0:04

Hello everyone

0:07

and welcome to the Filmcast,

0:09

a podcast about

0:11

movies. I'm

0:24

David Chen and it's like I always say,

0:26

three podcasters cannot occupy the same space at

0:28

the same time. Joining me

0:30

today is Devendra Hardwar. Remember

0:32

folks, get your tires inspected. They're

0:34

important. And Jeff Kanata.

0:37

Adam Driver stars

0:39

in Ferrari? This

0:42

is the most on the nose

0:44

casting since Dennis Hopper was in

0:46

Super Mario Brothers. It

0:48

would be like if Shirley Temple was

0:51

in Indiana Jones. If

0:53

John Candy was Willy

0:55

Wonka. If Kevin

0:58

Bacon starred in Breakfast at

1:00

Tiffany's. If back in

1:02

the 80s they cast

1:04

Jeremy Irons as

1:07

Mr. Mom. It's

1:12

the 80s, the 80s, it's a different time.

1:14

My takeaway here is when

1:17

that statement started, Jeff. Yeah, my takeaway from

1:19

all this Jeff is that I think the

1:21

beekeeper broke you. Like you're just associating names

1:23

and like tasks now. Those

1:27

are of course all vague and oblique references

1:29

to the fact that today on the podcast,

1:32

we're going to be reviewing Michael Mann's Ferrari.

1:35

Blake Howard from One Heat Minute Productions is going to

1:37

be joining us for that. It's going to be a

1:39

great chat. So look forward to that. You can find

1:41

more episodes of this podcast at filmcast.com. Email us at

1:43

slash [email protected]. Find us across

1:45

all platforms at the Filmcast Pod. We're

1:47

uploading our reviews on YouTube. We're putting

1:50

clips on Instagram and also at ticktock.com/the

1:52

filmcast and support this podcast at patreon.com

1:55

slash film podcast. Jeff Kanata, we did

1:57

get quite a bit of support.

2:00

I'm gonna support for Jeff's

2:02

absolute disdain of the

2:06

beekeeper last week People

2:08

say about my movie talking stuff, but that was

2:10

in the after dark We'll talk about that in

2:12

the after dark a lot of support for me

2:14

just in general. Yeah overwhelming

2:17

support You

2:20

know Kai from patreon.com/film podcast wrote I'm

2:22

with Jeff the beekeeper was terrible But

2:24

it was worth it to get Jeff's

2:26

limerick and his bean counter joke The

2:29

people who made this movie probably think John Wick would

2:31

be better if he retired and started making candles. I

2:35

Love it. That's good. That's very good.

2:38

It would be actually. Yeah Anyway,

2:41

the beekeeper definitely a mixed

2:44

mixed review here on the fixed. I think is what

2:46

what you could say, you know But

2:49

do be sure to check that review out. All

2:51

right. So today on the podcast We

2:53

are going to start by talking about Oscar nominations and then

2:55

talk about some what we've been watching I

2:57

just got back from the Sundance Film Festival Last

3:01

night at 11 p.m. And

3:03

so I'll be sharing a few movies I

3:05

saw I think about 13 movies while I

3:07

was there Wow, I'm gonna be caring about three of them

3:11

and then in the after dark I can share

3:13

a few of my sort

3:15

of Reactions for the festival and

3:17

some of my experiences there. So Anyway,

3:20

that is what I wanted though. You haven't been in a quite

3:22

a long time, right? that

3:24

is true and I Think

3:28

overall it's a it's a really

3:30

cool experience because You're

3:34

you're cold all the time Jeff it is so

3:36

cold Yeah, it's very cold

3:39

There is not very much oxygen. You're at 7,000 feet

3:42

elevation. That's called a Tuesday for me

3:44

here in Denver it

3:47

is it is, you know

3:49

Jeff's paradise because you

3:52

are seeing Movies before

3:55

literally anyone else on the planet

3:57

and no way that oil not

3:59

possible Not only that, I have found that

4:02

the... Like,

4:04

they'll write a description in the program for

4:06

what the movie is. And many times, those

4:09

descriptions are kept purposely vague to

4:12

avoid spoiling any surprises. And

4:14

so, yeah, there's no trailers. The

4:17

trailer doesn't even freaking exist for these

4:19

movies. Yeah, it can be like a

4:21

full year before some of these movies

4:23

come out. Yeah, but many

4:25

of the actors and the directors

4:27

are there. I was in the

4:29

same room as Kristen Stewart and

4:31

Sebastian Stan and Renato Reinsphe, who

4:33

plays the worst person in the world.

