The Fall / You're On the F**kin' Ride (Guest: Jessica Martin)

Performer, writer, director, and general cool human Jessica Martin sits down with us, to then take "The Fall," (2006) Based on “Yo Ho Ho,” (1981). Starring; Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, and Justine Waddell. A fantasy/adventure gem Directed and co-written by Tarsem Singh (The Cell, Mirror Mirror), and produced (?) by Spike Jonze, and David Fincher (maybe). We get swept away in the discussion of storytelling via color coding, Lee Pace, the greatness of practical effects, and the sheer power of Blu-Ray (tm). A film that must be experienced directly to truly understand, but we take a swing.

Plot: In a hospital just outside of 1920s LA, an injured stuntman tells a fellow patient, a little girl with a broken arm, a fantastic story about 5 mythical heroes. Between his unstable mind, and her imagination, the line between fiction and reality blurs.

If you, or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, there is hope, and there is help. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, at 988.
https://988lifeline.org/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=onebox

Recorded 12/22
1hr 39mins

**All episodes contain explicit language**
Main Artwork - Ben McFadden
'Review Review Intro/Outro' Themes - Jamie Henwood
"What Are We Watching?" & "Whatcha Been Doin'?" Themes - Matthew Fosket
"Fun Facts" Theme - Chris Olds/Paul Root
Lead-Ins Edited/Conceptualized by - Ben McFadden
Produced by - Ben McFadden & Paul Root ("Shelf Help" - Paul Root)
Podcast/Program Concept - Paul Root

Transcript

If you know that tone, great. Welcome and good morning. It's the review review. I'm Paul. And I'm Ben.

And we co host this podcast where we have a guest. Me? Yeah. You. Oh, I'm Jessica Aaron Martin.

Jessica Aaron Martin, performer, director, writer, producer, general great person. Oh, shucks. Also, my wife. I wasn't gonna go into that. I was gonna see if we all brought it up.

My wife. These wonderful people are married. And, Jessica brought us a movie that nobody knows right now between the three of us how anyone feels about this movie. That's true. No.

He does. He knows how I feel about it. That's true. I know how she feels. Oh, I'm getting bombarded.

Yeah. This is a game of bombardment. I mean Of Paul. I mean, you can probably surmise that since she owns a copy of it I did. I assumed it's like there must be some love here because it's a permanence in the home.

Yeah. We watched a movie called The Fall. And what we're gonna do with this movie, The Fall, is we're going to review it. I am seeing it for the first time. My Awesome.

My first experience with this movie was last night with my cat in my lap. Got a cat in my lap. And, my headphones in, which if you've listened to this podcast, you know, and Ben knows. I like to listen to movies with my headphones and I feel like I get a little a lot more context. You should do that.

They have sensitive ears. I like it with the headphones because I get things like in what dreams may come. Like, I'm not having a good day. Or what I like shit that I would not hear on my soundbar. I'm almost sure of it.

But this was my absolute first experience with this movie. And we have a very special guest here also if you pick up the scratching or the meowing. Rudy the snowshoes here, which I'm personally very excited about. Cat poop. It will come through your speakers.

I can almost guarantee you that. We haven't we haven't said what we do on this podcast, have we? We review movies and, we give a rating of that movie, we talk about it, and give a final rating. Wow. That's a very, concise brief way to say that.

I think I fragmented it a little bit where it's like I've explained it in three different kind of segments in these first few minutes, but we got there. Brevity is the soul of wit. It's a three step process. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. Great. It's the morning. My coffee has really not hit me. I'm gonna get jazzed up here and get moving.

I promise. Man, I can smell it already. I know the doors are open and Rudy just Can we take a can we take a pause? Yeah. Sure.

Rudy. Dude. Yeah. Okay. We left off at With our cat definition of the leaving a stinky stinky poop and we had to stop.

And me, not really not that I'm the fastest at improv or anything anyway, was I ever. Yes. And But especially now, it's just it's the morning. I gotta get cranking here. Oh, yeah.

We're gonna talk about what's going on. We're gonna talk about the fall. I'm gonna read a factoid sheet in a bit. But first, Jessica, please tell us about your experience with this movie. I was trying to remember what it was.

So this movie came out in 02/2006, I believe. Yep. There it is. And I remember where I saw it. It was at the 7 Gables Theater in Seattle, which no longer exists.

It's been plowed under and, like, you know, replaced by some condo. Oh, so this was an unnecessary upsetting like, this was a piece of architecture that It was like a really sweet old little theater and, you know, it may be seated, like, 40 people. But it was a nice little theater. Where was the Southern Gables? It was in the U District.

So I was going to the University of Washington at the time, and I'm pretty sure I saw this on a a date or a first date with a college boyfriend. I don't remember which one. Who is he? Where's he going? How much money does he have?

Anyway better kisser than me? Toby. I don't remember which one it was because that time in my life was a little hazy, not because I was drinking, but because it was a really rough time in my life. For drugs. No.

Mental health. Uh-uh. Okay. But, anyway, I this Okay. Crossed the line.

Movie. Well, I'll I'm always happy to talk about mental health. Good job. Great. This movie is a lot of about that.

Yes. Yes. So this movie was a little ray of sunshine in that darkness, and I have remembered it ever since. I have the Blu ray right in front of me. And, you know, that relationship didn't work out with that boyfriend, but I still am very much in love with this movie.

Yeah. Ben, how are you doing? What are you feeling? And also, the movie, what's your experience? I I am doing well.

Okay. I'm feeling alive. Okay. Good. And about the, you know, the first experience Jessica had was with this boyfriend that you wanna know a lot about.

And you but you're okay. You've moved on. I'm just kidding. I don't give a shit. Oh, good.

Okay. Good. She married me. Yeah. My first experience with this film, as I recall, was renting it from a Blockbuster.

A what? Yeah. It's a, long gone Blockbuster? Brick and mortar store where you could take a movie and then bring it back. This isn't some sort of like fiction podcast and we're not No.

It's a fan we're not story writing here. It's a a fantasy portal. Test out your story writing theories. Yeah. We're trying out some scripts here.

Yeah. It's like we both worked at a Hollywood video. But The, the the Pepsi to Blockbuster's Coke, really. Yeah. That's Let's be fair.

That's very accurate. But I I yeah. I rented and I I the Queen Lower Queen Anne, I lived by myself at the time and I believe I watched this alone in my studio apartment and really enjoyed it. And I'd I I feel like someone had recommended it to me. Maybe?

I feel like it was recommended to me. You know I almost feel like it would have to be in a lot of cases. But I did like The Cell, so I might have been interested in watching this after seeing The Cell. This is where we differ. Sure.

And this is part of why I took so long and had to have someone recommend this movie to me because the cell was an upsetting experience on two different occasions for me. It seems like a movie that has violent imagery that for the sake of violent imagery, if I remember it correctly or that's how I felt at the time. A lot of it, the imagery is extremely effective and Vincent D'Onofrio is Terrifying. Amazing. But, a lot of the rest of that movie did not work for me for various reasons.

It's been a while since I've seen it. It's been over a decade. That might have been why I watched this one, but I'm I can't really remember. Yeah. That's right.

That's why I avoided it. I I feel so old when I can say I haven't seen that in a decade. It makes me feel so old. I mean, this one came out what's what's that, ma'am? Sixteen years ago?

Yeah. If you had asked me before researching this when did this come out, I would have said six, seven Yeah. Eight years ago? That I if you said two years ago? Sure.

Yeah. That's where I was at in my mind. And thinking about this coming out in 02/2006 for a lot of reasons and knowing some things about it that I know now is astonishing on so many levels for so many reasons. I wanna say before I read the factoid sheet, the movie is so pretty. Mhmm.

And being one of the very early Blu rays where everything Sony had done was getting put on Blu ray and the masters looked fucking great. And this movie looks fucking great. Yeah. It looks really good. Yeah.

I'm glad we can all agree on that. So some fall facts. And by the way, I was waiting to see if anyone would notice I'm wearing all blue today. You can call me Paul. You can call me the blue bandit.

You can call me Billy the Power Ranger, whatever you like. This is The Fall. It's from 02/2006. It's a Sony roadside attractions and Googly production, which is so great Googly googly. On so many levels.

It's an r rated film. Is? It is. They fuck a lot, don't they? There's a lot of, Oh, yeah.

It's probably purely on the language. And, monkey dying. Nobody wants to see that. Wonder alert. Hit the bullet hole.

It's an hour and fifty seven minutes. Credit started about $1.51. I don't know why I like to check when credits start. The movie feels about as long as it is, which is kind of a nice length for a drama for me. It didn't feel overly long or, like, things were too short.

And the way it was edited and how things are kind of choppy or incoherent, I think intentionally Mhmm. The I would expect the movie to feel much longer and much shorter, and it doesn't. It's a nice length. Directed by Tarsem. If you look on IMDB, it's Tarsem Singh.

Director of The Cell, Immortals, Mirror Mirror, Selfless, and this film is written by Dan Gilroy. Yeah. Writer of Freejack. Check my letterboxed review of Freejack. Hey, after all this time, I finally watched Freejack.

I understand Freejack. Freejack, anyone? No. Little Mick Jagger? Little Emilio?

Haven't done it. Tony Hopkins? Not too long ago, I finally watched that. And, that's the end of that. I'm Paul acts badly on Letterboxd, by the way.

Oh, yeah. I'm, at run b e e m c. I don't think you're on Letterboxd. No. I'm I'm not.

Yeah. If you're on Letterboxd and we're not friends, I'm gonna be very sad. I'm I'm not. Okay. Good.

Also writer of Born Legacy, Real Steel, Nightcrawler. Wanna rewatch that movie. And, current series on Disney plus and or. Yeah. Great show.

Watched the pilot, wanna now rewatch it, and really get into it because I'm now probably six or seven weeks removed. I get distracted easily. Niko Soltanakis, same writing credits as Tarsem Singh. It seems like they work together quite a bit. The director of photography was Colin Watkinson.

Bulk of the work, several episodes of Entourage, large portion of Handmaid's Tale, lot of music videos. Movie is very visual. Music video is a very visual medium Attracts. Works very well when this movie and he come together. Music, Krishna Levy, primarily film and TV produced outside of The US, it seems.

