it's also kind of pointing out because there are certain times when um like when the friend disappear, she enters the forbidden room and then disappears later. Junco, right? She's with her friend the whole time and she's like, we're together. We're not going to dot dot dot dot. And she still fades. Even being with someone else and among someone else, the depression can get them. And I think part of, for me, I don't know if this was the director's intent at all. I'm not going to speak for him, but for me, this movie has always kind of meant this, is that like we suck at being there for each other. We suck at actually making people not lonely when they're around us, when they're with us. And that is a of the criticism that I have always gotten from this movie. It's not just like if you could just get offline and be in real life, everything would be solved. It's like, no. The online part is making us, I feel like the online element makes us realize better, easier, that we can talk to people all the time and connect quote unquote with them and still feel lonely, right? Yeah, I think that is a central sort of thesis. Sorry, because the character one of the characters has that line and I'm going to butcher it. But it's something to the effect of the one character says the Internet makes us less lonely and the other it's the library. It's actually the library in the computer lab. And she says, um you know, that's that's a lie. We're all just lonely, regardless of where we are. I'm butchering it. I'll find that. But Even when you're out like say in real life and you're like say you go to a big shindig and there's lots of people and you're having the time of your life at some point you go home At some point you're by yourself again, Even if you're in a couple or relationship or something like that you go home together at some point that person goes to sleep or starts doing their own thing and you're in your self yeah at some point you're with your own thoughts in your own head and Nobody else changes that That is 24 seven. That is our existence is there's an element of our POV that is, you know, the quote unquote self. I know there's lots of different thoughts, philosophically speaking of what that is and what that entails and what that how, what that really means in terms of being connected to other people in the greater universe and whether it's all just fractions part of a giant self and blah, blah, blah, blah. But regardless of all of that from your POV. on any given day, on any given moment, you're yourself. And you are alone. You are alone. And what's amazing about this film is, like you alluded to, the Internet and chat rooms and social media promised connection. They really did. Like that was the idea was this this notion of connection, hyper connection at your fingertips 24 hours a day. And I, again, not speaking for the director, but I think the central sort of thesis or idea for this film is That's just not going to be the case. This is going to be a horror show. This is going to make your loneliness in real life, your analog life even worse. It's going to exacerbate it ah so much. you know. But it us happy because we think we're fulfilling something when we get online. so it makes us less motivated to go out and be amongst other people or to recognize what the value is of being around, like even when we are around other people. And there's definitely a criticism there. But at the heart of all of this, not to to some degree, technology can be a little bit of a scapegoat for our own failings as people, as a social species. how we bully and ostracize and aren't, know, we're more selfish than we're selfless in general um on a day-to-day basis. And it's hard for us to, even when we say, when she's with her friend and she's like, yeah, but we're together, so everything's fine. But at the same time, she's like, she's cooking, she's cutting up vegetables, not really paying attention to her friend who's starting to wander away and fading into the wall as a stain. Thanks know. And then she just turns around and she's a stain. And it's like because you had but to some degree you had to check out to do something else. Yeah. Right. At some point you have to take care of fucking something that isn't the other person. And the moment you do that, if that other person is hanging on by a thread, poof, they're gone. Yeah, it's true. Way to bring the conversation down, Dave. Jesus Christ. All right. So what are you thinking wine-wise for the sake? Okay, so yeah, I'm sticking to my guns my original thought and first glass I poured This is a winery that I decided to stick with in you know spoiler alert It's gonna it's gonna go to the end at this point um The movie doesn't really evolve it gets a little bigger in scope, but it doesn't change its style its atmosphere It's aesthetic anything like that its themes it all sticks. It's sticks to its guns So this is a winery founded