4:36

You know, she was in a couple movies as well. So it's

4:38

just... And you can feel the excitement. You know,

4:40

people debuting their movie

4:42

for the first time and seeing the reaction to

4:44

it. Awesome. So,

4:47

yeah, it's a really

4:49

cool experience. It's pretty

4:51

expensive to go. Like, lodging is

4:53

pretty expensive. The passes are pretty

4:55

expensive. So unfortunately,

4:57

it's not like super accessible. But

5:02

I don't know, like, I think

5:04

it's very special to go. And I'll share more about it

5:06

in the After Dark this week. But I had a great

5:08

time and I'll talk about the movies I saw very

5:10

shortly. So all that

5:12

said, this morning, you know, we delayed

5:15

the podcast by a day this

5:17

week because I had to come back for

5:20

Sundance and I appreciate the guys being flexible with their schedule.

5:23

And of course, we planned

5:25

it so that we'd be able to talk about the

5:27

Oscar nominations today. That was 100% intentional. So,

5:31

yeah, the Oscar nominations were announced this morning. And

5:34

I thought we could just talk a little bit

5:36

about some of the big headlines of

5:38

what has been nominated and kind of

5:40

what did well, what has surprised us.

5:43

But the big story, I would

5:46

say, is Oppenheimer earned 13 nominations.

5:49

Poor Things got 11 nominations. Killers the

5:52

Flower Moon got 10 nominations. And

5:54

I want to say Barbie got eight nominations. So those

5:56

are the big kind of winners of

5:58

the nominations. And I

6:01

do feel like an Oppenheimer sweep is

6:03

really possible. You know, like I think

6:05

like... Oppenheimer? Yeah. Oppen... Sweeping?

6:09

He'll blow away the competition. Oppen... Oppen

6:12

Sweeper? Oppen Sweeper. Sweep ends

6:14

with a P, Oppen's with a P, just

6:16

Sweepenheimer, come on. So

6:20

yeah, but Oppenheimer ends with an R

6:23

and Sweeper, you know, ends with

6:25

an... Okay. So

6:28

yeah, those are kind of the big... The

6:31

ones that like really took a lot of

6:33

nominations. I'm

6:35

gonna say that my favorite surprises

6:37

of the day were

6:40

Past Lives did very well. It

6:42

got nominated for Best Picture. Great.

6:44

Yeah. It got nominated for

6:46

Best Original Screenplay. That is a small movie that not that

6:48

many people have seen, but you know, obviously was on my

6:50

Top 10. Divin, was it on your Top 10? It

6:53

was the year... I think it was. I

6:55

don't even remember what's in my company. I know you love the movie.

6:57

I really love the movie. You love the movie. I forget if it

6:59

was there, but I loved it for a long time last year. Yeah.

7:02

And so I love to see that. Also Anatomy of

7:04

the Fall, this is really interesting, right? Anatomy of

7:06

the Fall was not submitted

7:08

by France as their official entry

7:11

to the Best International Features category for the Oscars.

7:13

Now there's some very good reasons for that. Reason

7:17

number one, French is not... It's a Best Picture

7:19

nominee now. That's the best reason. French

7:22

is not spoken very

7:25

frequently during that movie. At

7:27

most, one third of the movie features French. They

7:29

submitted The Taste of Things instead. That

7:33

movie unfortunately got completely shut out of the Oscars. I

7:36

don't think it won anything. It got in the Oscars. That

7:39

said, Taste of Things is a very good French

7:41

movie and so it's worth checking out. But

7:44

the Academy was like, guess what, France? We know better

7:46

than you what good

7:49

French movies are. We're nominating Anatomy

7:51

of the Fall across multiple categories,

7:53

including Best Director, which

7:56

is really amazing. Mine

7:59

and Jeff Kanata's... as number one film of 2023. And

8:02

Sandra Huler getting a nomination for Best Actress, so

8:04

deserved. I love it. Yeah, she's awesome. I'm so

8:06

happy to see that. I'm also super excited to

8:08

see how many nominations American fiction got. Yeah, yeah.

8:11

I think I liked that. I think that was,

8:13

I was the only one that had that on

8:15

my top 10 of the year. Correct.

8:18

I had it at number four. I loved that movie.

8:20

It's a great movie, yeah. I loved that Jeffrey Wright

8:23

got nominated for Best Actor, because it's

8:25

not a showy performance. It's really grounded

8:27

and subtle, but still lovely

8:29

performance, and very much worthy of a

8:31

nomination. So just wonderful to see American

8:33

fiction in the Best Picture category, and

8:35

street play. And also Best Supporting Actor

8:38

was a surprise. I don't think people thought that he was- Yeah, Sterling

8:40

Cape Brown. Yeah, Sterling Cape Brown. I don't think people thought he was

8:43

a lock for that category at all. So he

8:45

definitely got some plaudits there as well. It's

8:47

cool to see- It is a bit- Yep, go ahead Jeff.

8:49

I was gonna say it's a bit in that same category. It's a bit sad

8:52

to see Ryan Gosling, the only man in a

8:55

movie for women, or about

8:57

women. Yeah. No

9:00

Greta Gerwig. No Marker Robbie. That

9:03

actually is, I'm gonna say, infuriating.

