004 Adaptation

In this episode we discuss Spike Jonze’s film Adaptation starring Nicholas Cage, Meryl Streep, and Chris Cooper.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Welcome to Filing. Please don't call it a podcast, and please don't call it the Filling Cast. Although we do aim to fill you with inspiration to watch this episode's movie, this is the Filing Cast, and it is here where we love to think and rap about our love of cinema. I'm Sean Patrick, and I'll be joined shortly by my co-host with the Momoast, Brandon Mitchell. We are ideaphiles, storyphiles, and cinophiles. Our aim is to share those loves and understand their value and importance in our lives with each other and everyone who listens. But first, everybody's favorite part of the cast, the disclaimers. Our discussion might be a broad and detailed spoiler, so if you're the type that's worried about that sort of thing, stop the cast right now. Go watch this episode's movie and return to filing to hear our thoughts and feelings. Please note there is some occasional static and unintended noise during this episode. It is subtle. We get reverent in this episode. So if we sound a little solemn or maybe a little sleepy, it's because we're in deep thought and full of respect for this episode's movie. But if you find yourself nodding off, make this episode a themed reaction game. Every time one of us uses the adjective super, do 10 push-ups as fast as you dare. And for a super bonus, if you hear Brandon's automatic cat feeder in the background of our discussion, slam a protein shake. This episode is part three of the After the Life inspiration series, which is a collection of movie reviews intended to inspire the production of an original movie titled The After the Life The Movie. The After the Life The Movie is currently being produced and will screen at an event called The Fest 2026 on July 18th. Go to the Fest2026.com for details about the event. In this episode, we discuss the American movie Adaptation. Adaptation is a story about a screenwriter, Charlie Kaufman, who's hired to adapt the nonfiction novel, The Orchid Thief, into a fictional screenplay. Charlie is tormented by his desire to write something original, something not cliche, but he is distracted by his neurotic self-loathing, hindered by his passivity, and ultimately defiant of his own human nature. Charlie describes himself as old, fat, bald, foolish, anxious, pathetic, repugnant, ridiculous, repulsive, narcissistic, solipsistic, and ugly. Charlie tries to motivate himself to exercise, to get a girlfriend, to fall in love, to cut his hair and not worry about people seeing his bald head, to learn a foreign language like Russian or Chinese, and learn how to play a musical instrument like the oboe. Charlie struggles to adapt the story of the orchid thief into a screenplay. The struggle paralyzes him. The paralysis fuels the self-loathing, which fuels the passivity, which fuels the self-loathing, which fuels the passivity, and on and on. This cycle inspires Charlie to ask the question. What if a writer is attempting to create a story where nothing much happens, where people don't change, they don't have any epiphanies, they struggle and are frustrated, and nothing is resolved. Charlie proceeds to write himself into the screenplay as the lead character. Adaptation is an actual adaptation of Susan Orleans' novel, The Orchid Thief. Charlie Kaufman is an actual screenwriter. Nicholas Cage plays him in the movie. But the movie is more than a straight adaptation of a novel. It's a story about the creative writing process. It's a story about writing the screenplay adaptation. And it's a story about adapting. And understanding our nature. And doing what we are designed to do. The theme of adaptation is change during the pursuit of creative human values, namely art and romance. The plot theme or central conflict is the inner psychological struggle of a writer, or Charlie versus Charlie. The value of the movie's portrayal of this theme and conflict is the epiphanic understanding that change is human nature, that choice is human nature. Inevitably, we will all change. Some of that change, the best type of change that sets us on a course to create and achieve is what we choose. The character John LaRoche, played by Chris Cooper, when describing the relationship of a honeybee and a flower, says, by simply doing what they're designed to do, something large and magnificent happens. The character Robert McKee, played by Brian Cox, when talking to Charlie about his struggles, says, Your characters must change. And the change must come from them. This is important. It means we are not fated. We are not determined. We're designed to think and choose our path. To be happy, we must do both. So let's file it.

SPEAKER_08 5:52

Don't call it a podcast. This is broader than pods. We're rapping about pods in the movies. We lied. We're talking about the art, meaning of cinema things. The filing cast is following the in-between your ears.

SPEAKER_04 6:04

Definitely definitely love is an important theme in it. Yeah. You know, it's um the overall lesson learned in the movie.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

You know, very literally, because it's and contrary to Charlie Coffin's original desires. Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Yeah, love is a core concept. I meant to note that. So I'm glad you mentioned, I'm glad you mentioned that. I created a scene list, my own scene list of the movie, and searched within it for the concept love, and I think it appeared like 20 times.

