Reedland / Don't Forget, YOU Emailed US.

So, someone involved with marketing/promoting this new Dutch movie “Reedland” (2025 d. Sven Bresser) reached out to us. They were like “wanna do…whatever it is you do, we don’t really know/care, with it,” and we were like “how did you find us? Are you sure YOU think this is a good idea?” They were like “yep. Watch it and do the dance.” And we’re like "uuummm, OK.” Then we did the episode, and sent it to them for approval. They were like “wow. Approved. Give these chimps the Nobel Peace Prize.” So, we’re just waiting for that now. The Reedcutter will return in Avengers: Floopitty Dooms 1/20!

****A member of the “Review Review,” family is in the fight of her life, you can help! - TAP/CLICK 

Transcript

Host Intros

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Isn't her name Jordan with a Y? I don't know. Bill. Buddy. Billy? Well then, hello, and welcome to this very special Tuneo episode of the Review Review Movie Podcast. My name is Paul. I'm a co-host of this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

And my name is Ben, and we've never said to new before. That's a new thing.

SPEAKER_03 0:22

Didn't we for Twister Dollar Sign?

SPEAKER_04 0:25

Twisters? That wasn't an uh oh, maybe it was a two sign.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

It was just a standalone had just come out.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

But we had done okay. Because we had done Twister with Sarah Coats. We hadn't done Twister Dollar Sign yet. So yeah, I guess you're you're right. Yeah. Sarah Coates, come back.

unknown 0:41

Come back to us.

Episode Breakdown

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Yeah. We are doing a film that is a little outside of our normal rules, which is a movie that's seven years old or older. This is not that. It is a too new. It is two hours and twenty two minutes or less, believe it or not, Ben. I believe it. It says right on the tracker thing and on the IMDB.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

It is less than that. It is not part of any major franchise. Will it be?

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Maybe.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

Does the read cutter enter the Marvel cinematic universe?

SPEAKER_02 1:14

The read cutter will return in Avengers Tuesday.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

Bring him back, honestly. I thought of Terrence Stamp. Oh, yeah. Sure, sure, sure. This actor, his name is A non-actor. Garrett Noob.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Yeah. An actual read cutter.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

Yeah, which is insane.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

It that is so hard to believe because all all a lot of these people in this cast are non-actors. Yeah. And it's what naturalistic direction this movie had. So we we hope he'll be back in Avengers Tomb. Avengers Tombs Day. Very very soon. That's the turn the one turn I would expect in this movie. Every other turn that happens in a vehicle, I'm like, oh yeah. It's very unsettling.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

But I was gonna say this episode is brought to you by Avengers Tombs, but we gotta see some this. So we we can no longer mention that movie.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

Yeah, and that movie has one production company that's very powerful and somehow more powerful than the 38 production companies that made this movie.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

This was like uh when we saw uh Late Night with the Devil. Yep, and I remember like, oh, this certain this certainly is the movie, and it's just like another graphic of a robot jumping into a hole, and you're like, oh, here's a goat in a field. This certainly is the oh no, this is it's just just kept going.

What You Been Doing?

SPEAKER_03 2:37

Sentimental value, same thing. Yeah. This is what any film is now. The it money comes from the government and public funds and from all sorts of places. And not this government. Not no okay. No, no, no. Want to be clear. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not the American government, nothing bad can happen. But it is really cool that it helps an artistic vision keep its integrity exactly as I think the filmmaker really intended in the end, because this is same writer, director, same, same. Yeah. Okay, so Readland, Ben. Yes, outside of watching Readland, Readland, what you've been doing.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

I well, uh, you know, we had the holidays um pass, and I I realize I I haven't really talked about how much I play games on this program. Games, games of all sorts. You know, the video variety, the board variety, the card variety. I over the holiday season, I played a lot of games with some friends and uh with uh Jessica Aaron Martin. We played both of Neil Patrick Harris's puzzle box games called Box One and Box Two. Very fun. I played with a few friends a uh video game called Overcooked. Do you know this game? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where you are running around in a kitchen having to cook up meals and get them out in time, which is a very funny game for me because I worked in a restaurant for many years. It truly brings back PTSD.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

Are you yelling behind and stuff, like while you're playing the game?

SPEAKER_02 4:30

I I have taken on the role of Expediter because that was what I did in restaurants, where I where as orders come on, I will shout out what we need and then sell them, which is what I did. And it's so funny because uh me and my friends will be playing that and like be stressed and communicating, and they'll be they'll be like little pass micro-aggressive, passive, aggressive comments like during the stress, and then we we finish and get to the end of that level and we've we've succeeded, but everyone feels like shit, and I'm like, now you know how it feels like to work in a restaurant.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Is that a dopamine? Is that a dopamine hit of some sort? What is that?

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Yeah, well, it's like you know, it's like when you find the laser focus and you're just like I I remember doing it in restaurants when you get so busy that you're like, surely we're not gonna get out of the weeds, and you do, and there's this sensation of like, yeah, we did it, but I feel like shit, and I'm going to drink myself into a cult. Oh, whoa. I mean, that's kind of why restaurant employees are famously. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Yeah when you said get out of the weeds, I thought get out of the reeds. Because I'm I have a laser focus also. It's Cyclops. I'm trying to I'm leading the way.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Smoking the weeds with your laser focus.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

That also Ben, are you wondering at all what we're doing here?

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Yeah, uh, I am. I am curious because I I feel like if anyone did click on this who hasn't seen Reed Land, they're probably like, what's this? Holy shit, what is this about?

SPEAKER_03 5:56

What is this Scandinavian this Dutch movie from Holland? What are what are we doing talking about this on the review review? Yeah. Well, Ben, I'll tell you. I think someone on a marketing team or publicity team randomly typed movie reviews, improv, uh, inflated sense of self-esteem, whatever. I don't know what all they googled. But somehow they found us, had a very obtuse conversation over email with one of these representatives, and I literally said, This would fit in our format under this specific thing. We're happy to do it, but also like I don't give a shit. I don't give a fuck. Like, are you sure? And they were like, Yeah, sure. Go ahead. Yeah. And you and I communicated about this, and we were like, Yeah, all right, we've given them fair warning. Yeah. In terms of we sure did.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

I mean, this is what our show is, and like they they they said, buckle up, buttercup.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

Yeah, it's time for the bonanza. So we did Ben's Blockbuster Bonanza Time, and Reed Land fits right into that as well. Somehow we're gonna turn this movie into the biggest franchise. It will be the who framed Roger Rabbit, where it was like, How did this happen? I mean, and if you haven't heard that episode yet, look forward to it. I don't know. Yeah, Readland. These folks wanted us to watch it. Uh uh maybe it was who reviews Scandinavian movies and they saw we did let the right one in and did not listen to it.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Oh, clearly they did not listen to it.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

Yeah, we want to be detectives here, podcast true crime detectives like Johan. Yeah, in this film for a little bit. Not that he it's not a podcast thing, he's just a capable guy, he's not meddling. Yeah, he's doing stuff, he's being meddled with. Yeah, yeah. Are are we sure? Are you sure? Because is that is there any clear? Hey Ben, now that we've talked about how we got here, yeah. What have you been watching?

What Are You Watching?

unknown 8:04

What am I watching? What are you watching? What are you watching? What do we watch?

SPEAKER_05 8:13

What do we watch?