9:06

I'm just gonna put that out there. Like

9:08

I- We did get Annette Bening and Nyaad,

9:10

everybody. What happened? I,

9:12

look, guys, I was not a

9:14

huge fan of the Barbie movie,

9:18

but you

9:21

cannot deny the artistry, the

9:23

creativity, the vision it

9:25

took to bring that movie to the big screen. And

9:28

Greta Gerwig is like the driving creative

9:30

force behind that movie, so that she

9:32

was not nominated for Best Director, I

9:34

think, is really sad, given

9:37

that Ryan Gosling- It's ridiculous. You know, and by the

9:39

way, that is, for those who haven't seen Barbie, that

9:41

is basically the plot of the movie. Is that- Right.

9:44

Is that people like Ryan Gosling continue to get nominated

9:47

by the Mojo Casa Dojo House

9:49

of the Academy Awards, and- Yeah.

9:52

And he is good in the movie, but it

9:54

also feels like he's not even, he's just being

9:56

himself and being fun, is the thing. It doesn't

9:58

even feel like acting, so I don't- I know maybe

10:00

you word that. Yeah. I

10:02

feel like, I mean, to be fair, I don't

10:05

necessarily think Margo Robbie's performance deserves

10:07

an Oscar nomination either, but I

10:09

also don't think Ryan Goslings does.

10:12

Yeah, fair. You can be fair about that. Yeah. That's what

10:14

I, I wouldn't, it's not that I would, I

10:17

think she got snubbed more that like, why are we, why

10:20

do we think his performance deserves to be in there?

10:22

Cause they couldn't stop playing that song. Their kids kept

10:24

playing on their hand over and over again. And it

10:26

just got in their brains. To be fair, Margo Robbie

10:29

did get nominated for Best Picture because

10:31

she was one of the producers of Barbie. So

10:33

I'm glad that there was not. Well,

10:36

Greta Gerwig is for Best Adaptive Screenplay, which

10:38

is nice to be, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

10:40

It's just weird, Greta Gerwig is not a

10:42

producer on that movie. I just found that

10:44

surprising. That is, yeah, that is odd. I

10:46

posted about, uh, this, the Barbie thing and

10:48

somebody said, who, well, David Chen, who would

10:50

you remove from Best Director in order to

10:52

give that award? Okay. So the Best Director

10:55

nominees. Jonathan Glazer. Yeah. Jeff, I was going

10:57

to say the same thing. I

11:00

had the same exact thought. Uh, but,

11:03

uh, and I know a lot of people like, uh,

11:06

the zone of interest. And so, you know, but

11:08

it just like my and Jeff's opinion is like, you

11:11

know, like I think we thought it was an interesting movie.

11:13

Um, I certainly thought it was interesting and had some, some

11:16

valuable things to say, but not a movie that

11:18

I, uh, thought it

11:20

was even close to Jonathan Glazer's best

11:22

work. Um, but

11:25

yeah. Uh, Justin Crete, uh,

11:27

Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Yurgos Lanthimos, and

11:29

Jonathan Glazer are the nominees for Best

11:31

Director. Uh, and yeah,

11:34

of, of those five, I would say Jonathan

11:36

Glazer, the weakest, um, in that category, and

11:38

I could easily see giving that up for,

11:40

um, for Greta Gerwerg's work

11:42

in Barbie, um, speaking

11:45

of Killas the Flower Moon, no nominee for Leonardo

11:47

DiCaprio, which I actually was surprised by because I

11:49

thought he was phenomenal. I thought that was a

11:51

lock. Yeah. That was surprising

11:53

to me that he did not get nominated. Um,

11:56

but I'm glad to be really glad Stone nominated

11:58

though. Um, yeah. She's phenomenal

12:00

in it. So,

12:02

you know, I think, for my

12:04

money, I think Emma Stone's gonna, is a lock

12:07

for this award. You think she's gonna

12:09

win that award, you're saying? I do. Yeah.