in the Santa Cruz Mountains by Paul Kemp a personal injury lawyer and his wife, uh Amy Weiler Kemp, an attorney. The couple fantasized about mountain living, which ties right back to the themes. they kind of want like they want the mountain living. They want the rural, the separated from this big city living and blah, blah. So to some degree, it's like, you know, we we romanticize and we seek out the loneliness in a lot of ways. I think in many ways, it's why we succumb to social media and to the online sphere of, quote unquote, socialization, because we get to be and we get to be by ourselves and yet talk to other people and talk about our passions and our hobbies and our everything. But then, you know, I think there is something unfulfilled in that. But anyways, they fantasized about mountain living. They originally planted in this vineyard Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, but they struggled. These varieties struggled in the high altitude site facing the cool breezes from the Pacific Ocean. So they then grafted the vineyard to Pinot Noir. after which it began producing award-winning gold-medal wines under the expert guidance of viticulture consultant Prudy Fox with two X's, is still involved in the vineyard today. But then came a revelation. Paul discovered another grape related to Pinot Noir that changed everything. A much bolder, darker, and smokier grape. And that's where I'm gonna end it for Act 2. Interesting. uh sorry. Shit. Audio podcast, audio podcast. Alright, m that's hilarious. um Yeah, so I'm basically sticking with the exact same thing. um It is my wine or the grape is actually often blended with uh Merlot or petite Bordeaux. By the way, I haven't had a petite Bordeaux in a while and we need to um correct that. You should, yeah. uh We need to correct that for sure. um I still I'm stuck on this. At this point, I'm holding out hope for Act three because I don't know where the film is going. I don't know if it gets brighter. I don't know if it gets lighter. I don't know. In terms of like cementing, you know, the wine, OK, is at this point in my mind, I know exactly what you know what I'm what I'm paired with. I need something um that I said was, you know, it was it felt like a stain whenever I drink this. varietal of wine. It does I always think of a cobbler. It gives me that sort of stamy cobbler kind of Yeah. uh All over the teeth. Yeah. Nice, nice berry, black, red gooey goodness. You know, because this film isn't bloody. It isn't properly bloody. And at all, there's a part of my brain that's like, oh, where's the blood? Oh, I don't need the blood, but you know what mean? Even quite dies, they fade away. Right. They literally fade away into a stain that you can sometimes talk to. It's Like the physical human fades into becoming a ghost from their physical being just because of loneliness and despondency and depression and melancholy. Yeah, that's actually I didn't think about that. I'm thinking about it now. But that cobbler thing, I suppose, is the reason my want my mind, that little absence of blood is the reason my mind went to the cobbler thing the stain. Because while I don't need blood, I was not needing blood in this film. It doesn't mean I wanted it. I was like, Oh, I want a little blood here. I need a little blood here. Even if it's just metaphorical. Anyway. So yeah, all right, let's do act three. Yeah. Alright, here we go guys. This is the end of the film, so go watch it. Or we're gonna talk about everything. Act 3. When we... uh When Ryo Suki... Okay, here we go, here we go. ah Act three. When Ryo Suki makes it to her apartment, she has vanished, leaving behind a black ash-like residue on the wall. As people begin vanishing in great numbers, evacuations in Tokyo begin, and a full-scale invasion of the Kanto region by the ghosts is underway. Ryo Suki meets Michi in her broken down car. And after helping her repair it, she goes with him to search for Haru. Now, this was the part of the movie, like this blew me away the first time I ever saw this movie. Because it's apocalyptic in scale. It's reserved. It's so reserved. This movie is so tightly contained. It's just like small spaces. And this is part of the framing, right? It's like the forbidden rooms are all. Something we haven't mentioned in the synopsis is when a forbidden room is made, it's this red tape that like seals off the forbidden room. And it's always like in a square frame like space, so like a door, a window, something like that. And then everything in this movie is framed in these squares and frames. And it's always tightly contained in one small area. You don't see big vistas really. And so when suddenly you're out on the street and you're realizing As the movie goes on, like the backgrounds are just less and less populated until we get to this third act when there's nobody. It's your leads and there's nobody that you see for miles and then