SPEAKER_04 6:54

But yeah, I do think, you know, the the internal struggle is definitely part of it, and it's interesting because I haven't seen this movie in a long time, and I remember when it came out, it was huge. You know, definitely went through the 2000 first 2000 decade, and that was on my top 10 list of the entire decade. And um like listening back to your kind of intro, just talking about Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jones starting and all that stuff, just and that like I didn't I forgot that it was a back-to-back thing of being John Malkovich and this movie, and they were like the first two movies of that collaboration, and it's impossible now to go back and look at it in that exact same way because being John Malkovich just blew things open in in a way for independent film and screenwriting. There was almost nothing like that at that time, especially like I mean, I was in film school when that came out, and I just remember you would just go from class to class, and being John Malkovich was all anybody was talking about. And, you know, I mean, it started and I had hadn't even heard of the movie, you know, because there was other uh students and and teachers. I mean, the teachers, so a lot of the teachers I had were just about the same age as us. You know, they had probably just graduated and then started teaching right after that. So it just was like everybody was talking about it, and I just remember getting through a day of school and being like, man, there's some movie called Being John Malkovich that everybody's talking about, and then we went to see it, and it was just kind of like you you couldn't believe that a movie could be made like that. And then for this movie to come out as a follow-up, it felt, you know, similar, but definitely it kind of had a a step up, and now you understood um Charlie Kaufman a little bit more, you know, and uh and that he kind of invented his own thing, his own thing, and it it is a little bit like fourth wall breaking, because he just the way he puts himself in in stuff, it's like almost in a way of like um Quentin Tarantino came out with a certain writing style, and then it immediately started getting copied because other writers just felt like oh, this sounds like me, I can write this same exact way. And I think Charlie Kaufman had a same type of thing in that time period that other aspiring writers just realize, oh, I can just put myself in something and that's cool, but it does, you know, like like anything, like once you start copying these original masters, it just you see the the reason that he's so special because you can't just copy it, you know. Every every like young writer just I mean, I uh like myself included, this type of writing just influenced me and made me go, made me almost think, oh, writing's actually kind of easy, because you just write about exactly who you are and put yourself in stuff, and and that's fun. But like when when I watched it this time, I didn't have the same I I remembered the feeling that I had back in the day, but it was it definitely isn't the same thing because we've seen a bunch more Charlie Kaufman stuff and he's just continued on his whole thing, it's awesome. I like I think these type of things don't exist that much anymore. Like this type of inner monologue, very personal type writing. I mean, just just the idea of starting the movie with the documentary footage of being John Malkovich is crazy. It's you know it's innovative. I it is totally, and it's it I mean I was I I had completely forgot about that. So starting this movie and then it jumping right in like that, I was like, oh my gosh. I can't believe that he did that.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Yeah. That was a jaw dropper. And listening to John Malkovich sternly direct the crew to not futz about because there's a bunch of people around him in rubber John Malkovich masks. And he's like, I'm thinking about all these actors wearing these rubber masks. And if you think about that scene from the movie, I believe they were all wearing those types of masks of him.

SPEAKER_04 12:34

Do you think that scene was a real documentary, like behind the scenes footage, or do you none of it? I don't think so. Okay. I don't know. Yeah. That one just I mean that setting the screenplay. Yeah, that setting seems like it would be a lot to recreate all of that. You know, the stuff where it's the 13 and a half floor or whatever, I forget what what number that was, but the uh, you know, that the half floor set where they have to crouch down to walk through it, and the behind-the-scenes stuff there seems recreatable. Yeah. But that that scene with Malkovich with the cinematographer or whatever, or camera operator, and all these people, and it's putting the title and saying who all these people are. Like, I mean, it'd be it's impressive either way, you know, because that scene, I think, in one shot shows Malkovich doing that whole speech, and then I think the camera pans, and you see Nicolas Cage, and I I'm pretty sure it's the same shot or looks like the same shot. So it definitely could be recreated, but it's it's impressive either way.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Yeah, for sure. Prior to that, there's a title sequence that you that you've described as a neurotic voiceover. Do you want to expand on that?

SPEAKER_04 14:09

Well, it's it's kind of the through line in the whole movie the repetition of him calling himself fat and bald and ridiculous and old and all these things, and it's just that that type of mindset that that character has, which I assume Charlie Kaufman has in his real life, just that kind of constantly putting himself down, and that's probably part of the reason for a writer's block and and all those type of struggles, then and and and it's totally relatable too, you know. Yeah, I mean, I don't I think there's it's probably super common, you know, for everyone to talk to themselves and kind of fuck with themselves from time to time.

SPEAKER_06 15:05

Be self-critical, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:07

And it's throughout the movie, he does it, and it's all it's kind of always the same lines, so it's so habitual in him that that's just how he gets through his day, unfortunately, is a lot of times just repeat these mantras of you're a fat loser, you know, and you're sweaty and stop doing this and whatever. But by the end, Meryl Streep starts saying that same type of stuff to him, but at that point is likely a fictional character. So it's still kind of his writing, just he's having a an actual character other than himself saying those things to him. Which I g I guess is a sort of evolution. You know, he's getting it out of his own brain, even though it's his characters still telling him that, but it's better than the voiceover, in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Yeah, and there's a response to that, which is the lead character, which is Charlie Kaufman defending himself against that self-critical assault from Susan Orlean. Right during during the climax.

SPEAKER_04 16:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Do you think the primary conflict in the movie is an internal conflict, like Charlie versus Charlie?

SPEAKER_04 16:46

I think so, yeah. Because the third act conflict in the way that I think I read the movie, um, I just got done watching it an hour ago, so I'll still be thinking about it after we're done talking about this. But the way that I think that I read it is, you know, I I feel like he it becomes like a fictional movie at a certain point. I mean, even though the whole thing is obviously a fictional movie, but I think the movie breaks and becomes almost his brother Donald's version. Because he starts asking him for help and then it turns into an action movie almost.