SPEAKER_02 8:20

Well, I've been watching a few um uh Netflix shows. Ooh, go on. Um January famously is a dumping ground in the movie theaters uh for movies that sometimes you get some of those award movies that will pop out, but mostly it's not pulling me to the theater. So I've been just watching, I started um Death by Lightning on Netflix. No, I don't know. It's a um it's a mini-series w that is about the presidency of uh Garfield. It is uh directed. Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 8:55

Oh, it's a very lasagna-heavy presidency. He hates Mondays Mondays. Otis is the VP famously. Yeah, I think John's the VP. Otis is the secretary or intern, maybe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Yeah, it's uh it's direct I forget who the creator is, but it's directed by the guy who did Captain Fantastic. It's only like three or four episodes. Okay, and the writing is pretty good. Uh the designs are are pretty strong for a Netflix series, and like especially for a period piece. I didn't really know much about the presidency of Garfield. Do you feel like you do now? Or the VP Chester A. Arthur. The best part about it is the is the acting. It's got incredible actors in it. Uh Michael Shannon plays Garfield, Nick Offerman plays uh Chester A. Arthur, uh Betty Gilpin plays his wife, uh, Bradley Whitford's in it. It's a very well-cast show, and for whatever I think the budget might be, it's well designed for a period piece. So yeah, and the other thing I was watching is this silly game show called What's in the Box hosted by Neil Patrick Harris. Okay. Another Neil Patrick Harris reference today. Okay. Which is basically like a white elephant gift, but if it was a game show. Okay. So they like answer trivia questions, and then if they get a certain amount right, they get to open a gift, and then there's the potential there's wild cards that someone could steal it from them. And so these are like big giant gifts, like uh trip to Finland or you know, designer luggage with a trip to the Mediterranean or something like that. It's kind of trashy, but it's fun, like just to have it on in the background for uh for a trivia game show with with NPH and somebody wins a Skoda or a Sab or whatever, something cool. Oh something fun. There were two cars that were one on it, and they were two electric vehicles that I had not heard of the brand before. It was like uh Is it is it Lotus? Is that no, that's not right. Uh it was like Lucid. Oh, yeah, Lucid.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

I hadn't heard of that before. They're very, very premium, they're quite fancy. Okay. I believe Martin Eberhard and Mark Tarponing, the two gentlemen who founded and invented Tesla, uh-huh, they uh are behind, or at least one of them is behind Lucid potentially. Okay. But they're great cars, I guess. Cool. Well, anyway, that's what we've been watching. Is it disturbing to you at all that the term what's in the box and what that originally refers to is now just part of like hilarious listen to our seven episode.

unknown 11:34

Please do.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

With John O'Matt.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Yeah, I mean, it is it's not lost on me for sure.

SPEAKER_03 11:39

It's so crazy to me. It's so bizarre. What have I been watching? Yeah. I got on a binge of Antiques Roadshow. Ooh, okay. I grew up with that. Yeah, yeah, me too. I also grew up with like Sesame Street and Carmen San Diego and Ghost Rider and Bob Ross and Mr. Rogers and Yan Can Cook and Julia Child and Are You Being Served and Mr. Bean. Okay, and all of these great programs through PBS. And I just think they're so wonderful and they need to be cherished. And I know a lot of the ones I'm just talking about are old you mentioned uh Vice President Chester Arthur. There's also Arthur the whatever the hell that is. He's an Ardvark. Arthur the Artvark. Come on, and teeter, I don't know. Arthur the he's an animal. I knew he was an animal. We got Garfield on the show, we got Arthur on the show. Carmen San Diego, where the hell did she come from? I don't know. San Diego. Oh, well, that makes a hell of a lot of sense. I never thought of it that way. I wanted to talk about those things briefly, and I also wanted to talk about just how that kind of leads into culture. And I watched the documentary about Roger Ebert, a great widely known film critic. Very difficult to watch at times for different reasons, but ultimately really, really lovely and well made and well done and cooperation of not only the Ebert family, but also like producer was Martin Scorsese on that and various other folks. And even his contemporaries that he disagreed with, that there was this massive mutual respect in the community, it seemed, for he and he for they and they for he and etc. etc. And does it go into that was pretty cool?

SPEAKER_02 13:28

Ebert and Siskel's sort of like tete tete. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

It does, yeah. And especially kind of the friendship toward the end of Siskel's life. Okay. And what that what they meant to each other, and that the posthumously spoke folks speaking in this documentary at at times are like, these two men just loved each other, like in the end. The fact that like they hated each other, yeah, but they loved each other, they were in constant competition. And last thing I I want to talk about, a thing that really irked Gene Siskel at times, a movie that I watched uh with the B-Dog with Special K in in Paris and was lucky enough to be there in that situation, and uh put on Kindergarten Cop, a movie that has children in peril and things of that nature and whatever. And I actually really watched it. I get the Kino Lorber 4K for uh the Christmas holiday. Not only is it just like a beautifully shot movie, and it clips right along in terms of the script and it's subverts a lot of expectations, which are great after you know the first act it's playing into them. But aside that, like it kind of seriously tackles the subject of child abuse and spousal abuse. And that's kind of a brave thing that existed in that time when we talk about movies of that ilk of the PGPG 13 rating. Sure, yeah. The kind of teeth that they had, and it's just it's an unnecessarily good movie, and it was a good time re-watching it.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

I haven't seen that in a while.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

I'd like to revisit it. I would happily loan it to you. I need to still watch Memories of a Murder. I I need to I need to loan you kindergarten cop.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Uh uh, Memories of a Murder is going to come up as we talk about this movie.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

Yeah, as we're talking about movies to do with murder mysteries. That's part of why I brought up kindergarten cop. There's you know a little bit, there's a mystery, there's a murder.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Before we move on, follow-up question about the Ebert documentary. Do they talk about how in Godzilla 2000 the mayor is named Mayor Ebert and the and the assistant mayor is Assistant Mayor Siskel?

SPEAKER_03 15:34

No, I wish they did. Do you remember that? Yes, and also Ebert goes into it in his book. Oh, there's one or multiple of his books, and I think to a degree, felt like seemed like he saw it as like a bit of an honor. It's so weird. An honor to be mentioned.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

I remember thinking, oh, this isn't a egregious ask for like a positive review. That's how I felt.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

Oh, I don't disagree necessarily depending on your disposition, but if somebody killed me in an official like Toho co-produced Godzilla movie, I would be fucking thrilled.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Okay, that's fair.

"Reedland" Facts

SPEAKER_03 16:11

I would be thrilled about that. Ben, I think it's time that we talk a little bit about Readland. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Archaeology is the search for facts.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Amongst the many, many production companies, it was produced by Viking Film and the Party Film Sales. It's unrated as of this point, as I could find. I don't know if you have different information there. I know. And IMDB says hour 45, the press kit that we received from Mystery Person that is championing this film, says it's an hour 51. I believe that's what the Vimeo link said to me for the cut that we got.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

Yeah, they might have not included credits in IMDb, but they should.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

Uh they might not have. Or maybe it's different for might have been it might be a different cut in terms of what was submitted and what we saw. So is to be mentioned. What we will not be mentioning is the budget of this film. It is a mystery.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Oh, solve that mystery.

SPEAKER_03 17:20

Yeah. What kind of crazy embezzlement, like money laundering thing is this with all these production companies?

SPEAKER_02 17:27

This episode is brought to you by Mysteries.

SPEAKER_03 17:30

That's mysterious. What that'll be about in the end. What's it gonna be? Who's to say? Is it about San Diego? Ooh. Mysterious. Yeah. We've got to figure that out in perfect harmony with our five friends. The IMDB score of this movie is 6.6 out of 10. It's 82% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the Letterboxd is a fairly favorable 3.3. You can follow us on Letterboxd. I'm at Paul X Badly.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

I'm at Run BMC. Awards and selections for this film. It was a Cannes Film Festival Critics Grand Prix nomination, a New Zealand International Film Festival Best Film Nomination, a Stockholm Film Festival Best Film Nomination, a Gold Hugo Best New Director nomination, and it was submitted for the Oscar Best Foreign Language from the Netherlands.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

And Ben is being specific about that because part of the press kit we received said we are submitting this for consideration for Best Foreign Language Film. And we were like, that's stupendous. So great. And we found out in the meantime that unfortunately they did not make that short list.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

No. That is hard.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

Oh my goodness. One of the most competitive categories ultimately, when you consider what must be submitted and from where.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

As far as I under and I haven't seen them, but as far as I understand it, there is a strong, strong category this year.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Um there's uh The Secret Agent, which I hear is really good. Surat, I hear is another one. Um, and then there's the new uh Park Chan Wuk uh film with the guy from Squid Games.