12:11

If it's me, I'd give it

12:13

to Sandra Huler personally, but I love Carrie

12:16

Mulligan's performance as well, and Lily Guntz, I

12:18

think this is a very strong category. I

12:20

didn't see Nyad, but the

12:23

other four nominees, I think, just

12:25

extremely strong category. Yeah, Annette

12:27

Benning got nominated for Best Actress in Nyad,

12:29

and then Jodie Foster got nominated, right, for

12:31

Best Supporting Actress in Nyad, and I have

12:33

to say, the veracity

12:35

of the movie may be in doubt, but I

12:38

thought both of them really did a phenomenal job

12:40

in that film, so. And

12:42

by the way, it's really impressive. I'm so impressed

12:44

by Jodie Foster just in general,

12:46

like this is an actress who

12:48

has continued to remain relevant after

12:51

all these decades. She was nominated, I think she

12:53

won the Academy Award for what, Silence

12:55

of the Lambs and the Accused, right? And

12:57

decades later, she is not only in an

12:59

Academy Award nominated performance in Nyad, but she

13:02

is crushing it as

13:04

a cop on True Detective Night Country right now, and

13:06

it's just like, it's cool to be able to like,

13:08

she's just performance. Well, she's taking her break. She's not

13:10

like been a constant presence too, is the thing. So

13:12

we've had time away from her, and now she can

13:14

be back and be fully involved. She's come back, you

13:16

know, which is awesome. Now,

13:19

Maestro got nominated

13:21

for Best Picture, and Bradley

13:23

Cooper got nominated for Best Actor, and no nomination for

13:25

Best Director as well for that category, which I thought

13:27

would have been, I thought that

13:29

would have been well deserved, Jeff. And I think, you know, you would

13:31

agree with that, right? I agree, I don't know where

13:33

you slot him in. It

13:36

would be nice to have, I would

13:38

put Greta Gerwig in there before him, but

13:40

I do think he is deserving, I

13:43

mean, I think the directing of that film is

13:46

superlative. So I think, I

13:48

think just in general, my opinion is there's

13:50

too many Best Picture nominees. I don't think

13:52

having 10 movies is wise,

13:55

because it just prompts the

13:57

you got snub discussion. It's like the movies

13:59

are. one of the best pictures. Why

14:02

was it nominated for Best Did no one

14:04

direct it? It's ridiculous. It's a ridiculous notion.

14:06

And it's like, Oh, well, then does

14:08

that does that mean

14:11

that the movies that were on the best

14:13

picture list but their directors aren't nominated aren't

14:15

really contenders for best picture, right? Right. It's

14:17

like it's a stupid, stupid, you

14:20

know, on the one hand, I agree with you. On

14:22

the other hand, it does mean that, you know, a

14:24

movie like past lives can get a best picture nomination

14:26

when it never otherwise would be and that's probably very

14:28

meaningful to that movie. Right. That's a fair

14:30

point. But I agree. It's

14:33

kind of it's weird. There's always a conversation. Did

14:35

no one direct past lives? No one direct Barbie,

14:37

you know, yeah, I agree. It's impossible. Not I

14:39

mean, they're making it. Yeah, assured that

14:41

you're going to have that conversation because you

14:43

have fewer possible choices, or

14:45

maybe like expand the best director to 10,

14:47

you know, like, then it would be less

14:49

than 10 can only be the same with

14:51

them. But then you have to do that

14:53

for all the for all the

14:55

category. It's 10 is too many. It's

14:58

it. I mean, you really I feel like you

15:00

really see the purpose

15:03

of these awards, which is a extension

15:05

of the promotional arm of these studios.

15:08

It's like, we're going to extend

15:10

these award categories to include a lot of movies

15:12

that we want to I don't know, I agree with

15:14

you past lives. It's lovely to see it there.

15:16

I thought it was a lovely movie and a smaller

15:19

movie that maybe will get extra attention

15:21

and, you know, things like poor things

15:23

and zone of interest and the holdovers

15:25

might get more attention as well. American

15:27

fiction and these movies that are not,

15:30

I think, probably weren't huge box office hits, maybe

15:33

we'll get people that give them another look. But

15:35

I don't know. Yeah, I mean,

15:37

it's the thing. It's the one thing the Academy

15:39

can do to like, feign a sort of like,

15:42

I don't know, broad popularity, right to to be

15:44

like, Oh, we are one with the people, right?

15:46

Because if it was just five, it is very

15:48

easy to have a year where it's a bunch

15:51

of movies that only the Academy has seen, right

15:53

or only Cinephiles have seen. And then like general

15:55

audiences don't watch the show or don't pay attention

15:57

to it too. So I think that

15:59

was the reason there was the year is really bad, as

16:01

I recall. It is cool

16:03

that we, it is cool that it

16:06

now seemingly a rare occurrence when the

16:09

movie's nominated for Best Picture and are likely to win

16:12

actually did well at the box office. Um,

16:14

but it is cool that we have two movies in

16:16

Best Picture category that made close to a billion dollars.

16:18

One of them made well over a billion dollars, Oppenheimer

16:21

and Barbie. Uh, and that's

16:23

great. I love that. I love that we

16:25

have movies that are nominated that are also

16:28

doing well. I think that's a really, nominated

16:30

last year, right? Yeah, I think that's right.

16:32

I think that's right. Yeah. Um, yeah.

16:34

So anyway, uh,

16:37

I think it's pretty, pretty likely that Oppenheimer will

16:39

win, even though I, I certainly wouldn't

16:41

pick that movie as, as Best Picture. I, I think

16:43

it's a fine movie. I'm not

16:46

disparaging it. I just don't think it's,

16:48

it, it, it

16:50

is a unique movie, very unique,

16:52

I think, then that it, uh,

16:54

it sits in the Venn diagram

16:57

of something that is commercially successful

16:59

and Oscar bait, you

17:01

know, experimental narratively.

