Both Sides
A film review podcast between a film student, and a film industry outsider, about a film. https://www.youtube.com/@BothSides_Podcast
Both Sides
#3. Tropic Thunder (2008) w/ Michael #filmreview
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In this podcast, Andrew reviews Tropic Thunder with Michael.
A film review podcast between a film student, and a film industry outsider, about a film.
~ FILM SUGGESTIONS ~
Comment about films you guy's want to see, and I'll credit you.
~ HOST ~
Andrew Heilman is a student film producer, owner operator of Heilman Productions (a free-lance media/film production company in Silicon Valley) and social media editor.
~ GUESTS ~
The guests for this show are people who are not actively seeking a career in the film and television industries.
Welcome to Both Sides, a podcast between a film industry insider and an outsider to get their unique perspectives on movies. I'm your host, Andrew Heidelman. I'm the owner of a production company, camera operator, editor, and film student. Today, my guest is my friend Michael, and we'll be watching Tropic Thunder. Stay tuned till the end to hear our final reviews of the film. And in case you need a refresher or you just have never seen it, here's the story in a nutshell. In Tropic Thunder, a group of difficult Hollywood actors traveled to Vietnam to film a big war movie. But after the production starts falling apart, the director drops them into the jungle to secretly capture quote-unquote realistic reactions, where the actors unknowingly wander into territory controlled by actual drug traffickers. By the end, the actors realize the threat is real and work together to rescue one of their cast members from the criminals, and eventually escaping and becoming heroes when the footage is turned into a successful film. Now, let's talk about this movie.
SPEAKER_00You want to know a uh a movie that you need to watch if you haven't seen it, you since you've seen some like real quote-unquote like obviously that Russian one was real, real like real quote-unquote war movies. If you haven't seen it, you need to see s Saving Private Ryan.
SPEAKER_01Oh man, I was gonna I've seen it before and I was re-watching it the other day, or attempting to re-watch it. Um that movie's incredible. In fact, I think uh hearing about some behind the scenes after Saving Private Ryan came out, they um the creators were interviewing, they were the Spielberg and his team and everyone were showing it to actual World War II veterans who experienced the um the storm on Omaha Beach, and they said that the only thing that was wrong or inaccurate about it was that there wasn't enough blood. That everything else was like exactly how it was when they experienced it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you want to know the craziest part about the uh Omaha Beach and all the whole D-Day landing in general? What the Germans put up that the the defense they did with a skeleton crew. That was like the weakest point and the weakest like link of the entire like line of defense, and it was that weak because they spent months beforehand uh feeding them false information about where the landing was actually going to be. So a predominant amount of the force left that area to go to fortify where they thought it was going to be. So they literally hit a purposely weakened area, and it was still that much of a bloodbath.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00So, like, it would have probably been basically impermeable if it was at full strength.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, war's no joke.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was not not a good time for anyone involved. Uh the Germ I've heard a lot of the German perspective recently for uh some reason about that, and the German, like the Germans in command of that defense on uh D-Day, as the hours were going by, were literally writing about how it was a flood of people that they did not have the ammo, the personnel, or anything. So they're like writing goodbye letters to like the other command and their families and everything. Because from their perspective, they are literally being like ran down by the demons, you know what I mean? From their perspective, the bad guys are running them down, so they're writing all these ter like horrible like notes about like they're being killed by the demon flood that they can't prevent from like just wiping them away. That like no matter how many belts of ammunition they put in their machine guns and empty into the flow of bodies, it never halted them at all, and we were an indomitable force. They didn't care about how many lives they threw into the blender just so long as we made landfall.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh that's crazy. I I mean that has to be probably the greatest war movie. Um, Saver Private Ryan. I can't think of there's there's several good ones. There's that one, there's Hacksaw Ridge, I think is really good. Um the new All Quiet on the Western Front, the original All Quiet on the Western Front, I heard was uh really good, but then there's a new one that came out.
SPEAKER_01Um that one was supposed to be really I I watched it and it was really good.
SPEAKER_00Blackhawk Down is a really good model.
SPEAKER_02That one I haven't seen yet. Blackhawk Down I haven't seen yet.
SPEAKER_00I should definitely watch that with you sometime, bro.
SPEAKER_02Same thing with American. That would be so fun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I haven't seen that one. That would be cool. Uh there's another one, a World War II movie called Fury, which is like uh uh real specialized to a tank crew, like an American tank crew of a uh Fury Sherman tank, which is a Sherman with a 76mm cannon on top instead of the normal 74 millimeters, which doesn't sound like a lot, but that extra two millimeters allows like 200 uh meters of more penetration so they could actually penetrate the tanks that they were fighting, because the original uh Shermans that showed up on uh in Germany were completely incapable of battling the armor of the uh German armor. It would take like six Shermans to take out a tiger. Yeah. So if you if you're interested in tanks at all, Fury is a really good one. I think it has Brad Pitt in it.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I think that is true. And Brad Pitt's a pretty good actor. He's he's got some good stuff going. But um, in terms of this movie um that we just watched, uh, I don't I know that you um you're you're like a a borderline gunsmith, like you have a a a lot of knowledge about guns. So um I guess I wanted to start with saying uh which guns would they have used in the Vietnam War? Were would they just be standard issued like assault rifle MK sixteens or whatever?