SPEAKER_03 19:12

Would Sentimental Value be considered for that? Or just best picture overall, maybe?

SPEAKER_02 19:17

I think that was on the best picture.

SPEAKER_03 19:19

I mean, a good chunk of it is in English. Right. Right? So I don't What's the percentage? Yeah, I don't know. We were talking about uh letterboxed breakdowns earlier as we were just discussing letterboxed, and it's like, how does this work that we love crude humor? What exactly does that mean? Satire and crude humor were both of our top genres. Because Sean Penn got a boner in that one movie? Like I like crude humor.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Moses Olsen had a subgenre that was carr. Just car. I was like, is house a subgenre? Did he is shoe a subgenre?

SPEAKER_03 19:56

Did he listen to our maximum overdrive episode and go, yes? Five times in a row. That's trucks. And then listen, and then listen to our speed episode and go, yes, five times in a row. Well, that would just be vehicles. Not car. Yeah. What month was that? Let's skip it. Ben, I'm gonna tell you about some of the people that were involved in this movie. The director and writer of this film is Sven Bresser. The Summer and All the Rest. Free Fight. She used to sing here. Cinematography is Sam Dupont, Champ, Birdland, Zomervacht. Music is Mitchell von Dinter. This is the first available credit for uh Mitchell. Likey de Jung, she used to sing here. Cast, again, these are like non-actor first-time performers. Garrett Gnob as Johan is a reed cutter by trade.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

Which I think is pretty important for the movie with how in detail it shows you the process of cutting reed and someone who doesn't I mean, you know, there are actors who will throw themselves into that for sure, but it's one of the things it's it's a process that I don't think most people know anything about, so it is fascinating to watch.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

I do assume that Sven Bresser has some sort either really immersed themselves in this thing, this profession, and or comes from this generationally something.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

There was a thing I think I saw in the press credits that said uh thank it was in I had to see it in a review that somebody else wrote, but because they translated it, but it said something like, Thank you for finding my story, mom. So I think that there's something very personal in this particular story for him.

SPEAKER_03 21:53

Back to the cast. Lois Reinders was Dana. First credit. Murte Le Brie was Afke, was in a television show called Cramp. And Dirk Brand was the police, I guess, commissioner, and that is small cast. Dirk's first available credit. And it there are a few other people, but it is a very small cast. Can we fun facts? Let's do the fun facts.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Fun facts, fun facts, everybody. It's fun fact time.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Asta La Vista, a horse. This is me, Arnold School. Asta La Vista received fourth billing in the ending credits playing the role of Johan's horse Grease? Grease? Greets? Greets.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

I I'm not I wish I were a beautiful horse. Absolutely gorgeous.

SPEAKER_02 22:48

And the horse is killed or shot. I think it's killed. Something. But the whole time I had to be telling myself that horse is actually fine.

SPEAKER_03 22:59

Usually we just type a bunch of cats.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

Yeah, you do.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

You do. I agree with that.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Because I I struggle, we both struggle with animal things like that. Yeah. Tell people I didn't Google did the horse die. Does the horse die? Does that exist?

SPEAKER_03 23:14

Is that a thing? Is it a sub of Did the dogs die?

SPEAKER_02 23:17

Yeah, it's a subgenre on Letterboxd, horse dying.

SPEAKER_03 23:21

What's in the box?

SPEAKER_02 23:23

It's the horse's head. What's in your bed?

SPEAKER_03 23:25

Yeah, what's in the what's in the bed? We normally do a log line here. Ben, will you just will you give us the premise just because I think the log line's a little too brief?

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Reed Cutter Johan discovers a dead girl on his land and is overcome by an ambiguous guilt. While taking care of his granddaughter, he sets out on a quest to track down evil, but darkness can thrive in unexpected places.

SPEAKER_03 23:50

This is a little more finite about things than I felt in terms of the movie.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

Yeah, I think we could I think we'll get there.

SPEAKER_03 24:02

Is it a quest? Is it if you were to use the definition of a quest or an adventure as a pragmatic Scandinavian, would you say this is a quest?

SPEAKER_02 24:14

I thought it started that way. From I thought it started with a call to adventure. Okay, yeah, yeah.

Brought To You By

SPEAKER_03 24:25

This gets me excited. We are going to go on a break. This is mysterious, I'm feeling. Brought to you by mysteries. Scary stories we tell in the dark. This could be that, which one is told in this movie. Ben, we completed the triangle. We'll be back, we'll play Cinephile, and then we'll talk about Reed Land.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

All the fun things. Attention, Hollywood 1448. Hollywood, the world's quickest theater festival, is back. That is right. We are back. 1448 Hollywood is back for the fourth season. That's right. We've done four years, people, and we are here bringing you some wild, random, chaotic art directly to your eyeballs. No AI involved. What is 1448 Hollywood, you might ask? 1448 Hollywood is a festival, a 48-hour theater festival, where we bring in over 50 theater artists from across the Los Angeles area and beyond to participate and create and write and rehearse and direct and score and tech and light and present 14 plays in only 48 hours. What does that mean? That means on Thursday night we all get together and then our writers will go home that night and each write a 10-minute play, an original play based on a theme that we have chosen at random. They will deliver those plays Friday morning. The directors will pull what play they're doing at random. They'll pull which actors are in their play at random. We rehearse all day. We present those Friday night. Friday night we pull a new theme and the writers go home and write a brand new play. They turn those in Saturday and we do the whole dang thing over again, performing 14 plays in only 48 hours. It is an amazing event. It is a beautiful gathering of creative community. And we just want to share that with you so you can come and check it out at the Broadwater main stage, which is in Hollywood on Santa Monica Boulevard, February 6th and 7th. There are two shows a night, 7:30 p.m. and 9 30 p.m. And guess what? It's pay what you can. We will accept anything. Pocket lint, a million dollars, a quarter, um, a uh advice on what I should do with my hair now that I'm turning 40. That's a good question. I don't know. Should I bleach it? Should I have a uh, you know, should I go crazy? I'm not sure. But anyway, come on by. You'll see me. I'm sure you'll see the burrito. You might see some other folks that you're familiar with from the review review averse. I just made that up. There's a review review averse, and they will be around and you get to be part of this community as an audience member. And if you'd like to participate next year, you should come see it. Come volunteer, come hang out, and then we'll get you in there next year. Anyway, 1448 Hollywood, the world's quickest theater festival, an official company partner with the Broadwater, is performing February 6th and 7th, 2026, 7:30 p.m., 9 30 p.m. Pay what you can, we'll see you there.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

Hey, it's your co-host Paul, reminding you that this episode is literally brought to you by Readland. If not for Readland, we would not be recording this episode. I would not be editing this episode. You would not be listening to this. If it weren't for Readland and our good friends at the party film sales. So don't forget, our Readland episode is brought to you by Readland, written and directed by Sven Bresser. Also, this episode is brought to you by the Review Review. Follow us on Blue Sky and Instagram at ReviewX2 Podcast on Letterboxd at Paul ActsBadly and at Run BMC. Thanks so much. Back to the program. Welcome back, everybody. You didn't see that coming. It's mysterious. You heard it happening. You didn't you couldn't see it coming.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

That is mysterious.