SPEAKER_06 17:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

So I think um that conflict is his own resolution, so yeah, I think the main conflict is with himself.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Yeah. And he not only wrote himself into the movie, he wrote a fictitious twin brother into the movie. Right. Which just really intensifies the credited as a co-writer of the movie, too. Right. Yeah. You know, that characterization just intensifies the internal conflict and really kind of carries it through the third act because that character, Donald Kaufman, ends up dying. It's the better part of him that dies, in a sense, but that better part is now inhabited in Charlie Kaufman at the end of the movie, which is the profound life lesson. What do you think about the first scene with Tilda Swinton in the Los Angeles restaurant? Tilda Swinton plays Valerie, a film producer, and she's discussing adapting Susan Orleans The Orchid Thief into a screenplay, and Charlie Kaufman has a lot to say about what he wants to do. What did you think about that scene? And do you think that's the inciting incident of the movie? Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 19:21

Um Yeah, I'm I'm not a hundred percent sure, so I'll try to talk through some thoughts, and uh then you can jump in and maybe we'll get at the answer to that. Um, I would say the main thing that stuck out to me was the costume design or something like that. Uh it just really popped out that he was in this kind of super large sweater, and he's kind of slumped over and he's sweating, he's got beads of sweat all over him, and he looks so uncomfortable, and she is so well put together, her hair is perfect, and there's just such a contrast between the two of them in that opening scene. You get so much of the dynamic just from what they look like. Um the second thing, I feel like she has the same dialogue twice. When she meets with Meryl Streep later, I feel like it's almost identical dialogue on her part. Okay. Well, I don't know if you noticed that. I didn't. So I I'm not a hundred percent sure, but they when when she's talking to Meryl Streep about they want to option the book to turn it into a movie. I I feel like she says the exact same lines that she says to uh Nicholas Cage at the beginning. So that there might be something interesting there. But other than that, the inciting incident so her giving him the job and him having to take that job and start writing this screenplay, that yeah, that seems like that would be it.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Yeah, it's also an elusive component of the movie, I think, because it's not explicit. It seems as though the choice has already been made that he's going to adapt this screenplay. Right. And this is just the furthering of that conversation between the producer and the writer.

unknown 21:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

So what I found to be per particularly interesting about that scene, if I'm allowed to jump in. Right now, if you have more to say. Okay. Um, what Kaufman says he wants. He says, Why can't there be a movie simply about flowers? I'm saying it's like I don't want to cram in sex or guns or car chases, you know, or characters learning profound life lessons, or growing, or coming to like each other, or overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end, you know? I mean, the book isn't like that, and life isn't like that. It just isn't. I feel very strongly about this. That's how that scene ends. And I think it's a good illustration of that internal conflict. And it speaks to the character rebelling against his own nature. But the more interesting component of this line is everything he doesn't want in the movie happens in the movie.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Every single one. There's sex in it, there's guns in it, there's car chases in it. Earlier he says he doesn't want it to be about drug running, there's drug running in it. Uh he says he doesn't want it to be a heist movie, it's a heist movie. There's like everything that he didn't want is what it becomes. And I thought that was pretty funny.

SPEAKER_04 23:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

What do you think about all that?

SPEAKER_04 23:30

Yeah, I mean, I think it there it is an evolution of a writer where there can be a cynical side to writers where they want to break rules, they don't want to copy what came before, they want it to be more naturalistic and real, and that can create walls and hurdles that don't need to be there. Like you want to write a movie, these are things, and you know, it's a and and this is what's kind of brought up with the McKay. Is that the character? The McKee. McKee, yeah. Robert McKee. It's kind of all that stuff, and which is a real dude too.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

You know, and he really wrote the book story, which is in the movie. Yeah. So in a sense, maybe it's an adaptation not only of the Orca thief, but Robert McKee's story.

SPEAKER_04 24:30

Yeah. It's it's kind of simultaneously getting to be a young rebel and talking shit on all these principles, but also admitting that these things do work.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

And they don't just work, they produce arguably the primary value of art because these principles are integrated to human nature. That is to say, great art really makes you feel something and it elicits an emotional response. And one of the storytelling principles that is fairly well known and universal is the principle of producing catharsis in your audience and creating an emotional release. And this movie accomplishes that. At least it does for me. May not for everyone, absolutely for me. I deeply related to the main character and really all the characters, they're depicted so well, and I was able to achieve catharsis. And it's interesting that he's rebelling against that as a writer, he's rebelling that against that as a man in pursuit of emotional values, like a love interest, and that almost negation of his own nature is the primary cause of the internal conflict. And it's interestingly juxtaposed against the supporting character John LaRoche, who embraces all of his passions until fuck fish. Which is a hilarious conversation John LaRoche has with Susan Orlean when she questions him about his drive and why he does what he does, and he explains how he was passionately into fish for a while and had an assortment of aquariums and hundreds of fish, if not thousands of fish. He would dive into the ocean and collect rare specimens. He would collect them. He was a collector. Until one day he was done. Seemingly out of nowhere. And that brings us to one of those themes in the movie is the pursuit of an emotional value of passion, which is perhaps most explicitly demonstrated in the Meryl Streep character, Susan Orlean. Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_05 27:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Okay. Um what did you think of Meryl Streep's performance?