SPEAKER_00Uh it was the M16A1, I believe, was the battle rifle that was given to uh the Marines of Vietnam. Uh what they had in this movie was pretty accurate, with the Vietnamese having like AKs and shit like that because they were funded by the Soviets. I think they might have had some of their own guns, like and shit like that, but it was mostly funded by the Soviets, so they had a lot of Russian equipment and stuff like that. So as you've seen the movie, um all the AK variants and whatnot is pretty accurate for the Viet Cong to have. Um on our side, we had a lot of M16A1s and like M60s, uh the with the pistol that fucking pointnoi took out of his goddamn panties at the end there was the M1911. So, like, that's a pretty accurate to what we would have had out there. Uh so I mean all the equipment, the helicopters, they were you know Vietnam era Huey helicopters, so the actual name I don't know of what they are called. They're not like the Blackhawks, obviously, but they were like the uh original version of the Black Hawks. I think they might just literally be called Huey's. I'm not sure. Like Huey dash UE, or it's like Huey-UED 16 or something like that. Just using War Thunder knowledge. I don't know if you know anything about that game, but it has pretty accurate shit on it. Not to say it's 100% accurate, but it's pretty damn accurate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I haven't I think I've played that game maybe once or twice, but I pr probably should play more of it. Um I remember having fun with it when I was playing it. But I mean it it just goes to show that even though they were making obviously a parody satire kind of movie, um they did put some thought and I'd argue a lot of thought behind the script and the equipment that they'd use and trying to replicate that time period and all that kind of stuff. I don't know if they actually shot in Vietnam or around that area on location.
SPEAKER_01They probably shot somewhere closer to Hawaii because uh I know um there's a specific family that owns an estate out in Hawaii, it's like a hundred acres or whatever, um, and they rent it out to um Hollywood to make their movies in it so that they don't have to fly to Asia in order to uh make their movies. So I'm guessing it was probably somewhere in Hawaii if they didn't shoot on location.
SPEAKER_02If they did shoot on location, uh that would be pretty crazy.
SPEAKER_00But um those looked like Vietnam jungles is one of the things I did notice in there. It's like that's what it would look like when you were going over these things. That's why for one, us dropping napalm on the it uh Vietnam was so devastating. Because if you've seen those canopies, you've seen it, they barely the if you were under that tree can that tree coverage, it would probably look like nighttime to you. Like it's very dense forest. So like what you've seen there is very accurate. Like, even with helicopters, you had to find a little clearing or something to be able to land, and then usually the Viet Kong would have trapped the absolute shit out of that. So you get out and you fall into pungy sticks and shit.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_00Very, very dangerous. The the forest was probably the Viet uh Kong's biggest ally and was probably our biggest enemy more than the Viet Cong ever could be, or the Russians or anything, because you ha there is it's a special kind of hell to fight in a swampy forest.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Because that's what Vietnam is a swamp forest. Think about how awful that would be to be in combat in when you've never been in that kind of environment before.
SPEAKER_02Uh and it's 110 degrees, and yeah, it's crazy.
SPEAKER_00And you're fighting a force which is extremely familiar with that entire area. So you're you are an invading force going someplace you've never fought before. It's an extremely hostile environment, and it's extremely like, yeah, it's an extremely hostile environment, and you have no idea you're fighting a force that is uh just like so familiar with the situation and the way that it will drain us that they purposely use it as a way to attack us, really. Like they knew that we wouldn't know anything about the animals, they knew we wouldn't know anything about the uh the foliage, they knew what would look normal to us, but would look obvious to them in ways to set up traps and shit like that. Uh we really stood no chance in the way that we went about it.
SPEAKER_02Google AI is telling me that Tropic Thunder was filmed primarily on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai. Um but also at um a lot of its jungle scenes in places were shot on Kauai Ranch.
SPEAKER_01And Kauai Ranch Um is the ranch I was talking about, where it's the estate that the fan the it's an independent estate, I think, that the family that a family owns. Uh 43 for uh 4300 acres of private land. Um and that's where they shot Jurassic Park um and Jurassic World and The Descendants and a bunch of other movies. So they did a really good job of making it look like it was uh Vietnam though.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean uh I'm not surprised that they were able to do that. I have a real good like suspension of disbelief. Uh so it's not hard to convince me of we're on location, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Right. But um just based off of the honestly, out of all the wars, I'm probably the least in uh uh knowledgeable about um Vietnam. So my understanding of Vietnam is that that would be what you're dealing with. Basically, like a jungle swamp.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00And that's what it looked like to me. It looked like a jungle swamp, is what you were dealing with there. And I thought that that was pretty accurate.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, I mean it convinced me. In terms of its looks. It convinced me too.
SPEAKER_01Um the only reason I'd think it wouldn't be shot in Vietnam was that it would be a um a Hollywood thing of money and shipping everyone to Asia and customs and all that kind of stuff. So it makes more sense for them to do what Jurassic Park did, which was shoot in Hawaii, which they did end up doing, so that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean that does make sense.
SPEAKER_01What was your what was your favorite your favorite scene of the the movie that you can remember?
SPEAKER_00My favorite scene was that first scene that that like uh studio head was in the Tom Cruise's character. Yeah. And Tom Cruise's character in the movie is just probably my favorite character in the whole movie. He is so funny. Everything he does, his crash-outs are so good. Um, but yeah, that first one where he like kind of not the very first one when he comes up on the webcam, although seeing him in the webcam, like looking closer, trying to see the guy in the background was really funny too. But uh when you see him like as like Ben Stiller's character, I'm pretty sure, as he his agent came in the first time to talk to the studio head about like what's good oh about like the fact that he's like kidnapped or whatever, although he didn't know that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That crash out because of the phone call and the way he ended it and all that was my favorite scene. That was so funny. I I cracked up hard at that. That was my Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Tom Cruise has he's a very interesting character because on one side you have you know the Scientology, you know, all that stuff, and then he's done a bunch of really weird movies, and he's not my favorite, but then you have gems of like Mission Impossible, and then like this movie, and like Top Gun. Um at I've I haven't seen him really commit to being a character a caricature as much as he has in this movie, and he does a really good job of just fully committing to the crash-outs and everything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Tom Cruise as a like person, like as a character, is real, real strange. Like he's on the same level of strange, like even more strange, honestly, than Mel Gibson. And Mel Gibson to me is on a strange level of strange.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00I just feel like you know, he's a little you he's a little bit crazy. And I think anyone has to be successful things that they endeavor in at this level, you know, making the passion and shit like that. But uh Tom Cruise, when it comes to like Scientology, like how does I just don't even like how does someone as successful as him, handsome, like devilishly handsome, dude literally owned the entire women fucking population when Top Gun came out, bro? Like, you know, and so and then he's a fucking so he has fucking hundreds of millions of dollars, um, with multiple six uh successful, ongoing entire movie series. How long has Mission Impossible been out? Like how many have there been?
