A24k Gold
Welcome to A24k Gold, the podcast where we celebrate the independent studio that has redefined modern filmmaking and built a legendary filmography: A24. We're a community of fans dedicated to exploring the films that make the studio so unique. In each episode, we randomly select a title from their library and go all in, debating its artistic merits and cultural impact. Join us as we explore the hidden gems and undeniable classics from the revolutionary studio, all leading to one ultimate question: Is this film A24 essential?
A24k Gold
Climax (2018)
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Like The Killing of a Sacred Deer from the year prior, Climax (2018) is not a film for the faint of heart. Can Amanda make it through to the end? Is it too out-there to be an A24 Essential? Find out what Nick, Kailyn, Darren, and Amanda think in this week’s discussion, then stick around to find out what the All-Powerful Wheel lands on for us to analyze next!
Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of A24 Care Gold. I'm your host, Nick Bamback, and joining me are my co-hosts, Kaylin, Amanda, and Darren. They're all doing well tonight. Tonight we are going to be talking about one of the boldest and probably craziest movies we're ever going to cover on the show. It's Gasper Noe's Climax from 2018. A lot of thoughts on this movie. I know we're going to have so many uh things that we're going to discuss and things that we were, you know, just dying to talk about with this movie. We're going to let Amanda take away to talk about some of the production history, give us an idea of what the story is about and things to look for. So take it away, Amanda.
SPEAKER_02All right. So we're talking about climax. The director was Gaspar Noe. The producers are Edouard Weill, Brahim Chioa, Gaspar Noe, Eddie Moretti, Olivier Pear, Sergei Katori, Danny Gabai, Michael Merquette, Richard Grampier, and Vincent Marova. The screenwriter is also Gaspar Noe. It stars Sophia Botella, Kitty Smile, Romain Jyarmik, Sophia Yacob, Claude Guyon Maul, Giselle Palmer, Taylor Castle, and Thea Carla Schott. The editor is Dennis Bedlow. The other editors also Gasper Noe. The cinematographer is Benoit Debbie. Music supervisors were Steve Boyer, Pascal Mayer. The choreographer, which was very integral to this film, was Nina Bagneely. The budget was a little over 2.9 million. And box office-wise, domestically, it made a little over 817,000, internationally, a little over 892,000, and worldwide, a little over 1.7 million. In terms of the background, in an interview with Wonderland magazine, writer, director, and editor Gaspar Noe talked about his influences for climax, such as 74 is the Towering Inferno, 72 is the Poseidon Adventure, and 75 is Shivers. He said, it's all about people creating something together and failing in the second half. It's like the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. Mankind can create big things, and then with some influence of alcohol or some accident, everything falls. No way also noted that some inspiration came in November of 2017 when he went to a Voguing Ballroom event on the recommendation of Leah Valmos, who's a dancer in the film. And in looking more at Voguing in France, as well as a crump battle, he said, wouldn't it be great to create a movie combining all these different types of dance? Crump, voguing, electro. I came up with the idea of the movie at the beginning of January. I convinced my co-producers of my previous movie. I said that my idea for this movie was partly narrative, partly documentary. I don't know who it's going to be, but if you give me the money to shoot the movie in 15 days, it all happened very quickly. The Observer also said that the film is loosely based on an alleged incident from the winter of 96, in which a bunch of revelers in France unwittingly took LSD and temporarily went crazy. Casting started in January 2018 and they were shooting a month afterward. The film did take 15 days to shoot and had its premiere that May. With the exception of the choreography, the script is mostly improvised. Indywire related the script itself was only about five pages and had no dialogue. No way related that the actors expected a script and he said, no, just come to the set and do whatever you want. I'll never push you to do anything against your will, but if you have any ideas, please tell them to me. Only one of the cast members, Sophia Botella, who has 15 years of dance experience, had been working as a professional actor. The rest of the cast was dancers that No Way found in ballrooms, in crump battles, and on the internet. And these dancers didn't drink or do drugs or anything like that. And Noe told out now that the dancers watch videos of people having a bad trip from drugs or other things for inspiration. Sophia Botella told IndieWire about the rehearsal process, saying every day Gaspar and I and everyone else were to rehearse for four hours and then shoot like 14 to 17 takes. He really grabbed the camera on its shoulders. It's like eight to 10 minute sequences and shots. That's why we rehearse for four hours, and then we would shoot 13, 14, 17 takes every single day. It was long hours, long preparation. I would go back and forth with Gaspar constantly. What could we do and what could I do? And what do you want to do tomorrow? We did not know. Batel also introduced the choreographer McNeely to Noe, who was used for the film. And ultimately, Babatel ended up liking the spontaneity of everything she said. It was an incredible experience. I've never worked that way. I'm usually overprepared. I usually like to study and do a lot of research, and none of that was possible in the film. I gained something else from it, thinking on my feet and sort of using my instrument that way and improvising that way. I absolutely loved working with him. Climax premiered at the Cannes Director's Fortnite in May of 2018, where it won the CIC AE Award, A24 Acquired Domestic Rights to the film that same month. It was released in theaters in France and the Philippines in September of 2018 and had didn't have a limited release in the US until March of 2019. It eventually opened at five theaters in the U.S. and eventually got into over 200. Top critics on Rotten Tomatoes were mixed on the film. Some like Richard Brody of The New Yorker found it dull. And he also used the words bland to describe the audition tapes in the scene in the beginning, as well as empty when referring to how the choreography was shot. He said several long dance scenes feature inspired choreography, but Noe films them sometimes passively, sometimes obtrusively. The systematic images are as empty, are as empty as the story. For the ones that did like it, like Eric Cohn of Indiewire, he pre- he heaped a lot of praise on Noe and said of his directing that climax shares much in common with the levitane camera work of his divisive Enter the Void. But unlike that sprawling endeavor, this 96-minute Aussie feels like the right length to encapsulate his talent for disorienting his viewers while inviting them to his madcap intentions of overtaking their senses. Might be his best movie. It's certainly the best snapshot of a talented filmmaker committed to fucking with your head. Audience reviews were also mixed. People who liked it pointed out the technical elements. People who didn't uh said it was hard to keep their attention through the first part. Rotten Tomatoes critics gave it a 69%, while the audience gave it a 65%. It was rated much more positively on Letterboxd with a rating of 3.8, and over 600,000 members have seen it, and most have rated it four stars. And on IMDB, it has an average rating of 6.9 out of over 90,000 votes. The summary is seemingly based on a true story: a French dance troop throws a party after the last rehearsal before a tour with disastrous consequences. Um I believe this is a first watch for some of us, and not but not all. So I'm I'm curious to hear from people.
SPEAKER_05I I've seen it before.
SPEAKER_00I have too much this was a first time watch for me because I want to remain pure and you know, innocent hard for this movie.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, wrong movie for that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh, this was the first time watched for me because I remember when it came out, it made such a big splash because No way's such a big deal, especially in Europe. But he's only made a handful of films, really. I think he has maybe I think seven or eight movies, so it's like one of those directors that takes his time when he makes a movie. Um, because even since climax, I think Amanda, he's only made two movies, and his last movie's over five years ago.
SPEAKER_02Which is kind of incredible that he just got this random idea and just decided to throw it at the producers for his last film and do it so quickly. He kept emphasizing that this took a less time than it takes to have a child, essentially. He was like, It took less than nine months, and that's what he kept saying in many interviews.
SPEAKER_00I know he had a brain aneurysm, I think right at the part of the pandemic. So, like he almost died. So maybe that may be why he actually doesn't make movies as much. Because he was one of those people, as we see in this movie, so much about drugs like consume his life, and he was like such a supporter of all those types of uh psychedelic drugs, especially. So maybe he had to lay off of it. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, he was saying that that was part of this whole thing, too, is that used to be kind of substances and things like that were things that he did in his youth at the time that I was reading these interviews, anyway. He kind of had moved away from that, but I don't know if necessarily that was part of it or not. Um but and like I said, just the speed at which this movie came out, I think, was to put all this together in this short amount of time. Uh, I think that's why it's so interesting and interestingly shot and everything else.
SPEAKER_00One thing we could ever say about him is he's never born. Like even Enter the Void, which might be his best known movie. Uh, it's just a crazy freaking movie. I mean, all of his movies are pretty nuts from the ones I've seen. So I'm curious for our co-hosts too, how did they watch the movie? Did you have to rent it? Did you get from your library? Rented on Apple.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, rented on Amazon Prime.
SPEAKER_01I went through quite the ordeal. I figured out how my library system works because my main library, it takes about two weeks to get anything extra library loan. So I was like, hmm, I need this right now. And I actually thought that HBO still had the partnership with A24 where they have all of their movies. They still have a partnership, but they do not have all of their movies, which was like, oh, that's problematic at the ninth hour. So watching this actually helped me learn the capabilities of my library because I was able to order it at a different library and go pick it up rather than waiting for it to come in two weeks later. And that has opened my library world. So thanks to this movie and this podcast, I now know the extraordinary capabilities of my library network.
SPEAKER_00Support your libraries, and that was one of the climaxes uh of our journey to watch uh this movie. I got also through my public library. I'm always shocked when they have the movie so readily available. And I'm thinking, yes, because they had that for the lovers uh as well. And I think one other one offhand.
SPEAKER_05I think if my local library didn't have it, it would have to be delivered by the Pony Express.
SPEAKER_00So pretty much where I'm at, yeah. I'm glad we support our libraries and well, I guess streaming services too, because if I didn't have my public library, I would have to rent it too.
SPEAKER_01I know when I first watched this, it was still part of the A24 HBO thing, but not anymore. I actually first watched it because I was inspired by our movie club Terry shout out because he kept talking about the first 10 minutes with the dancing. I was like, that sounds awesome. So I watched it because of his recommendation and him in French movies.