SPEAKER_04 27:38

I think she's just pretty captivating as an actress. I saw her do things that are almost like Meryl Streep isms. Like I I could see moves that she has that she can do time and time again, and they work. She can bounce between emotions like on a dime. Just kind of amazing. Yeah. Yeah, she's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

I agree with you. What stood out for me was her scenes that included no dialogue but really amazing emotional communication through facial expression and body language. There's that scene at her home. She's at her dinner table with her husband and presumably a bunch of work colleagues or friends. She and she goes to the bathroom and she overhears her husband telling a story about John LaRoche, which is a story that she told her husband that was critical, maybe a little insulting, and like um making fun of him. And she's in the bathroom looking at herself in the mirror, responding to overhearing her husband talk about this guy who, since the experience, her husband is talking about she had what could be described as an epiphany with John LaRoche, who is talking about perfect soulmates within the context of a bee finding a flower. And Jean LaRoche is talking about just by a thing doing what it's intended to do, by following its nature, magnificent things can happen. From that experience, she is starting to develop a fondness for John LaRoche. And then she has this experience overhearing her husband making fun of him, which is really her making fun of him, and she you can tell she felt bad about it. So that was a great scene. She has another scene at the dinner table when she comes out and she's not talking, and you can tell she's distraught and distracted, and she doesn't say anything, but there's a voiceover that does come in, which we should talk about voiceovers because it's a near-constant thing.

SPEAKER_03 30:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

And then there's the scene at the end of the movie with her when she's contemplating what to do with Charlie Kaufman after he discovers she's having an affair with John LaRoche and doing drugs. There's a long take on her wrestling with with in herself about what to do in response to this discovery. And they just blow me away. Her ability to communicate without dialogue and perform without dialogue.

SPEAKER_04 31:15

Yeah. And LaRoche isn't there, but that his one of his partners, Indian dude, is there talking about her hair, and she gets so kind of overwhelmed and moved by him looking at her in a certain way and noticing things about her and noticing like a deepness to her. That's another one that is so awesome because it's with a super side character, you know, and it's and it's still so impactful. Really every scene in this movie kind of has a lot of impact to it, and there's a lot of subtext in the writing constantly, where you whatever's being said, it uses um it uses music, like songs, not just the score, but popular songs in a really clear way throughout the whole movie. That I think they even talk about it at one point about using songs. I don't know if it's a McKee principle or something like that. Maybe it was talked about by Donald, but but yeah, I think music's used really well throughout the movie. And but yeah, there's so many pieces of dialogue and and voiceover that well, I think more the dialogue, because it's people saying something and the way that it's shot and acted, you just so clearly get that it's poking holes in this person and getting down to what they're hiding from everybody. Yeah. You know, it's it's really so well written. Then it's kind of like a magic trick. How you can I mean, it's it's a super clear example of subtext. If anybody's I remember um in film school back in the day having a class on subtext and not getting it completely right in the moment. I was using a what my example that I tried to use was a scene in true romance talking about uh I think Christian Slater talking to Lee Donowitz on the phone, being worried that there was somebody tapping in or something like that, and trying to talk about Dr. Javago instead of talking about a big bag of cocaine. Yeah. And I was like, that's my example of subtext, and they were kind of like, that's not quite subtext. Like, yeah, they are talking about something else using different words, but subtext is a little deeper than that, and in this movie, it's just such a clear example of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

It also demonstrates very well the inner conflicts of not just Charlie Kaufman's character, but Susan Orlean's character. And the actual Susan Orlean was also very conflicted on the adaptation of this book. And she reluctantly agreed to it after everyone else involved confirmed they were involved. Probably once she understood that Meryl Streep was going to be playing her, she was like, okay. How can I say no to this expert?

SPEAKER_04 35:04

Yeah. And Chris Cooper LaRoche is, I would probably say maybe the most complicated character. I'm just jumping out with that theory. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, you may be right. Because the way I mean the movie gets you to fall for him like Merrill Streep does, but that fades away through time.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

I think he's the catalyst of the change, a change, that Susan Orlean is inspired to make, and then by extension, that Charlie Kaufman is inspired to make. And it's the manner in which he speaks about magnificence, you know, pursuing your nature. You know, he's looking at plants and animals, and Susan Orlean is hearing that, and she's inspired to personify that in her own life in some way. And she does that by writing a book, contemplating it. And there's passages in it that are quoted in the movie that I think are the primary inspiration for the fiction book or the fiction screenplay and storyline that Charlie Kaufman develops. So that's an interesting component of his character because the actual John LaRoche inspires what is what ultimately becomes Charlie Kaufman at Spike Jones's movie adaptation. And you're right, his character is I think he the most complicated. The most complicated. Yeah, you're probably right, because he is not only the inspiration of change in and contemplation in other people's lives, but he seems aloof to it to some degree in his own, perhaps due to all the trauma that he experienced, which is laid out really well in the movie.

SPEAKER_05 37:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

Visually and with a great voiceover and scene of him just pouring his heart out to Susan Orlean, which then catalyzes their romance. But ultimately he I mean he's killed where he is seemingly king in the swamp, where he collects flowers at a nature preserve by an alligator or a crocodile, whatever, in pursuit of romance. He's trying to protect the woman he loves, she loses her mind, and he reluctantly and anguishingly tries to kill Charlie Kaufman. So I agree with you. I think you're right. I think he is the most complicated. I think they're all complicated, but they are all complicated.

