The Review Review
Hosts Ben and Paul welcome special guests from all walks of life to watch, rate, discuss, and RERATE the films close to their hearts. You'll laugh (hopefully), you'll cry (maybe), you'll reconsider everything you have ever known! Welcome, to "The Review Review"
The Review Review
SE7EN / Ooo Ooo That Smell (Guest: Jono Matt)
Jono Matt is BACK to get us going for our annual “Spooky Season,” here on the program! We’re getting it started with our lust for discussing his choice “SE7EN,” (d. Fincher 1995) Starring: Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, and Gwyneth Paltrow. At times we have a lot of pride in our loud opinions of this movie, at others we become gluttons for information. You may yourself envying the fun we have in this deep dive on the Andrew Kevin Walker written thriller, and greedy for even more by the end! And that’s understandable, but please keep your wrath to a minimum. Just relax, lie down, and give into the soothing relaxation provided to you by The Review Review, and don’t do a single thing. 9/30!
**All episodes contain explicit language**
Artwork - Ben McFadden
Review Review Intro/Outro Theme - Jamie Henwood
"What Are We Watching" & "Whatcha been up to?" Themes - Matthew Fosket
"Fun Facts" Theme - Chris Olds/Paul Root
Lead-Ins Edited/Conceptualized by - Ben McFadden
Produced by - Ben McFadden & Paul Root
Concept - Paul Root
Go get your drink. I just want this for editing purposes because I've never fucking heard that before. Like those two words put together.
SPEAKER_06:Will you please fucking Johnno this is releasing in October, so this is in our spooky season. Oh spooky. So I'm gonna do spooky things.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I love it.
SPEAKER_06:Go ahead, Paul.
SPEAKER_07:I'm providing ambiance like background.
SPEAKER_06:You're like one of those ghosts that like vibrates above doors. I kind of wanted to start this episode by just yelling, Detective! Like as loud as I could from the back of the room.
SPEAKER_04:Blow out the mic.
SPEAKER_06:I know.
SPEAKER_04:My fiance's favorite line from the movie is early act one. A phone rings and Arlie Ermin just answers it, and he's like, This is not even my desk.
SPEAKER_07:Fucking fantastic delivery, such a funny moment. Yeah. I have a favorite line too. There's so much fucking awesome dialogue in this movie. It ends up taking over my notes.
SPEAKER_06:Well, why don't we begin? Why don't we? We're gonna begin. Don't we? Uh hey Paul, what's in the box?
SPEAKER_07:It's a review review spooky season episode.
SPEAKER_06:Look at all those spooky things that came out of that box. Oh, there's Frankenstein's monster. What did you say?
SPEAKER_07:I have gas.
SPEAKER_04:Ghost have gas? That sounds scary. If you had a ghost in your house that farted and he was like really it's not, it wasn't me, babe.
SPEAKER_06:It wasn't also this movie smells terrible when I think of how this movie smells.
SPEAKER_04:1000%.
SPEAKER_06:Anyway, what doesn't smell bad is a review review spooky season. Welcome in. This is the review review. I am one of your co-hosts of this podcast. My name is Ben.
SPEAKER_07:I'm one of the co-hosts of this podcast. My name is Detective Paul. Oh, I'm so sorry. That's okay.
SPEAKER_06:Junior Detective, senior detective.
SPEAKER_07:They gave me the sticker. It says junior detective on the side. Okay.
SPEAKER_06:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:It's your first week. It's your first week. It's fine. I'm not a I'm not like a rookie.
SPEAKER_07:I'm a transfer. I'm a junior transfer intern.
SPEAKER_06:I'm retailing. They did give me a gun.
SPEAKER_07:Only gave me a couple of guns.
SPEAKER_06:I'm out of here next week. This is my last this is my last episode. Oh what is this? What is this?
SPEAKER_07:John O. Can we talk after?
SPEAKER_06:What is it? You might be wondering, it is a movie podcast. So if you like movies, you're in the right place. This is a podcast where we bring in a guest. That guest usually brings us a movie, something they feel passionate about. Uh they come in with a rating out of five. We get that rating system from Letterboxed. We then talk, we discuss, we talk about our ratings, and then at the end of the episode, we'll see if any of our ratings have changed and if we're still friends. And today we have a return guest, John O'Matt's with us.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, so honored. So honored. The excellent John O'Matt. Two times. I was researching like what the best like WWF second runs were with the title belt. And there's a there's a lot of good athletes out there that their second time with the belt, they really got to run with it. Triple H, his second run is great. Like, so I'm just honored to be back and like give it another shot.
SPEAKER_06:I mean I mean, this is the game. You brought us minority replacements. Or that is the game with us, yeah. Which was our first Spielberg of that, of the series. Which is nuts.
SPEAKER_04:That's why I had to bring it.
SPEAKER_06:And we had done we've done now three total Spielbergs, but this now is our fourth Fincher, which is what we have done the most now.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, that's amazing, guys. Yeah. I low-key think after watching this movie, and I looked at my ratings of I have a little dumb document in my phone that's my director. Right. Yeah. No, approved. Approved. It's approved. And I think these guys are now, or excuse me, Fincher's now tied with the Cohen brothers as like favorite directors.
SPEAKER_07:That's rare air. You know what I realized? Rare air. At this point, and we've done now that we're on our fourth fincher and we're fully in Fincher Fest, people like to feel like shit. And that's cool. Yeah. Because me too.
SPEAKER_02:So thanks for tuning in.
SPEAKER_06:That leads us right into our favorite segment. What have you been doing? What have you been doing? What have you been up to?
SPEAKER_04:I think last time we spoke about minority report, we were just coming out of the strike. And there's kind of that feeling of, will we ever work again? And right now I have uh jobs plural and it's super exciting. I get to work with some of my best friends. Um, I got to go to London this year, which was so freaking lovely. Got to hang out with a friend who is shooting a movie there. And then I also got to see it, an old roommate of mine who's moved out there. So that was just so special.
SPEAKER_06:Um I love London so much. I love going there.
SPEAKER_04:It's the best. Whenever you're there, you're just like, why isn't LA walkable? This is delightful. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Why can't I get on a train and just like end up in a cool little spot where I can go hang out at a bar and see a show? Like truly.
SPEAKER_07:This doesn't sound like London, Oklahoma at all.
SPEAKER_06:Why are you actually a London, Oklahoma? Sure.
SPEAKER_07:Probably just Texas. Yeah. Yeah. Ask Vim Vendors.
SPEAKER_04:And then I also got to go to New York and total humble brag name dropped. I got to see a friend of mine that I worked with in 2011. Uh, he was a star of on a Broadway show, and the show was absolutely incredible. And then months later, he would win the Tony for Best Actor in a musical. And it was just like the coolest thing in the world to be there and like see him crushing it. So see, maybe happy ending as soon as possible. It's incredible. How about you guys? What have you been doing?
SPEAKER_06:What have you been doing? Me, Paul, Paul, me, you, you, me, me, me.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, sure. Okay, me. I let go of my Xbox.
SPEAKER_04:Whoa.
SPEAKER_07:I got it up for adoption. I see.
SPEAKER_04:Oh no. It went to a farm. Then it went to a farm.
SPEAKER_07:Bill Gates jumped over it in a single leap like a chair, and I shot it as he leapt, and we've cheered.
SPEAKER_01:You know, nervous.
SPEAKER_07:Why did you do that? I let go of my Xbox. I got a standalone 4K player because I informed myself.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_07:And I just want the best possible movie situation. I don't play video games that much. I love my Switch. It's great. I'll probably get a Switch too at some point. But I moved from the Xbox to a standalone 4K player. And the other thing is Sandcat, this strumpet who is asleep in her little papoosa. You know, with animals, how they we're all animal parents. They like certain food. We saw this in the movie The Long Goodbye. He has to have Cory cat food or what have you. I watched it last night, guys. Awesome.
SPEAKER_06:Holy shit.
SPEAKER_04:Literally on to be, I was going to bed and I was like, Yep.
SPEAKER_06:I was that's crazy.
SPEAKER_04:It's also you watch that and you realize like the big Lebowski kind of has the same vibes.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And so it it was just great.
SPEAKER_06:You should listen to our episode on the Longa Bike.
SPEAKER_07:I have and the big Lebowski. And the Big Lebowski. So there you go. So Sandcat, this fucking brat. She tries so many meat foods, as I call them. And of course, she likes Nula, like the most expensive food at the pet store. And so I I just felt like I was dealing with the cat from long goodbye. And I wanted to mention that. And I'm so glad that you watched it last night.
SPEAKER_04:That that cat thing in the first like five minutes of that movie, that is a relentless cat.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Like that's a thoroughbred cat. Like if that cat, if that cat wanted to run races, you would want to like you would want to adopt that cat. Because that guy was that guy was just all over Elliot. And it's not easy to train a cat. No, no. I bet he was just really hungry, like authentically hungry.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Um, so that's what you've been doing, Paul.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Ben, what have you been up to, sir?
SPEAKER_06:Let's see.
SPEAKER_07:I suppose I will just talk about what was it? Thir 13 things, something or other. Sorry.
SPEAKER_06:Well, next month. Next month is November. Uh and I am directing a small reading of Macbeth at the roguelike tavern in Bernard. Uh that's awesome.
SPEAKER_04:That's awesome.
SPEAKER_06:That's a company that a friend of mine runs called Southern Bard, which does Shakespeare uh with Southern dialects. It's a fun, irrelevant, good time. You know, it's sort of just like uh I You said irrelevant.
SPEAKER_07:Irreverent?
SPEAKER_06:What did I say?
SPEAKER_07:Irrelevant.
SPEAKER_06:What did you say?
SPEAKER_07:Irreverent.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Uh so the um it should be fun. It's gonna be very Southern Gothic uh because we're doing this. Is the first real tragedy that they're doing, mostly they do comedies, and I came at them with this concept of like, I got an idea for a tragedy that's still gonna be kind of funny. So leaning into some of the um absurdity of that story, because it kind of goes bonkers. And it's in a pub, so it's immediately gonna be different than like any other production. Uh so yeah, that's that's what I'm that's what I'm doing. I I cut the I finished cutting the script, um and I have some funny jokes in mind, some stupid Mel Brooks uh jokes. Uh and uh and Mike Bowers, who's been on this podcast, is playing Lady Macbeth. So fantastic. It's on it. It's on November 8th, Saturday, November 8th at the Roguelike Tavern. And they're a really amazing tavern who's supports a lot of arts and like DD things, and they're hurting right now. So we're just trying to like get people to go.
SPEAKER_07:You're gonna be able to use the space a few times before the night, I assume. And we yeah, yeah, we do.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, we get to rehearse them there.
unknown:Awesome.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, that's so fun. Oh my gosh, guys, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_07:Now we do need to talk about what we have been watching, as awesome as it is.
SPEAKER_02:And if that's not too bad.
SPEAKER_04:To to bring it back to what our topic is today, I my favorite movie of the year, I've seen it twice, is Eddington, which was shot by Darius Kanji. He'll come up later. That's a little plan payoff for you. Um, and I've also been loving loving the studio. Yeah, which uh the Emmys are have not come out yet, but I'm so excited. Fingers crossed, I want them to win them all. Yeah, um, it's so much fun. So much fun. I had a great time.
SPEAKER_06:You're now like the second or third person that's told me about Eddington. I haven't seen it. I really want to see it. I never I didn't see Bo is Afraid, which was Ari's last movie, and mostly because I was put off by the runtime.
SPEAKER_04:It's a Herculean effort. Yeah, and there is a moment in Act Three where the person in front of me was laughing hysterically, and the woman next to him was bawling her eyes out. It is a it is a ride. It is a ride that can be perceived in many different ways. I would check that out later. I would prioritize Eddington. I think it is one of the greatest time capsule movies I've ever seen. It captures a 48-hour period in late May 2020 in a way that like since we all lived through it, we're like, it's foggy in our brains because you may have COVID had COVID at the time, but like it's it's a little bit foggy, but then it it really calcifies the moment you watch this movie and you're like, oh my god, that got weird. That that week got weird, and that movie takes it to 11. It's really great.
SPEAKER_06:Awesome. I do want to see it now. I want to see it even more now. It got the John O'Matt stamp of approval.
SPEAKER_07:Agree or disagree, this movie does that with some of Morgan Freeman's dialogue in a way, in terms of like who like he is vocalizing the dark thoughts or the like or the reality or whatever. Like, this is Alien 3 on 10. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:If all the if all the bald white guys from Alien 3 were packed into one character, it would be Morgan Freeman. All those fucking baldish guys.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Paul, what have you been watching?
SPEAKER_07:Oh, I watched Stranger Things season four.
SPEAKER_06:Okay.
SPEAKER_07:I'm very late to this party. Thank you for saying that. That is kind of how I felt. A lot of people brought up to me like, you love Nightmare in Elm Street, and a lot of horror stuff in general. And there's a lot of stuff that goes for nostalgia pulling, and it has varied levels of success. And this goes for so much that I can't think of anything else. And I unfortunately was watching this to like kind of gear up for season five.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And I'll probably just keep watching sports. There you go. And Alan, Ben, what have you been watching?