SPEAKER_00Let's go into the categories, guys. So the first category we're gonna go through is narrative elements, and I'm actually be the one to introduce this section. I'm gonna keep it really short and brief. There's a lot going on here that we can kind of think about thematically, but one thing that I wanted to ask the hosts, because it's literally the first thing we see in the film, is their audition tapes and like how we see it through this old school VHS tape on the background or in the background, and that takes place in 1986. So this is like at the peak of VHS's and like video culture in that sense, and it lasts like 10 minutes. I was kind of shocked at how long it lasted, and it was a really, I thought, unique way for us to be introduced to these dancers, so really the ensemble cast. So, did we have any thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_05I had commented on it reminded me of Fame, like the beginning of the movie Fame, which of course is definitely supposed to um to call attention to. But what also got me is I actually zoomed in and uh looked at some of the movies that were displayed there, and they are some of the darkest freaking movies that have ever been made. Solo, possession, unjunu, uh, Harakiris, Despia, uh Labyrinth men, some of the inauguration of the pleasure dome. And then there's like some novels, the Moonell and other psychedelic, Fritz Long, Toxie Driver. There's just all kinds of stuff that is just like really, really trippy stuff and really dark stuff. And I mean, that framing around like the video of all these people with their hopes and dreams and everything really sets up for what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01You don't really have to ask him what his influences were.
SPEAKER_05I'll just list them here.
SPEAKER_01Especially too, like possession actually stuck it stuck out to me first. I was like, oh wow, and then the scene with her pretty much reenacting it.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I think with that too, it reminded me of a couple films, and I was gonna get your guys' thoughts on. The first one was something like Audition, like that 1999 film that's very controversial. And I think it's interesting because in that film it uses like the casting essentially, and it just has this documentary framework to it. And then it also reminded me of the Blair Witch project because it has that found footage kind of feel to it, almost that cinema verite, where it kind of blurs the lines between reality and fiction, and we're really not sure what's happening. But the one that it reminded me of, and I know Darren's seen this movie, was one that I'm shocked was not one of the videos because it's such a disturbing film, was Benny's video, the Michael Haneke film. Uh Kaylin and Amanda, have you seen the film?
SPEAKER_01Not that I have not, no.
SPEAKER_00So, in that film, just to kind of summarize it, it's basically about a 14-year-old boy who becomes so desensitized by like violent media that he actually, well, spoiler, he murders a girl on camera, and his parents, who are wealthy, they have to basically decide whether they should cover up the crime or turn him in. And that's like pretty much the entire film. So a lot of the film, Haneke uses like these technological objects to kind of help figure out what's going on with this character. So you need to see a lot of like cameras and video recorders and television monitors and stuff like that. And the reason why I thought of that film is just because it has this VHS aesthetic to it, but also more importantly, it's a filmed like a documentary, which feels like what we're seeing in Climax, where it's very much like a day in the life of these people. But also, we as the film watcher, we're observing it. So it feels like even the films I mentioned, like Blair Witch uh Project and even Audition, and especially Benny's video, we're thinking, should we be watching this? Like this has a like ick factor to it. We're just not really sure. It's very unsettling.
SPEAKER_01I actually wrote in my notes, it kind of felt like this was the horror movie version of a chorus line because like you get to know each other, and then like they put on a great performance, but then what happens after that performance? Well, we'll show you.
SPEAKER_00I think that this is also like Paris' Burden, but if Paris's Burden was like a horror film, it's like a bogan, and you're just like, that's one of my favorite folks. That's one of my favorite documentaries ever. Oh, I love Paris' Burden.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah, they're absolutely voguing in uh some of the sequences.
SPEAKER_02A lot of boging. Um, and there was also they had a Congolese contortionist too that they got from watching, I think it was some type of competition because he wasn't from the French sort of dance scene, and they had to search and find him, but they brought him on too, and he was really great. I though all these people could kind of be contortionists because just the crazy dance moves and things they were doing in this were they put him to good use, and that contortionist was very symbolic of the insanity going on around him.
SPEAKER_05I don't even remember if he did anything other than just dance in the background, but it's still it's like okay, yeah, no, no, something is very wrong here, and we yeah, run.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I thought it was really unique for them to set it up like this because we get these distinctive personalities are sketched out, and it feels like it happens more naturally. And I think what's really interesting too is that we see them discuss a variety of topics, everything from their ambition as dancers, like what are they willing to do to get ahead, their ideas of relationships and sex and just philosophical ideas or lead-ins or whatnot. But I think what it does ultimately is kind of humanize them, right? Because that's the most we've really seen most of them talk for the entire film, because as we see later in the film, they are just dancing or god only knows, unspeakable things sometimes. So I thought it was a unique way to kind of introduce these characters to us.
SPEAKER_05You get to see them when they're their best selves before they're horny and drugged up and drunk and insane and violent and racist and all nasty behavior. So it is nice that you see that, but it also does really point out that uh anybody could uh become this in the right circumstance.
SPEAKER_00What other scenes stuck out to you guys?
SPEAKER_02Besides the really long dance sequence in the beginning that they do is really just cool visually, and then a lot of before they all get really high, just the overhead kind of camera workshots just into this kind of circle of different people dancing around, I thought was really cool as well. I will say I the dialogue scenes in the beginning for me did go on a little longer than I would have wanted them to. And I know a lot of this was improvised, but some of the conversations, especially around sex and things like that, felt like what a person would think that guys would talk about, you know, together as opposed to what guys would actually. I I know, granted, these are probably things that they all thought off the top of their head, but like I don't know. That's sort of where it went a little bit for me with some of the conversations.
SPEAKER_04Not that far off from what some guys talk about when they're alone.
SPEAKER_00Now, on that note, Amanda, do you think that some of the criticism for this film was that it almost felt like because there's 24 characters, do you think they became caricatures or not necessarily fully flushed out because there's just so much happening, and yeah, we get like a little bit of the backstory and who they are, but then it essentially becomes secondary really to the visual and technical aspects.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think for um I believe it's I think it was Claude Emmanuel who played the mother. I I think it did a good job in that sense, at least, for setting up because a lot of people blamed her for spiking the punch because she was the one who made it. And I think it does a good job here of at least setting up that that could be a possibility because she talks a lot in those first conversations about wishing she was, you know, still dancing and having that part of her life not really be part of her anymore. So I think it does a good job of maybe setting up possible motives for these characters, things like that. But I do think that it wasn't really fleshed out a lot. And I granted Darren uh thought the conversations were believable, but sometimes for me, I was like, well, maybe we're we're going in a weird direction or it's not as believable as I thought it should be. But yeah, I I I think it without the proper character development and just these parts of dialogue kind of all jammed into the first part of the movie, it it makes it a little harder for me to fully invest in the characters and really care. I don't know if they were caricatures or as much as you know, just parts of people.
SPEAKER_05I can maybe the development of the characters isn't that important in this. This is a pretty kinetic film. I mean, once the ball starts rolling, it never stops. Beyond like the opening dance sequence and a dance sequence later, there aren't really scenes so much as just, you know, where the camera follows what person. And um, you know, it follows one person for a long time and then it just pivots to someone else and then back to the original person. And I I think it's just the degeneration is the point. Like how quickly people ju devolve into paranoia and tribalism and just every kind of nasty prejudice you can possibly think of. Just as soon as they're either drugged or they're paranoid about trying to figure out who drugged them. It becomes like a witch hunt. And people end up getting killed because they get accused falsely, based on like the primary theory that the lady with the eyedrop at the end was the person who is believed to have spiked the plant as much because she's also surrounded by books on LSD. She seems pretty clearly that she's microd microdosing and would the implication, but it's never actually confirmed. But uh yeah, I I don't know that character development is all that important in a movie like this. I mean, like you said, there's 24 characters in the movie and uh it's just chaos.
SPEAKER_00Would you actually argue, Derek B that they degress as characters as the film goes along? Like it almost goes backwards. I mean, not in a bad way, but you don't try to say like because we see them as humans and then they slowly just become absolutely I've tried that because this is essentially a horror film.
SPEAKER_05It's almost like they're zombies at times, like or uh primitives or primitives devo de evolution.
SPEAKER_02I think they're to a certain extent like more of their truer selves in a really strange way. It's like Sophia Batella was talking about one of her scenes, and she was saying as it goes bad and the high gets stronger and stronger, her character, she's letting out something deep inside of her. So I I would take it even with the brother sister combo like Taylor and and and Giselle, those would not be things that they would do had they not, you know, I mean, at least as openly, I guess, as they do it, uh, you know, had the had they not been on drugs. So to a certain extent, I think they somehow become more true. Or more actualized a little bit with the LSD?
SPEAKER_05They become less civilized the higher they get. They become their truer selves. But one of the main things about civilization is that you repress your base instincts. I mean, you're not just like, you know, grabbing every ass that you want to. You're not just kissing anybody that you want to, because you know that there's consequences in society. Well, when drugs or alcohol, especially hallucinogenic mind-altering drugs like an LSD or something like that, get into those inhibitions go out the window, especially when you're surrounded by other people. I mean, I don't drop acid, but usually when you drop acid, you want to have at least one control person who isn't so completely sober to keep an eye on you and keep you from like cutting your hand off or something insane. So they don't have that really. Um, and if they do, those people who are sober are outnumbered.
SPEAKER_01One of the things I was actually reading about Taylor and Giselle is he might have actually spiked the punch because he doesn't seem to be affected by it at all. And it could have been the only way that he could possibly get with her because of how insane that is. So that was somebody else's leading theory, is it was actually him.
SPEAKER_00Maybe I think another scene that stuck out to me was the mother and the boy. Do people have thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_01Horrifying. That was the reason why I didn't want to watch it again.