This is where I get a little more bogged down as we get into producers and cast. I'm not sure exactly what to do. The producer on producers on IMDB and Letterboxd, it looks like there are 17 producers. Wow. I could see that on the phone.

And, like, apparently, are there are producers for India, China, etcetera. Yeah. Yeah. Because this movie must have had a massive distribution in one way or another. On IMDB and Letterboxd, it does not have David Fincher or Spike Jones credited, but it's at the top of the movie.

It's on the front cover. So I'm I confused. Do they present for distribution maybe? I think that the to Sony. Guys I I read it in, like, the trivia on IMDB.

Great. Like, they got involved, but they actually had nothing to do with the film. So it may have been lending their names to help get something financed or help get something you know, they just kinda sign off on it and then people see that and like, oh, okay. Well, we can trust this project. So I have a feeling happened here.

I feel if you you're David Fincher and you go to Sony and say stamp of approval Yeah. That that carries a lot of weight as well it should. Cast wise, Lee Pace plays Roy, and the masked bandit as well. Guardians of the Galaxy was Ronan the Accuser. The Good Shepherd, Halton Catchfire, Pushing Davey Daisy's, Emmy nominee for Pushing Daisy's as well as Golden Globe, I think.

You know what I was thinking when I was watching this was how unique of a career he has had and something that not a career from looking at him that you would assume that he would have. He's a very traditional kind of leading man Yeah. Kind of Clark Gable, Cary Grant, look to me. And he has a similar kind of gravitas for me. I I think he's great as Ronan The Accuser.

He comes through that mask and makeup so well. He's great. Everything he got. But he's a really fantastic actor. But but, like, his career has been prime like, a lot of character stuff, you know?

It's similar to Brad Pitt. I feel like those actors do the best when they have something to chew on, when they have something to say or feel. Yeah. I also just saw him in Bodies Bodies Bodies. I have not seen that yet.

Which at first I didn't realize it was him because he's Love it. Older now and he's got, like, long hair. And it took me a while to realize that it was Lee Pace. Yeah. Just what a weird career, I think.

I think I agree with that. And I think it's somebody that has made really great choices as an actor. Uh-huh. Maybe not always the most, like, popular or box office y choices or anything like that, but this this person works as an actor very consistently for very good reasoning. Like, very talented, good looking, charismatic, very honest actor.

Yeah. I would have to look it up, but I I imagine he does I mean, he seems like someone who does stage. I I think that's a fair bet. Yeah. I I think he came from drama school.

And then he did, is it like Soldier's Girl or something? And that it was like a TV movie, and that is what launched him, his performance in that. He came from drama school. We should've looked this up. I I I used to know it.

A part of my brain used to know it. We have talked on this podcast about I like to do light research and let people come with things. Yeah. And I feel like I saw Soldier's Girl and liked Soldier's Girl quite a bit and want to Yeah. He went to Juilliard, guys.

That makes a lot sense. Went to Juilliard. We've had so we've been through lines with Juilliard. So Juilliard, suicide, and the the existential question. And so we've had so many of these movies so far.

It's very interesting. It's made me wonder. It's like, how do how are my friends feeling about themselves or about me, or was there a greater message here? Is everyone doing okay? Yeah.

Okay. These movies just deal with such serious subject matter. Like going back in time because you wanna fuck a photo? Yeah. Or committing What?

What is happening? This is Talk to talk to Benjamin Burris about this. To his credit, he did come in fairly blind to a lot of that stuff. He didn't remember, he said. Yeah.

But we watched Somewhere in Time Oh, okay. With Christopher Reeve. Okay. And he sees a photo and he's like, oh, I'm gonna go in back in time and die for that. And you're like, what is happening?

It's a very weird movie. He uses the power of self self hypnosis to travel back in time. Like you do. Yeah. Sure.

And ends up dead when he has to go back to his own time because he's too depressed. I'm not sure. Same author as what dreams may come, which are our first episode. We have so many through lines for through these first few episodes. I just thought about how his makeup when he's dying looks like when Google.

Looks like when Frodo's dying. When he's all like so pale. Lee Lee Pace was in the Hobbit films, by the way. I mentioned that. Yes.

Yeah. The Hobbit, not Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit. The Hobbit films that, Peter Jackson wanted to cast him after seeing this. Yes.

That's what in the IMDB trivia, that's what it says. And I would understand that. Which makes a lot of sense because he does such a great job, especially in a prone position, which is so hard to do. Is he English? No.

But he's English in The Hobbit? Yes. Okay. He went to Juilliard. Well, that doesn't mean he's not English.

We see him. It's a good school. Rudy. Oh, I'm so distracted. The stripe on his belly is so perfect.

Oh, and this one's It is a bit of a trap. For me, it has been. It's been a belly trap a little. Oh, yeah. I thought you were gonna tell comes with it.

Oh, yes. No. No. I can't Back to the cast. Sorry.

We're geeking out on Lee Pace and whatnot. And our cat. Yeah. And Rudy, of course. Special special special special and my cat were in the same room.

I don't think I would be able to handle it. I would need to exit swiftly Oh, I have to and look down, like, back out, you know? Ben, how do you feel? I I mean, he's a very stunning and attractive man. He's Yeah.

So attractive. Yeah. And on the note of being in the prone position and so forth, I understand he has a very active physical role in this movie too because he play he plays such this insane dynamic. Mhmm. And he does a great job with both.

But in my opinion, I actually really like the hospital story line and the look of the hospital story line. Yeah. It's great. I think Tarsem Singh is a very solid filmmaker just in general, And I do love the visuals. We'll we'll get to this after we get through the cast, but I'll I'll come back to it.

Katinka Untaru played Alexandria. This and a couple of shorts, which is kind of a disappointment for me. I I also was very surprised. I remember seeing this film and thinking, oh my gosh. This young actor is gonna have she's gonna blow up.

It's gonna be a huge career for her. So I'm not sure what happened, like, if she just didn't feel like it or if the roles start coming or, you know, whatever happened. But I think she is it's one of the best child actor performances I've ever seen. She's Romanian, I believe, is what I read. And she sometimes, she's hard to understand.

Sometimes, there's some ADR there. But there is this very honest childlike feel that comes with the performance all the way through, whether it's ADR or not ADR. I enjoy the performance a lot, especially toward the end of the movie. And, it's a bummer for me that this was it. I was hoping Yeah.

There there was gonna be more. Yeah. She's very while watching this, we were thinking, like, I wonder how much was them just like not having to be just present with her. Oh. Because she, you know, was essentially going along with the script, but then would kind of say things out of order or whatever.

So, there's a commentary on the Blu ray of Lee Pace, and I I don't know why I haven't watched that or listened to it. Yeah. How how much was just, like, kind of being present with her and just going with what she was offering in the moment? Quick aside, I was in a Meisner class and was asked one time if I was present. I said, I'm almost too present, and I was laughed at.

And it Meisner kinda broke my brain to a degree where I became almost too sponge like for a while. It was very, very interesting. And I agree with you. I just felt like he's so insanely there. Yeah.

And she does a great job again, I I think especially at the end of the film. Yeah. Justine Waddle played nurse slash sister Evelyn. Dracula 2,000 Mansfield Park chaos and action film with Jason Statham that I've never seen. And some TV roles and such, we had Leo Bill who played Charles Darwin, which immediately by name is great character.

Love it. Yeah. Twenty eight days later, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Gosford Park. A lot of these people have very few credits, and I wasn't sure how to prioritize or how many to list. I knew he'd have a lot to say.

So Marcus Wesley played, Oda Benga, ice the ice delivery person. Mhmm. A lot of these people have dual roles as worlds kind of merge. This one, this was nominated, pardon me, for a Saturn award for Kotinka Untaru for best newcomer, which makes a lot of sense to me, and the Austin Film Critics Award for best cinematography for Colin Watkinson Mhmm. Which, again, I think well deserved at least Yeah.

Nomination, if nothing else. This was shot in 28 countries over four years. Jessica's nodding. That's That's why you have so many producers. Sure.

And this this just blows me away that, apparently, this movie had no sets or sound sound stages. Mhmm. And there were no computer graphics for environments or the world. There would be computer graphics for Transitions and things. And and things like that or arrows or what have you.

But in terms of the everything that the environments that they're in are real. Yeah. And it's wild to think about that. You went like, the butterfly in the sea Mhmm. Around the island, people packed sand like that or what have you to make that look like that or however they did it.

I don't know. I don't think I want this is one of those movies where I don't think I want to know. All I know is that if that movie were made today, which I know obviously it wouldn't be, but Which is a shame. Yeah. But then it would just be, you know, it would be all CGI.

Everything outside of the hospital would be would be a CGI world. 100%. Which is a bummer. Yeah. It'd be either CGI or, you know, like on a volume or partially outside, partially CGI, whatever, or on sets.

There is I I I I thought I remember and I I could be making this up, but there's a point where they're on, like, the the the place they're talking about lost in, like, a labyrinth and then, the person, like, kills them like, goes off the stairs and just kills themself. I think that's also used in Doctor Who. What if Yeah. That that location, that staircase is very famous and is used in a lot of things. Yeah.

Yeah. I wanna say I think it's also used in one or both of the Mortal Kombat movies. Probably. It's I think it's a very it's a recurring location in fantastical films Yeah. In a lot of cases.

I feel like it kept hitting so many images kept hitting me when I saw that Mhmm. Piece. I love that they spent so much time making this look the way it looks. Yeah. It all feels so intentional, and it's so pretty.

The what dreams may come thing where it's like, this is a living painting. It's like, no. This is a bowl of poop soup. It just like it just kinda sloshes around. No.

Thank you. This movie all feels very intentional. Even as we're just talking about it, I'm remembering it a little more fondly than I was. Mhmm. I'm already reconsidering my initial rating a little bit.

I feel like the colors are so striking. I do think there is that part of the the story, you know, the the the meet there's two stories. Right? Happening sort of Two? Well, okay.

But, like, in terms of in terms of, like, the main two stories Yeah. Yeah. Which is the story, you know, not concluding the exposition, but the story of this man and this little girl. There are two stories. Alright.

Yeah. And then there are also the inner story that he's telling her. The of the bandit and of those guys who are trying to kill this Odious? Yeah. Governor Odious?