SPEAKER_06:I have been loving, I've had Xeno fever. I got Xeno fever, man. I've been loving Alien Earth.
SPEAKER_02:Is this bad?
SPEAKER_06:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:This is bad. Okay, I'll watch this.
SPEAKER_06:I like a lot of what Noah Holly does. Most every Fargo season. I mean, Fargo and Legion. I love Legion.
SPEAKER_04:Yes.
SPEAKER_06:I neither of you have seen it, any of it. I haven't seen it of this Alien Earth action.
SPEAKER_07:I've seen the pilot. I want to be the third in the triumvirant of Legion. That show is fucking fantastic.
SPEAKER_06:I just think Alien fans are eating well. I think Alien and Predator fans are eating well right now. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Alien Earth the Pilot is very good. I agree with you. And that's all I've seen.
SPEAKER_06:What I really like about this series, and I think, is that Noah Hawley kind of takes all of these themes that are throughout pretty much all of the Alien franchise movies and kind of dives a little bit deeper into some of them. And mostly it has to do with the synthetics and the androids. And I always feel like that's when the alien movies hit the best, is when there's something in there about the humanity and that that goes beyond just Xenoporn. It also is blowing up the world in this way that I don't think any of the series has done, which is like introducing new creatures. Oh, yeah, yeah. Outside of the Xeno morph creatures, it's introducing other alien creatures that maybe were from the same planet. Who knows? But I think that like that is something that I'm like, no one's really done that.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, Waylon Utani just wants them because they could be weaponized or turned into medicine or whatever. But they're going to places all over the universe to gather these something like that, and that keeps going, obviously, it sounds like.
SPEAKER_06:Sorry, I'm so obsessed with it. Every time an episode ends, I'm like, well, I just want it, I just want to watch another one. Which wow. I'm glad that it's appointment because otherwise I would have binged it pretty hard.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Um becomes a fog.
SPEAKER_06:It's also again like the first time I think we've ever seen Earth in the alien world. Like in the world. Definitely. Oh, definitely.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Other than like Alien versus Predator, which, like, are we sure?
SPEAKER_06:That was in Antarctica or something.
SPEAKER_07:Uh yeah, they're they're trapped in a temple in AVP, and then in Requiem, they're actually on Earth fighting predators and humans involved. This movie seven is potentially a perfect example in lighting. And uh spoiler, AVP Requiem. It's so dark, like someone's shining a flashlight or shooting a flamethrower, or an explosion happens, and you're not entirely exactly sure what's happening because it's so fucking dark.
SPEAKER_06:So anyway, yeah, uh, I highly, highly endorse Alien Earth. If you enjoy those movies, especially the first and second one.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, go give them a watch. I gotta catch up with the studio and Alien Earth ASAP. In the meantime, can we is it okay if we talk about the facts?
SPEAKER_06:Let's talk about the facts. Let's talk about the facts.
SPEAKER_07:Do I have to do the set seven N, or can I just do seven? Is that okay? I had an opinion on this.
SPEAKER_04:Please all my life I've just called it seven. And then on HBO Max, when I went into went to watch it today, I typed in seven and nothing came up. S-E-V-E-N. And then I typed in S E seven E N and the movie popped up. Which is a that's a problem. If people are trying to check this movie out and they can't find it, it's by spelling it what should be a normal way. It makes me think, is it's on HBO?
SPEAKER_06:Is it registered? Is it registered as with the number in it?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. So on Letterboxd, the preferred spelling is with the numerical seven in the middle. I find that it's very specific in a way that John I like what you're saying, where it's like, is it not getting the exposure?
SPEAKER_03:Maybe could archaeology is the search for facts.
SPEAKER_06:I have to mention, we're all wearing black t-shirts.
SPEAKER_07:We look great.
SPEAKER_04:We look really good. We look awesome. Um for the second half of this, should we all do like blue face paint and be the blue man group?
SPEAKER_07:Just like her so we just keep like a uniformity to this thing going. Today you learned that Fred Armison was in the blue man group. This movie was produced by Arnold Copelson and New Line Cinema. It is a truly, truly independent film. It is rated R 1995, an extremely tight two hours and seven minutes. Oh, to shut the fuck up. The budget of this movie was$33 million adjusted, that's 68.7. Opening weekend in North America was September 22, 1995, for the wide release. It was$13.9 million that weekend it got. Adjusted, that's$28.9. Final Gross in North America was$101 million. Adjusted, that's$210.5 million. And a massive complement to this movie being one movie. One movie. Final Gross Worldwide,$329 million,$686 million adjusted, no sequels.
SPEAKER_04:That's incredible. My favorite fun facts that I learned while researching this movie was uh that budget is nearly the same as Free Willy 2. Oh god, which came out the same year. What she's easy to get.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Oddly enough, those movies end the same way.
SPEAKER_07:What's in the box? It's just Free Willy's fin. His little dangly fin.
SPEAKER_04:And then the gross, when I looked at like what movies also grossed around$100 million, this grossed pennies more than Die Hard 3, which is pretty badass. But like that's domestic. You think grossed pennies less than Casper.
SPEAKER_05:Always the fun.
SPEAKER_04:So like two movies I saw on the theater, same day.
SPEAKER_07:Same day. Did you go to C7? No. No, I didn't. No. Not that time anyway.
SPEAKER_06:You saw Casper instead.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Other releases this weekend, the one I would have walked into if I had the chance. Showgirls. And uh Empire Records and its limited release. Weekend Top Five. This movie. Showgirls. Too Wong Fu. Thanks for everything, Julie Newmar. Listen to our episode.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Great episode with Rachel Foskett. A great guest. We love her. Dangerous Minds and Clockers. Other films from 1995. Crimson Tides. Crimson Tide.
SPEAKER_06:Why'd you say that like because I typed Tides? You were like Crimson Crimson Tides.
SPEAKER_07:What is that? Separate Lives, the Jim Belushi vehicle. Who yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_06:I'm a big Jim Belushi guy.
SPEAKER_07:That's why you love separate lives, and you added it to this sheet.
SPEAKER_04:Name name of Jim Belushi. Name of Jim Belushi show that went for six seasons and has probably made him more money than any human being we know.
SPEAKER_07:I mean, it's according to Jim, but I would like to say it's what? No, it's not according to Jim.
SPEAKER_04:No, six seasons.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, no, I was thinking of Michael Malley, yes, dear.
SPEAKER_06:I had they do they do have a similar vibe. Yeah, that's on me.
SPEAKER_07:We walked into that.
SPEAKER_06:The vibe is the vibe is, I mean, I remember Michael Malley's streams crossed though, because he hosted a Nickelodeon game show.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, yeah, he did.
SPEAKER_04:With Mo.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:That's right. And you got the Aggro Craig. Shouts to the Aggro Craig. Listen to our fight club episode. Dangerous Minds, Clockers. I already said that. Other films for 95, I already said a bunch of those. While you were sleeping, kids brilliant. Nine months. Angus. Braveheart. There's free dumb in that movie. He says it at the end. Free dumb. And Under Siege 2, Dark Territory, starring Steven Segal. Letterboxed average of this film is 4.3. Follow us, won't you? Uh Ben, you you have a dealy.
SPEAKER_06:I'm at run BMC on Letterboxed.
SPEAKER_07:I'm Paul at Paul Acts Badly. Don't worry about leave John O alone.
SPEAKER_04:John O's very busy. It's it's a private letterbox because I give my actual opinions and it's for work.
SPEAKER_07:Keep your secret here. Keep your secret. Keep it secret.
SPEAKER_04:That's crazy pants.
SPEAKER_06:I'm always like, how are you like, how are you honestly giving your opinion here and being like, uh-oh, hope I don't work with this person.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. I just started following Paul Walter Hauser, who's an actor that I really enjoy quite a bit. Yeah. And definitely a superstar. He's a wrestler. Yeah, exactly. We gotta stay on theme in the game here. I really appreciate his letterboxed reviews. They are very nuanced and insightful. Did you see his Fantastic Four review?
SPEAKER_04:Really? I did. Oh the the review for the movie he's in, he said he gives it three and a half stars, compliments the uh music and cost costumes and set decoration. And it's like, man, when you're in the movie and give it three and a half stars, that is a how does your publicist not be like, bro, bro, what are you doing? What are you doing here? And then my other weird wild fact, and the reason I love your Tu Wong Fu episode is people people will ask you in general meetings, like, why are you in the movie business? And the core reason of why I'm in the movie business is because when I was like six years old, two wong fu, thanks for everything, Julie Newmar, filmed across the street from me in Omaha, Nebraska. No shit. Yeah, my mom's furniture store was on 72nd and Dodge in the hotel across the street. They were filming a movie. I brought them all. And she loved movies. Outside where like they drop off all the furniture uh in the back, and I just sat on the steps. JC Penny is coming here because watched them film for like three straight days, 12 hours. My mom was like, Aren't you bored? You should eat, you should pee. Like, and I was just locked in, just watching guys move things. And I remember like seeing three ladies like walking around with like big hair. And I had no idea that it was Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes and John like with Alama. But I was like, I want to, I can't wait till this movie comes out. No shit. My mom showed it to me, and I was like, that's cool, like awesome. I I don't really get this movie. I think I'm six at the time, or like eight. Have you watched it since like holds up like that?
SPEAKER_07:Super solid movie.
SPEAKER_06:That's an amazing story. And I was we were talking when we did that episode, I think we were talking about how I was like, Yeah, when I was a kid, when I was a kid, I watched that. I remember watching like The Bird Cage or like uh In and Out with Kevin Klein, where it was just like these were movies that were like exploring sexuality and gender. And I was a kid and didn't understand those heightened concepts, but I think somewhere deep in my like psyche, it's like when you get to a certain age, you come back, you're like, What I don't understand why people are mad about this. These are just people.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, it's very bizarre to me that some people in my life have said things about let's be specific about movies where they're like, Oh, thank god I haven't seen that. And it's like, why? Why are you so thrilled about being uneducated or unable to provide a legitimate opinion? Like, I don't understand that. And for some reason, some people have like championed that. It's I don't understand it at all. At all.
SPEAKER_06:Well, should we get back on topic here?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, Paul. We should. But I also saw those movies and loved those movies and got so I we have the birdcage on reserve for somebody.
SPEAKER_04:Just want to mention Birdcage is the second greatest movie built on a lie. Like it truly is, it is incredible when people ask like what kind of things do you want to write? One of my first thoughts is movies built on a lie. Because when when the audience, it's a made-up sub-genre, but when the audience shares a secret with the character, you get to see them spin plates, and you love them more for their efforts and you worry so much for their failure.
SPEAKER_06:It's just fun, it's just so fun. Spinning actual plates with naked men on them.
SPEAKER_07:Uh, you know, and I will say I empathize now with you, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, as this movie was two thumbs up. Tomatoes 84%, 95% popcorn, Metacritic 65, 8.7 user. 90.
SPEAKER_04:I wonder 65 popcorn.
SPEAKER_07:Can we can we just go back to that? People like to feel like shit.
SPEAKER_04:If you want me to take a dump, people like to feel like shit. Guaranteed I will.
SPEAKER_07:This episode's brought to you by Feeling Like Shit. I got spot time. Thank you so much. Zoloft, but the reverse.
SPEAKER_06:I have so much I want to say about turbo cocaine. But I need to get through all these people.
SPEAKER_07:So major award wins and nominations. This did get an Oscar nomination for best film editing, and that was it, which is fucking insane.
SPEAKER_06:There's no screenplay nom here. That's wild.
SPEAKER_07:Um, it's insane.
SPEAKER_06:I'm gonna get through these people, so let me take a sip of the This whiskey. Ooh. Is that a seven and seven men? I didn't. I thought we should all drink seven and sevens today.
SPEAKER_02:That would have been damn.
SPEAKER_06:We don't rarely do theme drinks. I think last time we did one was Big Lebowski when we were all drinking uh mean Caucasian.
SPEAKER_04:It would have been just great if we all poured a seven and seven into a little box and drank it from the box. If you want me to give you a pink cocktail box, I guarantee that would be a good one. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:I mean, how do how are there not like cocktails? And you just get a cocktail glass that looks like a box.
SPEAKER_07:Seven and seven and seven in a cocktail box is fucking inspired. I was ready for a pint glass of wine. Yeah, it's good though.
SPEAKER_06:All right, here we go. Director of the TV is David Fincher, Social Network, Fight Club, Alien 3. Listen to our Fight Club and Alien 3 episode. Writers are Andrew Kevin Walker, 8mm, The Killer from 2023, and Sleepy Hollow from 1999. Director of photography is Darius Congey, Alien Resurrection, Panic Room, Uncut Gems. Music, Howard Shore, Silence of the Lambs, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the departed. Producers are Arnold Copelson, Platoon, the Fugitive, and Phyllis Carlisle, The Accidental Tourist, and Michelle Play, The Cider House Rules, The Shipping News, and many other producers.