SPEAKER_04 38:22

But it's like people project a bunch of stuff onto him and they make him in their own mind out to be some sort of kind of hero or a person to look up to in that sort of rebellious way that I think Charlie Kaufman's trying to be at the beginning, and people just set look at LaRoche as this guy just is able to just be that and be whatever he wants to be. But the more you get to know him, that's kind of a facade too. Like may um, but maybe he is just following these things, like these fascinations, but what is he ultimately getting from that? You know, it's just like it's just a fascination for a little bit of time, and he kind of gets into it more than most people would. So he seems like an expert. And and I'm not saying he's not, but when what we see when he takes Merrill Street through the swamp is they get lost. And he gets kind of defensive once his shields or whatever start coming down, and people and she starts seeing maybe more the real him of you know, he just projects that he knows all this stuff, but really does he? You know, and you can see her starting to lose that with him, but then he draws her back in with drugs, and yeah, his next fascination is some shitty porn sight, you know. So it's like that's what makes him super complicated because they they win, I think, us over as the audience with him too, but he's kind of a letdown by the end. Yeah. You know. And you're right, he gets killed in his his own sanctuary or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Yeah, right on. I think your description of him as most complicated is very accurate. And should be noted, Chris Cooper won an Oscar for that performance. So all you actors out there, yeah. If you want to win a supporting acting role, pursue the most complicated.

SPEAKER_04 41:03

Yeah, so how about uh the other Nicolas Cage role of Donald?

SPEAKER_00 41:09

Donald? Donald Kaufman? Mm-hmm. Well, if we're talking about Nicolas Cage's performance, yeah, that particular character is perfectly within Nicolas Cage's wheelhouse. Right. And really, both of them are.

SPEAKER_04 41:26

They're there's total Nicolas Cage ranges. It's so interesting watching him play them both in the same movie in the same scenes, and the technical usage of them together is mind-blowing, I think.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

It's amazing, it's seamless. Yeah. It's completely believable. Yeah. There's never any moment that makes me think it's fake, and it really the performance really builds a lot of respect in me for Nicolas Cage. I've always liked him. He's a compelling, interesting, charismatic actor. He always has been, always will be. But that particular performance is some of the best acting that you could ever see. It's perfect. And it's so challenging because it's a man playing two roles that communicate to one another throughout the movie in very different ways, with very different qualities of character and emotional responses to things, and they all well, Donald doesn't have much of an arc. He's pretty much the same throughout, almost as if that's Charlie Kaufman's the writer's projection of what he wished he was in some ways.

SPEAKER_04 43:02

Yeah, because he has like no trouble with with women or in social situations.

SPEAKER_00 43:09

He has no trouble making mistakes. You know, he'll mispronounce the word denois, and his brother will make fun of him, and he doesn't skip a beat. And he's obviously different and perhaps representative of less knowledgeable writers, but it doesn't come across as very critical of less knowledgeable writers, because the knowledge isn't necessarily helping the Charlie Kaufman character. It is in some ways, but it is very painful for him, which r you know intensifies the the the struggle and the conflict and the drama of the movie. So there's a scene I mentioned earlier where Donald Kaufman pronounces denoumois like deniment or something. Right. Something like that.

SPEAKER_04 44:10

Talking about dress to kill.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

Talking about dress to kill. I'm I don't recall the third act of dress to kill, and I'm wondering if it matches the third act of adaptation. Do you recall?

SPEAKER_04 44:24

Let's see. Um yeah, so I mean a little bit because it's a De Palma movie, and I I think it's an appropriate criticism of that movie because, you know, like a lot of De Palma movies, the the wrap-up sometimes doesn't work or gets kind of a little too out there or something like that. Um and yeah, Jurassic Kills, it's it's kind of a favorite of a lot of people. I think uh there'd be a ton that would probably put that in his top five or something. But yeah, I I I struggle with that one too. Um trying to think if it how it relates. But I can't remember if that's the one. Oh no, no, no. I'm mixing it up with blowout. Um but anyway, nah. I don't I haven't seen it in a while, so I can't talk about it too much. Especially in relation to this movie.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

Yeah, me neither. I had the feeling I should watch the third act of Justice Kill and compare it to the movie adaptation and identify whether or not that third act, the denim, is yet another adaptation in the movie adaptation.

SPEAKER_04 45:55

It's definitely, you know, it's a it's a split personality movie. So Michael Cain is uh psychiatrist, but also a killer like transvestate. Anyway, I just appreciated that they were using that movie as an example. It was pretty sweet.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

Yes, being a de Palma file, I imagine.

SPEAKER_04 46:24

There's some I mean, there's a little bit of uh that kind of de Palma-y thriller stuff in this movie. Some with the score, but for example, as just a small a small example of it was when Donald puts the Ten Commandments up and Charlie sees it on the wall and crinkles it up, and then Donald shows up behind him and says, You shouldn't have done that. It plays like a thriller all of a sudden, and the music score behind it is kind of like horror movie style score, a little bit, and it's so funny. And then they break it immediately with some humor because he's like, Right. I just meant it's helpful.