Governor Odious. But that's but in that story, story within the story, the colors are so vibrant and it it really does capture the essence of the of, like, a childlike story. And especially since they all like, all those characters have something very definitive about themselves. Yeah. I I feel like this film is just a jewel box, and, like, it is just so decadent for the eyes.

And I have to shout out to I'm probably gonna say it wrong, but Aiko Ishioka is the costume designer. Oh my god. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

The costumes were exquisite and did such a great job. Like, just very bold colors for each character, and they were all different and distinctive in their own way. And, you know, half of this movie is this fantastical story that this man is telling this little girl, and and it is so vibrant and whimsical. And it's just so stunning, and and it's all practical. It's all practical.

Like we said, not any CGI, which is not what we're used to seeing anymore. And so it's, like, such a treat for me. And I think, like, so many departments came together and just really, like, created something that is so just so beautiful and decadent to watch. I could not agree more. And I played that little Power Rangers theme at the very beginning as a a little bit of a tongue in cheek thing.

That show uses colors as shorthand for storytelling. This movie uses colors as shorthand for storytelling. There's nothing wrong with that. Mhmm. Power Rangers can be for very smart and or not as smart kids or adults or whomever decides to consume it.

This is one of those things that it's just something that should be consumed, and don't be thrown off by the shorthand storytelling but via color because we're in the mind of a kid. Exactly. I think that's the important part is to recognize the fact that the story, although being told by Lee Pace's character, we're seeing the visuals through the perspective of the little girl. So, like, that's why all of these people are people that she's encountered in this hospital. Right?

That they're all one for ones for her seeing them in this world and that the simplification of the storytelling is is because of that. And I don't even think you know, I I I think it's more complex than that anyway. Yes. But but I understand what you're saying. But I think it it tries to break down a little bit bit of that complexity by giving us this very approachable storytelling tool or approachable storytelling tool or trope or whatever term you wanna use.

It makes it more consumable and fantastical. It's a very updated version to me of the never ending story, which has a lot of dark things to show you at times and a lot of dark feelings. This is the same way, but it it makes so much of it so insanely palatable for the eyes. Mhmm. And like you said, it's it's so insanely consumable.

I'm gonna get back to the factoid sheet. This is the bummer piece of it. It's a $30,000,000 movie. It's 44.3 adjusted. Opening weekend, it does $80,000 Oh, wow.

Which is kind of a bummer. Wow. The US gross is 2.266. Adjusted, that's 3.33, Illuminati. Worldwide gross, 3.66.

Adjusted, that's 5 point 0.4. So the movie didn't really make money. The beauty the beauty of it is is a lot of people that I think needed to see it saw it, and you heard me rattle off a few titles that Tarsem Singh did since this film. This is a person that should still be working and seems to still be working despite a really weird, to me, kind of, like, box office aberration. Did the movie just lack marketing?

Was it not what happened? Yeah. I don't I don't know. And I remember like, I would not have known about this film if it weren't for the person I went on the date with. You know?

Like, I didn't remember, like, seeing it. Of course, back then, we didn't have social media like we do now. And But you have always been into nerds then and now. I I mean, I am one. So yeah.

Are you a nerd too? Yeah. But I don't it didn't have, like, the big, like, Marvel studio release plan. And so I I don't know what happened there, but I feel like I'm moving too much. Oh, okay.

Because, like, the chair is squeaking. I want sorry. I didn't mean to distract you. I didn't know if this was a super cool idea. To be still.

Does it pick that up? No. No. No. Is Jessica wobbly?

Is she She weird. Not doing this weird motion. It doesn't Yes. But, yeah, I I found that to be very strange too. But, you know, like, as the fact that this is a rated r film, but it is something that I think PG 13 but but, like, PG, you know, like, the violence is not compared to what we're used to seeing these days, the violence is not intense, and it purely probably comes down to the amount of swears they use in this.

And I mean, I can't it could have been accessible to more ages if it had been rated differently, and that would have affected box office. You know, obviously, like, the the content matter, the the language doesn't bother me at all, but and I think, you know, bringing young people into it, I doubt it would bother them at all. You know, like, of the time, sixteen years ago, like, it was a different release strategy than now. This is the tough thing. Thematically, the movie handles serious things in a serious way.

Yes. And I feel that kids' side note, this was a four average on Letterboxd. Roger Ebert rated this a four out of four. And I went as far as to say, holy shit, four out of four, and didn't wanna read the actual article because I didn't wanna be overly informed about anyone else's feelings about this. I would be very careful to give this to just like Real Genius is a PG movie, and Ben and I looked at each other and we're like, what the shit?

After you watch the movie, it should be a p g 13, which maybe didn't really exist at the time or even maybe more depending movie as where you look at this movie and outside of a few of the swears, some of the thematic stuff or when we teased, I laugh. But the moment with the monkey or some like, the violence hits hard when it hits. Yeah. And I think you've gotta be if you're a kid, you gotta be really prepared for that. Yeah.

This is a movie that if a kid I don't have a kid. I don't know kids super well. If I had gone to this movie when I was 12, I want somebody with me who's even as an advanced movie watcher at that age. Right. And I think it's if you were to watch this film with a young person, to me, it's kinda like reading the Harry Potter books, the later Harry Potter books.

There's a lot of really deep themes, and hard subject matter that you want to be able to help them process that. But, like, that's the power of storytelling and the value of storytelling. Oh, we have these devices to help us understand what something means or to question what something means, share it with future generations. You know? But I'm just I'm so sad that it didn't do well, that it truly tanked at the box office according to those numbers.

But I'm hoping, at least with this podcast, a few more people see it, and maybe they get some, like you know, we all watched my Blu ray, but if it's, streaming for rentals somewhere and and they can get a few bucks. But, You couldn't find it. Right? I could not. I came over and borrowed this at, like, ten in the morning.

I went to Universal Studios the next day, watched the movie yesterday evening with my cat in my lap, and I want a tail on I'm gonna grab Jess's coattails. I'm so good at grabbing people's coattails. Yeah. This is something that if it couldn't do the thing at the box office, fine. It is what it is.

That sucks. Mhmm. Nothing we can do. The best thing we can do at this point, as it seems like we all really enjoyed this movie, is share it with people. Mhmm.

The fact that the word-of-mouth seems strong to whatever degree, I was saying to Ben off mic, I really love the choices everyone has brought. I didn't like Somewhere in Time. I don't like What Dreams May Come, but we can talk about them. Now I got that thing where this is one of those movies where it's all I wanna do is talk about it as well as share it. Yeah.

Yeah. I wanna do both things. Like, I don't wanna share those two movies with other people. This movie, I would like to share with people, but also similar to what we had said about What Dreams May Come. I kinda wanna prepare people a little.

Yeah. And I think this is a really good way to do that because there's so much to talk about in terms of that preparation. The movie just has a lot there's a lot to say. There's a lot to unpack. Yeah.

Are we done with our fact sheet? We can be done with the fact sheet. I think we can do Is there other, like, gems in there that we don't know? 02/2006. Have any because I was pleased.

I was just curious about, like, like top box office in 02/2006 to see like what Oh, yeah. Where was this where was society? What was the vibe? Yeah. Well, the top of the Gen Z kids.

The top of the box office, in 02/2006 shouldn't be surprising. It was Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest. So it's a franchise. Was that the second one? Yeah.

Yeah. Or the third one? No. That's the second one. Okay.

Yikes. Okay. That's the one with Bill Nighy. It's fine. In surprisingly good CGI.

Yeah. I was literally going to say the effects are great. His face looks amazing through that. Cars was second. Wow.

Okay. X Men Last Stand, really bad. Da Vinci Code, Superman Returns, Ice Age, The Meltdown, Happy Feet, Over the Hedge. And then we get to some good ones, you know, like Casino Royale and Mission Impossible three and Borat and Devil Wears Prada and Departed. Hey.

I feel like even Society was in a weird place. This is a movie that needed to make, should have made more money than Over the Hedge. But, unfortunately, that's where we were Yeah. And haven't come too far. I mean, even even, like, a sort of comparable because it's also 02/2006 and also an r rated sort of fantasy was Pan's Labyrinth that came out in the same time.

And that seems super far down this list. That has horror themes. No. Totally. I love horror.

And I'm just saying that that's not even, you know, I'm on I'm in, like, one twenty something on box office totals of for 2,006. This is And that still hasn't made it. So, even though I'd say Pan's Labyrinth went on to have critical acclaim, it wasn't, you know Yeah. Financially a huge success. It was, to me, Nightmare Before Christmas Light, kind of a weird societal, weird I shouldn't say weird, but very niche group of people said this is my personality to whatever degree with Pan's Labyrinth Mhmm.

Which was a bit strange for me to whatever degree. I am gonna say something, maybe the most controversial thing I've said on this podcast. Jessica looks worried. I'm not a huge Guillermo del Toro fan. I'm a fan, but I'm not a huge fan.

This movie is a less CGI, kind of less heavy handed Guillermo del Toro kind of, quote, unquote, vibe for me, which for me if you wanna tell people comps Yes. Because this is a hard film to be like, well, what is it like? There's nothing like it. But if you're like if you dig Guillermo del Toro, like fantastical world, world creation, that's, an acceptable comp. Yeah.

Okay. Also, like, I'd say Alfonso Cuaron with, like, The Little Princess or even Prisoner of Azkaban. Great movie. I would also say, like, Terry Gilliam. Yeah.

It has been very good to be in Brazil. There's a bit of, like, Munchausen was that was what I was gonna say. Yeah. There is some of that visual inspiration, I think. Yeah.

From a lot of really great visual filmmakers. And, again, this is a filmmaker that can kind of exist in both worlds really insanely strongly in the visual world. Again, as I said about The Cell, not a movie that I loved, but visually has really stuck with me. Yeah. This movie is a movie that is I liked a lot more and also is visually gonna really start with me.

Rankings? Do you think anybody wants to plug anything anybody wants to talk about other than this movie or are we just ready to go? I don't really have any I don't I don't have anything. To plug. Okay.

But how you know. And then the end Sometimes we got The balloon deflated. Sometimes we talk about, like, what we're watching or what we've seen or what we're interested in right now. I jumped on a couple Eddie Murphy movies because I was so excited about the Axl Foley trailer, Beverly Hills Cop four trailer. Uh-huh.