SPEAKER_05He knew it was coming too, as soon as he's just like, Yeah, don't touch that. It's like, okay, I'm gonna lock you in here. And then you hear like shouting from the other side of the door. You never see him again, but it's shouting from the other side of the door. Mom, there are cockroaches. It's like, oh my, it's just not that's what I wonder.
SPEAKER_02I was like, well, what happened to him? We never really know once the police and medical staff come.
SPEAKER_05My guess is he touched the panel.
SPEAKER_01They show you like blinking. And then, too, I think that's why the last scene of everybody just completely tripping for like 10 minutes, they're kind of in the dark, I think. So I think he like shorted the electric and like Yeah, the emergency lights come on.
SPEAKER_05The generator. Yeah, that's what happened. He absolutely got electrocuted and died that way.
SPEAKER_01Um, the first time I saw this, I didn't catch that. I thought that he died from the little bit of punch that he drank because kids can't take that much. Last time I watched it while I was working, so this time I paid a little more attention. Like, oh yeah, no, they clearly set that up with like, don't touch that, you know.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and also that's why the power goes out, because I assume he got bored or curious or just he touched the electrical panel, and you know, like they said, uh Spike got fried. And that's why the power went out and didn't come back on.
SPEAKER_02But that uh scene was I think it's Silva, who's Sophia Patella's character, she's trying to like open the door, but she's simultaneously losing her mind and is just crouched on the floor outside the door crying, is it is so heartbreaking as you just hear this child screaming on the other side.
SPEAKER_00So much screaming in this movie. It's like I I was watching on my computer and I was just thinking, like, oh my goodness, thank god I have headphones.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, same. I was like, good thing that's not going through the house at 11 30 last night when I'm watching it.
SPEAKER_00Also, super loud at times, and I'm thinking like if I watch it on my TV, I would have uh been like, oh wow, there's a rave going on.
SPEAKER_02Also, are we to say that Lou is fine because she ended up in the snow? Did people get her? Is she okay?
SPEAKER_01And why is she like punching herself in the stomach? Well, did she actually drink the punch because she's pregnant? She said she didn't drink the punch, and then she didn't. So one of the other explanations I read was that it was peer pressure. I'm sorry, but peer pressure is gonna make you punch this baby in your stomach. What?
SPEAKER_05I'm guessing she probably thought they'd do something worse to her if she didn't do it to herself. The impression I got, or she thinks that maybe the baby's already dead because she got kicked repeatedly in the stomach.
SPEAKER_00Maybe, yeah. Is she the lead actress in the new Evil Dead movie? Is she? I think she is the French woman in the Evil Dead movie, Evil Dead bird. Oh my god, stop. She is so uh yeah, the snow, because they they circle back to that from the beginning to the end, and it's such a contrast, especially we'll get to the visual aspects later, but the whiteness, like the pureness of the snow, and then you have this red and orange and type of colors, and they're very ugly and uh danger. The one scene that stuck out to me, too, guys, was the hallway descent that we'll call it. Because I mean, how long did that go on for like 10 minutes?
SPEAKER_01It seemed I feel like that was paying homage to possession because that scene goes on for like 10 minutes too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Hallway, the tights where she's herself is like putting her hands in her tights and like not kind of really tripping out.
SPEAKER_01That was weird to me because like she wasn't obviously like touching herself, but what satisfaction was like, oh, thank god my hands are finally squished somewhere. Like, what is that about? Being high, I don't know. I've never been high, so I can't spot yeah, it's it's weird.
SPEAKER_05Uh, the dance sequences obviously are highlights for me. I think that my favorite one is when the four people or whatever combine into like a giant human and stomp around. Yeah, that just like blew my mind the first time that I saw it. That was just crazy.
SPEAKER_01I could watch them dance for hours, especially the first scene, and especially knowing they're doing that in heels, like girls, what? I can't, like, that's so impressive to me. They move like water, it's just so so hypnotizing.
SPEAKER_05That's absolutely the highlight.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that could be the whole movie, like, screw all the other stuff, like just keep me dancing for two hours.
SPEAKER_00It felt like one long music video in many ways, especially and I don't want to get to it too early, but there's so much music in the background and pretty recognizable songs too for different eras. I I I think in this film it's really interesting because there's no likable characters really. I don't know, something they say due to each other. I'm just like, oh my god, it's terrible.
SPEAKER_01I give it a high, but like you kick her in the stomach when she says she's pregnant.
SPEAKER_02That was insane because she thought she was the one who put the LSD.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but like, no, you're not lying, kicking belly. Like, remembering this movie now, I think I watched it for the first time like two years ago, and I always thought, like, you know, the one kid dies and that's the only death, but there's a couple deaths in this movie, and a pretty big baby in her stomach died too.
SPEAKER_02Omar wasn't too bad, you know.
SPEAKER_03Stabs herself in the stomach, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02The guy who got like thrown out in the snow because they thought it was him, Omar. I didn't think he was too bad of a guy. We didn't get to really know him because he got thrown out in the snow.
SPEAKER_05Supposedly the reason he didn't drink is because he was a Muslim.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_01Interesting.
SPEAKER_02Interesting. And the guy, um, there was a person, I forget his name, but there was a person that the DJ was comforting at one point. I know he was trying to hook up with David, I think, throughout the film. Yeah, but I mean, he didn't seem that bad of a guy either.
SPEAKER_01So there were a couple people in here I was too like the two black guys that were having the conversation, the things that they were saying were horrible. Like, I'm gonna take this girl, I'm gonna do this, but the other guy laughing, like, oh my god, who I was just like, I I know they're saying horrible things, but this conversation is just killing me. Like, his laugh was just so funny, and I'm like, Yeah, I know it's terrible, but like I can keep listening to them talk. Like, they're saying awful things, but they're saying them funny, and they seem to really be enjoying this conversation, which is make me enjoy this conversation.
SPEAKER_00It's really interesting too because I'm looking at my notes, and something I noticed was again, folks, like that's always that to make sense when you write notes, but I say this is a sense of sexual liberation and that almost feels like the 1960s in a utopian way, like there's free love, there's set there's drugs, there's all these things happening, but it gets so dark so fast that the following happens that I wrote woman gets kicked in the stomach even though she says she's pregnant. Jesus Christ, that's terrible. Someone's now on fire, someone's cutting themselves. Uh, someone uh also has a knife, an out of body experiences. Like, what is happening in this movie?
SPEAKER_01That just killed me. Someone's now on fire.
SPEAKER_05Troy is walking back into the room with pizza boxes, stunned.
SPEAKER_02Well, this is what happens when you don't have a script.
SPEAKER_05Well, she uh she wasn't kicked in the stomach despite telling her that she's pregnant. She was kicked in the stomach because she said she was pregnant. That was a targeted attack.
SPEAKER_01That was insane. I'm like, did I just really watch that? Did that did she really just escalate that to that level?
SPEAKER_00That quickly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Like you'd smack her in the face first and think like have a little, you know, no, right to the stomach, boom, down, yikes.
SPEAKER_05Oh, it was gasp, gasper, no way.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It it was terrible to watch. And I think I just had a realization that Kaylin took more notes on more pages than is probably the actual script of this movie.
SPEAKER_02Five-page outline, or it was debated, and it was like five pages or a page. I don't think it really mattered either way.
SPEAKER_05The actual script was probably what Nick wrote down. Someone's on fire.
SPEAKER_00My two pages single spaces more than Casper No Way even attempted at a script. He was like, hot people, red colors, music, drugs. I'm in. Give me 15 days, and I'll make your to be fair.
SPEAKER_01This combines a lot of my favorite things. You got music, you got good dancing, you got French. Like, I'm dumbed down. This is everything. You got a little bit of horror, like, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it it has a lot of good things going for it. Um, something I was gonna ask you guys about, because I was wondering is it takes place in 1996?
SPEAKER_01That tracks.
SPEAKER_00Do you think it's because of that culture at that time of like what the events were depicted in the film, or was there anything happening in the world that maybe would have it take place at that specific moment in time?
SPEAKER_01It kind of does feel like the house music kind of club type situation. So, and I mean '96, you were already in the thick of people dying from AIDS and stuff, so I feel like maybe it was a little too free love for '96. But otherwise, like the atmosphere definitely '90s club for sure.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I was just curious because it distinctly takes place at that moment, like before 9-11, but uh or really right after the height of the AIDS epidemic.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then I guess the last thing I'm gonna say about this movie uh before we do the scores, is why is this movie called climax?
SPEAKER_01That's something I was gonna ask y'all, because what was the climax of this movie? Or why what big event? I mean, there's a couple big events, but is there one specifically in his mind that we were leading to this whole time? Like, what is the climax?
SPEAKER_00Can we argue that the entire movie is a climax?
SPEAKER_05Now before the mid-movie credits, it's definitely building up to something. So Irreversible was told in reverse, uh, Enter the Void was very stylistic. Uh, I've never seen love, but I imagine it's probably not really much about love. I I wonder if there's like a theme to how he picks his titles or something like that.
SPEAKER_00I was just thinking because it gives a very small build-up, but it skips all that really, and it's just almost like euphoric state that the film's in for pretty much the entire time. So that's why I was thinking, like, maybe that's the metaphor here. But you might be right too, Darren, that they just call it that for an ironic reason or something that's more poetic or whatnot. Uh, could it also be that cli the climax is actually our experience in watching it's almost like a sensory overload, and uh, there's just so much happening that's almost like we can't exactly process or figure out exactly what is transpiring here.