smoke and little things kind of exploding or imploding in cars that are kind of burning. And at one point you might mention I might say this again in the synopsis. I'm about to read it, but I will say like as we get towards the end and. Like suddenly this plane goes down from the sky and like goes behind a building and big explosion. And I'm like, I did not see this movie just suddenly expand. Like you think it's a horror film. So it's always gonna be the characters you're following and it's mostly all happening to them. And suddenly you're realizing this is everywhere. And as far as we know, only Japan, maybe, but it could be the world and everyone's fading. And as people disappear, you know, the pilots are gone. Yeah. The, you know, pass out like drivers are gone. Cars are just crashing randomly or have crashed randomly. Everyone's just gone. Yeah. Which is wild. it that scene where they are I think they're are they on the boat or they're running to the yeah guess they're they haven't made the boat yet right so they're on there's a that one vista shot that we get is like you said just the background and what's crazy is when they revealed it because it's behind this sort of like maritime layer of like clouds even Your eyes don't even pick up on it at first because it's in the background and it's just you have to like stretch and focus to see the smoke and you're like, oh, yeah. Oh, this is an apocalyptic moment. OK. Civilization has ended. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much officially. And it all happened off screen. Yeah. We have just been following a handful of characters, but this has been happening in the same way that the Internet wound up, you know, making the like so it has made us all anti-social, depressed, given us all these new complexes. The psychology is now given terms to. It's basically that same kind of spread where it's like and while you've been focused on yourself and your closest people amongst you Yeah, the whole world has been affected. Look right the world is everyone's been afflicted by it And this is the new reality anyway They find har you in an abandoned factory who unveils herself by removing a plastic bag from her head Just like the guy on the computer screen and what before subsequently shooting herself just like the guy on the computer screen mirroring the man she saw on the computer screen. Ryosuke and Mishi's car runs out of gas, Ryosuke enters the warehouse to search for fuel, carrying a gas can with him. While searching the warehouse, he accidentally drops the can's cap, which rolls through an open doorway of a forbidden room. When he walks inside the room to retrieve it, the door locks behind him and he encounters a ghost who insists that he is real and tells him that death was eternal loneliness. Although he tries to resist the ghost's influence, Riyosuke loses the will to live, and Michi drags him to safety, but they drive through a deserted, ravaged Tokyo, encountering apocalyptic scenery, as well as an American C-130 Hercules military cargo plane that falls out of the sky and explodes. After locating a small motorboat and traveling into Tokyo Bay, the pair are found and brought aboard a ship departing from Tokyo, crewed by a small group of survivors who Tell them that similar events are happening worldwide. There you go returning to the first scene of the film That's when they were all about we see this first scene of the film where they were aboard a ship And we did and then we cut to sort of like, know the past and then leading up to it Michi and the captain of the ship talk on the lower deck by the way the captain of the ship played by the lead of the cure film that Kyoshi Kurosawa did so it's sort of a very Kyoshi Kurosawa regular As the ship heads for Latin America, the captain encourages Michi telling her that she is doing the right thing by continuing to live. She returns to the room on the ship where she sees Ryo Suke sitting against the wall with his eyes closed. He fades into a shadow, stains the wall, and Michi declares that she has found happiness being alone with her last friend in the world. Now, a couple things here. um that I wanted to mention. So the ghosts that insist he is real in that forbidden room, let's return to that scene, because I think that is key, ah Ryosuke enters one of those forbidden rooms, you're never supposed to, because that's where they trap these stains, these ghosts, right? And it's like, you'll get infected too if you enter that. And of course, every forbidden room, like I said, is kind of a square. It's a door. It's a window, kind of a screen, right? That's sort of the point. It's like, don't go in there. Don't. Don't go on the internet. Don't do this thing or you will fall prey to the same thing. And when he finds the ghost, at one point, Riyosuke stands out. The ghost has him kind of cornered. He can't get out of there. So he charges the ghost and