I watched, I rewatched Beverly Hills Cop two because that's weirdly that's my favorite one. The Tony Scott of it all. RIP. The eighties clump and Crimson Tide is also very good. So many good things.

Great music videos Mhmm. Commercials. I watched that and I watched Vampire in Brooklyn, which is a Wes Craven movie. I've never seen that. Not a movie that I like.

I understand why a lot of people do not like that movie. I've been on a Christmas movie kick as it is the holidays while we are recording this. Yeah. It is the holidays. I've watched a couple.

So last night with my siblings over Zoom and the joys of the Disney plus group watch. I love this already. We did a Muppet Christmas Carol group watch. That's gonna be mine today, tonight. Nice.

This is the second year we've done a Muppet Christmas Carol drinking game while watching, which becomes very dangerous as No doubt. It's like every time someone says Merry Christmas, every time someone says Not every time someone says bug. I'm Markle kind. Okay. So did you know his real name is, Maurice Micklewhite?

Yes. I I knew his name was Maurice. I couldn't remember the Latin. So he said Yeah. His real name is Maurice Micklewhite.

This is the first time I recognized there's a there's a store in the little set that they build, a little town in, that says Micklewhites. This is the I've seen that movie once at least once a year for the last thirty years of my life, which I think is when it came out. I think it came out in '92. We watch it usually every Christmas Eve in my family. But this is the first time I noticed.

It said Micklewights on my I did not know that. And I just love the idea that and I think we all know this, that Michael Caine approached that movie like he was doing it at the RSC. Like, he's even said, like, I was like, I approached doing Scrooge like I was doing it on stage at Royal Shakespeare Company. And that's why that movie fucking works. He nails it.

That's why it works because if you He lives in that world as if everything is normal. For everyone, for all the muppets. And his emotional the emotional gravitas that he brings to also, he was only, like, in his forties. Doesn't seem or look tame necessarily? It looks like he's in his late sixties in that movie.

Maybe he was actually. Now that I'm thinking about it. Because I was in '92 and he's, like, 90 now. Right? So that was thirty years ago.

So I guess, is he 90? He's almost 90. Woah. Yeah. He's probably in his, like, 50 He's in his fifties, fifties.

He looks like he's in his fifties, sixties, so I guess that makes sense. But still, like, his Erroneous. Erroneous. Yeah. His singing and dancing and, like, performing next to puppets is so I could talk about that movie all day.

It's a five star movie for me. We're talking about The Fall today. Sorry. I could talk about Muppet Christmas Carol Fred. Do you have Christmas movies you really love?

Any holiday movies you love in general? I mean, we we recently watched Spirited. Is that what it was called? We watched Spirited. We watched Die Hard.

Well, yeah. Die Hard. Is Spirited the Is the Ryan Wilfredo Ryan. Yeah. Okay.

And I was very impressed by that. That's also two very well known, you know, comedic actors who put in the work for the singing and dancing and, like, it was very impressive to me. Eurovision? Love Eurovision song contest. I Love it.

If I'm, like, homesick, that is what I watch. I Will Ferrell That is, like, what I put on if I need if I need something happy, I will put it on. Yeah. Love that movie. Like, Will Ferrell, I expected to be solid in spirited because he is he is a singer dancer.

Oh, we have a cat on. There's a cat. There's a cat near the mic. You might hear something near the microphone. That is in fact Rudy Tootie.

That's what a lot of people call me, especially I always expect Will Ferrell to bring that because Well, Tootie. Like, in the producers. Yeah. You know, he's great, in singing, dancing. There.

But Ryan Reynolds impressed me because I did not expect him to actually be a solid singer dancer. I mean, you could expect him to be a good dancer because he is he's a very active, mobile, physical, physical dancer. Excellent body control. Yeah. Agreed.

I, genuinely I didn't know he could sing. Music was actually pretty solid. I think it's the Dear Evan Hansen I think so. Song was. Yeah.

And the and the choreography was actually pretty good. Choreography. Wow. I'm What a great, opportunity for large company dance numbers, which I'm glad people are still doing that for themselves. And yeah.

Yeah. Just real just real good. I am really excited to watch that. Y'all are now the third and fourth people who have said you should watch Well, then maybe you should watch it. And so I'm gonna watch it.

I think maybe I'll put off him up at Christmas Carol. I don't know. The movie for me originally, when I was younger, people would say, Diet's on a Christmas. Now it's become a little more popular. I watch it every year.

Yep. Great movie. There's a guy who has the word who has the term ho ho ho written on his dead body. Yes. It's a and wearing a Santa hat.

It's a fucking Christmas movie. Deal with it. I'm moving a lot while I'm talking. So I'm keeping my energy up right now. But But Movie.

But I mentioned this on another episode, and I wanna make sure Jessica knows for whatever reason. Gremlins. I have never seen that movie. I think I would be too scared. It's You would not be.

It is a PG movie. It's really kooky. It as you said, it's Stranger Things, you can watch Gremlins. Oh, a %. Well, that's why I never had watched it because scary.

They're very, very light horror elements. Whenever you see blood, it's like a Gremlins cartoonish kinda like green blood or such and such. It does have some horror shadowy elements, but it's definitely something I wouldn't tell almost anybody to be like, watch Nightmare on Elm Street. No. No.

No. But Yeah. Especially like an empathetic person, like, no. Like, that's a that's like a weapon that could be used. But Naming gremlins, I'd say As a big other than the Phoebe Cates monologue.

As a big fan of Stranger Things, though, a lot of these things he's mentioning are definitely Inspired by gremlins. Yeah. Chris Columbus in general. A lot of it. Yeah.

And and the most recent season of Stranger Things was Nightmare on it. Nightmare on it. Nightmare on it. And Pinhead or Hellraiser. If if you do decide at some point to watch Gremlins Yeah.

Please let me know how you end up feeling about it. If you don't watch it independently We'll do another I can't wait for you to come back on the show because who knows what we'll pick. I'm ready to rate. Should we go from the top of oh, yeah. Rating.

Let's see. I'm ready from the Oh. I'm ready from for my pre rating. What were you gonna suggest, though? No.

That yeah. That's right. We do our pre rating, and then we'll start from the top of the movie and go through it. There you go. But Ben said you, like, rate it on a scale that is not, like, stars.

You can do stars if you want to. You can rate it on Rudy. We have one last thing. What? Jessica Martin?

What? What is the log line for this movie? Give me the two sentence pitch. What's this movie about? I hate doing log lines.

As a writer, it's the worst thing. Why are you doing this movie? We always do. You didn't count them in the movie? Times.

I know. I per nope. I have No. No. You cannot look at the box.

Okay. Okay. So, He literally just took the box from her, y'all, and put it out of reach. A silent film stuntman gets injured on the job and is hospitalized and is there at the same time as a little girl who fell, picking oranges. And he tells her this fantastical story, which we see brought to life in her imagination in an effort I guess I'm gonna spoil it.

Should I I was gonna say I was gonna say thank you so much for coming to the review review. Now you've heard about the fall or Okay. And and he tells do this. Yeah. This story to get her to run a nefarious errand for him.

I feel like that's the shortest, most concise you could possibly come up with on the fly. Yeah. Because this movie is so complex. Yeah. So here's you wanna hear the log line?

In a hospital on the outskirts of nineteen twenties Los Angeles, an injured stunt man begins to tell a fellow patient, a little girl with a broken arm, a fantastic story of five mythical heroes. I was very close. I feel like you kinda nailed it. I was very close. They were about as long as each other maybe ish.

Mhmm. They Yeah. That was very good. Great. Wow.

Who Okay. I feel like that's better. Way better than us. Than than than me. Than you.

I basically did like I've trusted on you three. I basically did a spark notes. Yeah. Pretty much. Alright.

So our our Our ratings. Jessica, you get to pick who says the rating first, and we'll go by your one, two, three. And just go down the line. Line. But you don't have to do stars.

You can do any objects objects. That makes you feel the movie. Okay. Think of the movie. Okay.

Ben, that's me. I'm gonna I'm gonna give this movie four oranges. Out of? It's out of five. Out of five.

Half measures are fine. Okay. This is where we're gonna find out how much movement we can get on this movie. Okay. I give this three and a half zords.

Three and a half what? Zords. I've got some work to do. I I now I wanna say really quick. I'm so sorry.

That I feel Three and a half's a good score. Is a pretty fucking solid score, and I am more than happy to move whatever way I feel inspired to move. Great. I'm very willing to change my mind. Okay.

I give this five teeth out of five teeth. That is a perfect rating, and I can't wait for the oranges that grow teeth inside them. Yes. I almost cannot wait. I almost went with dentures, but my brain started thinking, is a top denture one or is it half a one?

Is it a set? Is it a set? A full one. About that last night. So then I went with teeth.

I think a set and I think to make it simple, I think teeth is great. There's so much about people with gapped teeth, and it is a person with diastemia or diast whatever. Paul Sheer has it. I have it. Two guys named Paul, gapped teeth.

At least you don't have the Tom Cruise, nonsymmetrical teeth. Oh, yeah. Don't have that. I run however I feel like running for whatever reason. I will say It's it may be different from time to time.

I will do say real quick. I went on a jog yesterday after seeing, behind the scenes of the new Mission Impossible, and I saw the air a little bit with some Tom Cruise running. Oh, sure. Yeah. A little inspiring.

Are you talking about the motorcycles? Yeah. Yeah. That is nuts. We're not gonna talk about it.

Yeah. The psychopath. The fall. The fall is what we're talking about. Let's go for a cup.

A four, a three and a half, and a five. Yeah. We have oranges, zords Teeth. And teeth. Okay.

Before we dig into it, first thing that happened on this disc was I got all of these previews Oh, yeah. That I was like, I have to watch these at the end, which I did. Oh. I yeah. The technology of the Blu ray and how exciting it was.

It's just It's like a very big deal. Yeah. And, like, the like, now you can connect your device to the Internet and play live What a time. Blu ray games. Look at this menu you can choose from.

Yeah. What a time to be alive. I I went in thinking I'm gonna have to approach this movie very seriously. I'm gonna have to pay very close attention. And I realized the movie does not take the fairy tale overly seriously in terms of telling it or how cohesive it is or how much you really need to lock into it.