SPEAKER_01I'd say that's on point. Yeah, because pretty much after the VHS tape, you're just like Darren was saying, the ball starts rolling and it don't stop. So pretty much it's the same feeling you have when you get to like the climax of a movie, but it lasts for an hour and a half.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know what it is too? Like, as the film continues, I'm just gonna give some examples. Like the music just becomes louder and like the camera becomes more disoriented, and the colors become brighter, and the performances just become like frantic and almost uh just crazy. Even the technical aspects, which we'll talk about later, just as the film continues, it's just even more batshit crazy, is what I'm trying to get at. It's almost overwhelming. Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_05It seems like the intention is to simulate you also being on drugs while watching the movie.
SPEAKER_00Or it could be a sense of loss of control, like when you're on drugs. Because I feel like this movie hit every emotion and took it to like an 11, to quote Spaniel tap. It's just craziness. You feel the like the emotions, and there's violence, and there's fear, and there's uh just all these crazy things happening.
SPEAKER_05Paranoia.
SPEAKER_02What did you all think about those different? It's kind of like title cards in the middle of the movie, things like birth is a unique opportunity and life is a collective impossibility. I wasn't really sure of what the point really was of those, but I I enjoy enjoyed seeing the French translations.
SPEAKER_05We're we're weird French poetry, philosophy, and nihilism kind of gumps with the territory with this director.
SPEAKER_00Death is an extraordinary experience that's backwards, and literally the subtitle was also backwards, and I'm like, oh my god.
SPEAKER_01I'm just like, oh, you can cut this pretension with a pair of scissors.
SPEAKER_00For the things I'm saying about the film, it is kind of a pretentious film in some ways.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's French. Every French film is, but it's not every, but every arthouse French film pretty much.
SPEAKER_00It's just crazy. Was there anything else we wanted to add for this category? Do we want to go right into scores? Okay. Uh so I'm gonna start our score reveals for this category. I had to think about this one, and it took me a full day and a half to really submit my scores. It this is probably the hardest film I've had to do so far for the podcast, because I had to try to take my personal enjoyment away from more of like a critical objective lens. I always try to be objective on the show uh as much as I can. And this one, for the narrative elements, I think what's amazing about this film is that it's so simple, but it's also kind of complex and it's disorienting and it's naturalistic and over the top. It's such an oxymoron uh of contradictions, and I don't know why, but for me, the more I thought about it, I actually started to enjoy the film, and that's why I gave it a score of four out of five. So I'm gonna go with a four for this one. I'm gonna go to Kayla next for her score.
SPEAKER_01I'm pretty much exactly the same thing you said. I tried very hard to separate how I personally felt from how I would score this because on a second go round, I actually liked it a little bit more than I did the first go-round. Granted, the first go-round I had a massive headache and I was also working. And this is not the kind of movie that you watch when you're not focused and when your head is killing you. Much better headspace this time. But as for narrative and stuff, there isn't much to it. The dialogue I wrote is mainly screaming and bad trips for one and a half hours. There's no real plot, zero character development, unless you count the descent into madness as character development. So as much as I did enjoy it this time, uh objectively speaking, I would give it a two.
SPEAKER_02Amanda. I gave this category the same score as Kalen. I also gave it a two. I I appreciate what they did considering there wasn't a a script for this and the conversations felt very natural, things like that. It just took a little bit to build up to where the movie was ultimately going to and didn't hold my interest a super long amount of time in that kind of beginning period. And I thought all the characters were were interesting, but they were half baked, which maybe is the point of this film. But I I wanted a little more meat on the bone with my characters, so I'm gonna give it a two Darren.
SPEAKER_05I think it's a fascinating concept with rivalries and tensions present in a dance studio, one that's been frequently explored before, for example, Susperia. But adding in the absolute chaos of hallucinogenic drugs and it quickly degenerates into madness in the best possible way. For me anyway. I'm giving it a four overall, as it did a lot with its premise, but could have perhaps done even more.
SPEAKER_00Great. So we got through category one for the narrative elements, and now we'll transition to our second category, which is about the direction and acting, and we'll let Amanda lead us uh to that uh conversation.
SPEAKER_02All right, so we're looking at the direct television, casting, and acting in this category. Uh the characters are definitely hard to keep track of, but I do think that this is one of the strongest categories for this film. We've we've talked a little bit about the direction already in terms of it making you feel like a voyeur in the room and you're like you're experiencing things as the dancers are themselves, that one continuous shot you have in the beginning with the dancers, and we'll talk more about this as well when we look at the cinematography and things like that. So it really makes you feel as if you're going on the trip with the dancers themselves. And Noe actually said that that was the point, really, with his particular direction for this. He said, in the case with climax, even if the characters are drugged against their will, I didn't want to do any visual or sound effects to reproduce the feeling you're having when you're on drugs. I thought it would be funny if we did it the other way around, like shoot almost documentary style with long cuts, seeing how the effects of drugs and alcohol are experienced, how it's seen from the outside, like how it all shows and not how it feels. So I he really kind of tried to embrace that, I think, to put this category in and did succeed. I have some standouts in terms of acting and and things like that, but I'm curious what stood out to my co-hosts um when it comes to either the directing or acting. And the casting I thought was all great for who they chose. Everybody was, I think did a good job considering most of these people, I think all of these people aren't actors besides Sophia Bitella.
SPEAKER_00So I think what stood out to me in this film is the camera work, because I feel like the camera is actually the most important character, probably in the entire film. It it is, I would argue, because it participates in the events almost as much as the dancers in the film. And as the events go along, it's acting in a similar way that they are experiencing, especially after they get the effects of the LSD spiked into their drink. So I thought it was kind of amazing how they were able to transform the character and put that in a sense into the extension of these characters' altered perceptions and their beings. And it's almost like an out-of-body experience in a way. But I felt like that was something that stood out to me. And those tracking shots that became longer and longer were great. And then there's that one scene I don't think we talk about yet. It's like 40-something minutes, folks, like a one long take, which for context, a long take doesn't last usually 42 minutes. That's like half the movie. So I thought that was pretty amazing to watch.
SPEAKER_01It feels like the whole movie was a series of just like three 20-minute long tracking shots, especially the one at the end where the camera's upside down forever, and everybody's just seriously tripping, and you're like, oh my god, like I'm gonna puke. Can we please just turn the camera right side up? I'm begging you.
SPEAKER_02Felt like he was probably crouching or something, some somebody was at that particular point.
SPEAKER_01Because I know Sophia Vitella was like, he put the camera on his shoulders and like the person to put I guess he'd have to have it like upside down and on his shoulders because you're still moving from like person to person, but the cinematographer, they were earning their money in that 15-minute.
SPEAKER_05Oh yeah, insane, insane. Absolutely a visual spectacle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05The directorial vision in this is fantastic, and the cinematography and all of the coordination with the music and the dancing is just crazy choreography.
SPEAKER_02Which is like almost like another character in the film itself, is just this choreography being this thing that narrates the story in itself, even when the actors are just kind of flipping out. You still have people dancing constantly throughout the whole thing.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah. And the dancing changes as they get more and more drawn. Like you see that they have the all of the same moves and instincts and everything, but they do not have the same energy or vibe, and it's just like slower and sadder and weirder. It's fantastic.
SPEAKER_01You talking about it just now made me realize, like at the beginning, they're all one unit. And yeah, they each have a solo and whatever, but you get the sense that this is a dance troupe, they're all there for a party after the last rehearsal or whatever, like they're celebrating together. And then by the end of the movie, like this one's dancing by himself, this one's crying in somebody's lap, this one's dead. Like everybody is split up so badly, it's like if you literally cut the arms off of an octopus, like it was this unit that is just now completely fallen apart and destroyed.
SPEAKER_00I thought something that was also interesting about the choreography is the way that Noe films it, it it has this like aspect of either a musical or a horror film, which I think are very similar genres in many ways, because you're getting an emotion out of the person watching the movie. But I think what's interesting is that he had these shots and it almost made you more curious to see what else was happening not in the frames. So it made you feel like you were either losing out on something or something that might have been important. And I think that's where I appreciated it a lot because I felt like there was a sense of realism at stake, and it's kind of like this idea of there's so much spectacle happening that you you're almost put under this trance or this spell that you're watching, and it almost overtakes you. But I thought it was kind of amazing how. I kept thinking myself, like there's still other things happening. Like, is something important happening, maybe that we're not seeing in the story or within the frame of the camera work.
SPEAKER_01And you know it is too, because when the camera moves around the room, it's like we're catching them in the conversation they were already having, or we're catching that guy who's just still dancing by himself for like five hours. It just depends on who the camera wants to focus on right now, but there is stuff going on around you.
SPEAKER_02And I thought that that was a good thing, too, is Silva is kind of our main focus for so long, and then she really just disappears for the rest of the maybe 10-15 minutes of the film. And so I appreciated that we got to focus on other characters, like Giselle and having the seizure, just the physicality of her doing that is really shocking, along with everything else that's happening, but just the ability to focus on particular dancers and have them kind of carry the story forward, I thought was an interesting choice. And and I thought it worked well. Everybody did, so none of these people were actors, and I think they all have very little direction besides the choreography. So I think everybody did a great job just kind of carrying their section where they had to.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, they're fantastic acting. Yeah, the performances are amazing because most of them are not professional actors, but at the same time, the hardest kind of acting is drunk acting.