he says, you're not real. And tries to swing his hands through the ghost expecting the ghost to be like vapor. And his hands just land on the ghost's shoulder. And it's solid like a real human. And he goes boom and hits. And the ghost just says, no, I'm real. And I think the point of that and then the ghost like comes closer and like the ghost is just like this kind of like vague shadowy shape. And then his eyes like pool into this still dark obsidian, but almost like rock, like obsidian stones where it's like he gets a little bit of shape and suddenly he's, you know, just a little bit more shaped where he's real. And I think again, for me, the takeaway of all of that is like we always say that the Internet isn't real. that it's not real life, right? That it's like, don't, like the internet is its own thing. And I think these days there's a little more credence to that because now we have AI, now we have bots. We have bots in a way that didn't exist back then. But back then, and for the longest time on the internet, well, the internet was going toxic all on its own without bots or AI. You know the thing that I always love to often say is I'm like folks the internet is us I'm like you might do things You might do things on the internet that you wouldn't do if you were staring someone in the eyes, but still you still and it's still me and It's I think that's a little bit of this is like sure Technology is scary and the internet and all the things and it's doing things to and it's going to do things to us But when Ryo Suki is like, you're not real, you're just a ghost, you're just this thing terrorizing me and tries to throw his arms through it, boom, he hits shoulders like a real person. Because it's a real person on the other side of that thing. And at the end of the day, no matter what else we want to claim, there are other things to talk about, it isn't just this simple, but it's real people. That's real people. It's just, you know, I like to this movie made me think about the parallels, ah which at the time I don't think he saw when he was writing this uh between our sort of algorithmic based digital sort of existence. And, you know, tracing where we are now back to this point in time, because again, as we said earlier, it's been two decades, it's been 25 fucking years, it's been a quarter of a century since this film. was released. um And it does feel perfect. Don't remind me. This film I mean, I saw it with my elementary school friends, not my college best friend. My mom watched it while I was in her belly. uh But it does feel so prophetic. In it does feel so prophetic. And I'm never that guy. I'm never the guy who looks at a piece of art and is like, Oh, that just that seems prophetic. That seems It's vague and poetic enough that it's able to be translated across the decades to where it's not so specific that it's only talking about forums and chat rooms and AOL dial up, which was what it would be talking about directly in those days. It can talk to the larger where this is all going, even though we did not know smartphones were coming. We did not know social media was coming, but they came. And this still pertains very heavily, heavily. As the guy said, is this even metaphor anymore? Right? Is it even metaphor at this point? Yeah, you know, it you watch a film like this, and then you pay attention to the chatter about our digital experiences now and what's happening and the red pills and the blue pills and the vacuums and the, you know, how we are just sucked into this thing. And the algorithm is, to your point, is showing us one who we are what we're interested in, and then concentrating that and feeding us a complete uh strain of that all the time. And so it just pulls you into this system whether or not you want it to. uh And I, this film is even more frightening now for me than it was then because again, I didn't finish so maybe I missed something, of course. But ah But it ends with only the tiniest shred of hope. Can we call that hope though? Like... When the world has effectively ended. Yeah. And that is more scary now in every with everything that's going on with AI encroaching now and like with no safeguards, no real, you know, no, no safety rails in place, no regulation. And we're just like, oh, OK, so there might be a shred of hope, but not before it all goes away. Well, here's what I'm hoping. I'm hoping one that Kurosawa hears this podcast and decides shut up and decides that it's time to revisit this concept because we are on the precipice of some more of another sort of moment of existential dread. Just watch more Kurosawa uh I'm sure. But it is one of those things when you're like, I don't want to see a sequel, but also. Just watch his latest films in the last 10 years. Trust me, he doesn't get too far away. He keeps returning to themes like this very closely in completely different settings. uh So yeah, it's nothing like a direct