SPEAKER_00 47:19

Yeah. That's after Charlie accuses Donald of being a part of a cult for faithfully following Robert McKee and his storytelling principle. Yes. Yeah, so uh because a writer should be it writing should be a search into the unknown, you know, into the new, according to Charlie.

SPEAKER_04 47:41

Anyway, you were saying so anyway, I was uh bringing that around to Spike Jones, his directing is kind of out of this world with this movie because it it just blends so many little genre elements throughout. Plus, it's able to pull off this whole crazy writing exercise. Yeah. Jumping from documentary footage of his previous his own previous movie, the writer putting himself in the movie, but played by Nicolas Cage and all these real people mixed throughout this movie, and really Spike Jones's directing is what pulls all the stuff off. It turns into an action movie by the end and all this stuff, and all those tones are just hit perfectly. You know what type of movie you're watching every time it shifts, and you're just locked in. It doesn't throw you off somehow. Yeah. He's just, you know, got it it's it is crazy he's hasn't done that many movies. Because man, he's got some s skills.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

Yeah, he certainly does. And to speak to the skill of his directing and the conflict in the movie, and the type of conflict in the movie, which is an internal conflict, and his use of voiceover. There's multiple times when Charlie Kaufman and Susan Orlean in the movie are speaking dialogue in a voiceover. And there some of the times they're whispering, which is I think a very subtle way of creating a feeling of internal dialogue, and internally conflicted dialogue, because you don't want anyone to hear it. And I looked at the screenplay, and there's nothing in the screenplay that I could find indicating that the voiceovers that were whispered in the movie should have been whispered. And so I don't know if that was a choice made by Spike Jones or something identified by Nicolas Cage or Meryl Streep, but I thought it was a really good way to demonstrate internal conflict within the voiceovers. And if that was decided by Spike Jones, then I think that's a great example of his directorial skills. Um also directing again Nicolas Cage in dual role dual roles in scenes that only include one actor, and piecing all that together is pretty extraordinary. And the montages, there's a lot of montages in the movie, and they're all really fun to watch. Like the flower like the flower one? There's well, there's multiple flower ones. Which flower one are you referring to?

SPEAKER_04 51:03

I'm just picturing one shot of the ghost flower ending a montage. It's a really cool close-up.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

Is that with like multiple shots of the camera moving around a ghost orchid and they're cross-dissolved over top of each other?

SPEAKER_04 51:25

Yeah, I think so. And it has like some.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

On top of like a Susan Orlean voiceover. Yeah, probably. I think I remember that, yeah. There's a really good voice uh montage over John LaRoche's voiceover that talks about a thing doing what it does, abiding by its nature, can create something magnificent. That's a cool montage. There's a really hilarious montage at the beginning of the movie when Nick after Nicolas Cage gets kicked out of the set of being John Malkovich, he starts contemplating what he's even doing here, or how do he he'd even get here. Yeah. And then he um and then he goes back to I mean he goes back about four billion years and traces from a writer's human beings all the all the way to his birthday.

SPEAKER_04 52:26

I feel like that's how you think. How I think? Yeah. Where where you have a question. It's like, how did I even get here? Well, let's start all the way back.

SPEAKER_00 52:39

Start at the beginning. Yeah, I think it's a good joke. Yeah. You know, he got kicked out of a movie set and he's asking, why am I even here? I'm obviously not wanted here. How'd I even get here? You know, trying to figure out what to do, you know. So let me trace my steps, let me reconstruct my narrative to determine what mistake I made. But he goes well beyond his own personal narrative. Two four billion years ago when the Earth was just a volcanic eruption changing and shifting and moving, which again speaks to the core theme of the movie, change. And that brings up another interesting component of the movie, which is there are scenes, multiple scenes of the movie, that depict Charlie Kaufman getting inspired and speaking his inspiration into a voice recorder. Right. And all of them but one are that is to say, all of the voice recordings, but one, are actual scenes in the movie that happened prior to the scene of Charlie Kaufman recording his voice, describing the scene. It happens multiple times. Um and it happened, the final scene is that, but the final scene's different in that it wasn't a scene that happened previously in the movie, it's a scene that was happening right now.

SPEAKER_05 54:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

And I thought that was fun and hilarious, and it was fun to try to identify all the scenes that had previously already happened that he was now saying out loud.

SPEAKER_04 54:46

Yeah, and they they usually go from this euphoria into finishing the run and then going back and listening to it and being just destroyed. Yeah, sinking into despair. And it it's it's got so awesome because when he's in the euphoria thing, it's like brightly lit and kind of manic, and then when it changes almost all the colors taken out, it's dark, and he's just listening back to it going oh I suck. So it's just that's another, you know, it's another example of just perfect directing. Yeah. Just changing the lighting and and changing the editing and Nicholas Cage changing his perform performance style a little bit, and it's just you instantly get everything that you're supposed to. It's awesome. Yeah. And those moments I think are relatable too. I think we've all had those those moments of talking shit and being like, this is the dopest idea ever. Then you get past that moment and instantly go, What was I thinking? Stupid. Oh yeah. I can't do anything with that.

SPEAKER_00 56:21

Yeah, the thoughts of I have memories of having a fun conversation and then thinking, we should have recorded that, but we didn't.