17:03

Yeah. Like it's an unusual movie. Yeah.

17:07

I wish I liked it more too. Uh, things

17:09

I would call it, by the way, I, I wish that

17:11

the boy in the Heron could have made like a Best

17:13

Picture nom, at least like I wish. I

17:16

wish like potentially the last Miyazaki movie could have

17:18

that spot. That would have been nice. Um,

17:21

they could nominate for Best Animator. They get

17:23

nominated for Best Animator. A lot of people that

17:26

Ninja Turtles did not, Mutant Mayhem did not. Yeah.

17:29

That's a good movie, but I'm, you

17:31

know what? I'm surprised that Robot Dreams was

17:33

nominated because that is something that nobody has

17:35

seen except for like a handful of critics.

17:37

That is a movie. It's a Spanish movie,

17:39

no dialogue. It is wonderful. I love it.

17:42

Um, but it's not hitting theaters, I believe in the

17:44

U S until like February. Like it's not fully

17:46

released yet. So people will see that movie soon. And

17:49

hopefully we can talk about it. That was one of

17:51

my favorite things I saw last year, but yeah,

17:53

I have not talked about it because nobody can see it. Yeah.

17:56

Yeah. Uh, anything

17:59

else to. Call out I want to

18:01

say it's cool to see divine joy

18:03

Randolph get nominated for best supporting actress

18:05

in supporting role America for

18:08

her I think was a big surprise like people weren't

18:10

expecting that her to get nominated but in she was

18:12

nominated for Barbie But I'm

18:14

rooting for divine joy Randolph. I think she's

18:16

yeah really excellent in the holdovers and and

18:18

I hope she I think it It is

18:21

interesting that Wes Anderson may get his first

18:23

Academy Award for a short for a short

18:25

film Which is

18:27

you know, I'm I am conflicted

18:30

about that because on the one hand I think

18:32

the wonderful story of Henry Shigar is Very

18:37

good, I mean is incredibly

18:39

good, but I

18:42

also feel like the best live-action short film is Usually

18:45

people that don't have the

18:47

kind of budget and means and accessibility

18:49

and all that stuff and you really

18:52

sometimes That category is one that

18:54

shines a light on these smaller things and I

18:56

I feel like if Wes Anderson walks away with

18:58

it Which I think is pretty likely You

19:02

know, it kind of kind of a shame.

19:04

Yeah, can you imagine being like in that category? You're

19:06

like You know

19:08

getting a call from your agent. All right, I've got

19:10

some good news and some mixed

19:12

views Your loss

19:15

a lick chair nor And

19:18

you and you made Night of Fortune and

19:20

you're like, oh yes. Yes, you've been nominated

19:22

for an Oscar Oh, but by

19:24

the way your competitor Wes Anderson. Have you heard

19:26

of? Literally one

19:28

of the favorite filmmakers in Hollywood and the

19:30

world. Yeah, he's also in the category, you

19:32

know bad. That's a shame pretty rough Hey

19:38

shout out to Sean Wang Who

19:40

was nominated for a documentary short film called nine

19:43

night and wipe Oh Which

19:45

he directed a movie

19:48

that premiered at Sundance that I saw

19:50

this week And that was very good.

19:52

And it's always cool to see you got nominated and then

19:54

he got you know Sundance debut Good

19:57

things are happening for him. And he's obviously he's dealing like

19:59

his movies deal with the

20:02

Asian American immigrant experience. So

20:05

big shout out to Sean Wang, I wanted to say. Yeah,

20:08

I'll say an odd observation of

20:11

mine is that I'm oddly invested

20:14

in the best costume design categories

20:16

for the first time in maybe

20:18

ever. Because like, the only

20:20

nominee there that I don't think is deserving

20:22

is Oppenheimer. And I worry that Oppenheimer is

20:24

just going to sweep through. But like poor

20:26

things versus Barbie

20:29

versus killers of the Flower Moon versus

20:32

Napoleon. Like, yeah, those are all

20:34

wild. Yeah, costumes, dude. Jeff

20:39

Oppenheimer has a hat. Right.