sequel to this, but keep watching Kurosawa films. They're there. All right, Kurosawa, give me a call. Let's world build this. Alright, so wine-wise my friend, where did you settle on? Okay, as I told you, I wanted something that was dark and fruity. Blackberry. I love my favorite cobblers, the blackberry, of course. um You know, it's there's a richness to this film um because it's so well planned. Every frame is important. Every frame has subtext and weight and Like we talked about dread, there is not necessarily any horror, but there is such dread in every frame of this film. Technically there's plenty of horror. So fun fact, I believe it's it's terror or a fear. It's fear when it's when no, no, no, no, no. Sorry. Sorry. Let me finish the thought. I don't mean this is fear. It's fear if uh you're anticipating something. And then it's horror if it's happened. So the horror is what you're left with after a terrible thing. By definition, this is the technical definition, the distinction between them. I'm still going to go with dread. I'm going to go with dread rather than terror or horror. I totally hear what you're saying, though. That makes absolute sense. Yes, yes, yes. But I'm going to go with dread because as we talked about, you don't necessarily know where it's going. And there is this what's around the corner. And that's dread to me. That is what I think of when I think of dread. Like you're turning a corner. And there's also this thing that happens in the film with liminal space. The illusion to liminal space because we do get these long sort of shots like the shot and creepy shot we've been discussing There is this sort of like Dreadful thing that happens in this film so fucking effectively um right and I wanted something that kind of comforts me Because dread I why not I think dreads worse than in terms of those those concepts dreads worse than horror. It's worse than death worse than terror. At least for me, it's the thing that I respond to more than the other two. And I think that's one of the reasons I enjoy this film so much because every frame is just it's building on dread. It's increasing the what the fuck is around the next corner concept, you know, feeling. So I also want to something that seemed very firm in what it was doing. This film is so sure handed. It's it knows exactly where it's leading you like nothing about this film feels like he's just kind of wandering through and giving you tableaus and texture. It knows exactly what it's doing. ah So I wanted something that was firm and kind of balanced because it this is a very well balanced film in my opinion. it just and it's also so fucking smooth like it. It. I love. Can you tell I love this film anyway? I should I I decided to go with a cab saw and it's from the North Coast. uh You get all of the dark fruit stuff we're talking about. You get lots of the black carot. There's that. very heavy blackberry experience. It's oaky and there's vanilla. It's kind of warm and comforting in a weird way. And there's a vineyard called a winery called Gambler's Ghost. And I chose the 2021. They also make a a white varial to whose name I've forgotten again, and I forget which variety it is. uh But uh that I've had twice. This I've had once. And again, I'm not a person who enjoys the pairing of food and wine very much. But uh this kind of drinks like a blackberry cobbler. I have nothing else to say other than this kind of feels like blackberry cobbler in a glass. Kind of what I wanted. I wish I had some Blackberry Cobbler to read to watch with this fucking film. Oh, it's The Gambler's Ghost. Cabernet Sauve from the North Coast. It's the 2021 vintage. And his gambler's ghost the winery or just the name? Yeah. Okay, cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. it's a they have a great little label to they are uh North Coast, I think I said, um and they uh there's not a whole lot of information about them because I think they were purchased in aggregate recently, but um it's it's a lovely little wine. And okay, feels like a uh... like a a cobbler it feels like you're enjoying a cobbler when you have a glass of this fucker and i will say i wish i had a black-grey cobbler when i was watching this film Alright, alright, so for me going back to the winery and what grape related to Pinot Noir that this guy discovered that changed everything Paul discovered Pinotage Pinotage a rare cross well kind of rare cross between Pinot Noir and a red Exactly it was discovered in South Africa a rare cross between Pinot Noir and a red rone grape that South Africans called Hermitage, and hence Pinotage, though the French call it Cinso, or Cin-Saint, uh C-I-N-S-A-U-L-T. So it is Pinot Noir and Cinso. uh While it's the most widely planted red in South Africa, less than 60 acres exist in all of California. So Paul learned of the variety from his first winemaker, Paul Wofford. who was sourcing Viognier, Roussaint, and