I think I got a lot because I did lock in, but I felt like this is one of those weird things where I feel like I would have gotten as much if I had floated out a little bit, which is weird to say Mhmm. As everything in this movie feels intentional, and I'm sure I missed things. Well, so from the top, I thought the opening of this movie was awesome. The black and white Uh-huh. Opening?

The it starts with a a black and white montage at a slow frame rate and, like, the who whoever did the color grading on this, it was so good. And, it is to, I wanna say it's Beethoven's ninth Seventh seventh? Fifteenth. I'm not sure, but I know yeah. Yeah.

And, anyway, it's this beautiful, like, Beethoven, track. And it also there's a lot imagery that, mimics a Salvatore Dali painting I never with the horse. Thought of that, and it's even on the cover. Yes. Yeah.

So, like, very intentional storytelling. So I and you you get the feeling that something bad has just happened. Yeah. There's a lot of frantic people looking, ropes being thrown, and this warning, animal death, this, this dead horse being pulled from the water, I think it sets up this film in a beautiful way that you you never see that scene again, really. I mean, maybe a, like, a little death thing.

Flashes. But you we don't do black and white again. We lose the scene from the movie. Right? Because we see the movie and it's cut from the movie.

No. It's the only time we yeah. I think the I think The movie he was shooting where the horse died, we see it at the end Yes. And the stun is cut. Yes.

But I I think the stun is him jumping off that bridge. Yes. Right. And he was trying to together with him landing with someone landing on the horse. Right.

Yeah. Which is why the bridge was so much taller than it looked in that movie. The fact that he was paralyzed for literally nothing that no one will see other than the people that were there is so heartbreaking. Well, the response from I mean, we're gonna head with this response of them being like, that was it? Yes.

That is heart, and we're gonna Yeah. This movie has a lot has a lot going on, and I'm so glad. And I maybe misspoke when I was like, I could kinda go in and out. No. I wouldn't have gotten everything I got if I hadn't come in and been like, I'm watching this for a podcast.

My phone is essentially being put away until I got to, like, the very kind of end of the movie. And my phone just happened to be, like, flipped right side up, and I saw Ben had texted me. And I was like, I have an opportunity to show that I'm, like, toward the end of this movie now. And I sent a picture of the cat on my lap. But if I hadn't really locked into this movie, I I feel, actually, I probably would have been really lost as Jessica you said.

It's so I think insanely intentioned. I think there is a lot of just, like, top down stuff that you can get a lot. Like, if you're watching this film, the images are beautiful. You're gonna experience it, and I think you're gonna have a really great experience. But if you, really sit down and intentionally watch and I've seen this movie so many times, and I'm still like, oh, right.

That was there, and this was there in the beginning. There is there is so much that gets tied through and woven through, and it is so intentional. So I think there are a lot of different levels in which you can experience this film. And I'm not saying anyone is the right one, but, you know, it's like choose your own adventure. And then every time you rewatch it, you can see more things.

So anyway, I I think the the beginning of the film sets you up, and and you get this feeling of, like, oh, this is different. This film is different from ones that I'm used to watching. And then we have this black and white sequence that's very serious, and then we come up with this very sweet little girl who has missing her tooth front teeth Mhmm. And has her right arm in this cast. So it is, like, up perpendicular and, like, out.

So it's, like, at a 90 degree angle, and there's, like, this kind of truss holding it up. Her family, they're migrant, workers, and she fell picking oranges. And so she's in this hospital wing, the children's hospital wing, and she's got her arm just, like, kinda locked in this position. And she has this little box. It's probably like an old cigar box that holds all of her little treasures, and she just holds it in her little hand that's, like, you know, constantly upright.

And and then we start seeing this story through the eyes of this sweet little girl. It's great because even though she's in this very rough circumstance that we find out, she's a kid the entire time. She feels like a kid the entire time. As you said, Jessica, we come into this movie, and it's this heavy, dark, black and white movie with this extreme contrast, which we find a lot of this movie is about the extreme contrast of the art of filmmaking and being an artist and what the world at large sees of you and of your work or what you've done. And it can be a very dark, difficult journey.

And sometimes out of the strangest places, the thing that keeps us from the dark place will come. Or it's just sometimes it's just this kid being a kid. When I love that so, like, as we're going the top here of the movie, like, I love that we get that sort of intro or that out of you know, that sort of take that's completely out of context and we're dropped into this hospital world. And while the storytelling, like, as we get go on to the story within the story is fairly simple in terms of almost being like a fairy tale or, like, the structure of it is fairly, like, simple, the the hospital scene doesn't deliver, it doesn't it doesn't treat the audience like idiots. The information is so very expertly crafted throughout, like the exposition, everything that's happened to him, like, you know, we are led to understand what has come.

You know, you mentioned him. And so, Alexandria, our little protagonist, she spends her days kind of walking through this hospital complex on on her own. You know, like, this was a very different time in the twenties where they just let kids do whatever. Lick ice. Yeah.

She's Well, we're we're they're just outside of LA. Right? Okay. Exactly. And The licking ice was yeah.

I'm like, oh, no. Back then, like, ice was delivered in a wall. Made at a factory. Made at a factory. And so when it gets delivered, she just goes and, like, licks the ice block, before he, like, can put it away.

It's such a beautiful childlike wonder thing that sets you up that this movie is gonna be kind of like a wonderful childlike thing at times. And I don't mean to cut you off. I'm so sorry. As we're in, like, the hospital point, I yearn to be back in the hospital even when I'm in this really cool Yeah. Colorful, otherworldly place.

I love being in the hospital world as dark and dank as it is. It's so, grounded. Yes. And and so she on her wanderings, she comes into another ward, and there is, Roy played by Lee Pace, and he is in his hospital bed. And so she just kind of walks up to him, hops on his bed, and starts talking to him.

She sees the one legged man. She sees a, yeah, that comes later, but, someone who is visiting Roy and has is an amputee, has one leg, and so she sees this, this, prosthetic leg on the floor. So all of these things that she sees, and then she sees the x-ray technician. And back then, they had to wear, like, a full suit of armor. Yeah.

Exactly. So then that gets, turned into the The villains. The, villains of the fantastical story. But, she had dropped a a note for nurse Evelyn through the window, and it went into Roy's window. And so he had it.

So she goes up to him and she, like, takes it back. And so that begins their relationship, and he just kind of starts talking to her. And from the get go, you know, well, what's your name? Alexandria. Oh, did you know you were named after Alexander the the great?

And then he starts telling the story about Alexander the great. So almost immediately, we see this, kind of, like, real time hospital story as well as this fantastical child's imagining of Alexander the Great. And then he starts off in this, like, Roman temple. And, oh, no. Actually, we're in the middle of the desert.

And and that is achieved just by, like, a camera move. It's incredible. And then he's surrounded by his warriors. And there's so many great horse stunts, in this film. There's a recurring thing with horses in this movie.

There's a recurring thing with a lot of things, like Animals in general. All paper has holes in it. Yep. Because she cuts the holes in the note room. Right.

And so, like, this exists all throughout all worlds, essentially, because all worlds are essentially Her. Mostly about her. Yeah. And I'm gonna say with Lee Pace, and this is the absolute definition of a character taking a journey, he is 100% positively a gaslighter. He is sitting this child down.

You're named after this great human being who's incredible, that's achieved great things, meaning you're probably great. Sit down with me and let me pull you into this fantastical story. And we get this kind of blend for me, again, comps a little bit, of, like, Silent Hill meets Princess Bride, where this person sits down and is like, I'm gonna tell you this amazing story, not because you're sick and I'm gonna give you this distraction, but because I need something from you. And I'm gonna manipulate you to get it because you're a kid being a kid, and I can take advantage. But we also get I'll at least but that kinda comes, you know, that comes as you get to under start to understand his intentions.

Sure. But but first off, I feel like we get like a clearly, we we learn that Roy is a storyteller. Like, he come he comes with that sort of background. He comes with that understanding of the theatricality and, like, being able to just engage a child with, you know, an interesting story. And and who's to say I mean, who knows when Roy's, plan really starts to hatch of, like, oh, I can get this child to get me pills.

I I can't True. I can't I can't pinpoint an exact moment if that was at the top of him meeting her, if that was, like, during a story. I I don't know. But but you're right. Yes.

That is eventually, that is exactly what he wants her to do. But I do like what we the the their relationship, though, feels very, like and I think, you know, as the movie progresses and what Roy comes to understand is that there there's almost a pseudo father daughter, care that starts to take place. And it's eventually what, you know, leads him to make the choices that he makes, which are against what his intentions initially were. I I think the story is really, really beautiful, and a huge part of it is because of the journey that we take with Roy. I, for whatever reason, like to believe that Roy is kind of a nefarious person to begin with and maybe has nefarious intentions, and this is a person who takes a, for me, what is a very grounded and believable journey through a really wildly unbelievable story.

And the story he's telling, the picture he's painting in her mind is so man, I I think I already know where I'm leaning in terms of how I'm gonna feel me. Really, when you think about it though, it is like this is like another version of the lone wolf lost cub, sort of trope of, you know, like, the Mandalorian or, like, it's a character who, for the most part, feels like they have a death wish. Mhmm. You know, like, nothing matters. Might as well just, you know, go out guns ablazes or whatever.

And then this is the child, the it's the thing that changes their mind. It it really is like that Yeah. Core structure. It goes a different direction than what he thinks. He thinks he's gonna be able to manipulate this kid to help him get what he wants, and he ends up just kind of getting what he needs, which is a much better thing.

Yeah. There's a song about that. I I don't know what you're talking about. I think because, there's so many story lines and, waves and arcs in this film, like, let's just take a moment to talk about Roy's journey. So we start with this injured stuntman who we learn was trying to impress his girlfriend who is, a movie star.

I think it's kinda implied. Very beautiful woman who then leaves him for the star of this movie. So he's trying to do this big stunt to, like, impress her, and the stunt goes horribly wrong. He ends up paralyzed, from the waist down. And, Which is its own message.