SPEAKER_03 28:15

Yeah. Oh. I didn't oh Professor Plum in the in the reeds. With the the fire, with the fire fire uh fork?

SPEAKER_02 28:27

Dude, yeah, he has the pitchfork. He's walking around it. It's like fully on fire. Dude, I did that shit in like when I was like in high school living out in the sticks, like just pick up fire and move. But I was an idiot.

Cinephile Round

SPEAKER_03 28:39

Oh, I spent some time working on my mom's dad's property when I was a kid. When I got old enough, was like handed a chainsaw, had to take care of horse shit, had to take care of chicken shit, feed some of these animals, help take care of their cats, like all this kind of stuff, as well as like when I got old enough, like they were like, Okay, here gloves and goggles and a chainsaw, follow them. Yeah. And that was just the way it was. So there is a level of just like, oh yeah, like that happens during this movie that maybe you do, like, we're thinking about some of that stuff as well. Yeah, it is an insane, insane amount of work. It's a we don't use AI not intentionally, and that's the thing. Who's to know who's to say on this podcast? But like a lot of time is spent by people doing stuff. You can't AI farm work or or bad fades, terrible, terrible fades and edits. There is a way to help that, I'm sure. What it is, I don't know. Enjoy this marketing team of Reed Land. Do you know Cinephile? I do. This is a game where Ben is gonna have me draw a card, it will have the picture of an actor, the name of that actor, and a movie they were in. I will get a freebie. You get the freebie, yeah. And Ben and I will go back and forth until someone cannot name a film that actor was in, and they will tell their initial rating of Reed Land.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

Shuffle up and deal.

SPEAKER_03 30:09

Ooh, that one take right from the middle.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Just gambit over here. Will Farrell Stepbrothers. Well, we just holidayed it. Some golden elf, baby. Semi-pro. Talladega Knights, the ballad of Ricky Bobby. Stranger than fiction. Ooh. I used to own that movie.

SPEAKER_03 30:33

I own it digitally, so I borrow a lease that is owned by some other entity.

SPEAKER_04 30:39

Anchorman. Anchorman 2, the legend continues. Old school. Zoolander. Mega Mind? Zoolander 2. Oh, is he in Zoolander 2? He is, for certain. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

I was gonna go there and then I got scared.

SPEAKER_04 30:57

You can challenge me.

SPEAKER_02 30:58

No, I believe you. Okay. Um Knight of the Roxberry.

SPEAKER_03 31:06

I think you got me.

unknown 31:08

Yes.

First Viewing Rating

SPEAKER_03 31:09

Yikes. I know there are a million things. Uh wedding crashers. If I would have had just a little more time, but I think it I needed to take the loss there. Speaking of uh this movie, Eurovision. Eurovision. This made me think of that movie. I'm so glad you said that. There is a girl singing where it's like, you got dreams, kid, and it made me think of Eurovision.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

I like that movie.

SPEAKER_03 31:35

What a great movie. Yeah. Great Kristen Wig movie. Yeah. Great Dan Stevens movie. Dan Stevens. Listen to our guest episode. Dan Stevens is great in that movie. He's so fantastic. What a special actor he is. I want to say what special visually the presentation of this movie is. What a special thing the audio of this movie is. In terms of the professional polish, this was made by the people who know what the fuck they're doing. Yeah. And almost every frame is nearly a painting. It's a very, very pretty movie. It is.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

Yeah. I do think we lost maybe some of the quality in the stream in the Vimeo stream.

SPEAKER_03 32:29

No knocks to Vimeo. We don't want you to catch any strays Vimeo, but yeah, some of the encoding was a bit bizarre. Like kind of cool that part of the encoding that it's so hard to make up the way these reeds move in the wind and and what they're showing you in terms of the winds of change. And as that seems to be of quite a recurring theme in this movie. My good God, did I not realize how much my disposition is for American movies? Things that have some sort of tidy kind of wrap-up or some sort of bigger thing at play, and that I deserve to know what that is, and that that is the only that type of thing that really only exists in the movies. You don't get these tidy types of.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

I thought of Lynch.

SPEAKER_03 33:40

Yeah, I thought of Lynch as well. I thought of the straight story uh at a couple different points. And I I even sent you the Eagle Theater at Videots is gonna show the Limey with Terrence Stamp R.I.P. Like I thought about Terrence Stamp so many times looking at Garrett Knob, and not only because he looks like Terrence Stamp, this is a guy with a level of charisma, with a level of command and like an ability, I think, as an actor that a lot of people probably don't have. In that I think this person was so malleable to direction and comfortable with being directed in whatever the environment. This man seemed to be just so comfortable with who he is and being in whatever environment he was in. I ultimately give this movie, and I think this is kind of a generous rating, because I think the movie is massively successful at making me believe or think whatever that something should or could or would happen at any time. There is a level of suspense that exists in this movie that not every movie that wants to capture it can capture, and I think this movie captures it well. Three front loading washing machines. Those don't that's not how that's supposed to work. Yeah, but it it does. But the movie's so quiet. I have a front loading one, yeah, and they do that thing where they do sometimes have to balance a load and there's a banging noise or whatever. Yeah, sure. And also just so much of this movie is told through audio, it's a very lonely, solitary experience. You're having the experience, the experience is uh kind of a voyeur in Johan's life for this period.

SPEAKER_05 35:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:32

Three.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

Okay. It's no surprise we both watch this through video, but I watched it on my you know, my OLED 4K television. Always an hour. There were times that it it was very dark that I couldn't actually see what the image was because the darks on my TV are just no they're so dark. Which is what which is what you want. Which is what you want. I think that's partially the the encoding from Vimeo. It's like it just couldn't can't. It's like the what was the the um that penultimate episode of Game of Thrones, uh the the long night or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 36:14

Talking to the wrong fucking guy, bro. Haven't seen a single episode. Well, yeah. That's not true. I saw the first two. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

I've read the books and seen the movie and everything, so I'm I'm talking to me and all of the good people out there who know what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

You broke the fourth wall and looked right at me. I didn't know you were actually looking at a mirror.

SPEAKER_02 36:33

Well, I don't have anyone else here to talk to. You're the only so I'm gonna talk to these people. You know what I'm talking about. The the HBO, the the penultimate, it was too dark, everyone complained. But when you actually watched it, um, like when it wasn't buffered through some weird encoding and you could watch it on like an actual screen, it looked great. But I missed that in this. I I could tell that there was a lot of attention put towards the photography, and I it is beautiful. I think it's absolutely gorgeous. And um I l love a quiet art house movie. I I mean, I've said on this program already for this year, one of my favorite movies is Train Dreams, which is a very quiet movie. Um, so is Hamnet, a very quiet, slow-paced movie. And I was thinking in terms of this, I the one that the comp that kept coming to my mind was Memories for a Murder, albeit also foreign language, but different foreign language, but it is a sort of quiet small town murder mystery. And I love a murder mystery, and I love how this movie starts, and I've I've I'm really drawn into the sort of Laura Palmer of it and the question marks around around the death, and I think it's hard for me because Lynch does this too, where he sets you up with the ideas of what you with expectations and then and then purposely subverts them or doesn't satisfy you in the way that you wanna be. In in it and and that's also about understanding the genre and really like leaning into further into whether for Lynch it's absurdity or reality, or sort of a weird combination of both. And I think this movie does sort of a similar thing in terms of like living somewhere in uh having these absurd realistic moments of like yeah, you do have two horses fucking that's how you make another horse, and this movie like shows you that pretty brutally.