20:42

He does have a hat. It's a

20:44

very, very iconic. Guys, let's not downplay

20:46

the costume design of Oppenheimer. No, I'm

20:48

making fun because there's literally there's literally

20:50

a scene in that movie where he

20:52

looks at the hat. And

20:55

the pipe and the light Batman. It's hilarious. I

20:57

can't get out of my head. By

20:59

that definition, Indiana Jones and the

21:02

Dial of Destiny should have been nominated. Look,

21:05

I agree that the order of difficulty is

21:07

probably higher in the non Oppenheimer films, but

21:09

I'm sure a lot of work went into

21:11

the Oppenheimer costume design as well. So I

21:13

mean, I love dude, I think I

21:16

kept going like, oh, dude, poor things

21:18

is gonna walk away with costumes. And

21:20

then went, oh, wait, Barbie. Oh, wait,

21:22

killers of the Flower Moon. Oh, my

21:24

gosh, Napoleon. It's like, yeah, really an

21:26

intense category. Yeah, Villa got

21:28

some love. That's fun. Yes. Nominated

21:32

for best visual effects. Did you guys see

21:34

the video of the visual effects team? Because

21:36

there's only like 30 of them. Yeah, they're

21:38

all sitting in a room when the nominees

21:41

got announced. And there's video of them just

21:44

going bananas

21:46

when they got I just what a

21:49

heart warming thing. I'm really rooting for

21:51

them. Also, something

21:53

that is like somewhat

21:55

rare is the director of the movie is on

21:57

the visual effects team. So

22:00

So yeah, not

22:03

since Stanley Kubrick, I think, has that been the case.

22:06

So another situation where

22:08

the director might win for something that

22:10

is not the best directing category. Anyway,

22:14

so overall, I'd say,

22:16

aside from some really bizarre

22:18

decisions, most

22:21

of these are like really good movies that were honored,

22:23

right? I think we all agree with that, right? There's

22:25

very few things that were like, oh, that shouldn't have

22:27

been nominated or anything like that. You

22:30

guys have picks for the sort of big four? I

22:34

mean, I have what I want, but I know what's going

22:36

to happen. Who we want, not who we

22:38

think will win. How about that? Well, I think it's less

22:40

interesting to pick who we want because I feel like we

22:42

already did that. We already did do that,

22:45

I guess. Really? I

22:47

don't know that we did that for... I mean, I want anatomy

22:49

of a fall to win best picture. I think it's the

22:51

best picture of the year. But

22:54

I don't think we... I want my number one to win best picture of the

22:56

year as well. Yeah. Okay. I

22:59

think it's more interesting to try to do what you think

23:01

because I think it's... I think some

23:03

of these

23:05

categories are not... I mean, I think Christopher

23:08

Nolan has a good shot to win best

23:10

director, but I think best actor, best actress

23:12

are much harder to call. I

23:14

mean, I think Emma Stone for me is the front runner, but...

23:18

I would love to be Molly. What do you think? Cillian

23:20

Murphy? I

23:23

think it might be Cillian Murphy's time. That's

23:26

what I think. I think it might be Cillian Murphy's time. I

23:29

thought he was one of the best things about that movie. I agree. So

23:32

I'm guessing... I'm not going to say voting. I'm just

23:34

going to say I'm guessing it's going to be Cillian

23:36

Murphy. Does Robert

23:38

Downey Jr. already have an Academy Award? I

23:42

don't think he does. Let's see.

23:45

Because if not, he definitely is getting

23:47

one. He

23:51

has received nominations for three Academy Awards, but

23:54

yeah, it does not look like he has

23:56

won. It feels like that's the lock. He

23:58

was nominated for Chaplin. Tropic

24:00

Thunder and Oppenheimer.

24:04

Is there ever been a thing that describes

24:07

how times have changed more than

24:09

he got nominated for an Academy

24:11

Award for that part? A part

24:13

that you couldn't even make today.

24:15

Very likely. Very likely. But

24:17

yeah, who would your choice be for

24:19

Best Supporting Actor? Best

24:22

Actor, Supporting Award. It's Sterling K. Brown

24:25

in American fiction, Robert De Niro for

24:27

Killers, Robert Downey Jr. for

24:29

Oppenheimer, Ryan Gosling for Barbie, or Mark Ruffalo in Poor

24:31

Things. My pick would be Mark Ruffalo, but I don't

24:33

think he has a chance in hell. But

24:36

you don't think he has a chance in hell? No, I

24:38

do not. I think you're probably right. If

24:40

we had to choose, it would be Mark Ruffalo, but the

24:42

winner is probably going to be Robert Downey Jr. Yeah,

24:45

absolutely. Best

24:47

Performance by an Actress. Annette

24:50

Bening in Naiad, Lily Gladstone in Cleo's The Flower Moon, Sandra

24:52

Huler in Anatomy of the Fall, Carrie Mulligan in Maestro

24:54

and Emma Stone in Poor Things. I think this is going

24:57

to be between Emma and Lily Gladstone. I

24:59

would love to be Lily Gladstone. If she wins, I

25:01

think that would be a wonderful thing. But I would

25:03

give it to Sandra Huler. I think she's... 100%

25:06

agreed, Jeff. 100% agreed. Best

25:08

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role.