SPEAKER_02And they don't really do drugs, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Or like they are very convincing as people who are high. I found that extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00I think also part of what made it work was this sense of improvisation, too, because they were on such a tight uh timeline to film's movie, because I think it was only in 15 days. So I felt like there was a lot of uh freedom given to these actors. And I thought what was interesting is like we were just saying about how its messiness and its awkwardness and even the repetition, I think, actually works to its advantage because that is what dancing's all about, right? It's this constant type of communication, right? Like in dancing, you're seeing things like posture and facial expressions and uh movement, of course, and even things like breathing that kind of give all these emotions and ideas of even nonverbal communication that we kind of see in the dances also tell in these stories because at the end of the day, they're just bodies really in front of us. Uh but I mean at the same time though, we got introduced to them at the beginning so we kind of could put names to the faces, so they're not just like a large ensemble, like theme one, thing two, thing three. No, they are actually we we have some connections to them, and I think that actually works well because there's really not a lot of dialogue in this film. Although I will say some of the scenes did make me laugh because they were a little cringy, like when they're talking about how they want to sleep with each other and do this and that. And I'm just thinking, I don't really want to hear this, really.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I thought the guy who played David, I think his name is his first name was Romaine, the actor, his performance I thought was really nuanced and really great because he starts out as this kind of frat-like guy who just wants to sleep with Silva and sleep with everybody and then sort of devolves into this crying ness towards the end of the film, which again kudos to these non-actors for really judging up all of this emotion and things like that. But I thought in particular, I consider like Silva a main character, but out of not kind of the more main people, I thought that he was a great secondary same with the brother and sister, like Taylor and Giselle. I thought were really great together as well.
SPEAKER_00I like David in that film a lot because his character had the most arc and the most complex of the ones that we saw. It was just really a good performance by someone who's not a professional actor. So I did appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01It's actually funny because I don't know if it's his hairstyle or what, but he reminds me of two things. He either reminds me of Michael Mando, which is really strange, or he reminds me of somebody that could have been in train spotting, which would fit perfectly as a companion piece to this movie.
SPEAKER_00I just re-watched it two months ago because it was when we did Trivia Night for the movie club, but I kept thinking of train spotting with the whole tracksuit.
SPEAKER_01It has that you have the tracksuit, yep.
SPEAKER_00Oh, and that's the same year that this movie takes place. That's when train spotting came out. So maybe there is a sense there because it it the Hugh McGregor character is always in a tracksuit. Something else that I was thought was kind of interesting was doing a little bit of research, never at the level of Manda does it by any means, but um the scenes were also shot in chronological order too, which I thought was actually pretty impressive. And I mean, that's not often that that happens either. That it's literally from begin to end is what we see played out.
SPEAKER_01Though to be fair, since each scene is like 20 minutes without breaking the camera angle, it's probably easy enough to shoot in order. It's like, okay, we have scene one, scene two, and scene three. Done.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I believe the estimate is there were 10 different shots in this movie, including the ultra-long takes that they had. Wow.
SPEAKER_02Wow. I I just also appreciate as Nick was talking about with the improvisation and just how much I'm assuming the other actors also got to contribute. I know Sophia Patella in particular was throwing ideas at Noe, asking, can I really go off the wall? Like this particular movie reference, things like that at a certain point. He said, sure. So, you know, I'm assuming each of the actors kind of had a similar thing because they just kind of got to do whatever they wanted. And so I appreciate that it it does, it contributes to such unique uh performances out of them, and just that amount of collaboration I think is really cool with the cast and a director.
SPEAKER_05Can I improvise and go crazy? Absolutely not. The one defining characteristic of a Gasper No Way film is restraint.
SPEAKER_01Yes. I legit wonder though if that's how you got your main characters. Maybe it was the people who came up with the most ideas for improv. It's like, okay, you should do a lot because you have some good ideas here. Maybe that's because we've all been saying there's not a main character, but Selva is definitely main-ish. So maybe that's how she got to be that way. It's like, okay, can I do this? Can I do that?
SPEAKER_02She was also apparently like the character itself was a choreographer in the movie, which I didn't get, I think, for uh a while, except after I was reading a bunch of stuff. And then I said, Oh, that makes sense. Because I thought maybe the woman who played the mother might have been, but I I guess she was just like a supervisor or somebody that was there.
SPEAKER_00I I I was gonna make the joke that this was his first movie in the US to get an R-rated, and so someone asked him, they said, Why do you think that's the case? He's like, There there was no genitalia in this movie. And I left because it's true.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, usually when you hear about the somebody's first R-rated movie, it's because all their other movies were PG 13. Not the case here. They're all all NC17, but this one.
SPEAKER_00Or just flat out not rated. They didn't even bother to submit them.
SPEAKER_02I feel like we give uh NC17 ratings though for really random things in the US, though.
SPEAKER_00It happens so infrequently now. It felt like in the 90s that was such a bigger thing, and uh that's much anymore.
SPEAKER_05To steal a joke from a Ben Stiller at the IFC movie awards, that was because back in the 90s they had independent films. Now you have the major studios owning all of the independent labels for the most part, and uh they want the money. You can make more money with an R-rated movie than you can ever make with an NC17.
SPEAKER_02So did we uh have anything else that we wanted to chat about before we do the scores? Okay. I will do my score first. So I gave this a four. I I think we've talked a lot about the unique directing and the cast I thought was really, really incredible, despite despite many of not being professional actors. So this was probably uh one of my highest rated categories. Caitlin, what did you think? What's your score?
SPEAKER_01I wanted to give it a four, but I just couldn't do it. I gave it a three because I thought the dancing was great and the acting was fine, and I didn't quite understand what his vision was. This category is always hard for me because I've only recently in the past few years tried to actually understand directing. So it's really hard for me to still judge that even now. So trying to see their vision for me is hard for me. It's always like, are they trying to can convey a message or is there an importance to why they made this movie specifically? And that's where I'm just like, I don't really see why. Just basically showing like another version kind of of Lord of the Flies, like how people can just turn on each other, like turn into animals without warning, really. So yeah, that's why I gave it a three. Because it was good, but it wasn't great for me.
SPEAKER_05Darren. All right. Um for me, uh, Gasper Noe's vision is clear throughout the film, as horrifying as that might be, and the actors he's working with are extraordinary at showing so many aspects of the human experience in such a short time. Supposedly, drunk acting is one of the most difficult tasks for an actor, and the performers take that to the next level and mix it with the insanity of an LSD trip without the stabilizing factors. It's a five all the way for me. Nick?
SPEAKER_00So this one again, I had to take my personal enjoyment from the film away from my objective hat. So I'm wearing the objective hat. I agree with Darren. I think he is he has a very clear vision of what he wants, and it it takes a lot of bravado for him to do stuff like this and execute it. And I think that the visual components for this film, especially like his decisions that he makes, especially like with long takes and those types of decisions, is so audacious. But it's also, I think, one of the reasons why we like A24 films is because they're doing something bold, they're doing something radical, they're doing something different. It doesn't have to be to everyone's liking, not even to my liking per se. But I have to respect that. And I think that that type of singular vision serves the film really well. And I thought the casting was really great in this film. Some performances are okay. I think maybe we're overhyping it a little, but like they're fine. We're there to see them shake their asses and dance and do all those fun things. But for this category, I'm giving a full five. I think that it definitely does its job. And if you're gonna show someone, like, hey, I want to watch a weird ass A24 film with a singular directorial vision, this is probably one of the first films I would probably point to. Next up, we got the third category, which is the visual technical element, some of this we talked about a little bit. Sorry about that, Caitlin. But we're gonna hand it off to you to lead us to talk about that.
SPEAKER_01Yay! This is always my favorite category because even if the plot sucks, if the acting sucks, I generally am like, oh, but it was pretty or all with the music. I think we've pretty much hammered home the fact that this is a very technical movie. This is very much hinged on the music, the atmosphere, the cinematography, the lighting or lack thereof, the general environment that's conveyed. There's no special effects, there's no real editing. It could probably benefit from some editing, but honestly, I kind of like it rough and unedited. I think it's much more natural that way. One thing I did want to point out that we haven't mentioned yet is the weird, I guess, blink cuts, for lack of a better word. Sometimes, like when they use those in a movie, it's basically like, okay, we're ending this scene and going on to the next scene. But I he used them a couple times in the same scene, and I don't know what those were supposed to mean. So those were a little confusing for me. I wouldn't say that there was really any costumes in this, but I would say that their clothes were pretty damn cool. I liked seeing all the different dancers' outfits, seeing how what people choose to wear that flows, because I know how important that is with dancing. You have to be aerodynamic and they have to move with you. So seeing all the different clothes that people could move in, even a tracksuit, my god, like yes, they do wear tracksuits in gym class and stuff, but some tracksuits are very unforgiving, and still he moved pretty damn well in his. One other comment I did want to make about the music was obviously, yes, good, recognizable house music, wonderful, but some of it was a little screechy for my liking. Usually I can vibe with something, like if something goes on for a while and it's very repetitious, I'm like, but am I digging it? I'm like, yeah, I'm digging it. I could vibe with it. Like, you know, I've just recently got into the very expensive habit of vinyl collecting, and I'm trying to pick up records that are vibes that you just put on and just for 45 minutes just get into that zone. And a lot of this music you can get into that zone, but there were a couple times where it was like, okay, you are testing my patience. I am reaching the boundaries of my own zone. But otherwise, I thought that that was pretty solid too. So that's pretty much all the notes I wrote on technical. How y'all feeling about the technical that we haven't mentioned already? And the blink cuts.
SPEAKER_02I I guess we'll have to define what you mean by the blink cuts.
SPEAKER_01I actually don't when it would go like black for a second, and then it would come back. Usually that's like a transition, but here, like a couple times during the longer conversations, it was just like blink and we're back to the same people. Okay. I'm sure there's a more technical name for it, but I don't know what it is. It's like when you blink your eyes, I guess.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. I thought you were using like a term eyes. I said, No, no, no, I've never heard of this term. It's Kalenese curve. Somebody's oh great, a new thing.