SPEAKER_03 38:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Um what I wanted more from this movie for me was a little bit more drive. I I felt like the mystery was sort of like introduced and it kind of became an afterthought at some point. And I felt like it it's it I stopped, I stopped really. I don't want to say I stopped caring because I didn't stop caring, but I stopped understanding, I suppose, um what this particular story was now about.

SPEAKER_03 39:17

Okay.

Start The Movie (discussion)

SPEAKER_02 39:17

And I wanted the mystery to have more not to say I needed it to be solved, not to say that I needed it to go like crazy knives out shit. I just needed I just think I needed a little bit more drive in that direction. So I'm sitting currently at a two and a half horses fucking. Cause that horse, this the the the male horse, he's basically two and a half, if you know what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 39:47

He g he gives it to Hey, have you ever seen I'd like to get off. I don't feel comfortable. Well, the the read marketing people right now are like, who did we reach out to? I'd like to get off now. Okay, we're at a three front loading washing machines and two and a half horses fucking. Let's let's talk about Reed Land.

SPEAKER_06 40:11

Get a kill of a movie!

SPEAKER_01 40:19

No. A feature presentation.

SPEAKER_03 40:24

Right up front. A million production companies. Yeah. Did you notice that one of them was BNP periba, which as far as I know is related to tennis? Oh, interesting. So if that was this, was this brought to us in part by tennis? That's mysterious. I am I that's a mystery I want to solve by this. I would like to. I I'm with you though. You mentioned Twin Peaks and David Lynch, and I mentioned uh the straight story at a point. I don't know if we were recording. Yeah, I think you were if you hear that again. Sorry. When he's just cutting the reeds, the atmosphere is so that's what I get more so in terms of of Twin Peaks, is there is this atmospheric thing that grabs me that this place that he exists solitary as it is, etc., is incredible. And the movie very clearly wants to make one of its themes nature and and nurture and respecting the land and relationship with nature and right.

SPEAKER_02 41:39

Yeah, I the um I mean obviously just like photography-wise, the the fires and the smoke and the the controlled fires, and like clearly this person is very skilled at this and does this a lot. I got stressed, but yeah, as someone as we were sitting here uh almost one year uh away from what occurred here in LA, like I was watching these piles of fire and all this smoke and thinking about all the reed that's surrounding him. And I'm just like, how do you how are you containing this? How is a spark not getting like and watching the fires like watching those piles of reeds and it's an ongoing thing in the movie burn is actually fascinating and beautiful to watch it like collapses on itself, it's almost like lava churning on itself.

SPEAKER_03 42:26

It's it's quite striking. I I also love the visual storytelling that happens in this movie. In that first clump of the movie where he's cutting the reeds, and uh you notice he's doing everything manually by hand very quickly, and he uh like a plane or something flies over, and he's not happy about that. You you can tell by his face, as the very little expression that he makes, he's so subtle. He I think he's so good. Yeah, that he's just like, Oh no, this like he hates all of this stuff. As my grandfather used to say, yuppies, yuppies, what do they call them? Tutors in this tutors, yeah, something like that, trotters.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

When that first came up, I was like, is this a thing that I am fully in the dark on?

SPEAKER_03 43:14

I looked it up before the girl explained it, right after the word is used. I felt like such a dipshit, checking like, what does this mean? You and I have uh worked land before, mowed stuff or fed animals or whatever this is. You just get to a level of need or accomplishment or whatever, and you just like the natural part of you is just like, I just gotta pee. I'm gonna pee. Uh small anecdote.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

I I mean, I grew up in the middle of the wetlands. We had property, and like I grew up with my dad just peeing anywhere on our property. Like, yeah, we're not there's nobody, there's no house next to us. One of my first times, I think the first time I brought Jess over to my dad's house. Oh no, we were leaving the house. No, and I I think I can solve this mission. She got into the car and I was like, hold on, I gotta pee. And I just like popped over to a tree up to the side of the driveway. And to me, I'm like, What's the big deal? And she didn't she didn't bring it up until actually more recently. I mean, we've been together for however many years, but she was just like, Do you remember when you like just peed over there by the tree? And I was like, Yeah, she's like, That's not a thing people do. I think they do, I think they do.

SPEAKER_03 44:25

I mean, there's a level of decorum I think maybe you and I don't have. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 44:29

I mean, now as like we're not proper enough. As someone who goes outdoors camping, like that is a thing people do, yeah. You and I I get it. Like if you're if you have like genitive to that's that's easier to stand. Oh, sure. That's that's a whole different thing, sure.

SPEAKER_03 44:45

Absolutely. So the he's doing all this burning and peeing and cutting, and we're just going through this guy's day. This is normally a thing that you know I've been told I I'm primarily an actor, but I've been told as a writer, like, don't just write people like going about their day. I don't know. It with this movie, it's kind of fascinating to me what he's eating, the way he's eating it, like how how comfortable this person is in their solitary life, like the level of loneliness and how he's just like, okay, and then a car arrives. Yeah. And I don't know if I should feel I don't know how to feel about that. Do you feel stressed about it? Like when the that like that's already a level of mystery to me.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

The the thing that I was thinking about watching him go throughout his day and like build, I was thinking a little bit of how Vince Gilligan sometimes opens his mo his shows, his series like Breaking Bad or episodes of Better Call Saul, where it'll start with something that just feels completely out of left field or like a mundane process of some kind. Yeah. And you're like, what am I, what is this? What am I watching?

SPEAKER_03 45:56

Why am I excited by a car arriving?

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Yeah, yeah. And I I I think it is like uh one of my professors used to say, drama occurs when an outside force disrupts a utopia. And I think, like in this case, you could say this man working on this farm is a cycle, it's his own utopia, and an outside force pops the bubble.

SPEAKER_03 46:15

I agree with you. I I think it does it so effectively. On yeah, essentially, we don't know the budget of this movie, but like a dollar in a dream. Yeah. Uh these are very skilled people using good equipment and knowing what they're using and how to use it. There's no question there. We meet some of Johan's family. Well, we don't really meet his daughter ever, but his granddaughter is staying with him.

SPEAKER_02 46:40

And we learn the backstory through her that his wife is past. Yeah. And the horse is the sort of like tying the thing that ties him to his ex his um he's a widower and his ex or his wife is past, and so the horse is like their connection. It was like his wife's horse.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

Yeah, and I don't know if it ever specifically says she with without being super blatant being like she died. I don't think it ever does that. It's just like very plain and easy to understand. Again, it's very pragmatic and banal in this very what feels to me like very Scandinavian way that's like totally working for me. Yeah. He does breakfast with the granddaughter, and she immediately is like, Can I watch TV? And there's a level of him being like, you can tell there's a level of disdain, like, yeah, fine TV, whatever. But but I mean, he has one, like he has the internet, he has these things.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

Like, well, I mean, I don't know if I totally agree that he just doesn't because we learn in a little bit, like, there are parts of technology that he is that he is succumbs to. Oh yeah. Uh word choice. Uh oh boy. But uh the do you ever find this sometimes in foreign language films, like especially breakfast, to watch what they're eating and be like, what the fuck is that? What do you do in these other countries?

SPEAKER_03 48:11

Like, it's is he eating two potatoes and and like some sort of like delicious sauce I've never heard of? Like that should that I need to know what this is? Yeah. Do I need to Google what like what he have Johan have dinner read land?

SPEAKER_02 48:28

Ask uh ask your AI girlfriend.

SPEAKER_03 48:32

I am not putting in my credit card number. Okay, maybe I am.

SPEAKER_02 48:37

I mean, you got free boobs without the credit card number. I was like, whoa.

SPEAKER_03 48:41

But like, is that something to be concerned about? That's a theme that happens in this movie. Is we find that this girl is dead on Johan's property.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

Some young girl, not and it seems like a small town because they very he we see him at the funeral, but yeah, he discovers in the reeds that she's clearly been like sexually assaulted and murdered, and this is where I came to like a thinking it was we're going in the Twin Peaks direction.