SPEAKER_04 56:32

Yeah, that's how podcasting started.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:35

You know. Right. Yeah. Decades ago, all of us sitting around bullshitting and thinking we're the smartest people ever and just gone, man, if only we had that recorded, it would have been awesome. But now we can record everything and we know that's not the case. Sometimes it is.

SPEAKER_00 57:37

But you also want that inspiration. And that also speaks to a theme in the movie of being inspired in the fleeting nature of inspiration. Do you have any thoughts on the fleeting nature of inspiration?

SPEAKER_03 57:58

Well, beside that sucking we can talk about it sucking.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

That it's a fact. That it happens. Yeah, we know it happens.

SPEAKER_00 58:14

And we know it can suck. And I think that's one of the best values of this movie, personally, that sucking like inspiration is temporary.

SPEAKER_04 58:32

Yeah, like Donald, Donald making the decision that we learn, you know, of his brother carried this moment with him his whole life, watching some girls that his brother liked make fun of him behind his back, and Charlie watched that, and he himself internalized it like they were making fun of him, and he carried that with him forever. He he didn't know that Donald witnessed that as well, but Donald just looks at everything a different way and is like, well, that's their thing. I don't have to carry that, you know. I carry what I want, and I have memories of really liking this girl, and that's cool, you know. Yeah, and there was no reason that that should have uh affected Charlie the way it did, but just because he prioritizes other things and arguably some of those priorities are negative to him. And that's why he's gotta learn the lessons. Yeah. Like you are what you love, not who loves you, is the main lesson in the movie, I think. Yeah. That the character gets anyway. That's kind of the breaking his his own desires of putting so explicitly the lesson right here.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:10

Yeah, I think it's yeah, I think it's it's a subtle way of saying your primary value, that is to say, the main thing you need to maintain is yourself. And part of that is self-esteem, thinking you're worthy of things, thinking you have the ability to achieve things. And that comes first before another person. And then that other person, if it's a romantic love interest, compliments you intensely. And I love that. And I love that the movie doesn't beat you over the head. It's a contemplative movie, it's a very thoughtful movie, and there's probably a lot of different other ways you can think about it. And I like that that movie compels me to think about that because I think that is so important. And I used to think this movie was definitely in my top 25 of all time. I think now it might be in the top five, if not the top movie. Wow. Like right now, it's my favorite movie of all time. Nice.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:40

Until next week.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

Yeah, I mean, enjoy the this week for you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:52

Yeah. For me, it dropped, but not by a lot. I think it's and mainly just from passage of time and seeing a lot of other movies over the past 20 some years, uh, adding that to the overall repertoire. Um, I'd like to consider Charlie Coffin movies and see, because I don't even know if this is in my top of those.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:28

Well, he his first movie was being John Malkovich. And then he did I think Human Nature with Michelle Gondry.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:39

Okay. I never saw him.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:41

Neither did I. And then he did Adaptation. And then he did Eternal Sunshine. No, I think he did Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which was directed by George Clooney, starring Sam Rockwell. And then he did Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, which is another Michelle Gondry movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:02

So those are the those are his five movies in that he wrote, and he did all of that in five years. Or at least those movies were released in five years. I don't know if he wrote them all in that in that time frame. Then Schenectady Which was his directorial debut.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:24

An Amalisa. An Amalisa? I've never seen that. It's good. Do you know the kind of game in that one? Like the the Charlie Kaufman-ish game or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:39

Where it's I know nothing about that movie.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:42

It's animated. And everybody in the movie I think is voiced by the same guy.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:56

So I I think that's I haven't seen that one in a while. Um, except for like when he comes across the woman character that kind of knocks him knocks his socks off. Then she talks in her voice. But everyone else in the movie I think is the main character's voice. So when he hears anyone talking, it's all his own voice coming back at him all the time. So that's kind of the kick off mini thing with that. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:38

Well, I'll have to check it out one of these days. It's dope. We'll put it on the list, maybe we'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:44

But of those top five movies, adaptation is my favorite. Well, did I say top five? I meant first five movies that he produced or wrote and were produced. I think adaptation is my favorite. At least for now. I'm after you saying at least for now, that's my favorite of all time. I feel like the bee jumping from flower to flower in John LaRoche's voice over montage. Movies to me are flowers. And I'm a bee. And for now, I'm pollinating adaptation. Meaning I'm having sex with it. I joke, I joke, I joke.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:44

Um so what do you think about the final scene of the movie with the girl, like his friend?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:55

Amelia. Um it was cool. I think it was well made. I think it was to the point. Nothing stood out to me as phenomenal because I think it's just part of the resolution. I think the climax already occurred, and I'm just riding it out. I mean, he did make the choice to kiss her. Even though she's may or may not be involved with somebody else, and they both express their love to one another. It's not said whether or not they're together, and then he says something to the effect of doing that feels good. There's hope in his life now, and that feels good. And that's all due to him taking action. So um but are you referring specifically to the scene in which he interacts with his love interest?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:00

Yeah, that's that scene right there.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