SPEAKER_01Nine well, there's been nine, I think, nine or ten Mission Impossible movies, but I think they started in '93, '94?
SPEAKER_00Jesus Christ. Longer than I've been alive. Like, I've been alive for a long time.
SPEAKER_02You know, like so.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so like, how do you how does that guy get pulled into something like Scientology? Like, I just don't. I've I have went into Scientology. I have listened to people who have like escaped it, who went on JRE and their own little interviews and stuff like that on their own, because I was so captivated by Scientology. But like the mo most of the people who get caught up into this is like your normal standard like housewife who just wants their kids to be like taken care of, and Scientology offers community and all this kind of stuff, and it's you know, she gets sucked in like that. Bro, you are a millionaire actor, at least millionaire.
SPEAKER_02I keep wanting to say billionaire, but I don't know how definitely tens of millionaire, if not hundreds of millions.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So he you're you are like one of the most successful people on the planet. What the fuck are you doing in Scientology? I mean, how did you end up here?
SPEAKER_01Maybe that's why he does it. Maybe he has nothing nothing better to do than to explore a religion. That makes I weird sense.
SPEAKER_00And if that is the case, then okay, fine. But that's what I want to know is I gotta understand how.
SPEAKER_01I gotta, because otherwise it doesn't because he also weird character who does all of his own stunts hanging out at airplanes, and you know, it's how how does that guy become the guy that gets swindled by Scientology and all of its uh it's just weird.
SPEAKER_00No, I I agree. As a character, I don't know how much more interesting, let's say, it can get in terms of acting.
SPEAKER_01I'm sure that there is probably other crazy actors and stuff like that with weird beliefs and backstories, but like they're all crazy, and that that's kind of one of the main points of this movie when it comes to identity, is that these in order to be in this business, you need to have a extreme lack of an identity so that you can try to convince other people that your identity is aligned with these characters that you're playing and this this title that you have as director or cinematographer or whatever. I mean, that's the whole point of Kirk Lazarus or uh Robert Downey Jr.'s character. That's what he's that's what that character's saying about um society is that you in this in that business, you need to lose every sense of yourself in order to be good at it. And you know, sometimes you gotta recognize who you are and losing yourself trying to do that job compromising your morality, your values, your desires, your wishes, your accomplishments, all in the sake of trying to convince other people that those aren't what you want, and you want other things in a movie and in a story, uh can be really damaging. And you know, you see that with some of these actors like uh Marlon Brando or whatever. Or um you know, these the method actors. They call it the method. It's a it's a method of acting that comes from I think Russia and the 30s or 40s or 50s, somewhere around there. But Marlon Brando uh popularized it. He's the guy that played Don Corleone in uh um The Godfather. Um but the method is basically acting has had different shapes and forms over the over the history of cinema. Originally, acting was it came from theater, it came from plays. And acting then was very expressive, it was very loud because you had no microphones and in a giant auditorium, you need to speak loud enough to where your voice carries. So that's where we get like this theatrical kind of acting. Where it's all over the top, you're making big movements so that people in the far back can see you. Um there's no such thing as subtle acting in um in plays, at least back then. So you have that style of acting when film gets created in the silent film era, because you need to be able to communicate with your body language because you have no dialogue to carry the story. And then dialogue gets introduced, and for the first you know, five, six years of Hollywood, you still have that over-theatrical, you know, over-acting that's very one-dimensional. And then you get people like Marlon Brando that come in that bring a subtle realism into it. You bring cinematographers in who start being be start becoming really close with cameras with long telephoto lenses, so you can really see the emotion on people's faces, and you're not so far back, so that you can capture the entire scene. Like the the technique of acting and filmmaking hadn't has improved so much from what it used to be that you know the method acting when you do it to the level that you know Christian Bale does it when he, you know, for the machinist weighs like 80 pounds going on a diet of tuna and water for six months. Um, and then a few years later, like three or four years later, he uh does Batman Begins and becomes Batman and puts on, you know, 100 pounds of muscle, and then he puts on 100 pounds of fat to do the vice in um 2019 around there, somewhere around there. That level of commitment to your role has consequences to your bodily functions, and that's where the real art form of acting comes into play, because it's the sacrifice of your entire being for the sake of your art. And I felt like that was really well portrayed in this, you know, potentially really controversial decision of making Robert Downey Jr. play a play a person playing an African American. I don't know. What do you think about that character in in that decision?