SPEAKER_03 49:09

Yeah, felt very Laura Palmer and the weather has changed.

SPEAKER_02 49:13

Yeah, that's a theme in this movie. Yeah, I I do think for me that there are times that we linger in shots, especially in the wind and the re in the like I feel like we linger in them too much. Yep, I agree. And it for me it really kills some of the tension. Yeah. I and I want I this is why I'm coming back to wanting more drive, is like I just I I wanted the movie to and I I kept thinking this too. I'm like, is this a lost in translation sort of thing? Am I yeah, and is is there just a different expectation for me?

SPEAKER_03 49:47

I agree. I'm gonna bring up my end of that more so toward the end of the movie. Yeah, I'm gonna kind of save that, but we're feel we're feeling the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 49:54

I know you haven't watched it yet, but I think if you watch Memories of a Murder, you will understand what I'm what what I'm saying into the what kind of because that also leans absurd. Of course it does, right? Bang Jin Ho is is a weirdo, but a different kind of it's a different country. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 50:09

There's a level uh of like where I thought about Parasite and I thought about mother while I was watching about this movie. I thought about a lot of great things that exist in this genre, which I think is uh to its credit. Like, I I don't think it does any of these things like overtly. I'm sure some of it isn't even necessarily an homage, it's just a thing that like it triggers something in my brain, which uh for me is mostly pleasant, right? Yeah, and as we're talking about like a dead girl and twin peaks, it's mostly pleasant. I mean, the girl even looks a little like Laura Palmer when we see a photo of her at a point. Like the cops get involved in this whole thing, and Johan sees the drone, and I think is again like this is the world we're in. Yeah, yeah. There, I do think there's a level of him not loving technology, but he goes and picks up his granddaughter after the cops use the drone mostly, I guess, to investigate the situation in the reeds, and and the way they're searching for potential suspects, clues, like where he found the path and the broken reeds or whatever of the whatever went through there a walking path, uh a riding path. Yeah, whatever it was. The movie does a lot to try to tell you what's going to happen or how it's gonna happen, or whatever, with uh visualization, it's like the hippos fighting on the TV, yeah. And it does again it lingers in some of these things. Like, I I would love an edit of this movie that is like 15 or 20 minutes faster.

SPEAKER_02 51:40

And again, I think I I kept coming back to like, is there a a lost because I love Let the Right One In, but it does something similar in terms of in terms of like in its pace and it's famously that director, I don't remember his name from Let the Right One In. I can't in this moment, but did Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, uh-huh. Um, which there was a Alfredson? No, uh maybe I don't know, but there was a huge, I remember, like, disconnect on that film between all of the British actors and him because he does not speak English, and they didn't understand what he meant with this like slow, drawn out pace.

SPEAKER_03 52:19

Yeah, there's a level of I think kind of having to deal with how basic and kind of like depressing living in like the like, yeah, this is what happens when you're like eating breakfast alone, yeah, and not listening to the radio, or like this is what it is, and there's uh something that feels so insanely serious as it should when this single person is dead, like it feels like a driving force that that does lose some momentum at times, Ben, as as you're saying, where suddenly there is this storyline about the the politics of the land that people are getting reads from, and what land is being cultivated by whom and how it gets like so much in the details, like in the reeds.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

In the reeds, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:06

It's a dick. It becomes a little bit difficult to follow. And the the American disposition of me is like, well, I want this to be like somehow this girl got killed because she knew something about how this corporation was taking advantage. Like, I mean that's what I want something to like, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:26

Because we're expect like, yes, we and especially like coming from a noir or something like that, where you you get these sort of like tying together. I'm not gonna say like I just think this movie is is very atmospheric, it's very visual, yeah, but I I think it lacks in story and it lacks in script for me. Like, if you were to look at this script, I think it would primarily be a breakdown of the visuals and what the character is doing, and not necessarily like dialogue and story.

SPEAKER_03 53:59

It's making you deal with the moments in between that are not like necessarily interesting. I feel like I live there too too much. Like in your life, yeah, like in life, like where I love the the movement in and around cars in this movie.

SPEAKER_02 54:16

Is this a subgenre?

SPEAKER_03 54:18

Uh yeah, it is a nano genre. Like suddenly the car turns right, suddenly something flies at the car, suddenly someone's barreling down at the car.

SPEAKER_02 54:26

The rain on the car when he's driving the other girl home.

SPEAKER_03 54:29

Yeah, very effective.

SPEAKER_02 54:31

Like as the movie, as it starts to unfold, like he is trying to solve this a little bit. Like he's he's kind of on this path to figure out what could have happened. The cops kind of interrogate him. Um, and then there's this weird side quest where he jerks off to an AI girl.

SPEAKER_03 54:49

Yeah, don't for hey, don't forget about the cake farts. Oh, the cake farts. Don't forget about the cake farts. I didn't so the AI girl though, like I do love that he tells this bedtime story to the granddaughter, and I love I like their relationship quite a bit. Oh, yeah, that is really nice. It's very sweet. Yeah, I I'm with you in like the AI thing is like such a crazy left turn crazy that I don't expect that. Does that is that kind of how it is? Is that how it exists? Like, I don't know. Is my internet different?

SPEAKER_02 55:21

Well, uh what I think it yeah, I I well I I think that was an actual actress with like an overlay, like some weird graphic overlay. This is where I felt like the movie was now trying to give was trying to give me the unease of Johan.

SPEAKER_03 55:36

I agree. Because he like blacks out while he's after he climaxes to the coming to a decision if he's gonna pay the 995 or not. He decides not to. He passes out and it kind of drives forward that he wakes up in an awkward time that he wouldn't normally wake up, and he hears these dirt bikes, yeah, or dirt a dirt bike, and goes out. And is there a level of like, is he really seeing this dirt bike or not? Did this really happen? Like, that's the thing I think that the movie is trying to float. Like, is there a greater conspiracy? Is there not? And that's what it you're kind of I feel like talking about a little bit with like the the driver of the movie and it and it maybe lacking, or where is the movie going at this point? Is like where are we?

SPEAKER_02 56:25

And and if you're gonna introduce this idea that maybe Johan is an untrustworthy uh protagonist or what have you, that's interesting because you know it's it's similar to in some ways, you know, like it's similar to you know, knives out in that way or or um uh memento. Um oh yeah. Where you're like, oh, it maybe this person is the bad guy or did something.

Meet Me Halfway (through the movie)

SPEAKER_03 56:51

Is there some cognitive thing that's happening with him cross my mind a couple different times? I feel like it it kind of just like touches it with its toes and then goes, uh, maybe, maybe. You know, I will say I like that he asked the the neighbors that are helping him with his granddaughter while she's visiting him or whatever's happening, yeah. Where he kind of just asks, like, Do you know anybody who has a dirt bike after he sees this thing? Yeah, and that's what drives him to the neighbor's farm, the neighbors who were not angry when the like like land grubby people showed up, and Johannes found this oil that I assume comes from the dirt bike that was on his property. It must be that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:34

I was like, because it's a deep puddle of oil.

SPEAKER_03 57:36

Yeah, it's like is there oil on this land?

SPEAKER_02 57:39

Is that why the corporation's involved? What's happening? Yeah, I think this is where I felt lost in the reeds a little bit, is yeah, is when I started to go, what am I, what thread, which read am I following here? I feel the same way, and I don't feel like it focused down at all. It it kind of just because then we got the whole side quest with the school plays, and like yeah, and I get that it was visually stunning, like the whole school, and like I felt, but it felt like and this is I'm not trying to make like it just felt really art house for the sake of arthouse at times.