Yeah, I thought it was cool. Um I didn't then nothing really stood out to me other than it being a happy scene where two people express their love for one another, but it doesn't immediately materialize into oh, we're in a romantic love relationship immediately. You know, just like a little step in the progression of the character, the individual, Charlie Kaufman. Which again speaks to the core conflict of the movie, which is an internal conflict, Charlie versus Charlie. It's not so much about the achievement of romance, but the changing of behavior in the Lee character from primarily in his own head and self-critical and conflicted to taking action and actually pursuing his values in action as opposed to just being in his own head.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:05

Yeah. Yeah, that's I mean, yeah, it's it's cool because yeah, that's exactly what it gets across. It's also kind of giving the somewhat cliche romance movie ending. Oh yeah. You know, kind of in the way that he like you said at one point you were like everything that he mentions in the first meeting, it is put in this movie, even though he's specifically saying he doesn't want to do that, and it kind of just gives one more of those types of scenes. Um, but yeah, it does completely show his growth as a character, and there's no voiceover right in that moment, like he has a similar moment like that several times in the movie with different people, and he's the whole time getting in his own way because he's so loud telling himself to do these things, and he just doesn't do any action until the chance is over, and so you know, that scene represents he calms the voiceover down and just does it, and then you know, they it's cool because they get to I don't think it alludes to that they'll be getting together or anything like that, but it just he was able to express how he really feels to this person, and they and that opened the door so she could express what she really feels back, and that's g totally good enough, you know. So and then and then he rolls out, and then there's this his car rolls down the street, and then there's this pan down, and there's all these flowers at the bottom half of the screen, and then a super long time lapse of days as the flowers grow and open and shut and stuff like that. That is awesome. Yeah, because that way he's able to finalize the movie also just showing flowers, doing what they do. So that's sweet. Yeah, that took me by surprise too, seeing that, and then I just, you know, if if I was giving the movie an A, that would just bump it to an A plus. It's like that's all you need, people out there making movies. You gotta, and you know, they say in the movie, they say wow them with the end, you know. Right, and so that's uh that's all you need to get yourself from an A to an A plus or a B to a B plus or something like that. Well, actually, I might take that back because my all my ratings differ in each grade level. I just realized that. But I think the difference between an A to an A plus is just one little surprising element that only you as the director or as the writer or something pull off that just really drives the point home. It's awesome, you know. So because as he's sort of selling himself out through the third act and just doing all of the things he didn't want to do to make because that's what a good movie is, like he's still able to come back around and finalize it with exactly what he wanted to do. Just make a movie about flowers.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:04

Do you have any other final thoughts?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:07

Yeah, this is where I thrive. Yeah, so my last thought is Nicholas Cage, death scene, Donald after he got shot, and he goes, Hey, can you believe I got shot? That's freaking crazy. That's that's fucked up. That's fucked up, and then crash into a truck and he goes flying out the windshield. And then the death scene is awesome.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:43

On the on a scale of like the scale now is death scene, the high end is Nicolas Cage in adaptation, the low end is Marion Cotiard in Dark Knight 3, whatever the third Nolan Batman movie is. That's the worst death scene ever. Okay, so that's the spectrum, right? That's the spectrum right there. Because I instantly thought of Marion Cotiard when I saw Nick Cage, and I was like, oh man, you should have watched this. This is how you do it. Because he's like dead on the ground, blood coming out the ears, head turned. His own him, his own self is singing so happy together, and he wakes up so slightly and has just the tiniest little smile, recognition that yo, you're actually singing the song that I wanted us to connect on, and then fades away, and it just is so awesome. Yeah. So that's that's my final thought.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:57

That's a good one. I just want to summarize that I think the core value of the movie is just change in human nature and choice is human nature, and one must change, and the best change comes from within the character to quote Robert McKee your characters must change, and the change must come from them. Do that, and you'll be fine. Charlie Kaufman does that, and in the end he's fine. Um it's important, you know, to appreciate that we have in nature, and those are the principles. We're not faded, we're not determined, we can choose our own path to be happy. And we kind of have to we must do that. So that's ultimately why I love this movie and good good uh Brian Cox performance? Great Brian Cox performance. Do you consider yourself a Kaufman file?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:14

Oh, no doubt.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:17

Do you consider yourself a Spike Jones file?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:23

Yeah, definitely. I mean, uh Do you file anything else in this movie? Jeez. Like everything. Yeah, yeah. Just say the movie. Meryl Street file.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:36

Bring bring more of that on. Yeah. Yeah. What uh I'm a montage file. Montage file. I'm uh movies that go back billions of years file. A tree of life. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:57

Yeah, yeah. I'm a uh a whispering voiceover file.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:02

Ooh, I'm a uh actors playing dual roles in a movie file for sure. Shout out Sinners. Sinners, uh the Cronenberg Dead Ringers. Uh Tilda Swinton's got her own probably top five movies where she plays two characters in it. She's kind of she's kind of the goat at playing two roles in one movie, or three in Suspiria's case. She plays a an old German man. She plays a witch. Well, two different witches. One that's kind of like Tilder Swinton and one that's like a straight up crazy, gooey, bloody mess monster.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:57

I got you beat. Shout out Eddie Murphy, nutty professor. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:04

We just went five to one.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:11

Oh man. On that note. Was that a rap? That's a wrap. All right. Well, I hope you love entering the portal into our brains. Go file it. Go file it.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:29

Don't fall in the box. Don't fall in the box. We've got involved gods in the movies. We love fucking falling at the falling in between.