SPEAKER_04:One extra credit that should be in there is the 29-year-old exec who greenlit this movie at Newline with Mike DeLuca.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_04:Alleged the president of Newline at 28. This is like all the chips in the middle of the table. Uh most expensive movie Newline ever made. And we were given the lore of the ending, and like they had one champion inside the castle on the ending they wanted, and it was Mike. That's freaking amazing. No wonder he's like crushing it at Warner Brothers yet again.
SPEAKER_06:Love that. Morgan Freeman plays Somerset Lean One Me, right? Lean One Me?
SPEAKER_03:What is that?
SPEAKER_06:Is that our movie with the number one in it? Yes. Lean on Me. Unread.
SPEAKER_07:Yes, that's what it is. Street Smart. It's kind of a deep cut, obviously, for Morgan Freeman. It's Morgan Freeman and Christopher Reeve. Watch that movie.
SPEAKER_05:Street Smart. I'll put it on my list. See? I'm putting it on my list.
SPEAKER_07:Brad's waving his hand in the air insultingly. Yeah, but I shoot with this hand. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Brad Pitt plays Mills, The Mexican, Too Young to Die, and Johnny Suede. Gwyneth Paltrow plays Tracy. Posset Possession, the pallbearer, the royal tenenbalms. Kevin Spa sorry. Kevin Spacey plays John Doe. Peter 5 8. What the hell's that? Dad and Inseparable. And not Pra. Oddly enough, not Prawn. Not prong.
SPEAKER_04:Could I add one just like wild fun fact or just observation?
SPEAKER_06:You have a fun fact about Kevin Spacey. Please go ahead.
SPEAKER_04:Uh is this the only time that a cancellation bump has happened?
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:And what I mean by that is the movie is better because he was canceled. Well, I watched it with two actor friends that are under 27 years old, and both of these guys they did not know the ending of this movie. And as they're watching it, Kevin Spacey walks in, and one of them sees Kevin Spacey as the serial killer, John Doe, and he goes, Yep. And I'm like, oh shit, this movie is better because we know he's a real life creep.
SPEAKER_07:When he says, Oh Jose can shake a bat at the end of the movie, and he's so mad, and I was just like, Huh, huh?
SPEAKER_04:Got a lot of that. So the cancellation bump, did he revolutionize it? Is he the one of one?
SPEAKER_06:It's interesting because I think that in its casting originally, it's more subversive. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:He's more Lester Burnham at this point to the masses. Not yet, clearly, but people think of him, I think, as but nothing at the point of seven.
SPEAKER_06:I mean, I don't really remember, but I don't imagine he was using the marketing. Uh and so, like, just kind of appears in the middle of the movie.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's amazing. Roman Plansky gets cancelled for uh, you know, sexual assault of a young woman. And Chinatown is his most famous movie, which features an ending which reveals a dad sexually assaulted his young daughter. And you you get to that moment in the movie, and you're like, oh.
SPEAKER_06:But the reverse was Paul's never seen Chinatown.
SPEAKER_07:Not not all in one sitting, not ever in one sitting, no.
SPEAKER_06:He actually turned me down when I offered it as a movie.
SPEAKER_07:Um, what did that happen?
SPEAKER_05:Really?
SPEAKER_04:You did. Yeah, it's spooky season. Speaking of spooky season, last year for guys, Halloween, the best costume you can run run out is uh the Chinatown costume because all you need to do is look handsome in a tan suit and then put a bloody set of masking tape and like some Kleenex over your nose. To be Jake Geddies, yeah. To be Jake Geddies, except there's one wrinkle to this. I did this last year. I fucking loved it. I was very excited, and I went to two Hollywood parties, no one recognized me. Oh my god. One woman came up to me and said, I'm so happy you're normalizing this. And I said, What? She thought I got rhinoplasty and was like out and about with my with my like in clueless, like just with the bandage on your face. That is no one knew who I was.
SPEAKER_03:And when I said I'm that's crazy. No, no, no, let me guess.
SPEAKER_04:And I'll already done this 10 times tonight, and no one's guessed it. I am Jack Nicholson from Chinatown, and they go, I've never heard of that movie.
SPEAKER_06:What is such a Hollywood story? Uh John Cassini plays Davis the game. Listen to our the game episode. Paycheck that John Wu won, and alive Arlie Ernie R.I.P. is the captain. Toy Story, Mississippi Bernie, and Starship Troopers. This was a birthday episode for Paul.
SPEAKER_03:And I'm listening to it.
SPEAKER_06:Uh John C. McKinley, love a John C. McGinley appearance, plays California. Didn't know that was his name. The rock off the space point break. Peter Crombie. You didn't know his name was California. I did.
SPEAKER_04:My fiance and I, since since we've watched this most recently, we say, stand down, California. Stand down.
SPEAKER_06:I think I just didn't keep the helicopter out. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:This is a weird one.
SPEAKER_07:John Doe has the upper hand now. That is my favorite line, I think, in the movie. John Doe has the upper hand. Yeah, I'm sorry to step on your favorite line. No, I'm glad it's all gonna come up.
SPEAKER_06:Uh Peter Crombie, R.I.P. Dr. O'Neill, Natural Born Killer, Safe Rising Sun. Reg E. Cathy, R.I.P. Dr. Santiago, American Psycho, Born on the Fourth of July, and Airhead.
SPEAKER_07:The reverse diehard. That movie fucking rules.
SPEAKER_04:That movie rules. Reg, the Dr. Santiago who looks after the fat man. He's also cooking up some great ribs in House of Cards. I agree.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, I agree. I want to say too, shouts to Arlie Ermi, who came from a much different background and really gives a fucking solid performance in this movie.
SPEAKER_04:I think he he apparently auditioned for John Doe, did poorly. No. Yeah. And uh I don't know there's that shit that high. I think Fincher was like, he doesn't have a lot of emotion and then cast him as the chief. Inspired. Inspired. It's like he bombed that audition thrown a different role. Pretty great.
SPEAKER_06:Hey, John O. Do you got some fun facts for us?
SPEAKER_04:Oh I got so many fun facts.
SPEAKER_07:Fun facts, fun facts, everybody. It's fun fact time.
SPEAKER_04:Uh there are several cameos and small roles from recognized names in this film. To name a few. The first dead body in the film is played by writer Andrew Kevin Walker. Goes by Andy. Actor Charles S. Dutton is from Rudy and Alien 3. He is credited as a cop. Three time, three time Jason Voorhees Friday night the 13th actor slash stuntman, Kane Hotter, performed in many of the high-intensity stunt sequences on this film. Nesting doll of the fun fact of the stunt sequence. So in that stunt sequence, it was a high octane little set, and Brad Pitt, he's jumping from car to car. He slips, he falls from like one of the taxicab hoods and falls into a window shield, window and bursts the driver's side window, severs a bunch of tendons in his forearm, and he is now in a cast for the rest of the shoot. My fun fact to the fun fact to the fun fact is I was visiting a friend on set in the past few years, and they were shooting some stunt sequences. It was an action movie. And the day I arrived, he was in the hospital for cutting a bunch of tendons in his hand. And the production had to shut down because they had a bunch of sequences that required him being there with his hand jumping from shit to shit. And I had just learned about the seven stuff. And I was like, put this on. And we watched a bunch of scenes with Brad Pitt where they hide his cast because movies are shot out of order. And so if you watch scenes in this movie, you can, if you keep your eye out, he is wearing a cast for about 25% of this movie. That scene where Morgan Freeman is talking about the seven deadly sins at the end of Act One. There's there's Brad Pitt, and he's leaning back in a chair and he's got his arm up, and his long sleeve is like, if you just look a little closer, his long sleeve almost goes over his knuckles. And it's because he has a cast on. The fun fact of the fun fact is like I got to watch my friend and the director he was working with study Seven. Oh my God. And then have to copy what Seven was doing for the movie that they were making.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:That's cool. It's so random, but I mean uh to continue on with our fun facts, and this is just like top level. We're no longer in the deeper recesses of fun facts inside fun facts. Uh to prepare to prepare for the role of traumatized massage parlor customer. Actor Leland Orser, his birthday is August 6th, by the way, uh, would hyperventilate so that his body would be overly saturated with a bunch of oxygen. He did not sleep in the few days before his work in order to achieve his character's disoriented look. That guy is fucking amazing. Nails it. Nails it. In our guest episode as well. Oh, if you are watching this movie with your parents, by the way, that's the scene to be like, I gotta go to the bathroom and just leave while she screams and sweats and cries like fucked her or whatever he says. Newline Cinnamon executives originally balked at the film's ending, but Brad Pitt refused to make the film if the ending was changed.
SPEAKER_07:And I'm so glad you mentioned the Mike DeLuca thing, too, because he was the, like you were saying, the one champion inside the studio for the movie.
SPEAKER_04:Inside the studio walls. And what's crazy is uh, do you guys know who this movie was originally who was originally supposed to direct this movie?
SPEAKER_06:Hit me.
SPEAKER_04:From the director of GDT or Cronenberg? Uh no, the original guy on the movie was it would have been from the director of Christmas Vacation, the Jeremy Chechik vehicle seven. Hey, yeah, he was attached to it for many years. And what Andy, the screenwriter, was forced to rewrite the ending, the no head in the box ending, because the studio wanted like a better like chase down and save the girl at the end. And the only reason that we got to see the head in the box ending is because when Chetrix fell off of the movie and they needed a new director, the studio told a little courier in the office, like, send David Fincher the script. And that courier took the wrong draft. He took the original Andy Kevin Walker draft. Good. It has never been reported who that guy is, the courier, guy or gal. And it never was reported if that was purposeful. But like, that's the version Fincher read. He said, I love this movie. And it wasn't until he was meeting with the executives and talking about how much he loved the ending that their faces went white in the meeting and were like, Oh shit. It's so good. It's an older version. Yeah. And then they tried to explain it. They're like, no, no, no, we have a better ending. And he's like, I top that. I mean, and then he read that and he was like, I don't want to do that version.
SPEAKER_07:So I will admit the Cheshik Christmas vacation, if you change the music for the trailer, it's a very different experience. On the seventh day of Christmas.
SPEAKER_06:Do you think you would have casted cast Randy Quaid?
SPEAKER_07:As every role.
SPEAKER_04:No, if Kevy Chase turns the corner and he's like, I can't actually, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. He might throw in a racial slur or something. I don't know.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Julie Luis Dreyfus is the head in the box. Um, it could have been great. We could have we could have had great things. Um, fun facts, continuing on. David Hinter assumed Morgan Freeman would turn down this film down, but Morgan eagerly accepted the offer of Somerset. Other people that it went out to were Val Kilmer, Al Pacino, Sylvester Stallone, Michael Stripe, who I'm not familiar with, Gene Hackman, Kevin Costner, Nick Cage, Denzel, and Christina Applegate all turned down other offers for the film. Del Toro and Cronenberg passed on the offer to direct. And all of John, oh, I love this one. All of John Doe's books were real books filled with nonsense written for the film. It took two months to complete. They paid the PAs. Can you guess the amount that they paid these PAs for two months of work?
SPEAKER_07:Per hour or the total?
SPEAKER_04:Total.
SPEAKER_07:And how many months was it? It's a hundred. An army of PAs. An army of PAs.$15,000 is what I researched. Nailed it. Yes. Nailed it. They all got a shiny nickel. They got a shiny. That is insane.
SPEAKER_06:That's just want to mention so Michael Stipe. That's uh the lead singer of REM. Insane. That's a wild casting choice.
SPEAKER_07:You saying the Chechik thing that I didn't know, John O, like was eye-opening to when I was re you were going over the casting and who was considered to a degree and what tone they might have. I don't know. I wheels got turning.
SPEAKER_04:This this movie really could have been any single Grisham style detective movie. This movie looked we'll get into why it looks better later, but like this movie just looks better.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Uh and then final fun fact was David Hunter uh had writer Andrew Kevin Walker onset during shooting in case of any needed uh on the spot rewriting. Which is not always welcome. Which is rarely. There's an on set painter. There's an onset painter for for movie sets, like literally a guy where it's like, we need that wall touched up. Because sometimes uh your listeners may not notice this. Sometimes you get on set, you turn on all the lights, and you can actually see the two by fours behind it because they're like, oh crap, this paint was cheap, and we only did two or three coats, and you can just see the wall behind it. And so they're like, as fast as possible, just like add two more coats, and they'll do it because there's an onset painter. Um, someone might chip the paint with a tea stand, whatever. To not have the onset writer is a common thing. The onset story person is wild.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Uh we we do have to take a break. This this episode is brought to you by Severed Tendons. Whoa! It's spooky season. That makes me spooky season.
SPEAKER_07:Not feel very well, but I feel like shit about it.
SPEAKER_06:There's severed tendons out there, they're it's happening all the time. But we want to ask you, John O to give us the log line to this movie. If you were to log line this movie, give it to me.
SPEAKER_04:Like, like if I was an elevator with Mike DeLuca, yeah. He was 25. Set the scene, baby. Yeah, yeah. I would say a retiring detective and a rookie detective hunt down a serial killer who's killing based on the seven deadly sins.
SPEAKER_06:Nailed it.
SPEAKER_07:I was gonna say, please tell me you just read that from somewhere.