SPEAKER_00Well, art is art in um It's up to the intention of that art. I feel like they did a as good of a job as you can possibly do casting a character like that. Uh I also think that Robert Donnie Jr. did everything he should have done when being offered a role like that. He consulted like everyone he could and respected in uh the business, including people like Samuel Jackson and stuff like that. And they all pushed for and like heavily pushed for him to take the role. So, in terms of like whether or not it should have been done or not, you can always say that no, it shouldn't have been done, but people are gonna do things that you don't want people to do. And if they are going to do things no matter what, like you can't stop them, then how did they do it? I think they did it just about as good as you could possibly do it. It didn't seem offensive to me at any point, and when it was, there was an actual black actor right there to point it out and call him out on his bullshit, uh, which happened several times in the movie. So I mean, I think that that's that that character, almost his entire character in the movie was to call him out on being a fake black person. So it's almost like whereas you can say, well, that took away a character's role in the movie that Robert Downey Jr. was, he could have been a black person. Yeah, but then they created a hole to specifically call him out for being a black person in a movie, taking the role of a black person. So I mean, so even even that argument isn't really solid solid. Do I am I sitting here saying like, oh, this was a must needed the thing, do thing, you know, whatever. I don't really care. But uh it it was done as well as it possibly. Now the decision of whether or not it should have been done is not mine to make, or really ha do I have any opinion on it at all? I don't really. I I don't also care to either, because like as far as I know, Robert Downey Jr. isn't racist. If he does say something racist or something like that, and he turns out he is, then all I would have to see is or all I'd have to do is see that, and then I'd be like, oh, okay, so he's racist, and that completely changes the dynamic of what's going on. But until I see something like that, I'm not going to assume he's racist because he did Blackface for a movie that he was cast in that he got permission from from everyone he respected in the business.
SPEAKER_01You're a hundred I 100% agree that it's all about intent. Um everything is about intent. Everything, every argument that you get into, every position someone takes, every point you try to make, if the intent like uh this is the whole thing with political debates, um, unfaithful political debates, is that yes, you could be right as part of an opposition or something, um, but if your intent is to dehumanize and villainize and demonize your opponent, then that doesn't help your case at all. In fact, it hurts your case. And the fact that this I I this movie is very clear on poking fun at everybody. It pokes fun at it's it's very similar to South Park, and I've been watching a bunch of South Park with my brother. Um it pokes fun at the entire film industry. It pokes fun at producers, it pokes fun at directors, actors. Um it's a very self-aware meta movie that it it takes a lot of courage to make a character like that. Um and movies should get you know recognized when they do it really well. And I fact, in fact, I think Robert Downey Jr. was nominated for uh Best Supporting Actor for an Oscar for uh his role in Tropic Thunder, which he deserves because he took a very controversial, a potentially controversial character um and basically saved it. Like I don't think one of the justifications of whether or not someone should win an Oscar for something is that could someone else have done this job better? Um so like you know, no one could play uh no one could play Han Solo like Harrison Ford, right? So like there there's certain there's certain positions that can only be done a certain way by a certain person, and I don't think anyone could have done what Robert Downey Jr. did um as well as he did it. Because he's Robert Downey Jr. is an actual actor. Um he's not like a B movie kind of you know, whatever actor. He's a he did um Chaplin, um, which is a really good movie. He got nominated for an Oscar for that. That was in '92 or '93, something like that. Um that was a biopic about Charlie Chaplin and he did a great job in it. Same uh same thing with uh Oppenheimer. In fact, Oppenheimer, in my opinion, is the best movie um to be made in the 2020s so far that I've seen. And uh he won the Oscar for the uh the role he had in Oppenheimer. So I don't know. I think I I agree. They the intent was right and they did it. I I couldn't have done it better myself. And you know whether I'm I agree with you that whether or not it should be done in the first place, I don't know. Um I think honestly it it you need to do things that push the medium forward. You need to do things that are risky um and are innovative and creative, especially in art. And I think this movie accomplished that with that character. In fact, I don't think any movie has ever come close and probably will ever come close again to what that movie was trying to say with that character.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I definitely agree with that. Um I I that's what I'm saying, is like it the only thing I could say is is like when I watch it, when I see it, it doesn't offend me, but I also am a privileged white man. So like I don't have the same vulnerabilities, I guess, to getting outraged by seeing something that should offend me, like it the few things that they did about white guys, especially fat white guys. I mean, look at what they did to my boy Jack Black. That was awful. He was literally strung up on a bowl and spanked in front of a bunch of beat-man-ese people, all right? Like, look. But you don't see me crying about what they did to my boy Jack Black, so it's pretty uh funny. There's yeah, so it was a really funny movie with a really deep message that they never I wanted to bring this up real quick because I just thought about this. Yeah, go ahead. It was a really funny movie. It was it was set up to be a comedy, obviously, and it was a comedy the entire time, and the message that they had was there, but it wasn't preachy in any way, shape, or form, and it was still it felt like a comedy movie the entire time. Like, but what I wanted to say is that like the message also that it does have is pretty damn deep. Like you were saying earlier, like method acting specifically, that idea of completely erasing yourself to become a character so that way you can do your job at that level, specifically on the level of someone like Christian Bale, who is adopting it to that extent to go from a 90-pound character to Batman to whatever Christian Bale does after that, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh is just so like that is, in my opinion, at least, like you can say everything you want about how much skill it takes to make normal acting do well, especially in nowadays, because it's been done for so long and everything. And you would be absolutely right in that opinion. But for me, personally, nothing comes close to watching an actor who does their acting through method acting. And the ones who really adopt it. I don't know if he actually does, but you want to know an actor who makes me think uh that he does uh do method acting? Johnny Depp. I don't know if he actually does, but Johnny Depp would be like the exact example of someone who uh, in my opinion, probably does do method acting.