It's like, to un we could do a whole podcast and just unpack that one Right. Thing or motivation. And and so he's he's stuck in this hospital. He's a stuntman who who can't do the thing that, you know, he what was was his job. He's lost the who he thinks is the love of his life.

And so here's this man who who just kind of wants to end it all. So he befriends this child and gets her, because he is no longer mobile, gets her to by stringing her along with this fantastical story, keeping her on, you know, the these great, like, cliffhangers to for her to come back and then convinces her, like, oh, hey. Can you read? Great. Can you find a bottle with this word on it?

So Such a great moment. Such a great moment. He gets the old okeydoke. He gets he gets gets her to steal morphine pills for him. And then, you know, she only brought a few.

So then he's like, okay. Can you can you actually go in that guy's cabinet and bring me some more? So he takes the whole bottle, and he's like, you need to leave. And then he realizes that they were just sugar pills or placebo pills because that's how they're treating this other guy. Full on attempt.

Like, we sorry. I gotta back up, like, a tiny bit. I don't wanna get, like, too far. I we could talk about this movie for four hours. But she wants Easily.

Sorry. Talking through Roy and then going on. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.

Sorry. And going back to the top. We should've at the top. Maybe you guys can go back and, like, let's say a trigger warning Yeah. Suicide.

This is the third one? The third one. So so, Roy does an attempt and then wakes up, and he's so angry because it was just sugar pills and it wasn't morphine. And Alexandria sees how upset he is and feels bad about it. And so she goes and tries to steal more morphine again, and she falls and has this horrible accident and hits her head in a bad way.

Scary. Very scary. And we get to see some really great stop motion animation. Oh, yeah. When she's in her Yeah.

Fever dream. So not only do we have this really grounded hospital reality, this fantastical, colorful, on location, story, this epic, we also have some stop motion. So there's a lot going on in this film. And then we see this most heartbreaking scene of Roy talking to Alexandria once she's out of surgery and and him just destroying all of the characters that he has created in this fantastical world. And she's just, like, begging him to stop because they have become her friends, this this story world.

And then through this child, Roy realizes, like, okay. I'm gonna let x y z characters live because that is what this child wants, and I am going to live because he cares so much about Alexandria now. Mhmm. So he thought he he was, you know, getting manipulating this child to help him commit suicide, but, actually, all this time he spent with her is what gives him the will to live at the end. I think it's a beautiful way to kinda it takes the subject matter so seriously Yes.

Which is really refreshing coming from What Dreams May Come being the last movie that really dealt directly, I think, with this subject matter. Yeah. And kind of to what you just said, Jessica, hit Roy deciding toward the end of the movie in a really wonderfully the performance by Lee Pace as well as Alex the actress who plays Alexandria is so good Yeah. And it's so believable, and it's such a great way to pay off everything as an audience member. Him to like, the whiskey bottle thing is a bit distracting for me for whatever reason.

Like, where did he get the whiskey bottle? Like, what's going like, he keeps pulling from this whiskey bottle. But in terms of him wanting to drink as he's being told, like, I love you, you matter as the industry that he has been in and dedicated his life to as he is an artist and can no longer be involved with this art, he feels completely useless Yeah. Is again, the Yeah. He he wants so badly to be cynical.

He wants so badly to end it all. And there's this little girl with her adorable Romanian accent saying, please know I love you. Please let them accent saying, please know I love you. Please let them live. Please, please, please.

Mhmm. I don't know anyone who could just, like, say no to that. No. And, and then at the end because she says at the top, like, I've never seen a movie before. Mhmm.

And he's like, oh, you're not missing much. And at the end, they watch his movie that he got entered in. Which she watches a thousand times to make sure it's his face at the end of the movie, which is so wonderful. So we have this, like, wonderful full circle moment, but it is played so beautifully by Lee Pace. It is, like, so grounded.

And, watching the I did watch the behind the scenes footage that they offered on the Blu ray. And Tarzem says, if we don't get this hospital stuff right, we don't have a movie. It doesn't work. You're saying Tarzem. I said Tarzem.

Am I saying am I Oh, I don't know. I don't know. Tarzem. I wanna be respectful. I know.

Same, but, he I think so that was very intentional that they get these hospital scenes right, and get it get it right with Roy. And and I don't know if you saw in the the trivia, the behind the scenes, Katinka thought Lee was actually paralyzed. So Tarzem said, let's let everyone think that. So they would get Lee out of his trailer in a wheelchair, bring him to set. This would never fly now.

No. No. No. No. Because people at that point didn't know that Lee was also doing this, other character where The bandit.

The bandit where he would be doing a lot of physical stuff. Oh, the costumes in this movie? They just knew him as, Roy, this paralyzed person. They kept everyone thinking that he he was paralyzed and all of that. So that's, another layer I think that Tarzan probably he just wanted to help his young actor out.

It pays off in a huge way. Yeah. And I wanna I just wanted to say, I know we're gonna go back and touch on the fairy tale. Yes. Sure.

Sure. But I what I really appreciated at the end of this move at the end of Roy's story wanting to die, not really having his career anymore, but, you know, that this little girl was a was sort of a beacon of of hope or joy or or something. He's not disposable. Yeah. Yeah.

What I He has something to give to humanity. He is appreciated. He is loved. But what I appreciated about the end is that it's not there is a sense that this is not the end of that struggle. Right.

I didn't get the sense that, like Everything's fine. He's gonna be totally happy now. He's gonna adopt this girl or whatever. Like, I didn't get that at all. What I got was this is a nugget of what is good in this world and that what I can what I can offer this world that I brought this joy to this little girl who's, you know, who's been who who's injured and now that she's, like, grave almost gravely injured because of me, I I have I have a responsibility.

Yeah. And I feel like that's gonna be a lot of work. And it's not just like, oh, I'm a happy person now. I don't wanna die. You know what I mean?

It's more like it's just there there is there is a very and I think that's both Lee Pace and the script of giving us the work is still there. The the movie feels so insanely empathetic. And, Jessica, I really appreciate you being like, we're gonna unpack the Roy storyline here, like, upfront as, like, we were a bit cavalier at times with what dreams may come, but the movie's exceptionally cavalier with really fucking intense subject matter and doesn't seem to take it super seriously. Make comments. Yes.

Yeah. And this movie takes it so seriously, and it's done with such a deft hand. Yeah. And it's not a surprise to me talking about it that I liked the hospital scenes so much, and they're so immersive. And the characters in the hospital scenes is they don't have as big or exciting or or visually, striking as the fairy tale.

The hospital scenes are so, again, so grounded. They're so immersive. They're so good at pulling you in. And we go into this she sits as you mentioned, she plops down on the bed with him. And to begin with, he's gonna tell her this story that is tied to her family based on a photo he's seen and how everyone has gapped teeth.

I is does anyone know why the gapped teeth or what is there the reason for that exact symbolism? So, I believe it is because Katinka lost her two front teeth right before filming started. Okay. So she was missing her her teeth, and that's why later when they go back into the the fantasy scenes and she has her her teeth have grown in. Started growing.

Yeah. And so there's that line of, oh, you must be stronger now. You have your teeth. Because there's the reference to, oh, because she asked why does that man keep his teeth in a cup? Because she's probably never seen dentures before.

Character, that old man character. He's so good. And and, Roy says, oh, well, that's where he keeps his strength. And he says, oh, you must be missing some strength because you're missing teeth. And then they tie it back later saying, oh, you must be stronger now.

You have your teeth. Yeah. Is he also the mythic? No. Different actor.

Different actor who hangs out with the actor the character known as the Indian. He they're in the orange grove together, I think, at the end of the movie. That's where that's a great thing about this movie is she pulls so many things from reality. And if you're not paying attention, there are even just, like, one or two little scenes that we want. Go back, I see where they came from.

So when you watch the fantasy scenes, all of those characters, all of and and a lot of the visuals in the costumes come from the real world come from the real world counterpart. How fun for those actors too. Yeah. Yeah. Does anyone have a favorite fantasy world character?

Because they're almost like they're like a team. Like, I feel like we can pick favorites. Well, I I do love that the top of the fantasy is still being built as he's saying it by her input. Oh, and the things coming in and out changing, it's so very But but what about this? It's like Oh.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm I'm gonna spin it this way. This is the Princess Bride piece of it that I really love. And not a lot of movies' voice over narration work for me.

And for in this movie, it works for me. Where does would she say I don't want pirates? She doesn't like pirates, and we learn that. She doesn't like buccaneers. She does not like Tom Brady.

She doesn't well, join Michael Stott? No. Thank you. She doesn't like thieves because we learn later their house was burned and her father was killed by thieves. And her horse was stolen.

And their horse was stolen by thieves. So we learn these very personal things later, and that's why the father daughter storyline is so important to her is because her father was killed. Yeah. So we learn these very personal things, via this fantastical story. Yeah.

I think I really like, the ice man the ice sliver guy. What's his name in the story? This he goes by the slave, Otto. Otto Bonk. Is the name of the I love his costume.

It's so striking. We the helmet is great. Yeah. I mean, all of the costumes are so They're incredible. So great.

That's why I'm dressed as the blue man? Charles Darwin's jacket? Like, no. Charles Darwin is in this movie and does not win the Darwin award, which is insane. The the what is the term?

Squaw wife essentially wins the Darwin award in the movie. Ota Benga. Yes. The monkey is great character, which is Wallace. So Wallace.

The moment that I realized I like this that I was like, I'm gonna like this movie was the swimming with elephants, which is obviously in the fantasy world and then immediately after a monkey is thrown, like, it doesn't matter and and goes, and you it's kinda like, wait. How do what? And then the monkey is killed. There's so much weird stuff with animals. Again, I shouldn't say weirdly.

The the elephant swimming. Yes. There is actually an elephant. Incredible. Incredible.

And then they, you know, obviously had a a monkey actor as well. So really great animal actors. Well, the concept the idea is all Simeon five or four. How many how many people on the team? Simeon.

Yeah. Oh, okay. I don't know. The Indian, we have Otobanga, we have Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin.

Charles Darwin. The bandit. The bandit. Right. And Is he the explosives person?

No. No. Other so five. Yeah. There's no Yeah.

Five. The explosives guy. Yeah. So they've all been wronged by this That payoff, by the way. Odious.

Governor Odious, this villain. And they're all seeking revenge. Is that a reference to Oedipus at all? Oedipus? Oedipus.