SPEAKER_03 58:13

I I do like counterpoint. I like in terms of the school play, like, yeah, sure, a school play would maybe be happening. I like that when the granddaughter is suddenly out of the car, he and me as an audience member, I'm like, oh my god, where is she? Did somebody take her? If you've seen the movie The Vanishing, yeah. That that I'm like, oh my god, where holy shit, what's happening? Just like in most cases, she's right there. Yeah, I do like that it does that, and I like in terms of the hippo, in terms of the versatility of the reads and what he can do. It's as an old school craftsman, where it's like, I'm not gonna pay the$9.99, I can do it myself. Like, I can get this done myself, and that totally works. I I it is interesting and a little bit weird and difficult where it's like he sees this girl dead on his property and a sexual assault has happened. He sees this AI thing, he gets his prize horse to fuck. Yep, and we see that horse fucking baby. Like, and oh, yeah. In this moment, I'm like, I'd like to get off now. Like, I do want the movie to speed up, I want that horse to speed the fuck up.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

Like, it's a very popular movie in Enum Claw for some reason.

SPEAKER_03 59:26

Equus and this are the two most popular pieces of media.

SPEAKER_02 59:30

Porn for animals.

SPEAKER_03 59:32

I will say, it doesn't look like any of the men are like super comfortable or proud or happy that this is happening until money's counted out.

SPEAKER_02 59:39

But I'm sure those like again, I if a lot of non actors in this, I'm sure that's like those guys' jobs.

SPEAKER_03 59:44

That's how people make money. Yeah. I have family members that ran a catery that specifically did Burmese cats and made sure to do ethical breeding for that specific cat. And I'm sure that there are people that do this with horses and stuff. As well. Oh, yeah. Like we were talking about, there's a little bit of a disconnect that happened. And desperately, when he picks up girl the singing Eurovision girl. Oh, right. I get the feeling that like he's been inundated with all this sexual imagery that like I the movie is really effective at this. It's not fucking uncut gems or something, but I'm like, what could happen here? Is he gonna snap? Is he gonna do something that I don't want him to do? I don't want him to be the bad guy. I I will say this movie is so good at desperately, desperately making me want him as the protagonist, as the good guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:40

Yeah, that is a moment of tension for sure. And the way they orchestrate the rain and the that's a moment that felt again. I don't feel like I ever got an answer, and maybe maybe that's the point.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:53

Yep, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:54

Um there's also him throwing the rock into the uh into the water.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:59

Yeah, there's stuff that I don't when he goes and gets gas at the petter's farm. I think just to like there's so much about gas and oil and stuff that happens.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:13

There's like a it repeats there's a dozen life. And there's a um like a conflict here, like the the other farmer, like the guy in the um in the uh John Deere that's like coming up on his riding his ass.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:26

Which is is Petter the Petter's farm, his neighbor with the creepy old lady who loves the sun, and uh the S-U-N and the old man and the son S-O-N who have to kill the horse the uh cow, right, because it has a bad liver, and again, this is farm life, this is how this works. But when the son has to get him gas, and it's like Johan, I think, is pretty sure at this point that this is the guy because he's seen the dirt bike, right? Where he's gone around on their farm and found this dirt bike, and in the a rock gets put in your fucking washing machine, and a rock just like being taken way out of the way to a pond? What and I didn't understand that, and then diving in to get it?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:21

I did not understand. Uh maybe I got maybe I missed something, but I I also am like, what is the significance of this rock? I was he gonna get fingerprints off of it? Did is it the thing that killed the the girl? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:35

That's a good did he do it himself? That that's what I kept coming back to. And and the petter's son is the guy in the John Deere tractor for certain. Like he's headed back to the farm at a point, and that's the another recurring thing is this tractor technology barreling down is like Johan has like a late 90s or early 2000s, as this is present day, I think. Like I think somewhere right around present day.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:00

Well, yeah, because the girl says her phone died, so they they have phones, they have cell phones.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:04

Johan uses a cell phone at a point, yeah. But the petters, the neighbor's farmer son is constantly it's probably a petter ass dude. Petter ass, dude. Fucking A. Yeah. But eight-year-olds, dude. Yeah, the eight-year-olds in hippo costumes. Yeah. Again, this is uh I certainly hope every single fucking play in the Netherlands in Holland. Is it so fucking good?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:32

It's really cool. The designs on the on the hippos and the other and the and the hippo masks, it made me think of uh this is a deep cut, but it's a Ionesco absurdist play called the Rhinoceros.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:43

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:44

Uh and like it's just this, yeah. Anyway, I I thought about that while watching this because it it felt very absurd and theatrical, and it was beautifully shot, and those designs are really cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:54

I was gonna say Titus Anthony Hopkins. Like I got a little bit of that. Which yeah, this movie again, I don't think it's necessarily trying, and if it's trying, Sven Bresser, what a deft hand.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:07

In terms of all this stuff, it it kind of sneaks up on you.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:11

It makes me, for me, I feel, and and I guess again, I think that I'm a dumb American who watches dumb America shit like What's in the Box with Neil Patrick Harris. So, like, maybe y'all listen to this and we're like, oh, we're out. But I want to say that like I think that Sven Bresser is an incredible director. Yeah. My issue comes back to for me, screenplay and editing. Yes, 100%. These are the things that I have issues with.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:44

The I think it's in this movie's absolute strength to be an hour and 33 minutes or some odd, like something like that. I think the point still gets across, or the lack thereof, as you've mentioned. I I think there are things that you like have to keep that are so weird. It's like the thing with the rock, I don't want to rewrite anybody's work. We try not to do that here. The thing with the rock, like, let the thing with the rock happen, I guess, if it needs to happen. It is like there is a level of interesting like that it happens when he does the laundry. But instead of him going out to the pond to throw the rock away, show him getting a new one delivered or him buying and installing a new one or something like that. And and I do love that it's not something with him that's it doesn't seem like it's something that's cognitive. He still sees seems to fully have it together when he does the play as as he doesn't want to do, and it's so beautiful. It's very sweet. And in in terms of non-actors, fucking 5,000 reads, a thousand claps, Eurovision superstar. That girl is fucking great doing that song. She's so good, and I now feel very calm again about Johan as he clearly suspects the young men that are there watching her.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:01

And the trotters or trotors or whatever they are. And I would have laughed at him just it cutting to him having a new washing machine. I would have laughed at that. So sue me for rewriting that. Something I wouldn't rewrite, a perfect cut in this movie. Hour 34 and 34 seconds when it cuts to the one boy, and I know you'll know who I'm talking about when I go the dark-haired kid.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:24

Paula's making uh what can only be described as a dumb meh face.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:30

Stallone. Yeah, kind of stallone. Stallone smile, Stallone Baloney. And Johan, as the movie does, constantly, he just goes back to what he knows. Cutting and burning reeds. He's making no money on it. Yeah. He's getting fucked over. People are destroying their lands.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:49

I love that tool that like uh levels levels the bottom of the reeds and like just takes off a lot. It made me it just made me fascinated in the pro it was almost like a documentary of reed cutting.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:02

It's it's great at times. Like I think of Days of Heaven. There are things that make me think of like Ken Bernsian, yeah, like a lot of shit that I really love. This is part of why I give it the three, where it's like I had a really good time overall watching this once, and part of it is like it there is a level of of suspense that it keeps, like with the tractor where it finally is clearly running them down. They've had to avoid this tractor a couple times or whatever at points, it's running them down in reverse or or whatever, because Johan runs to his property and he's been paid for his horse to. And I don't know if the horse got shot or just poked in the neck. It's never explained if the horse dies. Yeah, it's not, but it looks it doesn't look like it's you you assume it's not gonna have the baby, if nothing else. And like it's tough to watch. It is, yeah. And we know that that's the petter's son that we assume now. We're back to this, killed the girl.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:04