SPEAKER_01He definitely did. There's a story about that, in fact, during the filming of the I don't know if he's been a method actor his entire career, but specifically as Jack Sparrow for um Pirates of the Caribbean, he um one of the methods he used for acting is that he was always in a hot sauna in between um takes um so that he could have the feeling of you know kind of being uh um well he wanted to be kind of dehydrated, he kind of wanted to be slurry, he wanted to kind of wobble a lot and kind of not have uh a really good a really good sense of balance because that's what happens to people, um um pirates and sail uh um sailors who are in in the ocean all the time is that their sense of balance gets skewed and they're always wobbly. So he wanted that effect, and he got that effect from um being in the sauna a lot. So I d there's there's definitely there's a fine line between being a method actor and method acting, um using certain using certain tools and techniques to improve a performance and you know completely erasing your identity as a human being to invest yourself into that character. That's what um um give me give me his name, Dark Knight Joker. Um Heath Ledger. That's what Heath Ledger did for um the Dark Knight Joker is that you know he completely invested his entire life. I mean, acting is a hard job. Your nine to five is studying, um, and you're studying this character that you're gonna be in for anywhere from you know 30 to 40 minutes of a film that you're in, and you have three to six months to prepare for the month that you shoot. And your nine to five is reading and studying about that character, learning languages, getting physically fit, doing whatever you need to sell the illusion that you were that character, because filmmaking is a form movies are a form of escapism, and the only way to really make money as a movie is to offer that escape um escapism in the highest possible extent. And you need to sell the illusion, and that's why good acting is so important, because if it's bad acting, then people are gonna switch off to something that they think is more valuable because people wanna be people want to be convinced of fiction. They don't want to watch fiction that is you know bad and doesn't sell the illusion. So uh I think he did a great job and it the whole the whole can of worms of method acting and if it's you know if it sh if it should be done or not, because it is pretty unhealthy. Um but it's it's that's that's art because it's it's for the sake of art that you that you do those kind of things.
SPEAKER_00That's what I mean I I I would just say that like if you have a choice to do it and you choose to do it, I mean I can understand you saying that like well if everyone does it or if every if it's set as a standard, then everyone would have to do it, and that would take away normal acting and whatnot, so like maybe you would push to not do it because of that. But I mean, like, isn't the goal to get the best movies out? Like, I mean, like to find the best actors.
SPEAKER_01If you can find someone who's good at method acting and that creates their best work and they want to do it, and there's there's a hierarchical system with what I understand about the acting profess uh profession. You you don't need every actor to have that level of commitment because you look at you know you look at extras. There are people whose full-time job is to be in the background of movies as an extra. You don't necessarily need to be, you know, a method actor using all of these techniques and stuff to convince the audience that you're walking across the street. Um and then you have, you know, this you have sitcoms that are in a similar vein. Um, even one-dimensional characters, they the reason that you method act is so that you convince the audience that you are more than just what the lines you say are. And that that's the whole thing about acting is if if I read off if I read off a cue card or if I read off um a script and I say the words, they're just words. I I'll be robotic if I just say, you know, oh Sally, you hurt my feelings. But if I add emotion behind it, if I add all of these different intricacies and spitting and all of this kind of stuff to convince you that I'm actually mad at Sally, then that's acting. But you don't need that level of acting in every single role and of every single movie and every single TV show. In fact, you don't want that in side characters. You mainly only want to explore the main character in the main character to have that kind of dimensional dimensionality. And very rarely you'll have the main character be, you know, um not flat and multidimensional, and then you'll have the villain do the same thing. This is what we have in the dark, the Dark Knight trilogy. Or um, yeah, the Dark Knight trilogy was specifically the Dark Knight, is you have a villain and a hero that are not flat and are very complicated. And that kind of stuff takes time, it takes money, it takes resources, it takes planning, and you know, you can't really expect on a hundred thousand dollar budget for a short film to have that kind of skill be applied to each and every one of your actors. So there's a market and a time and a place for the regular job of acting. And you know, not everyone needs to be this this Christian Bale level artist, because it film is an art, but it's also a business. So it's you make artistic statements, but also you sometimes you just take jobs, you take gigs as an extra just to pay the bills, and that's perfectly fine too. Not every movie needs to be a super crazy artistic statement. And I know that's not the point that you're making, I'm just um going off in general.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Method acting has created some of the my favorite stuff, so I just know that I like it a lot. But I completely get what you're saying, too, because you're right. And that is actually just going along with my point, too, because that's what I'm basically saying. It's like, so when it comes to the morals of whether or not we should quote unquote do method acting, my response would just always be like, well, if they want to do it, let them do it. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, it's not like you're freaking holding a shotgun up to their head and telling them to do this or you're never gonna get another business again or something like that. Like, I mean, if it was like that, then I get it. But like, if you need your character to have someone who's gonna give it their all, and you need someone who's gonna method act, it you shouldn't it shouldn't, in my opinion, at least maybe it's just layman's and I don't know the deeper complexities of what bad could come from this idea, but then you should be able to try to hire for a method actor, you know what I mean? And you shouldn't be pressured to not or to yeah, you shouldn't be pressured to not use method acting if that's what you think your character needs, uh, and the person you hire is willing to do it.
SPEAKER_01Well well, yeah, that's the main argument against there's a whole argument against method acting. Um, and that's you know, how far is too far, you know, because directors have a responsibility with their actors. Um they their directors help make sure that the actors are taken care of, they're fed, they're they're getting what they're need they're getting what they need, they're going with what the story should say, and the director, from my understanding, has control over how far an actor goes with committing to a character. And the b the big potential problem with method acting is what happened to Heath Ledger. Heath Ledger got super depressed. He didn't go insane or crazy or whatever playing the Joker, but um the character was so dark um that he became super depressed and he ended up overdosing accidentally on um antidepressants and other drugs and stuff. So, as a director, do you allow someone who's in your care to go that hard into a character to potentially harm themselves? Um you know, it should that be legal, should that be advised, should you morally step in and say, hey, you know, you don't need to go on a diet of tuna and water for six months for this project, just try to focus on the dialogue and all that kind of stuff. Um it's it can be pretty pretty fishy territory, and that's why I say like method acting can be very dangerous, and that's why it's that's why it deserves recognition, and that's you know, it's the peak of the art form of acting for sure. But there's there's uh a certain level of um danger that comes with it that you gotta be really careful of, and it may or may not be advisable in most roles.