SPEAKER_06:This is amazing here, people. This is here's the log line. It is two detectives, a rookie and a veteran, hunt a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his motives.
SPEAKER_07:Is he a rookie? I he's a transfer.
SPEAKER_06:They they film him and treat him like a rookie detective.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I know he's a transfer. He says he did all this cool shit, but he comes off as a rookie. I think he's not a veteran, by the way. I think retired is retiring or whatever I not to say better than the long line, but like retiring is actually a I'm yeah, I'm too old for this shit.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a senior writist aspect to it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I feel like shit.
SPEAKER_07:There is, you know, like I'm done.
SPEAKER_03:I love it.
SPEAKER_07:Uh we'll be back in just seven beats. We're back with John O'Matt. We back beat seven, and you know what we do here? We play Cinephile. Ben has the Cinephile cards. The only way to slay Ben is to get the cards from him. Get them from him and let me know. I will take care of it. Ben.
SPEAKER_06:Ooh, that's this is scary. I have the Cinephile cards, and yes, they are the final horror crux. Um do your best. Johnno, we played this game last time you were here, right?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, I think you smashed us.
SPEAKER_04:I think it is Kate Blanchette for some reason. I can't remember, but I think it was.
SPEAKER_07:I like to think it was too. We'll have to go back.
SPEAKER_06:For the guests listening, Cinephile is a game that has an actor on it. There will also be a movie. Uh, we actually give Johnno the freebie of the movie on here, even though he probably doesn't need it because he's probably gonna smash us anyway. So, Johnno, I will flip these cards, you tell me when to stop, I will show the card to the camera. You will name an actor and the movie. Paul will name an actor that or a movie that actor was in, I will name a movie that actor was in, so on and so forth until one of us fails, and then we will talk about our first experience with the movie 7N. Are you ready?
SPEAKER_04:I'm ready. All right, you tell me when when I I'm halfway down the sack guy. Cut in the middle. Okay, Michael B. Jordan. There's a movie offered there, but I'm not gonna go that movie. I'm gonna go for Dale Station. Fantastic four. Uh that's good. That's in our fan four second. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:I will go with Creed.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, that's so good. Are we allowed to use sequels in the CR? Then I'll throw out Creed 2. Let's just burn through it, baby. Creed three.
SPEAKER_06:Amazing. I'm gonna go with the Black Black Panther.
SPEAKER_04:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_07:Just mercy. Black Panther Wakanda Forever. Does he show up? I'm 99% sure he does.
SPEAKER_06:He does. I totally forgot until you said it. I'm gonna go with the Chronicle.
SPEAKER_04:And I am going to be Sinners!
SPEAKER_07:Oh my god, the vampire that awkward moment you almost just had. That awkward moment. Oh man, I that was the one I wanted. Oh my god. That awkward moment.
SPEAKER_06:It'd be hard to miss Sinners this year. That awkward moment. That's your movie? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a real movie. That awkward movie?
SPEAKER_04:Produced by the producer of Set It Up, randomly enough, which is also awesome.
SPEAKER_06:I mean, I think I'm out then because I don't have another one in my back pocket. I thought Chronicle was gonna be my ace in the whole. Max Lane.
SPEAKER_07:I thought it might get to Sinners. I was really because I had nothing past that awkward moment. I was toast. Okay.
SPEAKER_06:Does anyone have another one in their in their heads?
SPEAKER_04:It is, it is the ball is in my court.
SPEAKER_06:No, it actually I already failed.
SPEAKER_07:So well, I know, but it it has to move to me, right? From him, from him, it would be you, yeah, because I can't think of anything else. So if you've got one, it's your moment to shine.
SPEAKER_05:Did we say creed free?
SPEAKER_03:We did we didn't just smiles.
SPEAKER_04:We created I am so bummed. Yeah, I feel like we did well. I'm just we did well. I'm just gonna throw this out there. Avengers end game. I'll go out on a loss, and we Google Avengers End game.
SPEAKER_06:He's not in that, I can assure you.
SPEAKER_04:He does not appear in that.
SPEAKER_06:No, I would not know. He's dead.
SPEAKER_03:I know, but like in a flashback thingy, there's not an Wakanda Forever 2, though. Yeah, I know that's why I was.
SPEAKER_06:But Black Panther doesn't show up till the end of the end game, anyway. Like, there's like no Wakanda stuff in that movie.
SPEAKER_04:I can't talk about it.
SPEAKER_06:But anyway, I will talk about my first experience with the movie Seven. I rented this movie when I worked at Hollywood Video. Probably be my senior year of high school. Uh yellow. You know, I used to just like rent like three movies and come home and just like binge them at night. And I remember because I remember this movie being talked about, and I didn't see it at a young age when it would have been wildly inappropriate for me to see, probably. And then just being like, fuck yeah, this movie is the detective movie that I want. It is the detective movie that I think is a definitive detective movie. And it also like opened up the door where I'm like, oh, like everything that's come after this is kind of trying to be seven in so many ways. Like, so many detective movies that came after this are really trying to capture that essence that Seven and even like non-detective movies, like The Batman, you know, or shit like that, where you're like, Yeah, there's there's so much that Batman is a detective, sir. No, totally. He is the world's greatest detective, if you want to be, you know.
SPEAKER_07:I mean, you could argue that this and LA Confidential are two the two really great detective movies of the 90s, if not potentially all time, in my opinion. If not Gabowski is murder by numbers in the 90s, the Sandy Gosling vehicle Sandy Goslings.
SPEAKER_06:So I I I think I probably would have given it like four or four and a half back then. I bought that movie on DVD back when I would buy DVDs. I did not steal it from Hollywood Video Paul. I bought it. I'm I'm damn proud of it.
SPEAKER_07:Was it the clip?
SPEAKER_06:Remember? Yep. Yeah, yeah. You did not engage in your greed when the disc would come like you'd be like, oh no, it's probably scratched. And you're right, it is scratched. It's always scratched, yeah, and it will forever skip. And yeah, it will skip. I think I owned that for a while until I finally gave it up for some reason or loaned it to someone and never got it back, uh, which sounds about right. I hadn't watched it in a while. I don't remember actually the last time I watched it. Fuck, if I just didn't have the greatest time, and I and again, I think it just reiterated to me like so many things that came after this. You go to Netflix now and you'll find so many fucking dead girl detective stories that are like they either go the seven route or they go the twin peaks route, or they try to ride the line in the middle, but they're all very like you can see that inspiration from seven, and and sometimes they even got that saturation, that fincher saturation that they try to like absorb. And I loved it. I I'm walking away, and I there's so much in this. I think Fincher is so brilliant in his filmmaking, and the way that he shows, he introduces Somerset and Wells, and they're sort of like different energies and different dynamics. It's it's so fun. Uh, so I am walking away currently with four strap-on knives. Four strap-on knives.
SPEAKER_07:You went there, y'all. Four. He fucked her. He fucked it. He fucked it.
SPEAKER_06:Also, you make that and you're just like, this is a normal thing for someone to have.
SPEAKER_07:Hey, give me my photo back. And you're like, Jesus. Give me my photo back. It's like, I like my art. Please let me celebrate it. If the cops are looking for that, uh John, oh, you were next.
SPEAKER_06:I really love this movie.
SPEAKER_04:This is uh I became like the film guy when I was like 16, and it was truly built on I have seen Fight Club M7 and the game before any human knew what they were in my like dumb little Omaha town. And when we completed uh in 2003 our historical run, I think you guys read about this in the papers. Uh, our high school production of Into the Woods, our after party.
SPEAKER_07:We were in high school, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Michael Benedict and five stars, two thumbs up by Siskel and Ebert. Yeah. Um, but when we completed that production and it was like closing night, and we went to the diner afterwards, and then we went to the, you know, the friend's house, and they said, How should we close this party down? We should watch a movie. I was like, We're watching seven.
SPEAKER_07:You're fucking sick.
SPEAKER_06:Or you have like the confidence of a no, that's like classic teenage like nerd movie nerd shit because you're just like movie nerd shit.
SPEAKER_07:I did that with interview with the vampire. That was my fuck up.
SPEAKER_04:It it is truly the movie nerd shit of interview with a vampire. It is it's it's one of those things where you're just like, I like this because I know it's good, but I don't have the social eq to know when it when it is good to show people. So it's like to a bunch of play dorks and mostly women, I was like, you're seven. Yeah. Also, like some parents were there, they're like watching the movie with us, and then like John O knows movies. Again, I'm 16. Why am I the authority on what we should watch? We watched seven. That's a fair point. I know. I loved it, I had a great time. I think people were scarred. So go back to the club. Yeah. I in that moment, I had probably already seen it 20 times by the time I was 15. I had regularly showed it to friends. I went to a boarding school. We would we had secret ways to hide TVs, like in a lazy boy that was hollowed out or whatever. We would play these movies, and seven entered a rotation. Everybody was like, This is the thing to check out.
SPEAKER_07:I think it's awesome that you were part of the Goonies, by the way. I think it's very cool. It was very cool. We're very humble about it.
SPEAKER_04:Very cool.
SPEAKER_06:What is your rating out of five, sir?
SPEAKER_04:Uh I I gotta go five out of five, heads in a box. Wow. Like it was it was a formidable movie for me. I remember this is my little 16-year-old brain when I first engaged with this movie. I truly think my favorite four movies at the time, if I were to put them on Mount Roshmore, it was Goodwill Hunting. That is a normal movie. That is a nice movie for a 16 year old boy to like Shawshank Redemption. That's a good it. There's some we're getting weird and interesting. You look number three was seven, which is like there's the knifey thing. And then number four was Requim for a Dream. And now we're questioning. Does the kid have access to guns? Like we need to set alarms. Yeah. We need to keep him away. Hide all the prescription drugs. Yes. But those were my favorite four movies. A young adult, but seven ruled. And now it comes with what you just said, Ben. I think this movie is like core tech version. Podcasts like serial and the Brian Cobrenner podcast. And all of these things, this is as wild as it sounds, one of the most successful movies of 2025. My fiance had never seen this movie because it was too spooky.
SPEAKER_03:You ever done anything dangerous?
SPEAKER_04:She watched it this year, and she said that is one of the best movies I've ever seen. And it's because this is normal now. Crazy serial killer stories are done so often and so poorly. Yeah, that when you see the I mean it's network television now.
SPEAKER_06:You have network television show about serial killers.
SPEAKER_04:Animal has darker imagery. The NBC show from like 2011 has far darker imagery than this movie.
SPEAKER_07:Totally, completely agree. Mads, by the way, totally rules. And this movie that we're talking about today, and Silence of the Lambs also, I think exist in similar places. Yeah. But yeah, uh five heads in a box. John and we have a lot in common. Uh-oh. Uh oh. One of those things is this movie has been in the rotation of my favorite four or ten or five or eight or whatever. It's been in there probably since I saw it. I saw way too young.
SPEAKER_04:You did Into the Woods as a high school production when you were 16. Yeah, you read about it. Yeah, yeah. Johnna read about it.
SPEAKER_07:Jonna I watched this way, way, way too young. I watched on HBO. My mom and my stepdad at the time were like, yeah, and there was definitely, as Jonna was saying, that situation where it's like, now's the time to go to the bathroom or have to cough or have to be like, does anybody want a water or something like that? Because it is so fucking uncomfortable. I got it. It's August. Ah, fuck it. I don't know what it is about movies that are really drenched in existential dread and that have an optimist and a realist. These things just really grab me. These two people are both like extremely empathetic, but on two totally different sides. We were talking about this with Fight Club minus the empathy part, but it's two totally different energies that somehow just work so well together. And I was terrified of the movie, but I loved it. I I could not properly rate it. I've watched it a few times since then. Like Ben, I have not watched this in several years. And like John O, I'm at five boxes. I did not use head in a box. I was not that brave. I just said boxes. Wow. And this has happened a couple times recently. I watched it today, and I'm gonna go to the Matt for this. Possibly the best lighting, the best dialogue, probably the best in this genre or sub-genre of serial killers, spooky movies that feel very grounded, and there's a realism to them that make them feel so upsetting and scary.
SPEAKER_06:Uh and Paul is getting his tendons severed.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, some of the best dialogue I've ever heard. And this is some of the best performances. Uh some of these are the best performances from Morgan Freeman, from Brad Pitt, from Kevin Spacey. The score is insane. I love the fucking movie. These are three of the best to ever do it. And I don't think we're gonna have a lot of trouble.
SPEAKER_06:So hold on. Can I can I confirm that this is your favorite fincher for both of you?
SPEAKER_07:For me, you can, yes, absolutely. Social network. That's my social network in the two winklevosses, winkelvosses. We're the winklevi.
SPEAKER_05:One single plot.
SPEAKER_07:That is my favorite feature as well. Are we not so thankful that there's not an eight? We do have to talk about this movie, though.
SPEAKER_06:Let's talk about it. Let's do it, man.
SPEAKER_07:The newline logo, by the way, I think of this movie, Ninja Turtles, Nightmare in Elm Street. I know a lot of people will talk about Lord of the Rings, but I've I miss this logo and I just didn't love it.