Assume, and is like threatening him for being onto them, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:10

I I think more than anything, like leave us alone is the cops are like, we stay out of it, it has nothing to do with you, and again leads me to like, is there a greater conspiracy?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:20

Are they paid off or does it matter?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:22

Right, yeah. And Johan chases him down and chokes him within an inch of his life. Oh, yeah. I thought he was gonna kill him for sure. And there is a level of like where I'm like, yeah, where it's like that's an ending. Yeah, if nothing else, that's an ending. But he lets him go, and Johan goes back to cutting his reads. Yeah, it goes back to what he knows, and I Ben. The main thing that sticks out to me as we're coming to our final ratings here. None of the threads get closed. I know. And I know in life a lot of threads don't get closed, and maybe that's you and I being dumb Americans and not understanding that that's just not how life works. But I needed that in this movie. There are too many things happening.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:06

Yeah, I mean, I think for me it's like it just it lacks in a in a it lacks in a cinematic satisfactory satisfactory ending. I I don't get any I don't get anything. I don't get anything. I get I guess if this was like a series or something that like maybe there's more to be told.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:30

That says something. But you're willing to say that.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:33

Well, I mean he's gonna appear in Doomsday, so it's unavoidable now.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:40

Oh shit, they got the reed cutter. It's over now. He gonna snap that thing. I uh we're with each other a lot on this movie. Do we flip a coin? Do we snap to decide who gives their final rating?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:57

Yes, yeah. Let's uh let's flip this card. I'll I'll do it. I'll flip the card.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:01

Flip it.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:02

What do you want, heads or tails?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:03

Flip it. You the kind of flip deck kind of do don't shen go down share. It's tails. All right, marchery yeah, woven the clothes and the thing it's uh you got to read with that. Were you Jean-Claude Van Damme? Slash Channing Tatum, slash who the fuck knows what? Johan from Reed Land. Morph. I liked this movie. I am so glad that someone approached me about this movie and was like, you should watch this. Yeah. Your opinion would be great if you're hearing this. Praise the Lord. I'm a huge David Lynch person. I love Inland Empire, and I love the straight story. I'm gonna be like, you need to fucking see Reed Land.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:51

Yeah, it's like David Lynch meets Terrence Mallet.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:54

Yeah, so specific, and that's great, and I think it's really successful in a lot of that. I just have trouble with more than anything, kind of the it's great that there's this cut to this kid that's like and it's great that there's this farting thing that happens at a point, but the movie has like no levity, it is yeah, real fucking thick. Yeah, it's not necessarily a difficult watch, but it is a taxing watch in that what Ben said that like it takes a really long time to make cuts, and I get that life is like that, but I don't necessarily need this stark reminder. Sometimes our movies are a nice escape from that that I can enjoy. Yeah, that said, I did enjoy the movie, and the audio and video experience, despite some of the Vimeo Link issues, fucking rules. It's really, really good stuff that's done with smoke and the orange moon and all this other shit. As much as there's a part of me that would come down, there's another part of me that's like, yeah, I get why it's been considered for some of these awards and why I haven't seen everything that's come out of the Netherlands uh in 2025. But like, yeah, absolutely submit this for major awards. Sure, why not? So a lot of people are probably gonna like that this isn't wrapped up in a nice, neat little package, little box. Whatever the mystery is inside there, who's to tell? What's in the box? Ben, tell me what rating do you have in the box? So to be clear, you're still three front load washers.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:34

Three front load washers, okay. I think for me, like it it's a real shame that this movie came out in the year of train dreams. Oh.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:44

Because I th I just You don't feel like it it's almost like complimentary that these two things exist in a similar time, and like so many things that we've talked about that are so good.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:56

I I think the problem is that what uh what train dreams does, because train dreams and hamnet in some degree do uh do a thing of lingering in these beautiful environmental shots and really like uh giving us um beautiful photography simul the both those movies are about grief. And also Train Dreams. I'm not this is not a spoiler because I know you haven't seen it yet, but it it there is a lot of potentially unanswered questions um in that movie. I think that like I still walk away from that movie feeling very satisfied with the experience.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:34

Thin red line, another Malik movie. I agree with you. There are things that just have tree of life that have uh it touches on these things, but it doesn't touch the things that these things touch.

Final Ratings

SPEAKER_02 1:13:45

Yeah, because I think what ultimately I come away feeling unsat like dissatisfied. I don't I don't feel like my time in investing into this story goes anywhere. I don't feel like I get I get return on investment, like it it just kind of feels like there was there there was a a concept, an idea, and story drive was not necessarily the the thing that was gonna be focused on, which is fine if that's what you want to make. And I'm not like I think that Sven Bresser what came out making the movie that he wants to make, and I think that like there's nothing accidental in this film, and that's a credit to the filmmaker.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:27

And the fact that these are people that are again not actors, and like it has this extremely voyeuristic feel. Yeah, I we've gone back and forth about this. Are you still at the two and a half, or did I lose you a little bit?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:40

I'm gonna stick at two and a half. I think that the I I I considered going down, but I do think that there is there is a lot of like really fascinating, mysterious imagery in this that keeps you drawn in at times and keeps you uh it does keep you watching. It just it just feels like you get you don't get to you don't get to pass out after you climb that.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:14

It does keep things spicy enough between some of these extremely like long periods between edits of just existential, this is nature, respect the land, things that I agree with. I lastly just want to say I would say that Sven Bresser, somebody to keep a fucking eye out for. Oh, absolutely. Like, I don't know if this is it looked like first feature length, like holy shit, balls. Wow. Yeah. Way to go. No mystery there.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:47

And your cinematographer, uh oh my goodness, my goodness. And the music. I mean, there was a lot of stuff in this that technically the movie's great.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:55

There's a lot of audio stuff, audio engineering, foley, and stuff that's like in the mix that is like fucking great and done really, really well. Is there anyone or anything else you'd like to talk about, Benjamin?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:08

Is there anyone or anything else I'd like to talk about? No. I think you know, if you're listening to us for the first time, keep listening. This is not really what we do. So, like, our our normal format is that we have a guest and that guest will bring us a movie that they want to revisit, and we watch that and come together and talk about our experiences with that movie. Usually something older. We do a lot in 90s, early 2000s, 80s. Sometimes we did a sweaty 70s summer. Um, but if you're into movies and you're into a couple of people who think they're really funny and think they know what they're talking about. I mean, what the fuck do we know what you're talking about? These guys, this guy's way more talented than that.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:46

Garrett Knob is hilarious, sir. Yeah. You don't know who you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:51

You're right. I'm sorry, Garrett Nob.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:55

I thought he was Knubb?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:58

Knub? Knob. Sorry. We're we're American.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:02

Yeah, sorry about it. Either way, uh, it's Paul breaking in from the edit. We ended with Paul at three front loading washing machines out of a total possible five, and Ben with a two and a half out of five possible horses fucking. That's just a horse orgy. That's a horgy. Our themes on the bookends are Jamie Henwood. What you've been doing and what you've been watching are Matthew Foskett. Fun facts is Chris Old. Follow us, listen to us, review us, share us with your friends and family. This is a labor of love. Don't hesitate to subscribe, subscribe, subscribe, text us, email us. That's how we found this movie. It's true. We're emailed. I hope this movie ends up on Canopy. Uh, check us out on Good Pods if you haven't chosen a platform to listen to your podcasts at. That's no mystery. We like them. We hope you have a great time uh watching Readland or doing whatever it is you might do. Listen to our retrospect because so many episodes.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:07

Bye. Bye, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:10

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.