Sorry. Pardon me. I don't know. Okay. I mean, Odious in general Because he's an Odious person.

Odious. Yeah. And Odious is played by the actor who stole Royce's girlfriend. In the somewhere and time of it all, there is in the fantasy world, there's just there's someone wearing a a pinstripe suit, which that is such a huge thing in the somewhere in time piece of it. But there's a locket.

There's a pocket watch in one. There's a sad pretty lady. I don't know. There's suicide. There's so or death.

There's so many things that correlate with so many things that we've already done. It just kinda blows me away. I just kept getting it it just hit me in a way. The visuals of a lot of these movies too the witch in a tree thing Mhmm. Or the mystic in the tree in part.

Yeah. Is that that's practical. Right? Yes. I think so.

Holy shit. Yeah. They show them filming that in the behind the scenes. Which I didn't watch. Yeah.

But I mean, that's okay. It's thank you. I need to be absolved with that guilt. It's okay. But it was so fucking cool.

I ran it back and watched it again. It's so Yeah. Beautiful. So many birds flying out of a mouth. Oh, yeah.

A lot of things to do with the mystic are so cool. Is the there's a he eats a map at a point in the movie, and then there's a chant Yes. And the map comes onto his body. That's gotta be CG, though. Right?

Probably. Yeah. In some way. Yeah. Mhmm.

Both CG slash practical. I was gonna say, I know the environments are practical, but, obviously, we noted the movie has some CG elements, but they're all done really, really well. It's it and it's also so striking. I I feel like Star Wars does this sometimes too where you take two extremely, disparate looking locations in the our world and you put them back to back. And the the juxtaposition of those, like, from the from the ocean to the desert or whatever to, like, that green, green grass.

Mhmm. Like, the just, like, how striking it is to just be in our world, not a CGI world. All you have to do is, like, to make it look fantastical. It's like they go from one to another to another in such quick amount of time. Yeah.

There there weren't any built sets, you know. Like, it was just this is a location that exists in the world. We pan over here, and now it's a completely different place in the world, but it is, you know, back to back in our story. So it looks fantastical, and it looks and all you have to do is pan the camera. And I think that's one of the reasons I love this movie so much is it takes the art of cinema and and uses it to its fullest extent.

You know, like, the art of editing and how the human brain connects things and make stories happen just by a a cut. You know? And then it also plays with frame rate. So we know that some moments are gonna be more intense because they've slowed that frame rate down. And the like, the actual composition of shots is so perfect and beautiful and meaningful.

And so, you know, outside of the story, which I love, I think just cinematically, this film does so much, and it just I love feature films that I'm just like, that is a feature length film. It's not trying to be anything else. It's not trying to build up for a sequel. It's not trying to do anything other than be what it is. And we don't get a lot of those films anymore.

And and those films, I think, typically don't do well at the box office. And a lot of those films that have come out this year are art house releases that are now on streaming. But it is just it is so as a fan of cinema, like, this is such, a gift. In the words of Harry Styles, this is a movie movie or whatever he said. No.

It is an absolute fucking feast for the sentence and it has something to say. Everything is on purpose. Yes. There's nothing in this movie where you feel like the filmmaker or the director was like, oh, we need filler here. We need to put this here.

We need Yeah. We need this here. We need, like And and there's deleted scenes on the, you know, the Blu ray. So there's even more that they have. You figure things out in editing that Yeah.

Like, this movie Oh, absolutely. This movie works best as a thing that doesn't feel really fantasy world, and it's not. Yeah. And it knows it's not, and it knows it works better that way. The things that it's really intentional about, it really hit me.

Before I say this, the fact, Jessica, that you got to see this in the theater It was a it was a tiny game of that. Jealous. I would love to have that experience. I wanna see this in IMAX. Which sure.

Of course. And this is one of the only movies I can think of that successfully plays with frame frame rate. So many movies do it to do it, and it's just there. And it can take you out or whatever it might be. It's used as part of the storytelling here, and it really is successful with it.

Mhmm. The bomb guy. Uh-huh. He never sets off a bomb until whatever point. Until he dies.

Right? Yeah. But, the through the movie, he keeps lighting bombs, and they're not going off. And as an audience member, I keep yelling at the screen or in my mind, bomb didn't go off. When's the bomb gonna go off?

What's the deal with the bomb? And you I feel like they're gonna forget a bomb. Yes. And the kid keeps saying, what about the bomb? I love that that little, device in the movie to keep me interested, to keep me thinking, to keep me caring.

Are you paying attention? It felt like one of those kinda things. Yeah. Yeah. And the as well as the kid.

Are you paying attention? Yeah. You you you're really on on the trail with the kid in this movie. Yeah. She keeps Roy honest about the story and the detail.

It's a really good it's a good adventure movie outside of being a good drama. And we mentioned the This is an adventure movie. Remember when we were trying to find a movie? This is an adventure movie. I had a great time.

It has a bunch of warriors and mystics and capable people doing coming up against an impossible task on an impossible journey to get there too. It's very much, you know the the story is very much like Star Wars or, you know, like, we're going to kill the emperor. We're going to Yes. This is You you have your D and D party, you know, where you have your Yeah. Your mystic.

You have your Your blue bandit. Your Rogue. Bandit. Your rogue. Your, like, scientist person.

Your barbarian. Yeah. All of your D and D character. Right. And you have all of these differently skilled people coming together to defeat the heist.

It's the heist story too. Like a revenge heist kinda thing. And the heist of it all in the hospital world for the morphine or morphin as we're in the Power Rangers world in my mind. No. Morphin three.

He needs morphin three. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. No. Oh, put it over me like a warm blanket in a hospital bed. I'm ready to take it all.

The the hospital bed piece of it that really hits me is when she touches his toes Yeah. And he doesn't feel it Yeah. When we're back in the real world. And he sees her do it. Yeah.

Yeah. He sees her do it and then questions her about it. Will that could to try to figure out if she's lying or will lie to him, I guess. But that yeah. No.

That's interesting. It's like a it's like a test of morality. Okay. You know? And, like, there's a bit of him, like, being the parent of, like, you shouldn't lie, but there's also that, like, we're gonna steal the props for him.

But are you But I think it's it's for him. Yeah. We're just saying to him. Needs, like, a test of hope. Like, can I feel my toes?

Yeah. Oh, I can't. Yeah. And and I think that's why he was so adamant about asking her, are you lying right now? Are you lying?

Yeah. Because she touches, like, his little toe, and he says, are you touching my big toe? Mhmm. And then she changes, and she's like, yes. Yes.

I am. Because she's a child, and she just wants to make him happy. Yeah. And he's like, no. Are you lying to me?

Are you touching my big toe? And she's like, yep. Yep. I am. And I think in that moment, he realizes she is lying because she's never really lied before.

And he's also realizing I can't feel any of my toes. Yeah. It's a beautiful little empathetic moment where the kid does what a kid would do and partially for kid reasons where it's, like, I wanna hear the story. I don't wanna deal with the serious thing. I don't want you to be upset.

I don't want you to cry. I want what I want. But another part of it is I don't I don't want you to be upset. I just want you to be okay. Yeah.

It it's it's a very sweet thing. The adult that's there, who's the who's the adult in the, plaid robe that is a little overbearing that everybody hates, that he's stealing his drugs? Some some asshole. Yeah. I disagree that he's an asshole.

Completely disagree with you. Sure. He's not he's portrayed as kind of an asshole, but it they're trying to make him an asshole, they're unsuccessful for me. Because he knows this guy wants to kill himself, and he's not gonna let him do it. Nope.

You're you're not gonna get this kid to bring you morphine. You're not gonna fuck up this kid. You're not gonna kill yourself. I'm not gonna have it on my conscience. You're here with me.

You're here for the fucking ride. Yeah. But when this is the fantastical piece. The theme piece becomes very serious, and then the fantastical piece come becomes very serious for me. The brother's dead, and we get the image of, like, the skinned.

They're almost like a lamp of people just made of muscle. That's about the the halfway point of the film. It's very disturbing imagery, though. Disturbing images. Blood where we now now Lee Pace becomes Right.

The bandit, and the blue bandit is dead. He's made this I'll avenge my brother. That curtain. Or Oh, it's so cool. It's so cool.

I think it's on the cover of the box in the Uh-huh. It's poster box. Incredible image. And, also, you were talking about the father the father being killed on the father piece. She replaces the father with Lee Pace as the bandit.

That's a conscious decision of Mhmm. You're my dad now. Yeah. This this is the decision. This is how we're gonna go.

And he does agree with it. He agrees with it very quickly. Yeah. Sure. Me.

Why not? Yeah. Which seems a bit reckless. Obviously, the kid maybe he doesn't know this, but it's like, I'm replacing my dad with you. And he's like, yeah.

Sure. Fine. Yeah. He's I'm planning to kill myself, but that's okay. Sure.

Great. Yeah. I mean, I'd have to go back and look at that moment because I don't know if he knows that he is the bandit in her mind. Oh, fair. Because we're just in her mind.

Yeah. Like, she has made that that conscious decision where, like, they swap out. And it was because she's like, wait. Why does he sound like this now? Just because I think Roy has forgotten part of the story telling point.

She is just doing it. Wait. Why why does he sound like that? And he's like, it's because of this. It's your father.

And Right? I think it's because like, oh, he's French or something. No. She he says he says something like Maybe he's French. He says something like, why does she say?

She's like, because he's your father or something like that. And then she says, no. I don't want him to sound like that. I want him to sound like you. Oh, okay.

So it is so then there's that. Yeah. He is I guess he is maybe an unconscious but active participant in the, erasure replacement of her dad, which is kind of a rough thing to come to terms with in this moment. Yeah. I mean, again, it plays into the the pseudo father daughter relationship that does start to blossom while they're telling the story.

It's very caring. It's very, like, you know, she It's very tender. It is very tender. She's she's with him. They have the things, on the bed, the curtains pulled, and it's just them Yeah.

In this world. It only exists for them anyway. Yeah. And he is, you know, I and I think it's important that he is becoming very caring for her. I I we don't have a lot of time to record.