SPEAKER_04:Did Ninja or Three Ninjas come from New Line? I can't. I'm almost sure it did.
SPEAKER_07:I'm almost sure Touchstone, Touchstone. That's a Disney movie.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, it is Touchstone's names. What's that? Rocky V Rocky. Rocky Colton's Tom Tom. Tom Tom.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. Oh, I don't have a million dollars.
SPEAKER_04:I thought you were gonna ask us the actors' names.
SPEAKER_06:No, I didn't think you would name. I didn't know if you could name Rocky Colton Tumtum.
SPEAKER_07:Those guys can really play basketball.
SPEAKER_06:I always thought Colt was such a nine.
SPEAKER_04:I have a friend who's gonna get aggregated all of a sudden because his name is Colt Seaman. Wildly unfortunate first name or his last name.
SPEAKER_06:Small anecdote. I had a uh uh substitute teacher in junior high, his name was Richard Seaman. Coming, which if that's your name, just choose a different profession than substitute teacher. Do it. And but also that's that should be illegal.
SPEAKER_04:You you should lose the right to parent if you're the engineer kid Dick Seaman.
SPEAKER_06:But as everyone's lining up to the city, CPS should be at the hospital. The bell rings. I was not a bad kid, I was a pretty good kid, but like everyone in that class during that time when that substitute was a nightmare, and then like the bell rings, everyone's leaving, and some dude just yells, See you later, Mr. Cum.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, can you imagine? Why would somebody named Dick Seaman be an asshole late in life? I can't imagine why. So Somerset is you start in this with this movie, Somerset in the morning, he's very meticulous and methodical, and a lot of the time I have been told or trained like, don't show people getting ready for the day. And it's so vital to this movie that we see the differences in these characters so immediately.
SPEAKER_04:The scripted beginning of this movie is a tiny bit different. Uh, but before I go into that, I had to cut you off because Ben, for the podcast listeners, you will not be able to see this. I am showing him my Halloween costume from a few years ago. This motherfucker challenges me to knowing Rocky Colton Tom Tom. I was dumb.
SPEAKER_06:Oh my god. That is me and cute an Instagram post.
SPEAKER_07:John Turtle Tob would be proud. So proud.
SPEAKER_06:It's incredible. So then I stand very corrected.
SPEAKER_04:We cat bombed him again. Ah do not challenge me. It's so good. The original beginning of this movie, scripted beginning of this movie, and shot beginning of this movie, was they had this idea that Somerset had bought a cabin out in upstate New York, and he was picking out wallpaper. And this is the place that he was gonna retire to. And the wallpaper he picked, he was just talking to an interior decorator, and he picks out a wallpaper and he keeps that in his pocket for the rest of the movie. And every time he's stressed out, he looks at the wallpaper swatch as his escape.
SPEAKER_07:I like that. It's like Jamie Foxx and collateral.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, his escape. And it's not a beach on a you know sun visor, but it's his escape. And they shot, they apparently shot him looking at it at key moments. But as the production was going on, they kept pushing the expensive move the entire unit to upstate anywhere. And they never actually shot him in that cabin. And so that got cut, and that whole through line got cut of his want to go out there. But it survives when Mills says, Fine, just go up to your fucking cabin in the middle of nowhere. He says he said that to him at some point, and the line still works in the movie because it's just like, check the fuck out. Like that's what he's challenging him to do.
SPEAKER_07:I like that more Morgan Freeman says something about a farm at a point, and that Brad Pitt says the thing about the cabin where it's like you don't even know what the fuck you're gonna do. You can't define yourself without this. Right. The thing here where they explain very quickly, even though Somerset is very cold, where he asks, like, did the did the kid see the murder? Did that is and the cops like, why the fuck is that important? And and we get introduced to Mills, who's more interested in proving himself than anything else.
SPEAKER_04:Did the kid see the murder? Is so much heavy lifting for screenwriters. Because the follow-up question from the officers, I'm so glad we're getting rid of you, Somerset.
SPEAKER_06:It's so bitter. So is this when we get introduced to Mills and like Somerset are together? Because I saw I saw this deep dive into the sh the um the tracking shot on the street of Somerset walking and Mills like they're walking together under the awnings, under the awnings, yeah. And it's this the way that like it's framed, right? You have Somerset in the foreground, Mills in the background, and Somerset's just at a steady pace the whole time. It's like gliding, he's just gliding, and Mills just keeps trying to like kind of get ahead of him, but then things keep getting in his way. Like someone bumps into him, someone comes out of a store, yeah. Yeah, something just keeps trying to get in his way until they finally get to the door frame, and then and then Mills takes the power and kind of like gets in front of him.
SPEAKER_07:I like that Morgan Freeman never really is super wet. He's prepared, like he has the hat and the trench that's why, and all this other stuff, and Mills is just constantly fighting the elements, even.
SPEAKER_06:I just think like it's great. That is such a simple thing that you wouldn't register, like a normal person wouldn't register that framing or that, but it sets up this character dynamic immediately. We're immediately introduced to how this energy is gonna be.
SPEAKER_07:So calculating.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, did John Do make this movie?
SPEAKER_07:I mean, sometimes I wonder about Fincher. I it's it's so good, it's so calculating, and that's what I said this to Ben before we were recording. It's like, I might be sick. My dream is like Paul Schrader writing a movie that David Fincher directs. Am I okay? But for that, thank you. Oh, that I feel a little more normalized there. I appreciate that. But for the next seven days, you remember I'm still here, I'm in charge, like Morgan Freeman kind of asserting himself. And I love that he has this metronome to drown out the city. Oh, yeah, and the sound design there is fucking gorgeous.
SPEAKER_03:So good, yeah, it's dangerously good.
SPEAKER_07:And go going from that very like lulling you to sleep, and then the credits come at you, it's pretty great.
SPEAKER_06:When we get to the first big dude murder, yeah, oh yeah, spaghetti man, the environment that this movie creates is so disgusting, and I don't just mean that about that specific scene. I feel like the entire movie kind of feels like like I said, like the movie smells bad, it just feels like it's raining all the time, it's like there's mold everywhere, there's like the paint's chipping everywhere. There's this feeling of just like, I want to get out of here so bad.
SPEAKER_07:Similar to Goodburger, I never want to fucking eat again. In this scene, I mean I love that Joe Divola from Seinfeld shows up. Like, I love the doctor, the corner, whatever that's there is the Seinfeld guy, which is great. Somerset's already trying to shoe Mills off.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, he's trying to get him out of the door, because I mean it's that classic, and you know, and like we see other places of this where it's like he sees in him this prove, I gotta prove myself energy, this attitude, and uh he just is like, I don't have fucking time for that. Get the fuck out of here.
SPEAKER_07:Very optimistic. The devil has no power here, essentially.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I to go back to that title sequence just for a second, it just dawned on me. So many scripts start with a cold open where the villain does a dastardly thing, and that goes back to like Jaws is like, oh, hot chick goes into the water and is eaten. A lot of horror movies have a good first kill. Jurassic Park, the Velociraptor, eats a parkour. That title sequence is the secret introduction of the bad guy. You buy a half a movie where we don't know who this is by setting that title sequence to like, I'm gonna cut off some fingertips, I'm gonna write some scary shit. We don't know what they're writing, it's more the song and the vibe that was on a screenwriting level. I don't know if like they wrote in the script where it was like, and then title sequence commences, and we observe close-up shots of serial killer doing serial killer shit. But like, that's what it felt like, and so when the dirtiness of when we arrive at a gluttonous man killed over face in spaghettios, you're like, Yeah, that tracks.
SPEAKER_07:Sure, yeah, yeah, I agree because everything's very steady eddy in the very beginning for the most part, as he wants it to go with the metronome and the whole deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the credits throw you into a complete disarray of what's about to happen, and I'm ready at because of the credits to go to whatever place we're gonna be going. It really does set up that nothing is gonna be the way that Somerset had foreseen moving forward at all. The metronome is no longer effective, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh, but the the fat dead body breakdown, and this is also very close to getting to this Arlie Ermy introduction. And like, seriously, the full metal jacket is one thing, he's great in that movie. Yeah, but this fucking performance is really pretty fantastic. So cool.
SPEAKER_06:I mean, it's one of those things where you know that he's just kind of being mostly himself, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:But turned way down from what I'm used to anyway, and and I'm really into it. I imagine he was turned way up for yeah, he was in full military mode or whatever from his prior experience for sure.
SPEAKER_06:But I do think it is a great casting, and I wouldn't expect it.
SPEAKER_07:I'm really shocked like sitting and really watching this movie and trying to have a critical eye of like how I was just like, Wow, this is like a a good actor doing really good work. I'd never watched it and appreciated it that this way before. We get these these torture clues, and and that this should not be Brad's first assignment in the big city, clearly.
SPEAKER_06:But he's had other assignments. He's a transfer.
SPEAKER_07:I mean, he killed somebody.
SPEAKER_06:How often now do you have it's always like movies about serial story, TV shows, what have you, about serial killers? You have someone who's like, this is all connected, and then everyone always wants to be like, stop, that's that can't be true, it's not connected. It's like it's like a constant trope now. It's just and I I don't know how often that will occur before this, but you know, here's this guy being like, This is connected, and them all being like, What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_04:You know what it is, Ben? There's a line from Morgan Freeman in their reign. He asks a question, he goes, You fought to be reassigned here. Yeah. That sets up this character of like this wannabe good cop. And then two seconds later, after they've dealt with the fat boy, the knowledgeable elder statesman says, Someone who does this does it with a purpose. And that means they're trying to make a point, and that means this isn't the end, and that means it'll last longer than a fucking week, and I'm only here a week, so I don't want to be a part of it anymore. And so, like, because it takes him four extrapolations, you understand why he doesn't want to be a part of it, and you understand why the rookie is like not rookie, but like the guy who fought to be here, reassigned here, he's like chomping at the base. He's like, That sounds big then. I want to do this, yeah, and they get to fight each other. Morgan saying that kid shouldn't be a part of it, and Brad saying, I can do it.
SPEAKER_07:He's young, dumb, and full of Richard Seaman. You're all under us. He's ready to fucking go. Like he is, though. Like, yeah, I also by the the the attorney getting murdered here, our first second, no, second, second murder that's happened based on these seven deadly sins. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:I mean the first time we get the greed.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, and it's written blood on the carpet, and we meet DA Richard Roundtree, Shaft, who is like, you know that has very high success rates. Yep.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, we're talking about shaft, but it's wild that they got shaft to be the DA. Shut your mouth.
SPEAKER_07:He's talking about Shaft. He's talking about Shaft. I we can dig it. When he is scratching the name off and and Arlie Ermi says you're not gonna be a cop anymore. I think that's part of the whole farmhouse or cabin, or like you're not gonna def you don't know what you're gonna do.
SPEAKER_06:Oh man, like this is what you are when Wells takes the office and Somerset just is like, I'm good, and just like sits in this little corner desk.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yep.
SPEAKER_04:It's so juicy.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_07:And it phone comes with the office.
SPEAKER_04:Oh yeah. Great line. But you can do game to a scene, though. Like when you're constructing a game as a screenwriter, it's like, what is the game into the scene? It's like, oh, you inherit the good and the bad of the office. Phone comes with the office. I also love that as a constructive screenplay, this whole movie is like two hours long with credits 207 or whatever. Right around, I talked to it today, 23 minutes. 23 minutes. He's been given the pieces that were in the fat boy's stomach. He goes back to the glutton's house, and he finds behind the fridge, written in Greece, gluttony, which is the second we said read earlier, it's the second time we've seen Reed Gluttony, and our hero who is Morgan Freeman, and not to put a pause on like the progression of the plot, but like Morgan Freeman jumped at this role because he had been second fiddle for a bunch of people's stories. And when he read the script, he's like, oh shit, I get to be the lead of a movie, and I think this is pretty fucking awesome. I'm not driving this daisy, I'm not telling the story of Andy Dufrain and Throshank Redemption. I am the lead of a fucking movie, and he was so fucking excited to do this, and it's awesome that at minute 23, he's breaking it down for knucklehead Brad Pitt, who is leaning on a chair because his pendulum shredded in shredded famous interactions. Yep, brought to you by uh and then shredded pennants, and then Arlie Ermi is answering the desk phone, but he's breaking it down. He's like, There will be seven murders, and it's that's end of act one.
SPEAKER_06:John O that's maybe the best. So act is this you're you are a screenwriter. Is this a five-act movie or is it three acts?
SPEAKER_04:Cleanest three acts you can get. Okay, it is so clean.
SPEAKER_07:I agree with that. I think act two is very large, but it's crazy how tight act three is.
SPEAKER_06:Like it's does act two end with the arrest of John Doe?
SPEAKER_04:Act two ends with the word detective. Okay, it's the yell of detective. Oh, hi Mark. But this movie needs to be studied. Also, executives who make movies, who green light movies, should study this because whenever they go, they want more of an internal life from our leads. There are two scenes of our heroes' internal lives. There's the scene, the dinner scene with we'll get there, with Gwyneth Paltrow inviting the detectives over for dinner, and then a midpoint scene where it doesn't even include Brad Pitt. It's it's a confession by her at a diner, uh, and we'll get there. But there are two B-story scenes that add so much life to this movie, and that's all you need.