SPEAKER_00I think it's the half-the-disorienting factor to it, almost like part of it is like the human eye flickers, and I think part of what he's trying to do is raise the psychological tension and really the chaos that's happening in between because it happens quite frequently, right, throughout the film, and it's this thing where it kind of leaves you on edge, and you're thinking, what is happening here?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, disorientation's probably got a lot to do with it, or you're trying to blink and get back to reality or something like that, or waking up for a dream, or maybe it's a strobe factor or something like that. Just another way to mess with people's perception and uh put yourself in the places one of the characters in the movies having the same experience. He does a lot of that stuff in his movies to try and mess with you. Technical things that he can do to try and throw you off, make you feel like you're on the twisted part of a roller coaster.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I was trying to scale back and think, is he trying to tell us in these moments maybe that's when the drug was starting to take effect? But no, because it was still with everybody seemed pretty sober. Maybe that was hints that something was coming, because it's not too far between when you first see them and then everything goes off the rails. So maybe it was kind of like a hint of some sort, but yeah, it was weird to me that it would just be like, okay, we're transitioning to somebody else and be like, nope, right back to the same conversation. I'm like, okay, what was the point of that?
SPEAKER_00Do you think it could also be because they're dancers and they're constantly moving around that maybe they could be tired too? So it's like this kind of exhaustion that's also at play because it's such a physically demanded thing that they're doing. Could be, yeah. Because it's all about movement. I I think something that I did want to mention that stuck out to me for this category was the light in choices. I thought it was very warm, it was very colorful. And then as the LSD takes into effect, we see these deep reds, and of course, when we think about the threads, we think about danger, we think of violence, we think of these darker human elements and emotions.
SPEAKER_03Just a descent into hell. That's what happens.
SPEAKER_02Like the punch is red and has these bright oranges in it. I think there's even the coloring on the floor. I think there might even be chipped paint in different areas, and oh yeah, just the horrible image, but the bloodiness of I think her name is Jennifer's head, like scalp. So just a lot of red.
SPEAKER_01The ones on fire.
SPEAKER_02Also great music. I think Daft Punk did a song specifically called Sangria for this film. And had a couple other um Mars uh things from Daft Punk were in this film as well.
SPEAKER_00Kaylin, you mentioned Mars. They actually had a lot of well-known songs. Like you had Patrick Hernandez's Born to be Alive, which is a 70s disco song. You had Apex Twin, you had Window Liquor from the 90s, which is of this era. You had um Thomas uh oh, the guy from Daft Punk, who's actually the composer, the music supervisor of this movie. Oh, one half of Daft Punk. Ah so it explains why there's so many bangers in his sound attraction.
SPEAKER_05He basically DJ'd it.
SPEAKER_00And then we see Soft Cells Tainted Love, but it's interesting, they do the entire Tainted Love. They do Tainted Love and Where Did Our Love Go, the Supreme song. So they play that back and forth, and then they end the film with Angie with the Rolling Stone song. And I was just so surprised how many of the songs were kind of famous. Because you know, usually if you're gonna play like a David Bowie song, for example, it might be if it's a more indie film, they're gonna pick a deeper cut just because you don't really have the money to play changes or uh fame. I agree with you. I thought the music was just as much a character too here because it replaced the dialogue in so many senses. It it also imitated or it projected the emotions that these characters were doing. And really the each song kind of builds it up, right? So you start off with Born to Be Alive, like great. Then we got Pump Up the Volume, and then we get weirder with Apex Twin and Sankoria, uh-huh, and then Tainted Love, and then we die with the Rolling Stones, essentially.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it was so interesting when you saw the list of the artists in the middle of the movie because the good part of the movie is over and here comes the bad part. So here in the middle is when we're gonna show you the credits. Well, they have the credits in the beginning, and then here's the mid-credits where it shows all of the logos for the bands, all of these techno bands and house bands and electronica bands, and then the Rolling Stones. It's like, well, that's a weird choice. We'll see what they do with that. But yeah, they they did use it.
SPEAKER_01Do you know how much I would love if every friggin' movie did that? I loved the hell out of that. If they just told you all up front, here's all your bands and did the cool graphics.
SPEAKER_02You like some mid-movie credits.
SPEAKER_01Yes, but with bands only. So you know what you hear this song, you know, you can discern from the list, but probably.
SPEAKER_02I would actually really like that too, because half the time I'm like, who is this? And I've heard that.
SPEAKER_05I like what Netflix does is Netflix in the subtitles, it shows you the name of the artist and the song when it starts playing. That's especially great for TV shows because they don't put those in the end credits usually.
SPEAKER_01Yes, one thousand percent. I found stuff on Spotify a lot easier thanks to Netflix subtitles.
SPEAKER_02They did that on it's not making sense. They do that on Amazon Prime as well.
SPEAKER_00U and what's interesting about them using Angie too is that it's an instrumental. You don't hear Bick Jagger ever sing either. And it blends, of course, electronic house, disco, and it's such an interesting film from a music standpoint.
SPEAKER_05Sober people show up and it's the Rolling Stones.
SPEAKER_00Yep. You see the dog, you see the authorities, and just like the Rolling Stones in the 70s, it's the drunk boss people. Um one thing too I wanted to mention I thought was really good about this film was the editing. I thought that it was very minimal, of course, because there's a lot of long takes, but I thought that it helped build tension and really helped build it naturally. And also what I thought the long takes kind of represented was this idea that we're living these events in real time, there's really no relief, things just happen, and it's this kind of uh almost euphoric thing that's happening in front of us where it's like, oh wow, this is pretty sublime almost.
SPEAKER_01I will definitely take an unedited musical movie any day of the week.
SPEAKER_00Well, good news. So many needle drops in this movie. And also something else I thought was kind of interesting was the sound effects and the sound design, which I think is also like if we're talking about the music, it's also really important because we're hearing a lot of we were talking about screaming, but we're hearing just no noises even outside the frame. So we're hearing doors slam and conversations overlapping. And we were talking about before like this idea of realism at play, and I think that that actually helped make it feel like you are at a club or at a rave in the late 90s.
SPEAKER_01Um there was actually something cool I had because I had put subtitles on my DVD player, even though it had subtitles, because I wanted to make sure that because sometimes like the movie won't tur translate something for you, and the DVD menu will. So I thought it was cool in my subtitles. It kept saying, like, woman screaming, door slammed, like this is happening over here, this is happening over there, and it would actually keep track of all the little noises in the movie. I thought that was really dope. That was obviously important for you to be telling me about.
SPEAKER_00I just want to think I can attest that, Caelan, because I watched it on a DVD from my library, and of course it was subtitled because it was in uh French for me, but I also had the subtitles on, and I saw the similar things where it's like door slamming, baby crying, or kid crying, someone getting stabbed.
SPEAKER_01You're like, What? I kind of love that dog, and it's like it's reminding you like this is not the only story you're watching. There's a lot of stuff going on right now, just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't happening.
SPEAKER_00So much drama with dancers. Who figured?
SPEAKER_05Stabbing, screaming, crying. This girl is on fire.
SPEAKER_00Tried to insert a Bruce Spring scene, I'm on fire, but I just can't think of a good joke offhand.
SPEAKER_02Only like a two to three second scene or whatever, too. And I'm like, we're not gonna stay here with this person who's literally like scalp is gonna peel off.
SPEAKER_00So many moments must watch in this movie, and I'm thinking, what the hell am I watching? Like, what am I doing with my life?
SPEAKER_04Oh, you know what you're watching.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. You're watching a bad trip for an hour and a half.
SPEAKER_00Uh-huh. I'm just like, I should I be watching this? I don't know.
SPEAKER_03No, but that's why it's fun.
SPEAKER_01So is there anything else we wanted to cover around visual or technical elements? No. All right. Well, then I will go and say, once again, objective hat back on. I thought it was good, but not great, so I gave it a three, and I gave all my notes as to why already, so I will popcorn it over to Nick.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so I think this is probably the strongest category of the four categories just because. It's such a visually relentless film. And I think my thoughts on this are very similar to the last guy with the direction and acting, just because I feel like of the four categories, these two are always intertwined. How I review the films, because I don't know how you can't sometimes, but I feel like this film you have no choice. And there's so much uh happening here, and I really appreciate the cinematography and the editing and the choice of music and just the overall look and feel of it. Like it's nothing quite like I've seen before. Not that really I want to see either again. So I don't know if I would ever want to re-willingly watch this film ever again, but I am gonna give it that, but I liked it better on the second go-round.
SPEAKER_01So you might someday give it like two, three years.
SPEAKER_00You know, in three years, I will uh watch it again and I will figure out if I like it any more on a personal level. Uh but I did give it a five because I think it's a bold film, and I think if you're gonna go bold, either go like one or five. Like you could go three, but I'm like, you know what? Let's give it a five.
SPEAKER_05Three is not bold.
SPEAKER_01No, and that's why I am very conservative in my scores this time.
SPEAKER_00Well, uh, Darren, well, what is your score?
SPEAKER_05I think it's the strongest element in the film. This is a visual spectacle of movement, music, and presentation, and even when things get horrible, it's impossible to look away from it. It's absolutely a five for me. Amanda?
SPEAKER_02I gave it a four. I I agree that it's for me, it's the second strongest category. And yeah, the visuals are are what would make this film if it didn't have the lighting and then the cinematography and the editing the way it did. With with a very minimal script, I don't think it would have been as successful um of a film. So yeah, four for me.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's category three, folks, and we gave our scores for that one. We are down to the last category. Uh we are gonna talk about the cultural and social relevance. So we'll uh let Darren lead us to uh talk about that.
SPEAKER_05Okay, well, like Nick said, this topic is cultural and social relevance, which includes timely enduring themes, social commentary, and representation slash identity. I think that this movie does really well with representation and identity, decently with social commentary, and so so with timely and enduring themes. What does everyone else think?