25:10

That's Emily Blunted Oppenheimer, Danielle Brooks in The

25:12

Color Purple, America for her and Barbie, Jodie

25:15

Foster in Naiad, or Divine Joy Randolph in

25:17

The Holdover's... Hey, Divine Joy Randolph! That's

25:19

a... I

25:22

loved her in that movie. I think she's going to

25:24

be... So good. I think she's probably going to get

25:26

it, is my guess. I hope so. I think she's

25:28

a lock for that one. And

25:30

then I guess the last thing, let's just choose who we

25:32

think is going to win Best Director. How about that? So

25:36

the choices are Jonathan

25:38

Glazer for Zone of Interest, Jurgos

25:42

Lanthimos. Jurgos Lanthimos for Poor Thing, Christopher

25:45

Nolan for Oppenheimer, Martin Scrissezi and Justine Triette.

25:47

Justine Triette for An enemy of the Fall.

25:49

We obviously want it to be Justine Triette,

25:51

but I think it's Christopher Nolan here, guys.

25:53

I agree. He has never won Best Director.

25:56

This is a guy who has really helped...

26:00

to support the film industry and

26:02

keep theatrical film going alive. And he

26:05

deserves to be honored for it. So

26:07

I think it's Christopher Nolan's year. Devendra, any other

26:09

logic makes sense? No. Yeah,

26:12

I think it totally works. I would love to see Justin

26:14

Triad get some love there, though. That is

26:16

a good spot for her. That would be

26:18

a well constructed movie. That would be amazing

26:20

if that happened. It would be unbelievable. But

26:22

yeah, I think it's very, very unlikely. I

26:24

think I also think Yovis Lanthimos is very

26:26

deserving. From a

26:28

directing point of view, that movie is astounding.

26:32

Well, anyway, those are the

26:34

96th Academy Award nominations. And

26:37

yeah, a lot of good movies there. Definitely

26:39

check them out. Definitely check out Anatomy of a Fall.

26:42

That should be the takeaway from

26:44

this, is check out Anatomy of a Fall. Which

26:47

I think is on video on demand now, yeah?

26:49

Yeah, it's on video. You can rent or buy

26:51

it. I'm holding out

26:53

hope for 4K. I don't know if we're going to

26:56

get it, but I would love to get a flip-doo.

26:58

I really want to see the pixels on that snow.

27:00

Yeah, absolutely. All on the snow. Absolutely.

27:02

All right. Well, those

27:04

are the Oscar nominations, and that is some film

27:07

news for you. Let's

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Enjoy! Let's get

28:44

to what we've been watching. Jeff Kanata, what have you been watching this week?