SPEAKER_07:I agree. I think it's really cool also that he was so ready to jump on this in terms of a starring vehicle because he is so insanely smart. The character is really well educated and calm and patient, and all these things that you'd want a person doing this job to be, his approach to it is so great. When he is going over the Paradise Lost stuff, and it's like it's a beginning, this is what it means. He has a level of confidence as an actor and as the character that when when he does the the hang-up too, I I I can't mention it enough. But when he gets to the library, because he wants to educate himself and understand everything, and he is he doesn't know what he is without doing this. But when one of our more recent episodes was Speed, forget the name of the actor who played the bus driver and speed, he's the head security guard here and he cranks up. I think it's Bach. How's this for culture? I fucking love that scene. I love that he's a forever student, he's always an observer, and and and it cuts to Pitt who wants to take shortcuts to everything. He's like he's a he's kind of a an overly optimistic, like dumb shit who believes in too much of the juice that he got from whatever point in his previous life situation. And he gets the cliff notes from the guy, and he's like, fucking Dante, piece of shit, poetry. And it's just like, no, man, you can this guy, you should be at the altar of this guy doing everything this guy's doing if you can. It would end in your divorce.
SPEAKER_04:But I just googled the name Speed Seven Actor. His name is Hawthorne James. What a good name.
SPEAKER_07:A good wrong great name, very solid character actor in these two movies, especially that we just talked about.
SPEAKER_04:So when he looks over the balcony, I just watched this movie last year with my fiance, and that scene in particular, that library scene, she paused the movie and she said, Is this the best looking movie ever?
SPEAKER_07:I'm with that. The lighting in this movie is insane. The detail that exists in darkness, none of that exists in any other thing I can put my finger on. So I'm I'm with your fiance on that. I I also love I think the Gwyneth Baltro performance is really good and approachable. And like the dinner at the Mills' house, they exchange names and he says, It's William, and she says, That's a good name. By the way, Brad Pitt's first name is William, which I find funny. It is it is his real first name is William. Oh William Bradley Pitt. The line from Morgan Freeman asking, How do you like it here to the wife? And then Brad takes over. It takes time. Like, we'll we'll get there. He doesn't like want to let her speak. I think partially because he knows that Somerset is probably going to like lean into some of the things she's gonna say.
SPEAKER_06:Well, it seems like she's like reaching out for connection.
SPEAKER_07:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_06:Somerset is offering that in an interesting way. It seems like she kind of lives isolated in this kind of fishbowl with the dogs, and that that's his world that he keeps separate. He's compartmentalized it away in a way, so that it's not part of the shit that he is dealing with.
SPEAKER_07:That's so I'm sorry to interrupt you. You just sparked something in me, though, when you say compartmentalized, he's still willing to engage in levity, he wants to talk about things or whatever that aren't the job. He wants to engage with her, ask her questions, get real feelings. I think that's something that really hit home there when you were talking about the way he compartmentalizes and separates work and life.
SPEAKER_04:The the dogs also he wrestles with dogs on the paper they've been peeing and shitting on. You don't do that? I currently don't do it. You don't love your pets, Jana? I don't love my pets. I may not just be a knucklehead detective, but like that is such a telling characteristic to start act two where you're just like, oh, this guy wrestles with his dogs in the piss poop shit room. Like it's it's such a good little character touch.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, um, in juxtaposition to this guy who's like going to libraries in the middle of the night and winning.
SPEAKER_04:Exactly. When Somerset those those are back to back, yeah. It's this very dark library, box playing, and then it's this the vibrating home.
SPEAKER_06:He's kind of a meathead, and it was kind of a meathead.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Well when Somerset is super engrossed in looking over the evidence from the Greed case, and Brad Pitt hands him the glass full of wine, he doesn't react at all, and he reacts later at the end of that scene. Like, why am I holding a fucking pint glass of wine? Like, I I love that he never notices. He's so locked into what he's doing.
SPEAKER_06:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:It really sells that he is so ingrained in this job. The way he explains just some of the darkness of life, yell fire, not help. People are more likely to turn away at that. And he just he talks about like dark, very dark shit that feels realistic. He doesn't feel nihilistic, he doesn't feel like a pessimist, he feels like a realist.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, that's how it closes to me. He feels like someone who's doing the job, like at this point, especially with this case, he feels like someone who's doing it because it's such a core part of him and he knows that he's good at it. He can't really escape that. While, like, the the counter to that, right, is that Brad Pitt wants to be good at it. He wants to, but he doesn't want to do he doesn't he doesn't want to do all the same amount of work. I mean, a lot of what John Doe says to him at the end isn't necessarily wrong.
SPEAKER_07:I think Brad Pitt has fallen into a lot of things or had a lot of things like things that came easily to him in some way, shape, or form earlier in life, and this is a taste of what it's really like. Yeah, I agree with you.
SPEAKER_06:So is the lust is that next?
SPEAKER_07:We get the kind of upside down painting thing with the traumatized wife, right? And they examine it with the black light, and the shots and the the way you go in and out of the prints and from different perspectives, the perspective of the fucking wall. It's so great.
SPEAKER_04:I learned more about directing in the moment where they are looking at the wall as the the black light is on them, and Brad Pitt just goes, Have you ever seen anything fucking like this? Yeah, and Mario Freeman's shaking his head, and they're looking at something that we have not yet seen. This is a classic filmmaking technique, yeah. But in that I remember the first time I saw this movie, I was like, I have not wanted to see something more in my entire fucking life than whatever they're looking at right now. And Spielberg uses this technique with the shark and like all the shit, but in that moment. Because it's a detective story. It is Jurassic Park. All those movies, it is a classic thing. But in that moment, you're like, what the fuck could be on that wall? Sure enough, they surprise us.
SPEAKER_07:Using it in a trailer is brilliant. It really hooks you. So good. And the it is so good. As you're saying, something we talk about a lot on this podcast, this movie is a perfect example of show me, don't tell me, and showing you at the right time. The reveals are so the editing, thankfully, was at least properly somewhat recognized. But so many of these promising clues only lead to others. I love that Somerset is setting him up for the grind all the fucking time. And it then transitions to a dude who doesn't seem like our guy, does he? Our killer seems to have more purpose. But like the way that the cop car is mobilized, the way that's directed, it's like fucking sparkle motion, SWAT team, let's roll. Everybody is fucking flying around. Like that California is on the case. Dude, this one scene it shows me that Fincher, it's like, dude, this guy's a fucking great action director. I wish there was something like this in Alien 3. That's as exciting and as tight as this.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. When they're when they arrive at Sloth, it is it is one of those things where oh my god. Every single shot. Because they use the expectations. Yeah. They use the expectations of the audience. We're like, we're going to find. We're only we're only halfway through this movie, we're going to find the killer. And he has been, as to put it in Brad Pitt's own voice later in the movie, he's been masturbating in his own feces. We do not know who we're going to find. Buckle the fuck up. And so when we find a dead body in a fucking dead hus-filled mattress, you're like, what the fuck am I going to do? My favorite thing to do when showing this to people is kind of just side-eye them when that dead body is laying there because it's presented as dead. Right, absolutely. And the best jump scare for all of spooky season. I don't know what's in competition. But but that motherfucking 85-pound actor going, yeah, human beings.
SPEAKER_06:When you do the so when you do what we call in my family is the look back, because my brother would famously show us a movie that he's seen before, and then he would like wait for a moment and stare at us, and I would be like, You have to stop doing that. So, Johnno, you must be very skilled at doing the look back so that people don't rec realize that you're looking at them while they're watching the movie.
SPEAKER_04:So I may not be skilled because I just went to the movie Weapons with a very dear friend of mine.
SPEAKER_06:Uh huh.
SPEAKER_04:I was warned this is a very scary movie, and my friend he had heard the pitch from four weapons from Zach Krager. He had helped develop the script for this movie. He had worked on this movie for years. He had gone to this the premiere of it. And now I get to go to AMC and Burbank with him. And he did the most obvious look back. I'm I'm like NFL Scouts would would call it a full 180. Like his shoulders fully looked behind him, squared up, looked all the way back. And when he did that, I just covered my eyes because I was like, oh, scary shit's about to happen. And that look back saved me. I love weapons because my lovely knuckle-headed friend had the worst look back game ever. And only in that moment did I realize I was like, every time I've watched seven, I've probably blown. There's been a little scare. Yeah. I had no idea that it could be that obvious.
SPEAKER_07:I want to say really quick weapons in competition with May December for greatest moment with hot dogs. And I love the hot dog callback to the whitest kids you know that that is. It's so fucking great. I was the the one wacko in the theater, like at that moment, and like literally everybody's like, what the fuck is and then you went and bought seven hot dogs. I did. I don't think we have enough hot dogs, and the fact that she was worried is insane. With the car ride over, Mills tells Somerset that he killed someone, he can't even remember their name. Yeah, but he killed someone, and in the raid of this actor's dead body, but not dead, desiccated body, and all the air fresheners everywhere. The fact that the SWAT team sparkle motion folks have lasers on their shotguns is clearly only for atmosphere. It works, but it's only for atmosphere.
SPEAKER_06:That's that is a page straight out of like Terminator 2 or Aliens, man. Like you gotta have lasers going.
SPEAKER_04:You gotta have lasers. Lasers! The I've killed someone, I don't remember their name, reminds me. It's a George Glass like flex.
SPEAKER_07:So it's so good. What do you mean by that is? I love that. It's he's so casual.
SPEAKER_04:And I don't believe he's ever killed somebody. This is my read of the movie. He is trying to impress upon his partner on day three. I do cool shit. The phonator of I don't remember their name. It's like, oh, I slept with this girl in Tijuana. I don't, God, best lay of my life. I don't remember her name. It's like Tom Cruise in the fight. I didn't buy it. Yes. I don't, I don't totally buy it because he is very obvious with all pieces of himself. And I felt like that was a little like, ah, you're trying, you're trying to act cool. I yeah, isn't performative to me in a good way.
SPEAKER_07:No, I I really love that Summer said that this is the moment where Morgan Freeman is like, yeah, I've had to three times have I had to like draw my gun, never with the intention or want of using it. And fucking Brad Pitt's like, yeah, I killed a guy. I don't remember. And it's it's so good at compounding how different they are in these moments and just how fucking tolerant Somerset is. And I think that is the key when Spacey comes in as the reporter. We don't see his face, we just hear the voice, and he's taking photos of people. And I know I'm revealing this too early because of course the police don't know who this guy is, he's just taking their photo, and Morgan Freeman, you know, tells Brad Pitt, you want to know how they get here so quick, is because they pay people within the police department to get information, and he's not key to the movie, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:I also do you think so become wrath, David? I can no longer remember, and I don't know if there was ever a time that I didn't know that Kevin Spacey was the bad guy. And I would be curious if anyone watched this for the first time, didn't know that and saw that person and could tell that was Kevin Spacey.
SPEAKER_04:I had no idea. My fiance may kill me for sharing this story. When the voice comes on later, now we're jumping so far ahead. Sure. There is a moment later in act two where John Doe calls them and my fiance goes, Oh, that's Joey Pants. Joey, uh Joe Panaliano.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, from Risky Business and The Matrix.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. She's like, Oh, I know that voice. That's him. And then um, I was like, interesting. I watched it together. I was like, Yep, yep, I'm gonna let you think that because in my head I was like, I'll let her think that so that the payoff is better because it's an Oscar-winning payoff. And then Spacey rolls up, it's a pet. Dude, eight-year-olds, dude. Eight year old, but then Kevin Spacey rolls up and he's like detective and all this shit. My fiance is just like standing there, like, yeah, okay, moving on, moving on. And I had to check in with her. I was like, it is Kevin Spacey, and she's like, No, I know that he's he's a stand-in for Joe Pandiliano, like he's a crazy person doing the job for Joey Pants, and I was like, Oh no. So, right up until like the end, she thought Joey Pants was gonna pop up out of nowhere and be like, I'm the big bad motherfuckers. Oh my god, and it was I love that. I'm so interested in pulling what takes this movie so deeply unimpressed with Kevin Spacey's performance because she thought he was a Patsy.
SPEAKER_06:Could you imagine though in 1995 casting Kevin Spacey to be the Patsy? And then you're like, nope, here's the real reveal, and everyone's like, Oh Joey Pants. Joey Pants. Like Joey Pantellone is fine, but you're like, Kevin Space, what?
SPEAKER_07:But do you know his career trajectory at that point?
SPEAKER_04:Usual suspects.
SPEAKER_07:Usual suspects is the only yeah, and swimming with sharks.