SPEAKER_02I appreciated how just diverse the cast was. And as Darren was saying, there's queer representation, there's a lot of people of color. So I I really appreciated that aspect of it. And then I think there were also talks about the dance scene in different areas of Europe, which I thought was interesting. So that had I think added more kind of social context to what was happening here. I I know we were talking about before, like why put it in '96. So maybe there were things happening in the dance community, things that maybe we didn't know about that I think were surfaced possibly a little bit in this film.
SPEAKER_00I I kind of agree with Amanda. The casting was very eclectic and diverse, and you see, as you said, openly queer characters and very fluid characters, too, where it's like, okay, this guy's chasing a girl, but then you know, another guy's going after him, and then a girl's chase after a guy, and then a girl's going after her. It's one of those types of movies that keeps you on the edge of your seat because there's this fluidity at stake that you're thinking, like, wow, it's just gonna end up in one big orgy, maybe. But I thought it was really uh interesting how it was very eclectic, especially from a queer standpoint, but also from a racial standpoint, like you said, Amanda, I felt like these these characters were all over uh the European map here. And uh I I thought that that was really uh interesting.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, the course of the events definitely depends on which drug you uh spike the punch with, because um, you might have gotten that orgy if they had used MDMA or ecstasy.
SPEAKER_02True. Less killing, more loving.
SPEAKER_05Make love not worse.
SPEAKER_00Also, something I did appreciate that they kind of add into Amanda's point, is even the different types of dance backgrounds and different types of dance that we see in the film. I'm stretching a little with the social cultural relevance, but my point is that you see Vogan, you see crumpen, you see hip-hop-oriented dance music. So I think it's like kind of interesting, even the authenticity of the dance performances that they're also bringing to the film. It's not like they're all just doing a Broadway musical or a jazz ensemble or whatever. There's a lot of different even dance performances happening in this 90-minute film.
SPEAKER_02And if we're like talking about themes, parts of the conversations in the start of the film where I think a dancer's talking about something's happening with her father, and then there's also the very strange relationship and problematic relationship with the brother and sister that's happening in this film. So I think just the idea in terms of you never really know what people are kind of going through or experiencing just by looking at these perfect looking people and just seeing their talent. I I think there's just the idea that there's layers to people and and that you might not know what someone's going through on a given day. So if we're looking at kind of themes here.
SPEAKER_05At the beginning of the movie, you see the introduction, and there's one tape with a brother and sister, and like, oh, I know where he's going with this.
SPEAKER_02That's just overprotectiveness, yeah. Not wanting to be with any and now you understand as the as the film progresses a little bit.
SPEAKER_05It's also Gasper Noah. Do you know he's gonna do something incestuous? Um way, yeah, it's gross, but that's because I've seen some of his other films.
SPEAKER_01I feel so bad for her though when she realizes what's happening, and oh my god, just the complete horrifiedness. You just try and imagine where do you go from here? Like the don't tell dad. Like, that's what that's what he's doing. Oh my god, like I probably have a seizure too. What is next? Do you get him arrested? Do you go to a mental hospital? What do you do after this? I wouldn't even know what to do. I feel horrible for her. It's just horrific. There's literally nothing like you try and put yourself in the shoes of the character. Like, what would I do? And I'm like, I Jesus, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Acting-wise, though, I thought they both were really incredible and such a disturbing thing that I didn't actually see it coming until because I haven't seen any of Gas and Rome's films before this one. I did not see it coming until it came. And I was like, oh my god, am I watching Game of Thrones or House of Dragons?
SPEAKER_01But yeah, you get the feeling that he was just like, okay, you act really desperate, and just no matter what, you have to get away from him, and you act like you're really desperate, you just don't let her get away from you.
SPEAKER_05Barf bags will be provided off screen, offset.
SPEAKER_00I guess from category one, is if we think about this film, I feel like with the cultural social relevance, I mean, a lot of the themes are very universal here, right? We're seeing this mob mentality and peer pressure that overtakes these characters. We're seeing fear paranoia as the film gets along, and also isolation. It's almost like they're just in their own world that's separate from anything from the outside. They're just in this abandoned school house essentially. So there's like no social order. So I think what I'm trying to get at is that these themes I think could always be relevant, I would argue, because we all kind of experience all these emotions and things in our own lives that I don't think it matters if it was 96 or 2026.
SPEAKER_05Nope. Yeah, wouldn't matter.
SPEAKER_00Or 1966.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, anybody can have a bad trip, anybody can go to a club and dance. Yeah, you could put this in any 70s, 80s, 2000s, anything. It would still work.
SPEAKER_00You know what I thought of this film in a weird way, so I'm gonna workshop this for a second because it came out in 2018, so it's more retrospective with 96. I read this film as an allegory of social media and almost reactionary culture because in the film we're seeing fear that spreads really quickly, right? And it's almost like they don't care about facts. Like even if you're giving them something that's logical or has concrete information, these characters don't care. They're just living in the moment, they're high on the LSD from the sangria that they're drinking. But it's the fact that these uh small sacred communities that are diverse and queer, when they're under pressure like this, like in this context, it it just goes to complete chaos and ultimately it turns to violence or diluted. What I'm getting at is that I've read as the same sense of social media where people are just so quick to kind of be reactionary and they don't care. So as they think they're right, they're just gonna do whatever they want and say whatever they want. And uh there's no sense of logic or I don't know if that makes sense, but yeah, well, their actions are emotions based.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_05Yep, because they're being debased down to their primitive form, uh being because of the lack of control and the lack of civilization due to uh the hallucinogenic drugs. I mean, you could also compare it to mass hysteria for episodes throughout time, back to the witch haunts or uh witch trials back in the day. Yeah, it's all the same human instinct to be afraid of others and think the worst of others and then act violently uh and impulsively. Once that human nature is suppressed and the animal nature comes out, that sort of thing is just inevitable.
SPEAKER_00I take add a strong crucible five to this. Like if it was like, let's take Arthur Biller's the crucible, but we put it in nineties ra like dance culture in France.
SPEAKER_05That's what they're trying to do. They're trying to figure out you poisoned me, you dosed me, you're the one who spiked it. It's like it's you because you're not drinking, and no explanation could actually make sense. So, yeah, that's absolutely mass hysteria.
SPEAKER_02But there was also a very big two internet element to just taking this film in terms of not only going out and scouting dancers, but also finding them on YouTube and finding them on the internet, and then also using internet inspiration for the performances themselves. So the whole parts of the skeleton of this whole thing were built on kind of social media, on like in the internet and things like that, too. So I think it does lend itself uh very nicely to what you were saying, Nick, about this kind of being a representation of that.
SPEAKER_00It's such a trippy film, it's almost like a roller coaster ride, too. That was the other thing I kept thinking of where it it is kind of portraying this uh drug experience that they're experiencing where it just goes up and down, up and down. Ooh, maybe that's the climax really here.
SPEAKER_01So you definitely have moments in the middle there where you think that maybe somebody's coming back to reality a little bit, but then nope, they're back off the rails again. As the viewer, you desperately just want to connect with somebody, and I think that's why maybe I connect with Giselle so hard, because I think that sobers her up a little bit, and then she's just like, Oh my god, what is going on? So it's finally a voice of clarity and all this nonsense.
SPEAKER_02I also think like those silvo was tripping out real hard. I think she was also the most aware that there was something, because even before I think other people started saying that there was something off or they felt strange, she kind of immediately clocked it and was trying to figure out what was happening. I mean, she obviously eventually disappears with the other woman, but uh yeah, it was interesting to see which ones were more titanly aware of what was happening to them.
SPEAKER_01I think some of them didn't care. They're just like this is the worst night ever. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Some of them were just tripping and vibing and they didn't pay attention to anything else going on. The contortionist is definitely his own world.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the one that was just dancing by himself for five hours. He's like, This is the best night of my life.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. A lot of them, there's a lot of people who are just dancing quietly off in the corner. They're not bothering anybody, they're not murdering anybody, they're not kicking any pregnant women. Just minding their own business, having a good trip, maybe having a little experience.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05All right. Does anybody else have anything else uh to discuss on cultural and social relevance? All right, so we'll go to the scores. Uh for me, this is the weakest of the four elements, though not entirely a weakness compared to other films. What boils down to for me is the general nastiness of the human condition when presented in unfiltered form. And that really isn't anything new or original for me. So I'm gonna give it a three. Kaelin?
SPEAKER_01Pretty much the same for me. I feel like I was a little too harsh on this one, but once I write a number down, I stick to it. So for me, there were no real themes. There was representation, which is good, but it didn't feel like meaningful, it's just which that's kind of the best kind of representation, is when it isn't in your face. But I digress. And I put in my notes that I'm sure that it's commenting on something social, but it's going over my head, like we said before, maybe something with the dance community specifically in France that we just don't know because we are not in it or don't really study it or any of that. So I gave it a two, which feels really harsh, and I'm sorry, but that's what I gave it, and I'm sticking to it.
SPEAKER_00Nick. How do I follow up to that? This one is probably the weakest category of the four, but I think there's a lot of good things happening here with the representation and diversity of the cast, and also I think a lot of the themes and the identity of the characters are universal. So for me, I give it a four for those reasons. And for the record, before we go to Man's decks, I will say if I gave the score a personal rating, I would say two and a half at best. So the fact that I've given this all fours and fives, I'm trying to be objective tonight.
SPEAKER_01Um the opposite. I give it a four for myself, but objectively I gave it a two, and I feel bad about it, but I'm sticking to it.
SPEAKER_00Okay, it's like I'm gonna totally not change my score, even though I wish I could. No, I'm kidding.
SPEAKER_05It's uh five-star review on Letterboxd for me.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. For this one for me, I hope to never watch it again, but I'm also kind of like, it is a good film to show someone A24. So I don't know. Just giving it respect that I think it deserves. Up Manta, what's your score?