Chardonnay from the Amarosa Vineyard in Lodi. Everything about this grape, from its bodacious bouquet to its rush of fruit, carrying oodles of flavor to every part of your mouth. mean, it is. It's very, it's very stany, like just like Dallas' wine in its way, without any of the tannic bite of typical red wine. And this is true, Pinotage, the tannins are pretty smooth in all of it, but it's very dark. It's very bold and it's smoky. It tends to have a smoky or quote unquote burnt rubber, some people call it, kind of element to it. Carmen Yerre kind of shares this and Pinotage has it in spades. It's wonderful. Paul was never one to do things cautiously or without fervor. So once he fell in love with this varietal, he set out to find every vineyard in the state that grew Pinotage, eventually making Four vineyard designates of the grape, including the preeminent version from the estate, out went the Pinot Noir and in went the Pinotage in 2013, where 3.5 acres of the highest altitude Pinotage in North America continue to thrive. The label, so the most secluded away from civilization. part of punatage continues to thrive. The label of this particular winery is a story in itself. Paul and Amy were big fans of New Orleans artist Martin Laborde, or Borde, I'm not sure how to pronounce that name, B-O-R-D-E, but Martin Laborde, uh whose work they collected on each visit to the Big Easy. They contacted Laborde and had him capture the view of Mount Loma Prieta. as seen from the winery site to grace their wines. And yes, the winery is named Loma Prieta. The yellow, red, and orange lines running through the green mountain. I'm actually going to show you. Let's see if I can get this on here. I always have to do it reverse. There we go. So this is sort of the these little lines of red and green. This is sort of the soil types of the mountain. There's the mountain. And then we've got the flying man going around the moon here. So this is the yellow, red and orange lines running beneath the green mountain represent the famous 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The flying wine connoisseur is a recurring character in Martin LeBord's work and a little magician named Bodo. And this winery does create a wine called Bodo's blend as well, which is a 80 % pinotage, 20 % petite sera blend, which is fantastic. I've had that as well. So uh he's flying over the mountain with a glass of Pinot Noir in his hand, a peace offering to the gods that rumble deep within. So far, it's worked. So after her husband passed away in 2018, Amy became a wine widow and ran the show pretty much single handedly until November, November of 2020. With both her sons now in college, it was time to move down from the mountain back. into civilization. Since 2020 Loma Prieta is now in the care of Chris Arriaga, a real estate entrepreneur and former US Marshal. He and his daughter Samantha, both residents of Saratoga, continue to operate the winery under its existing name. They retained all staff along with longtime consulting winemaker Michael Soanes. So I have a number of these Loma Prieta bottles. They're pinotages. So bottles that were, I think they were all bottles that were made under the previous owners. I have their Estate Pinotage, two single vineyard Pinotages, a Boto's Blend, and then also a Sparkling Blanc de Noir of Pure Pinotage. yeah. Yeah, 2014 of that guy. I got them all on wine bidding sites, so you know, they're all like older vintages. But the one I did was one of the single vineyard wines. It was the Amarosa Vineyard, a 2016 pinotage because it was smoky as f**k. It was interesting. Wow. Yeah. In the peanutage for me that that smoky thing always skews petrolatum like petrol for me. Sure. And it's like I never get the smoke. I always just get the like petrol thing. For me, it's much more smoke than petrol comparatively. Like when I drink a Riesling, when I drink some other, has there ever been a red that's really given me petrol notes? I'm not sure there is. Nothing's coming to mind. So maybe my palate just doesn't translate reds to have that. It's always the smoke. But in any event, the Amarosa Vineyard 2016 Pinotage, you can order this on the Loma Prieta website. They still have bottles of this. You can order directly. They have older vintages as well. have lots of library wines that are not that expensive. It's really good. Go to their website. We'll have a link down below in the show notes in the description of this episode. And yeah, this one had the campfire, the burnt rubber, the smokiness. Then I tried the Boto's blend as well. It was so smooth. I was like, no, no, no, no, no. It was nice and dark, but it was very smooth, very fruity. And that smoke was missing. And then the Amarosa vineyard, whoa, it was smoke, smoke, smoke. So it was a smoke show. So I was, yeah, that's what the, and that is something the grape is infamous for and why a lot of people disparage it