SPEAKER_00And that all I'm perfectly fine uh with, especially the way you just numbered up right there. Like use it when it's needed, you don't need to be using it for fucking an Owen Wilson movie or something, you know what I mean? Like right. But like the way I I just wanted to say that the way I see it is like like you said, it's like the peak of what you would. Want in terms of commitment from your actor. And like the way I see it is like it's like someone doing a dangerous job uh in real life. Like the employer's job is to make sure that you're okay, but that job that is super dangerous is still there and available. And so that's all I'm saying is that they definitely even if it is a little bit like scary, you know, people might die even, but you're not gonna get rid of the oil rigs or something, you know what I mean? People die every year in oil rigs, that's a really dangerous job, but you're not gonna just get rid of them. You gotta like it's their choice, they know what the pain or the the the the problems are. You gotta do your job in making sure that you're trying your best to take care of them as well as that, you know. Like you said, tell them, hey, you don't really need to do this if you want to need any help or this, that, and the other thing, you know, just keep me posted and all that. I I love your commitment to my character, but you don't need to die for it. Right. But that might be what happens, just like with fighting, you know, nobody goes into the boxing ring and thinks that they're going to kill someone, but it has happened. And that doesn't mean we're gonna get rid of boxing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, just it's it's it's an interesting way to look at acting because acting is a very complic all art form is super complicated and it can't really be regulated. There's no real way to stop an actor from going potentially too far into a character. Like at least on oil rigs, the um the risk is there and it's y it's mentioned and you're you're dealing with it every single day. Um but with acting, it's so varied, like the kind of characters that you play and the the darkness that some of them can can lead you to. Because again, it it's you're selling an illusion. If you're playing a character on TV that's suicidal, and you want to do the best possible job possible, then you need to become a person that is suicidal. Because it it shows on your face if you have those thoughts and ideations, and that's what convinces people that you're that that character that you're playing is is actually feeling those emotions. And that is, you know, problematic and dangerous, and not all acting is that, but you know, I I like method acting, of course, and think it should be tolerated. And I don't know if there should be legislations or anything. My guess is probably shouldn't, but you know, it it's it's an interesting, interesting field.
SPEAKER_00I just don't I and I maybe this is a little bit harsh, but like I just feel like there can't be that many people who are being neg that negatively impacted by method acting that would need that level of regulation. Like that governmental uh encroachment should never be the way that you deal with these sorts of things. I don't know how often people are dying of uh method acting uh for whatever reason, or even you could let's say died while method acting, because you can't really say, like, do we know for sure that Heath Ledger wasn't dealing with depression before he took the Joker's role and all that, you know what I mean? Like, does anyone actually know that? I'm gonna go ahead and guess no. So, like, just to rule those people out that might be saying that, let's just say died while method acting, if it wasn't due to like a heart attack or something, but even let's uh you know let's just say include that. That still can't be more than like I don't even know. It's gotta be less than five people a year, I feel like. I don't like it. The last person I even heard of dying while acting was fucking Heath Ledger. Not literally wow, but because of or heard, you know, had anything to do with it. Outside of that crazy situation where that actor shot the girl because she thought or he thought the gun was not loaded. Somehow a loaded gun got on set.
SPEAKER_01Alec Baldwin shooting the I forget if she was the cinematographer. I think she was the cinematographer. She was behind the camera. Uh, and he shot her because uh the gun was loaded, and he for some reason thought it wasn't loaded, and everyone thought it wasn't loaded. Um, and I think he got away with that. I don't think he went to jail or anything for it.
SPEAKER_00So I just don't see how why would you ever have like you can get guns that are realistic looking that don't even have like real firing authenticity, the real.
SPEAKER_01You need the real thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, you can get the real thing without it fucking killing someone, and it wouldn't look any different for your movie. Matter of fact, it probably would have looked more realistic. Right. I don't know. I just that is the most that is honestly the most careless situation I've ever heard. I can't even imagine how like the lack of care on that whole situation is just crazy. And honestly, I don't like at first I think when I first heard about that, I was kinda happy that Alec Baldwin didn't get in trouble because it really wasn't his fault. But but at what point is Alec Baldwin not a grown man picking up a thing that looks like a gun, aiming it at someone who isn't even an actor and pulling the trigger?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Like, what the fuck? Like, what are you a 12-year-old boy trying to squirt someone with a fucking squirt gun? Like, what the fuck did he think was gonna happen? Like, I I don't understand. Like, why did why did that situation happen at all? Like, is what I need to know. Was were they having like an argument?
SPEAKER_01No, it it I think it was for a scene. It was one of those kind of like front-on close-ups of a cowboy and the cowboy just like pulled up his gun and shot. Yeah, it was like it was an actual side or something. Yeah, and it was an actual scene that he was shooting. It wasn't like a a misfired accident sort of thing, but I really don't know how they do the effect, the practical effect of guns. I don't know if they put like certain blanks in them that shoot out that have a little spark or whatever. But um they I they would have had they would have tried to do something like that, but then for some reason there was a live round in it.
SPEAKER_00And that's what I'm calling that's what I'm saying. How the fuck could there have been a live round anywhere near that situation? Yeah, I have no idea.