SPEAKER_02So I gave it a two. I agreed with Kaylin where I loved the representation. I thought it had some kind of social commentary themes, things like that, but nothing that really stood out to me. Though when we're talking about letterbox scores here, I gave it a three and a half on letterbox. So I was nicer to it on letterbox than I was the scores here, but I do agree. I think this is out of the films we've done so far, probably one of the more representative of a 24 strange and quirkiness kind of areas.
SPEAKER_01Agreed.
SPEAKER_00This is definitely more along their lines of bold bold, audacious, and just straight up singular. Well, that's our four categories that we got done discussing. So let's move on to talk about our scores. So, Darren, do your thing.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Based on the combined ratings for all four categories and the fact that only two of the reviewers, Darren and Nick, gave the film a total score of 16 or higher. Climax is not viewed by the reviewers on this podcast to be an eight or twenty-four karat gold film, which requires three out of four reviewers meeting that threshold. Nick gave it a top score of 18, Darren gave it a 17, Amanda gave it a 12, and Kaylin gave it a 10, giving it an average score of 14.25, which does qualify it as the second highest grade of A24, A24 carrot is over. Overall, Climax is the third highest rated film of the seven films reviewed so far with a total score of 57. Position between the killing of a sacred deer, which is scored 61 total points, and the eternal daughter, which is scored of 52. The highest rated film overall remains Moonlight with a score of 77, and the second highest is Killing of a Sacred Deer with 61. The film ranks as the second highest rated film for Nick, finishing between Moonlight and Sharper. It ranks as the third highest rated film for Darren, ranking between The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Eternal Daughter. And it ranks as the fifth highest rated film for both Amanda and Kalen, between The Lovers and Remember for Amanda, and between Remember and the Eternal Daughter for Kalen.
SPEAKER_00I'm shocked that this is an A24 essential guy.
SPEAKER_01But I can see it. I feel like it's really strong in some areas and not as strong in others, and that's what hurts it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_00It's better than sharper. I'm kidding.
SPEAKER_01It is.
SPEAKER_05That doesn't take much.
SPEAKER_01If just for music alone and you know me, most of my entire best movies of all time is based on the music in them. So you know.
SPEAKER_00I'm kind of curious what we are gonna consider A24 Essential, because we only got one so far. We'll get there someday. We will, we will, if we'll find a consensus. And 28 episodes later, maybe we'll get closer. No, I think that this one it's kind of interesting because it's such a visceral film, so I guess it makes sense for it to be not divisive, but yeah, it is a tough one because I feel like this film, and I didn't look at any real reviews or anything, but I felt like it was a love it or hate it type of film. You don't feel neutral about it.
SPEAKER_01I went to go rewatch it. I strongly agreed with Richard Brody, which was like, oh god, what is wrong with me? But then when I rewatched it, I was like, okay, no, I don't agree with him as much anymore. Last time I watched it, yes, but no, this time I liked it better on the second go-round.
SPEAKER_03What did Richard Brody have to say about it?
SPEAKER_02Amanda He said it was bland in terms of like the audition scenes he thought were bland. He thought the actual filming of the choreography was also a bit dull, a bit empty, is what he said, empty. I see. And I also saw in a lot of reviews people were just like, nothing happened. One person used the word nothing, I think, four or five different times, and they were like rotten tomatoes review. So I think it's a film where you gotta be along for the ride and you gotta wait it out to see what's gonna happen. And I think some people, unfortunately, probably don't have that long of an attention span to do it.
SPEAKER_05It's just a weird way to describe something as nothing when a movie has a body count.
SPEAKER_01I feel like, too, for something to be essential, it has to, at least for me. I mean, maybe not everybody feels this way, but I feel like something has to be well-rounded enough that you could show it to really any movie fan and they might click with it. I don't think you could show this to any movie fan. Like, I feel like this definitely has its own niche. It's where something like Moonlight, like that, would definitely attract people from a bunch of different walks of life. This I feel like would put off half the people I would show it to. Like, why did you show me this? This is horrific.
SPEAKER_05Well, that tracks. I mean, we have two huge scores and two middle of the road scores. So yeah, it does seem like about half and half.
SPEAKER_01I figure at the end of this, if there ever is an end of this, there should be a list of maybe ten, because otherwise, if it's like a hundred, then what are we doing here?
SPEAKER_05Well, that seems to be where we're headed.
SPEAKER_02I'm glad I saw it though. I hadn't seen any of his films.
SPEAKER_05Now the A24 carat gold essential double feature as we wrap up our 150th episode.
SPEAKER_00And there's only one essential film.
SPEAKER_05No, it's a double feature. Moonlight and something else, midsomar, maybe. Who knows?
SPEAKER_00Well, guys, you want to see what our next movie's gonna be?
SPEAKER_05Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00So, uh one thing I will note about this is that we actually have no new movies added at the time of this recording. There is absolutely nothing to add to the wheel. So, what we did last time is the same, and really the only movie that's gonna be out next month or really in August is Tony. So we kind of get a pass almost in a way. Like we can catch up.
SPEAKER_05They did release an updated version of backrooms.
SPEAKER_00Backrooms revisit.
SPEAKER_05Basically, there's like 20 new minutes of footage.
SPEAKER_02Yes, welcome back to the back rooms.
SPEAKER_01We're trying to save our asses after that AI deal we made. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Backrooms make sense edition.
SPEAKER_00Well, let's spin the wheel and let's find out what will be September's movie. Spin the wheel, let's make a deal. So let's take a look to see what this is exactly.
SPEAKER_01What the hell is Low Tide?
SPEAKER_00It's from 2019 and it's directed by Kevin McMillan. I think that's how you pronounce his name. Oh, Tribeca! Tribeca. And a good sign is that this was released not in theaters really, but on direct TV. Remember when they had the Direct TV deal A24 for their movies?
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. No, I don't either.
SPEAKER_02They did that for the Eternal Daughter and stuff.
SPEAKER_00So they they did that a lot for especially the 2010s.
SPEAKER_01What scares me is you can't click on the director's name on Wikipedia. This is the only thing he's ever made. Wow.
SPEAKER_00The good thing about this movie, though, it's on pretty much every stream and service we could think of. It's on Amazon Prime, it's on Canopy.
SPEAKER_02I feel like this is the only movie he's ever written, and the only movie he's ever directed, though. He has something in pre-production, apparently.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay. But it's on Tubi YouTube. Good news about this movie is that we could watch it no problem.
SPEAKER_01I don't have to do the library crawl trying to find the right library.
SPEAKER_00I mean, to be fair, it scored pretty high on just watch right now. That's a pretty high ranking for a movie that we have never heard of or have any knowledge of seeing it. Will this be a first-time watch for all of us? I assume.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05First I've ever heard of it.
SPEAKER_00Definitely for me. I didn't know it existed till 2019. I don't even recognize anyone in the cast, really.
SPEAKER_01I don't want to read the plot to spoil anything, but the plot is like two lines long.
SPEAKER_00I have heard of Shay Wiggum. I'm gonna read the Wikipedia plot summary for listeners just to entice us. Uh it in this astrophysic thriller set on the Jersey Shore. Three teenage boys spent the summer roaming the town at Boardwalk, getting into small bouts of trouble, but after the discovery of a coin treasure, the friends are sent on an escalating course of suspicion and violence.
SPEAKER_05So it's treasure of the Sierra Madre.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, and I see the color red again and orange and yellow on the poster. So I'm getting strong climax vibes.
SPEAKER_05Seems unlikely. We'll see.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I'm just saying from the poster, not anything else. But one thing I will say that I appreciate about us picking low tide is this is our first film from 2019. So in the last couple of ones that we've done, we got different years of being represented for the first time. So 2019 is the first time that we're gonna explore this year. I kind of like when we do it, by the way, but it's not all from the same year or same era. It'll be interesting to see for this movie.
SPEAKER_01We're definitely knocking a lot of ones off the list that we've never heard of in our lives.
SPEAKER_05Have you looked at that list? There's a lot of movies we haven't heard of.
SPEAKER_01Well, maybe there's some hidden gems. I'm sure Low Tide is going to be A24 Essential.
SPEAKER_00You never know, Caleb.
SPEAKER_01You never know. It could be the best movie nobody's ever heard of.
SPEAKER_00That's what I'm hoping on this show. Like, there's a movie that is so under the radar or under Appreciate that we like it, and maybe it will help revitalize it or maybe give it a second life.
SPEAKER_01Mayhaps.
SPEAKER_00I saved it just to make sure that it took low tide off. But low tide will be our movie for September. So I'm looking forward to talking about that one with our co-hosts. And with that said, thank you all so much for joining me tonight to talk about climax. What a thride that was, to say the least. Thank you, Kaylin, Amanda, and Darren, for joining me tonight. And thank you to our listeners for checking this episode out. You can follow us on social media at A24Care Cold on pretty much any of the platforms. So we're on play platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. You search for it, you will discover us and all the things that we do on the show. And we also have a Patreon page with that handle if you want to support independent podcasters like us. And while you're at it, too, if you would like to do so, leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We actually got a five-star rating on Spotify, so we still have five stars on all the platforms, but we got an extra one on Spotify. So thank you to whoever you are. We don't know who you are, but I almost did a uh Backstreet Boys uh thing. I don't care who you are, where you're from, as long as you love me. That was my first favorite song by then. Oh, that's why I did it for you, Caitlin.
SPEAKER_01I know, it's all about me.
SPEAKER_05With a perfect score of five, that technically makes us the greatest podcast on the internet.
SPEAKER_01That's true.
SPEAKER_00If you want to just let us know what you think or give us a rate in, uh, hopefully we're five, uh, feel free to do so. And with that said, thank you again to our co-hosts and to our listeners for checking this episode out. And we'll catch you all on the next one.
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