and aren't that into it. But when it's in the right amount, even in something where it's like, it's smoky, but it's still balanced, it's delicious. There are pinotages now these days. People are really figuring out what to do with it. And Loma Prieta is the biggest producer of pinotage in all of North America. No one else in North America makes as much as they do. It's a lot. And only 60 acres planted in North America, said, or California. No, no, no, no. 3.5 on their estate vineyard, they also source from other vineyards throughout California. So the so Amarosa Vineyard is not their vineyard. That's a that's a separate one. That's exactly. So between all the vineyards they source from, plus their estate fruit, they are they produce in bottle the most amount of peonage in all of North America. And yeah, this is because it's high up on a mountaintop. The peonage gives that darkness, that smokiness. The whole story behind the line kind of fits this. And when I watch this movie, you wanted something comforting. I want a brood. When I watch this movie, I want I'm sinking into its mood, into its vibes. I get it. And I'm like, yes, yes, because I'm like, let's just let's just sit in this. Yes, I like it. And as that movie goes on, I mean, as it just expands in the whole and suddenly you realize the whole world is succumbing to it. you do, too. And you're just like, OK, take this ride is going to take me. And you know, this is not a movie where narratively it ties up all the all the ends and like explains everything for you. You just go with the broad explanations and you do understand by the end what's happening. You do overall in broad strokes. then and the fact that it's ending the world as we know it. And it's wonderful. Yeah. Fantastic. I'm glad we covered this. This is a great one. Good job. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. We hope you join us again next week and our one small ask before you go. Please tell somebody else about this podcast. Just tell them it's about wine. Tell them it's about movies. That'll probably seal the deal. Just those two things. And also, hey, leave us a rating and a review, because that's going to help the algorithm tell other people about this podcast and both those two things. That'd be wonderful. So one thing we ask and we will keep producing this for you every single week. Whoa. And if you'd like to, in addition, go follow us on Substack. That's where we hang out the most. Just go to Vintertainment Studios dot com. That will take you directly to our Substack. And that's where we will write bonus articles, bonus wine and movie pairings, hang out with other film geeks, other wine nerds. And you also keep you up to date on everything that we have going on. We have our first wine cellar cinema wine and movie night here in Los Angeles, an in-person micro cinema that is being built within a local wine shop. And we have our first date locked in for Juneteenth. So that will be June 19th at Curated Wine Shop here in L.A. It will be our first wine and movie pairing night. Details are still to come, but they are coming very, very soon and we are locked in for that. So we hope we see you there if you are within the Los Angeles area. And on that note, hey, many thanks to our sponsor, Curated Wine Shop. No idea where to begin finding a wine that pairs with your movie. That's OK. Literally no one does. But Curated is here to help. They accept every entertainment inspired challenge and will curate the selection to match your palate. Just tell them what you're trying to pair with, your budget, your preferences. They will show you the way. Curated is a boutique wine shop on La Brea Avenue in mid-city Los Angeles, founded and operated by Peeps currently and previously part of the entertainment ecosystem. We're talking Johnny, Kelly, Allison, and Mia, and hey, Allison was been on the pit a couple of episodes and I think she's coming back the next season. So you can go over there and like say hi and meet a celebrity. Do something with your life, right? Anyway, they're all fantastic. Go meet them. They carry an ever-changing, wide-ranging selection of small lot artisanal wines. from the known and comforting to the completely unique. We're talking reds, whites, rosés, oranges, sparklings, dry wines, sweet wines, everything in between. Go check them out if you're in the LA area. And you can also find them at curated-wines.com. They do ship, so if you're not in the LA area, just still go to curated-wines.com for them and ventertainmentstudios.com for us, Ventertainment Bros. Thank you so much for listening. will be back in one week with another wine and entertainment pairing for your Vintertainment. In fact, we're to be back next week with a Vinterview with a documentarian filmmaker who did a wine documentary and wants to come on to talk about one of the seminal classic westerns with us of all time. So join us then. Ciao for now.