SPEAKER_01The round should have been putting the round in there, you should have been the prop guy to not.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I keep thinking about it, and I'm like, honestly, I should really look into that because like that is just like to anyone who knows like gun safety in any aspect, and I'm not even someone who's shot a fucking gun, I just am someone who's like really fascinated by them and like has watched a lot of videos about it and shit like that. And uh so I have a pretty good knowledge base, but like so my point is is that even me, someone who's never even shot a gun, uh I can tell you right now the safety precautions you would take to make sure that this would never happen. Ever. And the first safety precaution would be to teach your actor to not fucking point a gun at someone, even if they are off screen as a director. It is your job, like you say, to make sure everyone is safe. That means that there should never be a human body downrange of any firearm. If you need to get a head-on shot, we live in 2020 fucking six. You have the capability of using a fucking uh robot, and if you can't afford it, then you certainly can't afford to shoot someone over it. So have them stand off to the side a little bit and ruin your angle or something. But there should never, ever, ever be a firearm pointed at something you do not intend to kill. And that is exactly what would have been should have been taught to everyone on any stage, any movie uh scene. I can't think of the stage, I guess. Movie stage, I don't know what the hell it would be called. But you there should never ever be anyone downrange of a barrel of a gun, uh, especially one that you're trying to use live ammunition to make a logistic, so you're not using real ammo, at least you shouldn't be. You're using blanks, but even then, this is why you shouldn't fucking put anyone down range of a gun. If you really need the real life shit, how about we use some real life safety precautions? Like, yeah, and that's say what you want about Alec Baldwin. He had his own problems there, sure, but this really lies on the director and not making sure that everyone knew about very basic safety precautions.
SPEAKER_01That's the thing about people forget how dangerous filmmaking really is. And it's not just dangerous because there's pyrotechnics and you know, planes and all sorts of stuff, but it's dangerous because no one is ever focused on really more than one thing. The thing with filmmaking is with filmmaking crews, they're a brigade, they have roles, and they're so faux and it's such an intensive brigade that each of these roles can't focus on anything else. The reason there's a director is because the people that are focused on lighting, the people that are focused on the cameras, the actors that are focused on their acting. The reason there's a director is because you need someone to be the mock audience. The director on set is the mock audience. They're the ones that, you know, get to say that performance felt fake, or that doesn't really go with what was already established in the character before, or that delivery was a little weak. The director is the mock audience. And the reason you have a director who whose sole job is to make sure that the actors are doing service to their characters is because every single other person on set, up to 30, 40, 50 people, are focusing all of their time and attention on the in this super fast, high stress environment where you need to get all of your shots done in, you know, three anywhere from three to four weeks in multiple different locations with permits and contracts and all sorts of stuff. I mean, there was a story I learned in the in film school. I uh should know the name of it, but roughly there was this film that was being shot on a train track, and they were just so focused on what they were trying to do that they didn't notice an oncoming train and it ended up killing someone. Cause, you know, that kind of stuff just happens. And it happens not necessarily because they're being careless, but because they're being careless about that thing. They're not being careless about making sure that everything's in focus and making sure that everyone's taken care of with their food and everything. You can't no matter what, you're gonna have accidents like that, and it's a tragedy, and you need, you know, safety. When you have these giant, you know, thousand-pound lights that can fall on anyone's head at any point in time and kill them, you know, you you have to have proper safety precautions. And i you know, it's just when there's not someone there, double, triple, quadruple checking to make sure that you know the real guns that they use for certain scenes aren't mixed with the fake guns and all that kind of stuff with the live rounds. If you don't have a you know a standard operating procedure for that kind of stuff, you're gonna have crazy accidents like that. Um before we we're getting uh round time here, um, I just want to get to closing thoughts of the movie and what we would rate it and how we enjoyed it. Uh Rot Tomato is the biggest uh reviewing service for film it. Um critics gave it 82%, which is actually pretty surprising to me. Um because this movie these kind of movies um they make the they make the critics not really enjoy them most of the time because they can be seen as pretty controversial. Um audiences gave it a less uh less than what the critics gave it, the audiences gave it 71%. Um and I'd say I like this movie a lot. I think it does I I think every decision that's made is made with care and is interesting and I I think you know one of my favorite decisions that they made was early on in the movie. They um they start the well first they show the tr the mock trailers, which I thought was absolutely brilliant and hilarious, but they move from that to making this uh Vietnam, this Vietnam scene, um, which was also hilarious, but in that scene they have you know certain things that happen to it and we feel like they're real, but you know, it's just a movie or whatever, and then it does a hard cut to behind the scenes of all the crew behind the camera, and then that just naturally snaps the audience into a reality. The movie bounces back and forth between a hyper satire um you know, super parody movie, and then an actual realistic movie with actors who aren't just you know enunciating their words a certain way. Um and in in when we come back to reality, that sequence where they blow up um the the first giant explosion of Vietnam, um that the that the guide, the whatever the the pyrotechnics guy did, um where he just blew up the the the forest right behind them, we know as an audience, not only can we see the explosion and be convinced that, oh, that's a big explosion, it's real, but we also know for a fact, and we're the illusion that it's real, and that that was a real explosion that actually happened and that had this catastrophic effect on the characters in the story, that's that's further emphasized by the fact that we saw the fiction side of it just seconds before in the parody that they were trying to make. Um and that kind of jump from you know, this kind of movie reality period to actual reality in the story was really, you know. I think they did it in a really satisfying way where they showed the the back and forth, and I thought that was fun. Um and you know, if if those kind of decisions, this whole movie I think is really well written and smart. I think Jack Black's characters probably the way that they handled some of his lines and stuff is probably my least favorite character in the movie. I still like a lot of what he does and laughed quite a bit times, but um I like how he represents like the kind of crackpot um drug addicted side of the industry, which there definitely is one, especially in the acting community. And I like that, but he wasn't awesome. He wasn't my favorite. Uh the Vietnam storyline when they got captured was interesting, but I would I would probably give it um I'd probably give it a 90%. It's not it's not the perfect movie, but I like it a lot. And I think it does a lot of things that I think are perfect, and I think are some of the funniest lines I've heard in a long time. I don't know if you agree with that or where you would put it in your in your level of enjoyment from zero to a hundred.