We can talk about this forever. I would love to talk about this in sequence for a long, long time and unpack so much of this. It the fetus and drug storage is something that hit me. When she goes because when he starts when he tests her to spell morphine, I'm like, oh, she's gonna spell Morbius. No.

She's gonna spell Morphin. Nope. Okay. Morphine. Morphine three.

It's a Sony thing. It's Morbin time. It's Morbin time. But the fetus in the the fetuses in the storage was unsettling. It felt like a little nefarious for me.

I don't It's kind of a a Frankenstein's laboratory. Yeah. Yeah. Which for a child Yeah. That, you know, going into a place like a pharmacy like that in the back of a hospital would be scary.

Mhmm. Yeah. It's it's a very foreign stranger and strange plan. It needs to be a bad place. And she sees that little boy Who died.

Yeah. And his mom is grieving. Yeah. And she's looking at her. And that's, like, definitive scary moment for a child.

For me, like, some standout moments because we don't he does a such a good job of the violence being very, very particularly placed and not overbearing, you know. And so when the violence does happen, it's it's striking and it's scary and it's real. And there are consequences. Yes. So, like, the fight in the pool Mhmm.

In the fairy tale, becomes really, really, really dark. Like a fist fight. You And, you know, we're used to seeing very supernatural fights in our in our movies these days. And the most the scariest fight in this is just two men fist fighting in a pool and holding each other underwater. You know?

Like And then his sitting down into the sword Oh, yeah. He killed himself. Is so By accident. Is so awful. The bad guy.

And so because you see him place that sword down. Poke out of the chest. Yeah. And I remember being like, that's a very particular place to place that sword, and it's backed up. Like, he he shows us in the film Yeah.

It's the, hilt is against something. Yeah. It was a very quick insert Yeah. And then we move into this big fight. And then she begs Roy not to kill either the bandit Yeah.

Or, like, anyone Yeah. And just walk away from the fight with the king of world. It's one of it feels like a to me, I almost got a thing where it's like, no. This is gonna be one story. There's not gonna be a bunch of sequels.

This is one insular world. Yeah. There will be more stories, but this is the end of this story. Yeah. And I think that moment is where it starts to overlap, because it's the the scene in the hospital where he's talking to her in the ER or the OR.

And in the fantastical world, they're overlapping because she's like, please let him live. Please let him live. Let the bandit live and also let Roy live. Right. Yeah.

And and so then in the story, he he says, okay. In in real life, he relents and then so the bandit gets to walk away in the story, which leaves Odious there. And, really, I don't think they needed to include it in the film, but just because I I think it ties a nice bow on it, you know, the story is over, that Odious just carelessly leans back and has forgotten that he placed his sword there and just hoisted on his own petard Yes. Kills himself. Literally.

I always side note. I always thought hoisted that that phrase always I misunderstood that phrase for a long time thinking that it meant like like a like a, like a trapeze artist or something like hoisted by your own. But a petard was a bomb. So you're blown up by your own bomb. And it gives you a good hoist.

And I guess it'll hoist. You get hoisted. Yeah. Yeah. You you go on a little trip.

It's a big hoist. The afterlife. Big ole hoist. As we're talking about the fantasy world and the real world and kids and dads and attempted self harm or want of suicide of it all, He takes those pills almost immediately after she gets them for him. Yeah.

It again, it's just somebody who has seemingly made a very concrete decision. This is going to happen. Period. It's happening. The story is gonna end.

Everybody's gonna die. I'm gonna die. There's even a little bit when she tugs on the toe of the person who's died the old man when he dies, which is a bummer. She tugs on his toe, and there's a part of me 10% of me is like, did they already did they kill him? Are Are we gonna go on the journey with the girl now?

Is this gonna be it? Is she just gonna tell her own story for us? Mhmm. Yeah. They do a switch up where you think maybe Roy has died because he's taken all of these pills.

But, actually, we learned that it is the old man who just passed away peacefully. And and that's when we see Roy wake up, and he's very angry that his attempt didn't work. He gets it's the sugar pills. Yeah. And you had said the that's the moment that's the scary moment of the movie when he's really mad and the little girl starts crying, and it's like he wants this so badly.

And And he doesn't care about anyone else. I'm I feel for him, but I more so obviously feel for her. Yeah. Yeah. There's a couple of things I wanna talk about in the movie, like, very quick.

It goes into cartoon mode a little bit at the end. It goes, like, it goes for broke as he's kinda starting to lose it. The fantasy world starts to kinda lose it. It's even less cohesive where some of the cuts are a little rough up and should quickly. It happens very quickly.

She's trying to tear it all down so she'll stop it, and he can stop you know, he doesn't have to participate in this hopeful fantastical world anymore. He just starts literally killing people, tearing it down on this rewatch. I I was kind of surprised by how quickly it happens, but I think it's it's intentional. But it is it's fan it's not supposed to feel, like, real. No.

It's not. And real quick again as the with the blending piece of it, the I love the X-ray person who's looks scary to a kid, like, doubles as the guard in the fantasy. Mhmm. Very, very cool. I don't understand why the guards sound like dogs at the end.

They're all just, like, barking dogs. I guess they're just I mean, I think that's just because they're kind of faceless, and that's a scary noise. Yeah. I think it has to do with when the, the thieves burned her house. Thieves burned her house down.

Right. Okay. Dogs. Oh, duh. So I think I think that was where that came.

I think a lot of the scariness comes from that moment of her house being, yeah, robbed and her horse being stolen. Her saying no no no no no no. It reminded me of Will Forte and MacGruber. No no no no. I don't know why.

I just it always does. Maybe he watched this and stole it. Maybe. Yeah. I wouldn't doubt that.

But the also the fingers crossed thing. Oh, god. Yeah. Like, got him with the okey doke, but, like, you gotta abide by kid lot. Like, show me Yeah.

Are your fingers crossed? Yeah. I I kinda love it. I I love that there's closure with a lot of the stuff too, the nurse girlfriend thing. Like, it ties up all the movie has a lot of ends, and it seems to tie up most of, if not all of them Yeah.

Which is nice. And the imagery, although I hate it when the the slave character dies with the arrows, when he's just arrowed a million times and then he dies on the bed of arrows is, really cool imagery. Tough to watch, but cool imagery. Yeah. And it just you know, you spoke earlier of, like, oh, some people made Pan's Labyrinth like their personality.

I really feel like this film represents my brain in a lot of ways. Like, this is how my brain works. Like, I've got a lot of stories going on all the time, and I, like, am thinking in, like, really big visuals and fantastical elements, and those are the stories that I really love to experience and to escape in and my own, like, mental health journey. And so so much of this for me feels very personal. And I and I think whenever I watched it the first time and whenever I watch it now, I feel kinda seen by this movie in my creative way, in my, like, mental health way, in, like, so so many different ways.

Do you feel, as we've talked about this, like, that Ben or I or especially me having seen this for the first time, do you feel like I have a grasp of this movie? Like, do you feel, like, seen a little bit by me in whatever way? Like, I you're an empathetic person. I think empathetic people will really the movie will really resonate with them. It has a lot to say about, like you were saying, about mental health and joy and despair and and fantasy and and the harshness of reality.

And I think I think you too are an empathetic person. Oh, thank you. And I think you opened yourself to this film, which I really appreciate because I think people who are cynical will watch this movie and be like, oh, it's, you know, a ridiculous story. It's silly. I couldn't even get through it.

It makes no sense. In fact, I saw some of the reviews were like that. I'm like, you you cannot approach this film with a cynical mind. You can't close your you have to go on the ride. You have to open yourself to your inner child because that is who is taking us through this film.

And so I I think, yeah, there is a subset of people who will hate this film and will not experience it, or choose not to. And then there is certain folks who will have a really good time. You've you fucking nailed it in terms of bringing something not only that we can talk about, but having such a great perspective on what this is, how it resonates with you, why it's important to you, whether you love it or not. Obviously, you love it. And this movie, if we had time, we would literally do a four hour episode where we don't cut much of anything.

You'll probably not miss much of this. But thank you so much, Jessica, for jumping onto the concept and leading us through this movie, and I appreciate it. I wanted mostly to get your perspective. And thank you for bringing, like again, I feel like with real genius, we got a bit of a treat. I feel like this was a bit of a treat, and that's the the whole point of this thing is either getting a treat or convincing ourselves we got a treat, whether we did or not.

We'll see how that goes. I still give it five out of five butterfly exotica's. Oh, I like that. Yeah. I like that a lot.

Who between Ben and I, who's gonna go first in terms of our rerating? Who? I wanna know. I'm between four and a half and four zords because I wanna be very careful with who I share this movie with. I wanna share it with a lot of people, but I feel like I have to be so careful.

I feel the movie is exactly what it wants to be. It's very confident in it as well it should be. But this is a as Jessica, as you said, this isn't a movie for everybody. And I and I feel the like, I feel protective of this movie. Yeah.

Like, I don't want someone to watch it who's just gonna, like, shit all over it. You know? Like, this I I think this film has a lot of value, and I don't want someone to, like, spend time with it who doesn't deserve it. So but I'm really I'm really happy that your your score went up even just by a half a point. No.

I think I'm at four and a half. I think people that I really I think I people that I really enjoy, that I really like, that really love filmmaking and and think of it as it should be as an art form and a movie that has a lot to say that is not necessarily said. It's not really heavy handed. Yeah. That's something I really appreciate.

It's heavy handed in the visuals in the fantasy world, but it needs to be. We're in a kid's brain. Yeah. Good movie. 4.5 Zords.

Really fucking good movie. How many oranges? Well, I was gonna go to 4.25 oranges. Oh, we're doing quarter measures now. But now I'm wondering if we are.

So I I think I'll go to four and a half oranges. Oh, yeah. Four and a half oranges. We came up, we came up overall Point and a half. Score of point and a half, which is, again, that's kind of a big deal.

That's kinda where we wanna get to. If we can come up at least that much, that's quite an achievement. I feel pretty good about it. Thanks, babe. Thank you so much for bringing this.

Again, you can follow us on letterboxed, paul ax badly at letterboxed whatever. B m c. Yeah. And Two e's. Don't hesitate to email us as we've mentioned before.

It's there. It's live. But reviewreviewpod@gmail.com. Review x two podcast on Instagram. Until next time.

Thank you again. Bye.