SPEAKER_04:So that was after prior to uh accepting this role, he looked at his calendar of movies that were coming out. None of them had been released. So he knew and his agent knew in The Hopper is Swimming with Sharks, Outbreak, Unusual Suspect. So when they accepted this movie, they knew I am going to be a household name. Wow. He felt it, and his agent was correct, and he was correct, and so they chose if we decide to be in this movie, we will not be a part of marketing because that'll blow it. Because this is coming out after all that. They shot this movie with a different actor, an actor that has never been publicized. They tried the no-name actor. What if we got somebody that no one knew, literally with zero credits, and we tried him as John Doe, and they they all liked him? Timothy Chalamet. Um, but they tried him and they shot a few days with him, didn't work, and they asked Kevin Spacey's agent on a Friday, can you bring Kevin to set by Tuesday and to replace this guy?
SPEAKER_03:How stolen great.
SPEAKER_07:I just can't believe I can't believe it's already shot a lot of scenes. Yeah, I didn't know any of this. Tracy Wilde calls Somerset for breakfast and uh reveals they came from upstate, which I think is so brilliant because they never define the city they're in, even though there's rumors it's Gotham before Batman, and like there's all these crazy theories all over the internet. But it is great that when you say upstate somewhere, they could now be in Chicago or Detroit or Philly or New York City or Los Angeles or like anywhere in the southern end of a state in a big city. And I think that's great the most. It's a simstate it is bring the other way. And for her to tell Somerset she's pregnant.
SPEAKER_06:I definitely canoned it as New York. I don't know why.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, yeah, of course. Makes sense.
SPEAKER_04:Andrew Kevin Walker moved to New York in 1987 and he fucking hated it. He felt it was the darkest place, and he wrote this movie about being homesick in New York. And he feels to this day that she represents his emotion of New York the most.
SPEAKER_06:That's amazing.
SPEAKER_04:Um he said that in interviews. I'm not breaking news. What I think is also fucking awesome about that midpoint scene. When you look at it from a screenwriting perspective, we've had one scene with this character. One. Right. She is a person reaching out for connection. The fun and games of this movie is what if my wife forced us to interact with each other outside the office? That is the quote unquote fun and games in the McKee version of screenwriting, page 25 to 35. That's that scene. And then that comes back and she says, Hey, I'm also the midpoint of the movie. I'm pregnant. We're gonna be stuck here unless I can convince my husband otherwise, and I have no one else to tell. That deepens every relationship in this movie.
SPEAKER_07:It's a brilliant script. Yeah, the delivery is amazing. And Freeman then accepting the trust that she's extending him and extending similar trust and saying his story, telling his story, I wore her down, like talking about convincing the woman he was with to have an abortion. And he says it was the right decision, but I wish I made a different choice, and how complex just fucking existence is, and how exhausting and dark it is. I just I I love this script, it's so good, it's so good.
SPEAKER_04:And I do, I do think it was weird by Andy Kevin Walker to include at the end of the scene, she says, Will you invest in goop? And goop didn't exist yet.
SPEAKER_07:And she set the candle on the table.
SPEAKER_04:She said, This is my pussy.
SPEAKER_07:I feel sick. It's fun. I feel like shit. I feel like shit.
SPEAKER_06:It's funny. Every time my wife orders goop, I'm just like, What's in the box?
SPEAKER_07:What's in the box? Is the pussy box?
SPEAKER_06:The can you name the five movies that were nominated for best original screenplay in this year?
SPEAKER_07:This and only confidential, guys.
SPEAKER_04:Can I just say this was gonna be my follow-up at the end of the whole thing? I have my own ranking of original and adapted. I know usual suspect won this year, which is awesome. Good for Kevin Spacey and his whoop-dee-woop. I'm secretly the give me the keys, crack second, what the fuck?
SPEAKER_06:Chris McCorry.
SPEAKER_04:It's good. Mini Keys, motherfucker. I think Braveheart was also nominated. Toy Story should have been nominated, was it?
SPEAKER_06:Ooh. Oh, was it? In original.
SPEAKER_04:In original? I'll just keep going on my little tirade of best original screenplays. What I would have nominated if I had been there was Toy Story, Usual Suspects, Braveheart, Die Hard 3. Simon says automatically winning Oscar. But the winner of 1995 Best Original Screenplay should have been seven. I agree.
SPEAKER_07:And when he says he's not Yoda, it's like, of course, Mills thinks of Yoda as the wisest fucking guy in the world. The FBI guy, too, who I can't remember that character actor's name, but he's so great when they meet for pizza. Oh, Mark Boone Jr.
SPEAKER_04:Dude, he's fucking great. Mark Boone Jr. I worked on Sons of Anarchy with him.
SPEAKER_06:Just to say Toy Story was nominated.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_06:Do you know who's on the whose names are on screenplay for Toy Story?
SPEAKER_04:No. I can say one Lassiter is. I get can I give a shot at this? I think there's five. Uh one Lassiter Stanton. Doctor. Joss Whedon. Yeah. Joel Cohen, but not the one you think. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And then I put the end. So Doctor. I don't know the different.
SPEAKER_06:Alex Socolo.
SPEAKER_04:I have no idea who that is. Oh me either.
SPEAKER_06:Josh Whedon was an interesting. I didn't know he was on that screenplay.
SPEAKER_07:As we're speaking about authors, I think it's apropos. When Freeman says legal, illegal, these terms don't apply. And they get the list of people's library books that are tracked by the government. This is scary. Not necessarily the stupidity, but the naivety of Mills, where he's like Des Sha Day and Thomas Acquia or whatever. But the lead to John Doe, there he is. That apartment chase. Oh, and ultimately John Doe lets Mills live because you must become wrath, David.
SPEAKER_06:Question in the whole math of it all, does John Doe know they'll come to him there?
SPEAKER_07:I don't think so. I think that throws him off.
SPEAKER_06:But he does leave the photos for him to find, right? Or those are just displayed.
SPEAKER_07:That's the beginning. He always he seems to track these sins from the beginning to the end the best he can. And I think when he's posing as the reporter, he's seeing David become wrath and makes the decision that he's gonna go after David at some point. But when they the rain-soaked lens and when they are chasing each other and the spacey stumble, what's that building when he's like dragging his fucking leg? Oh, so it's gorgeous. And the shot when they're arguing about entering the apartment and the shot of Pitt kicking the door open and entering that apartment, also just fucking iconic.
SPEAKER_04:It's from a screenwriting perspective. The fact that you have this veteran and rookie arguing outside about process, like we need to get a fucking warrant. Yeah. And one of them kicks open the door. A decision that cannot be taken back. That is the juiciest fucking shit. And then what's so good is like Andrew Kevin Walker just solves that right away with more corrupt cop bullshit. What you was like, the world, yeah. We're just gonna pay a woman to say, I saw a mysterious dude go up there. And it's like that's so fucking juicy.
SPEAKER_07:Dude, also Morgan, sorry to interrupt, Morgan Freeman's contact being an FBI guy, the guy he pays off, and then Mills's person is a fucking crackhead that he's like, eat something, eat. You get the level of empathy that they both have.
SPEAKER_04:When I moved to New York, I specifically sought out that apartment. It was still decorated the same way. And I lived in that environment for five years, just with the red light, and the and and I never fight the prints.
SPEAKER_06:How many people did you kill?
SPEAKER_04:Seven. Like I had to move out like there's seven then? Yes. Got it. Upon killing seven, you must move out. You can take your time. It's the end of your lease, though.
SPEAKER_07:It's in the contract. The end of your lease. Oh, that makes me feel like shit.
SPEAKER_06:The real estate was owned by Donald Dump in a box. Oh pass.
SPEAKER_04:But I fucking love Lord, dude. I loved that fucking set design. That creepiness. Oh my god. That creepiness. Also, again, going back to that thing we said earlier, fucking Brad Pitt actually cut a bunch of fucking tendons in his arm. Yeah. And so as they were shooting, like, thank God, he's just rolling around through that scene with a fucking cast. You know? When that phone rings, it's so haunting as they're like, Oh my god, quiet. And they go dig through it, and then as my fiance says, Joey Pants is on the other line.
SPEAKER_06:Joey Pink is delicious. There's a little bit of I don't know what it is about 90s detectives or police things where I just drawn to them more. Like I think of the fugitive.
SPEAKER_03:Get off.
SPEAKER_06:These are the things where it's like the technology isn't what it is now. It just feels like more practical and it feels more like approachable. And you don't have like now it's just so much more of computer work, and it doesn't feel like what I observe in these movies.
SPEAKER_07:It's really great that this movie and a lot of these detective movies we're talking about are right before like pretty much everybody started to get a cell phone. Like the lack of computers in this movie is like really evident. The fingerprint computer seems so advanced in this world. And the guy's like, this is gonna take like 20 months, and then they hand him a carton of cigarettes, and he's like, Did I say 20 minutes? I'm I'm at 20 seconds. It's really great that the computer stuff, Ben, that that it's not just like forcing or pushing the story, and the level of dirt that's there, like that existed in the 90s, is also so real. And the Tyler Durden of Brad Pitt and David Fincher and John Doe both kind of having the attitude of we're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world is so great. The interaction that they have at Wild Bill's Leather with the dick knife thing is maybe one of the most awkward scenes in the movie until you get to the real awkward moment.
SPEAKER_01:Really awkward moment.
SPEAKER_06:He made me fuck her.
SPEAKER_07:Where was the girl? The what? The girl, the prostitute. Like they have to say the pro saying the girl doesn't that, but when they say the prostitute, he kind of gets it. When Mills asks, Do you like what you do? And the boot the guy in the booth is like, No, but that's life, isn't it? And it's like commenting on both of them. Yes, the script is just so fucking tight in the dialogue and wanting to and the theme this throughout the happy ending. It's not possible.
SPEAKER_06:Great. Give it to me. I'm gonna jump ahead here. Jump ahead. Uh but John O. You brought us two movies now. You brought us Minority Report and Seven. Both movies take a character and push them into a circumstance, a choice. They are now facing someone who has done harm to the person that they love. And they are given that choice to kill them or to save them, which I think is a fascinating thing that you've brought these two movies to us, and in Minority Party chooses to save him, and in this movie he chooses to kill him. Even to this date, when I was watching that, and I know I'm jumping ahead, but even to this day when I'm watching the end here, there's that part, and I think it's part of Pat Pitt's performance. You see it in him where he could potentially go the route of arresting or just like not doing anything. The the performance is so layered to then the final shots. But anyway, I just thought that was fascinating that you've given us these two.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, that's interesting. That's very interesting.
SPEAKER_06:The blue and the red pill, you know.
SPEAKER_04:You also bring up that I can't why is that ending so juicy? Is because of that bar scene right after the he told me to fuck her scene.
SPEAKER_07:Oh god, dude. Yeah. Well, do you want to say more about no he told me to fuck her? No, you no, no, I really don't. I I do love the line where we're gonna talk about severed tendons, you're gonna be oh god, you're gonna be disappointed. It's not the devil, he's just a man. Just man. Like, holy shit. But the the talk about apathy over the dress. It's so good. Okay, so the apathy talk they have over drinks and like the the raising a child versus beating a child, and males, you can't afford to be this naive.
SPEAKER_04:You can't, can't you will love this, Paul Christopher Nolan? He uses this scene as his auditioning scene for most every role. It's so good. A friend of mine has auditioned for three of his movies all three times. This is just the scene. You just try this scene as Mills, and so that's a level of respect for Andy Kevin Walker and Fincher from Nolan. But like that's the scene, and that idea of like, what if I could push this boulder up the hill and you have somebody more knowledgeable than you saying it's too heavy, man?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, I'm not gonna do the sysphist thing. It's dark, like it's so dark. What works in the movie, and what makes it really work is that they've got this kind of I for lack of a better example, like a mammoth, like who has the power, and they're coming from totally different fucking angles. Like when Brad Pitt's like, I don't agree with you, I can't. Him being the forever optimist, like it's always gonna work out for me, it always has before, even though we've been told as an audience, like the ending's not gonna be good, and Somerset breaking the metronome, doing the knife tossing in the middle of the night. Something's coming, something's happening, something's breaking the norm, even more so, and having that introduced John Doe just giving himself up after the pride kill. Pride kill seems so quick. Cut off her nose, despite her face, couldn't live because she was upset. But but it it breezes by.
SPEAKER_06:At this point, bodies are just like piling up, I feel like kind of, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:They're it's moving very quickly through the kills. Like John Doe wants to give himself up. We're barreling toward it.
SPEAKER_04:Lust, lust happens, yeah, and then the bar scene where it's basically an argument of two men at their low, which is like there's no good in this world, there might be. It's like that's not a good argument, by the way. Yeah, uh and then the next scene is like morning comes and pride is there. And again, when you're watching this movie for the first time, and you know there's gonna be seven murders, we only were given two in the first act, and then there's two in act 2A, and then these next two come pretty quickly. Bang, bang, but yeah. Pride is one of those where it's like when you hear it, you cut off her nose to Spiderface, you're like, that is the most literal version of these deaths, and it's actually kind of the darkest when they especially the way David Pinter films it. They lit, I think they literally take a pen and move her finger, which is pasted to the pillow bottle. It is so dark. And then here's where the screenwriting kicks in again. They cut outside of the police precinct. Somerset is saying, we may never catch this guy. Yeah, he's saying that, and as a screenwriter, you have to like if the end of your scene is the killer is going to walk out of a cab, the beginning of your scene should be the exact opposite. And it is, it's the detective's saying we're never gonna catch this guy. He may walk. Two seconds later, he's stepping out of a cab.