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was thinking about it while you were talking, and like uh my score is gonna be definitely off from yours, but again, I don't this is no in no way trying to say anything bad about Tropic Thunder. I just enjoyed the movie. Yeah, I enjoyed the movie a lot. I think I'd put it at like 78, because at the end of the day, it was a comedy movie, but was it the funniest movie I've ever seen? I don't think so. Like, was I dying the whole time, or like was I did I ever die at a certain part or laughing oh a lot, like real heavy? No, it was just a real good, funny movie that made me laugh multiple times, but like I didn't ever get to the point of like I was nearly crying or something like that. Uh so it's not the best comedy movie I've ever seen, but also has a pretty deep like me uh like message behind it that is executed really well, and then you look at all the other things executed really well, like you m mentioned all the uh throughout what you were saying and whatnot, and I agree with all that, so I feel like a really good place for me would be like a 78 because I feel like there's a lot when we're talking about uh comedy movies and how funny they are specifically for me. Uh I feel like there's gotta be a lot of more room above where this could be. And I'm not saying that that's bad. I you heard me, I chuckled and laughed a lot at nearly all throughout the entire movie. Oh, you know what? Actually, I'm forgetting about the C you know what? Just because I just remembered uh Tom Cruise's character and how funny he was, I'm moving it up to 85. And I'm locking it in there. We're at 85% Michael score. Uh I I enjoyed the movie a lot. The controversy behind it with Robert Donnie didn't uh doesn't affect me at all. Maybe my girlfriend would be upset about it. But like I just it's not my place to be upset for it if Robert Donnie Jr. was in any actual if he if it was done poorly, then it would be different. But it was done as perfectly as it literally possibly would have been, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_01So Yeah, I agree with that. Good movie. You bring up a good point about comedies in general and just any media that we consume in general, is that what's the point of it existing and does it appeal to its target audience um the best? And if it's a comedy, then you'd want it to be a great comedy, which def is defined by giving you the most amount of laughs possible. And obviously it's an it film is an art form and it's all subjective, and you know, my 85 or your 90 or whatever is is whatever to to most people, and it's not necessarily right or wrong. Some people could watch this movie and think that it is absolutely just not funny at all and give it a zero, and they would be just as right as you and me because it's all about did it serve you as a story, and do you think it could have been it could have served you more based on what you like? And you mentioned that as a comedy, it wasn't the funniest comedy that you've ever seen, so it didn't serve you to um some of the degrees of some of the other comedies that you've seen. I I am notorious and I'll state it here for once and for all that I don't like comedies. Um I'm not a comedy guy. In fact, most movie critics aren't uh comedy guys because I feel like out of all the genres, comedy can be kind of like the cheapest, especially when you uh when you get like potty humor kind of uh movies. Um because it's just you know I don't know. Uh comedy's really hard. I I like a very calculated, smart um kind of comedy, kind of like uh Jimmy Carr, um British humor, just like really eloquent and smart. Um I don't really like slapstick comedy that much. I mean, we watched uh The Mask uh one time, and I thought that the style and the directing and the story was cool, just the comedy itself wasn't my favorite because I'm not the biggest Jim Carrey slapstick fan. Um but you know, I don't like this movie necessarily because I think it's the funniest movie of all time. Um as a comedy. I appreciate it more for its message and it its drama components, but I am willing to concede that that's not really the point of it. I mean, it's a it's a comedy first and foremost, and it should really be judged as a comedy. Um and you know, I thought it was funny. It's definitely not the funniest movie I've ever seen, but in terms of its message, it was I thought it was fun. But yeah, I yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I do want to say real quick, just to validate what you were said there. Last comment from me. You're absolutely right. For a comedy, it has a much deeper message than most other comedies. Like, you're not gonna watch Ted and come out of it Ted with a deep like appreciation from some sort of like I don't know, social value or whatnot. You know what I mean? This movie actually you did come out of it, but like you're not gonna watch Ted and be like, wow, that was really something deep.
SPEAKER_01That really made me give you give me a unique perspective about life that I didn't really think of before. But yeah, I I like I I think it would be cool to jump back and forth between because you um that would be not fair to call you a war guy. I don't know how else to say it. You you enjoy like combat sports and then you enjoy history of war. You're not a warmonger. Um so it'd be cool like dictator. Yeah, it'd be it'd be cool to bounce back and forth between combat sports movies. Um I know we wanted to watch Creed 2 with your girlfriend and all sorts of stuff. Um I think you would really like maybe the Karate Kid movies. I don't know if you're I know you're um uh you're a mixed martial arts fan, but I don't know how much you know about specifically karate, but the um the karate kid movies are really good, at least the first one. It's directed by the same guy that directed the first Rocky movie, John G. Avaltson. Um and I think that would be that would be a good movie to do eventually. But then I definitely want to see some more um World War II movies and stuff like Blackhawk Down. Um because I appreciate your insight on like the weaponry and equipment and all that kind of stuff. I find it fascinating.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I just so happen to have I like have so many YouTube channels that I follow. Like I'm not like a literal expert, but I guess I would say I'm like an expert for casuals.
SPEAKER_01Right, yeah, casual expert.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm a casual expert. And I would say that that goes the same for MMA and combat sports, like I know it pretty damn good. I could tell you everything they're doing and what it means and how what it would accomplish and whatnot, but like could I do it? No, not even close, but I just I just wanted to make sure I said that because so I'm not I don't have a stolen Valor. No stolen Valor here, guys. No stolen valor. I am not I am not a former UFC champion.
SPEAKER_01You would have fooled me.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for listening to both sides. What movie do you want us to review next? Let me know and I'll credit you in your username. Like and follow if you enjoyed this podcast, and to stay notified of future reviews. Remember, your right to your opinion matters, whether you're an expert or not. Peace out.