SPEAKER_07:It's brilliant. And the fact that he uses it against them later, as as the law offices of uh Dick and Dick get together, Richard Schiff and Richard Roundtree oversaw by uh Judge Dick Seaman. But like when Richard Roundtree, they give the lawyer gives the offer, he'll either plead insanity or he'll give you a full confession and the whole deal. And Richard Roundtree's like, I'm inclined to let him rot. If he had just gone with that, it was over. And the fact that he is playing this chess game, like with them, and Somerset even says, if there are in fact two more dead, like he he's considering all moves, and they have this really lovely moment where they're shaving for buyers, the best, and there's a moment of of levity. What if I shave off my nipples? Can I my nipple can I claim workers or whatever? And like Mills really for the first time seems like kind of scared to me. It's the first time I feel a real level of fear, and and the way he does it, and it's the screenwriting, it's fucking good.
SPEAKER_04:He makes it a joke. He says, Yeah, if John Doe's head splits open and an alien pops out, I want you to expect it. That is a scared fucking man saying that. Absolutely like a dude, a dude that like earlier tonight encountered he says it in the movie. He's like, a man was mugged, and right before walking away, the muggers stabbed the person's eyes out four block blocks away. The fact that that guy's joking about aliens means he's scared shit.
SPEAKER_07:I agree with you, I totally agree with you. The also just the transporting car ride here that all it all happens so fast, and it's all dialogue, and it's a couple few different shots, and it's like a stationary cam that's shaking at point. That makes you feel like you're in the car. Brad Pitt just losing it. And I love how wrong he is in that John Doe is not what he's saying to his life, to Mills's life. You're a movie of the week. You're a fucking t-shirt at best. It's like, yeah, you're not wrong, but not to you. Like that's you. Like to you, like you're gonna remember the name John Doe forever, unlike whoever it was that you killed the first time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:That I I find that stuff in the cop car to Spacey's credit, it's just brilliant performance.
SPEAKER_07:Some of the best shit in the movie.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:I am also terrified for the delivery guy watching this movie for like California, stand down, and the whole thing with John Doe has the upper hand. I feel a level of fear for the delivery guy because I was like, what happens to this guy? And when Somerset's like, I'm sending the delivery man away. Somebody pick him up. I'm like, okay, good.
SPEAKER_04:Thank God. I feel better. My first ever watch of this movie, I knew there were two more kills left. Yeah. I knew there was twists. Uh yeah. Two. And envy and wrath. And as we're driving out, I was like really, really distracted in a good way, in like a narrative way, of how many times they did a extreme close-up of John Doe's eyes to an extreme close-up of Morgan Freeman's eyes in the rear view mirror. Yeah. And in that moment, I'm 16 at the time. I thought they were in codes. I was like, what is about to go down? Something's fucking happening. And it's unsettling. I don't know whose team I'm on. I know I'm on good guys' team, but I don't know if good guys' team is on my team.
SPEAKER_07:It feels like Somerset is one degree off from being that guy. Yeah. He really does.
SPEAKER_03:He hates the world.
SPEAKER_04:And I and it's like, I kind of I'm hearing this guy in the back, and he he kind of hates it as much. As we're barreling toward the end.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, there's a good look back there. There's a good look back. The third act goes so fast where the delivery guy drops off the head, and the what's in the box? Now I will say, Ben, as you were talking about earlier, his indecision, I'm like, oh, I was told this movie's gonna end poorly. Like, this guy's killed somebody before. And when he says, Become wrath, David, and when John Doe says, and the life of the baby inside her, and you guys were saying there are two more kills, and I'm like, well, I guess there were really three, because the crux for Mills shooting him is I killed your child. Mills is arrested as this is one of the great one of the great endings of all time.
SPEAKER_06:Was this you telling us you're that is dangerous? Yeah, was that a weird way to go out and say that?
SPEAKER_07:I think that's the way that maybe Mills felt about his specific child. How's that? Okay, how's that for an answer, fucker? So Mills gets arrested because he shoots John Doe like five fucking times with a 45 Colt at two feet away. Somebody get somebody. Dude, the fact that Somerset is so shaken that because you he's so fucking shaken by that.
SPEAKER_04:Does that arrest him? So this ending was so great endings of all time. They've had they had to rewrite it for Christmas Vacation, man. They're not using that. Still the studio says something else needs to be done. We can't put a fucking woman's head in the box. It's a dog. It's it's one of the we introduced the dog. It's one of the so it's one of the two dogs. They try that version. Another version is uh Somerset who save Mills shoots. John Doe. John Doe.
SPEAKER_07:John Doe. Yeah, I did know about that one. Is that Somerset was like, My life's already over.
SPEAKER_04:My life's already over. And then another version, and this is the dumbest version, never filmed but pitched, was Mills sees Somerset about to shoot John Doe, and Mills shoots Somerset to stop him from shooting John Doe. Yeah, that's better. And I'm like, I'm so glad they didn't. And then he shoots John Doe too. Yeah. Right. Okay. It is one of the best movie endings. I think you get an Oscar Nong for one fact. There is a four-frame cut to Gwyneth Paltrow's face.
SPEAKER_07:Her pretty head.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And he is debating shooting her. It's four frames. That's it. Four frames is one sixth of a second, but you know what it is.
SPEAKER_03:That is a I'm not even kidding.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Totally different way. But it's not. It is wild how good of a choice that was. And I need to I need to come down from like hyperbole mountain. But I think this is the best thing he will ever do in his entire life. I agree. That close. I agree. That debate is truly, you see, every choice offered to him as a human being. There is physicality of I drop the gun, I point the it's fucking wild. You can tell he feels like shit. Oh god. He feels like shit.
SPEAKER_03:Antie Zola. He looks like he's about to throw up.
SPEAKER_04:He looks so angry. He looks sorry. Two mils in watching it today. That is the emotion that I was so impressed by.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:He looked like he was apologetic for making the decision he was about to make.
SPEAKER_07:For killing her memory or her memory of him or something. Like that's what I felt with the frame too. Like, or killing her, what was left of her.
SPEAKER_04:It was like, my friend is saying, don't do something, and I'm gonna do it. And I feel bad about it. Like that. I was like also screenwriting-wise, which is why to go back a few beats, I think this deserves best screenplay, best original screenplay of 1995 over the other Kaiser Sose classic. I think this is the best screenplay because it sets up an actor to win. Earlier today, I was like, who else could have done this role of Mills? Weirdly enough, it's written so well that I'm like, Matt Dylan, he could have crushed it. Yeah. Like there's so many actors that could have crushed Mills, and it's because it's well written. That look at the end, that look at the end is written and then performed so above and beyond. But to put a character in that place is so cool and rare. Bravo, Andrew Kevin Walker, for writing that movie.
SPEAKER_07:Well, I agree with you too about the apathy scene where they're like, if you're Mills and you play that right, like that's that's really fucking special. That scene is really, really great. And the the way this ends when Somerset says, Around, I'll be around. I guess I'm not let go of the job.
SPEAKER_01:Like it's so good.
SPEAKER_07:It's depressing as shit, but it's great.
SPEAKER_04:The ending they wanted was Mill fires two shots cut to black. That's it.
SPEAKER_07:I liked I like the around, I'll be around. I like the where Somerset's just trapped.
SPEAKER_06:I like that we get a little Day Damont there because guys we need it.
SPEAKER_04:I a thousand percent agree. This is where sometimes studio execs rule because they are your first audience. And the first audience, they said she her head can't be in a box. In the filmmakers push back. Wrong. Yeah, they were like, Her head needs to be. We'll show you, you know. But they also said you cannot end on Bang Bang. An audience cannot feel that as their final emotion, they need to feel something extra. And what they decided to fill that space with was I'll be around. And the actual final line of the movie is Eminway said the world is a fine place and worth fighting for. I agree with the second part.
SPEAKER_07:That's what makes them different than John Doe. Man, and that's the degree that sets him apart.
SPEAKER_04:For the win, the final thing I'll say about that little last section. I went to film school in 2000. I won't date myself, whatever. 2024. I went to film school in 2024. And they had just invented color correction. That's what they invented, huh? Um, but in my school, they had a connection with the somebody in coloring for this movie, and we got for my editing class, not even cinematography class, it was wild, editing class, editing for they gave us the dailies for this movie, the final scene, and we had to color correct it. Kevin and and Brad were the entire background is green. You know, three weeks ago when I completed college and my schooling, I had to edit those, and it was so cool to learn about color correction. And this movie, along with Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, is one of the first films to use color correction to change the environment. And anyway, that's kind of cool.
SPEAKER_06:That is cool. That's a deep dive, nerdy tidbit. I'm so curious if any of your ratings have changed. What's in your boxes?
SPEAKER_07:I don't I don't want to add any more suspense. We've had enough suspense, it's been spooky enough. I'm at a five. I want to know what John O has to think about what John O has to think. You uh you can think whatever you like. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_06:You came in with a five, you came in hot and heavy. I don't feel like you've I don't think anyone's altered your I was it my job to bring you down? I don't know.
SPEAKER_04:I am I am five, these aren't even my desk.
SPEAKER_07:I have five. I liked this the the hard in the paint wife's head in a box. I just want to say that. Uh I want to give you credit for going with the dark ending, but I also want to say, Ben, before you give your rating, if Johnno alone didn't talk you up from a four, I will be fucking shocked. Nothing will be more shocking than if you didn't go up. Could it be spooky?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, gonna be spooky.
SPEAKER_07:It's beyond spooky. I am I'm poltergeisted. I've been geisted. So if you go down to two, I'm what is the game this window? What is the game here? Two very strong fives. Set seven is maybe in my five.
SPEAKER_06:Well, I yeah, I think I'll go to four and a half dick knives.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, hard in the paint, very hard, a lot of paintings. I don't think I've never inches of dick knives.
SPEAKER_06:Oh each dick, each dick knife did like seven, eight inches, I think.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, oh seven. Each dick knife is an eight. Yeah, and then you do wow, you just went four and a half on a dick knife. Yeah, that's a lot of knife.
SPEAKER_06:I don't think I've ever jumped an entire point, although I did consider it. But yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna I I I think four and a half dick knives.
SPEAKER_07:If I remind you of the shot with John Doe sparing Brad Pitt and the rain and the sound, will that change you to a five? No, you know what?
SPEAKER_06:What I do want to do is I don't think I'm gonna ask my wife. I don't think she's seen this movie. And I think I'm gonna see if she'll watch it. You know, we have a spooky meter because she's not really into spookies and sparies.
SPEAKER_01:I like this.
SPEAKER_06:And I I I kind of wanna I kind of want to watch it with her, and she's a big fan of the game, so I'll be curious to see.
SPEAKER_04:Ah, the game. Okay. I am here, I am fully subscribed to this hex chain. I am convinced this is a movie for everyone. Everyone.
SPEAKER_02:Everyone!
SPEAKER_04:In 2025, there's no more popular thing than true crime craziness. Yeah, same matter. Can I play some space? I think your wife will love it.
SPEAKER_07:Maybe Jessica Martin may talk you up to a five. Let us know.
SPEAKER_06:I will report back. You bet us if people want to find you, if you want them to find you, where can they find you? Where can they follow you? Where can they see your work?
SPEAKER_04:You can find me on Instagram at John Omatt, J-O-N-O-M-A-T-T. Um, hopefully, you can find my work as a greenlit Christmas movie filming this January. That'd be fun.
SPEAKER_07:We're feeling warm in the cockles. I'm hanging the stockings, I'm hearing the bells. Yep. I'm feeling cozy. I'm ready.
SPEAKER_06:You brought us two incredible gems. I'm so happy to have you back. Thank you, Ben. It's so great to have you and great to hang out with you and chat with you and talk with you. Paul, would you like to tell all the good people about all the good people who work on this program?
SPEAKER_07:I would love to. Jamie Henwood performs our bookend music. Why are you excited? What you've been doing, what you've been watching, are Matthew Foskett. And our fun facts are Chris Olds. You can follow me on Letterboxd at Paul XBadly.
SPEAKER_06:You can follow me at Run BMC on Letterboxd and Instagram. You can follow us on Instagram at uh review x2 podcast.
SPEAKER_07:Good times and I don't mean to be too spooky, but I'm not feeling great. Like shit. I think I feel like shit. I'm feeling like shit. I gotta go. Did it ghost fart?
unknown:Ghost part.
SPEAKER_02:It was a ghost, it was the ghost. It's hot.
SPEAKER_00:Hi everyone, this is JJ, the co-founder of Good Pods. If you haven't heard of it yet, Good Pods is like Goodreads or Instagram, but for podcasts. It's new, it's social, it's different, and it's growing really fast. There are more than two million podcasts, and we know that it is impossible to figure out what to listen to. On Good Pods, you follow your friends and podcasters to see what they like. That is the number one way to discover new shows and episodes. You can find Good Pods on the web or download the app. Happy listening.
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