28:47

I checked out the film

28:49

Book of Clarence in

28:52

the movie theater. This

28:54

was recommended to me by

28:56

our friend, friend of the show, Dennis Sayed. He sent

28:58

me a text that said, you have to go see

29:00

this. I don't think this is a

29:03

perfect movie. I think this is a

29:05

very flawed movie, but I think you'll be glad you

29:07

saw it. To which I

29:09

would respond, exactly. I

29:11

completely agree. This

29:15

is James Samuel's film

29:19

written and directed. I believe

29:21

I pronounced that correctly. You guys can correct me

29:23

if I'm wrong. I think it's James Samuel. Yeah,

29:26

yeah. Starring with Keith Stanfield, who

29:28

is amazing. Keith Stanfield is a

29:31

frigging movie star. And

29:33

the reason I say that is because you could just

29:35

put the camera on him in a close up, walk

29:38

away for a half an hour, and we'll

29:41

still be staring at his face. I

29:43

think that to me is the definition of a movie star. And

29:46

there's a lot of extreme close

29:48

up on Keith Stanfield in this

29:50

movie, and you're just enveloped

29:53

in his essence. Anyway,

29:56

very difficult movie to describe,

29:59

Book of Clarence. Clarence very

30:02

difficult movie. I

30:04

think I would say my biggest

30:06

problem with Book of Clarence is that it is It

30:10

really is very ambitious and I think it

30:12

wants to be too many things at once

30:15

in my opinion I think if it was

30:17

more focused On

30:19

being one thing and having one theme it

30:21

would have worked more for me. This

30:24

is It's

30:26

kind of a biblical epic right or like

30:28

a bit of epic that yeah at times

30:31

a parody at

30:34

times very dark and

30:36

serious and overt

30:39

at times, you know,

30:41

just like action-packed at times

30:45

Kind of mystical and

30:47

and fantastical It

30:50

is lots of different things all at

30:52

once. Yeah, I would almost describe the

30:54

first Third

30:56

or two thirds as being something

30:59

along the lines of like the

31:02

the tropes of like an late 90s a Gang

31:06

movie like it like a like a New

31:11

Jack City or It's

31:14

that but set in biblical times It's

31:18

very odd because it has these very Sort

31:22

of defined tropes of the

31:24

guy who sells

31:27

drugs But is love

31:29

with a girl and so she wants he wants

31:31

to prove to her that he can be more

31:33

than what he is And needs to reform his

31:35

life and prove that he could do something, but

31:37

it's set in biblical times Which

31:40

I mean literally right there, right like Jesus

31:42

is like Jesus is in the movie. Yeah

31:47

I mean, it's hard to even describe this

31:49

film It's so wild because it starts like

31:51

that and it starts is almost like this

31:53

parody almost like a life of Brian type

31:57

subverting religion But

32:00

by the end, it almost kind of comes

32:02

out as very pro-religion. And I

32:04

mean, it's

32:06

about so

32:08

many things. I mean, it's about white

32:11

supremacy at a certain point. It's about, I

32:13

mean, very much about religion. Sort

32:16

of just a love story, but also about, you

32:18

know, these big

32:20

heady topics as well. I

32:23

think it's trying to do too much,

32:25

but it is a fascinating, fascinating

32:27

movie. So

32:30

ambitious, so bizarre.

32:34

I came out really appreciating the

32:36

movie more than liking it.

32:39

I honestly would love to have a

32:41

spoiler conversation with you guys about it because it is

32:43

so different and

32:45

so bold in

32:47

so many ways. Like it doesn't care who

32:49

it offends. And

32:52

by the end, it gets to some really

32:54

dark, interesting places. And then it has this

32:56

like very broad joke at the end. I

32:58

mean, it really is vacillating

33:01

between these kind of goofy

33:04

tones. And it's got

33:06

very anachronistic stuff. People talk anachronistically. It's

33:08

got anachronistic music. It's got a full

33:10

dance number in the middle of it.

33:13

It's a

33:15

really wild movie. And one I really

33:17

appreciated. I just don't think it coalesces

33:20

and focuses

33:22

into something that I

33:24

could grab onto. Like I came home and started

33:26

texting Danish about it. We were both

33:28

like, yeah, well, what did that mean? And what

33:30

is it trying to say about this? And did

33:33

that really work? Not really, but both of us

33:35

kind of admired it. And

33:37

I think it's really unusual.

33:39

I think it's really bold. It's really,

33:41

I feel

33:45

like it's a movie you're gonna really love, Devindra,

33:48

because you love movies that take big swings. It

33:51

sounds like a meal. And

33:54

I love a big swing. I love a big meal.

33:56

I also love James Hamill's last movie, The Harder They

33:58

Fall. I forget if you saw that one, Joe. But

34:00

yeah, yeah, that was really like He's

34:03

a he's clearly like a well-formed filmmaker even though

34:05

he's just getting started I know he's also a

34:07

music artist. So like he has like just a

34:09

lot of great creative ideas I cannot wait to

34:11

see this. I'll be seeing it soon. Hopefully All

34:14

right. Well, that's Book of Clarence and it is one

34:16

thing that Jeff cannot has been watching Let's

34:19

talk about something. I've been watching this week. I as

34:23

I mentioned went to Sundance and And

34:27

There's there's three movies I want to talk about today

34:29

that kind of Summarize the

34:32

Sundance experience for me. I'm not I'm not gonna

34:34

talk about all the movies I

34:36

will write and make videos and talk about all

34:38

the other movies at other places and possibly in

34:40

the after dark as well But like for today,

34:42

I just want to keep it very focused to

34:44

three movies So

34:48

I went to go see this movie called DD, which is very good.

34:50

I'm not gonna talk about that today I will talk about a later

34:52

point and I got invited

34:54

to the after party for DD.

34:56

So I I rush over to the after party for

34:58

DD and That's

35:01

what a lot of my Sundance experience was just like running from

35:03

place to place and trying to get into things And

35:06

so I get to the after party I

35:09

guess the after party and there's literally like 200 people

35:12

outside waiting to get in and I

35:14

just thought Hey, I really

35:16

appreciate, you know, I said to the person invited me like really

35:18

appreciate the invite But I not gonna

35:20

stay here for like an hour. Sorry. I'm here to

35:22

see movies Excuse me. I

35:24

can't say you know, I really wanted to get

35:27

in. Yeah Yeah on the

35:29

way said but I'm like I'm gonna try to catch

35:31

one more movie tonight Okay on

35:33

the way out by the way, I bumped into Joan Chen Who

35:36

was in the movie DD and I got a man.

35:38

I got the she's awesome. And so that was awesome.

35:40

Okay But I was like,

35:42

okay, like let's try to see this

35:44

one movie and it's part of their midnight program

35:47

now Eric D. Snyder tweeted this who

35:49

I got to hang out with a little bit and that was

35:51

fun But he said the

35:53

biggest sign that Sundance is 40 is

35:56

the fact that their midnight movies screen

35:58

at 10 p.m. And 11 p.m Yeah,

36:00

they have this midnight program and it's like

36:03

horror movies and genre things and but

36:05

none of them screen at midnight anymore They're

36:07

all like 10 or 11 p.m.

36:09

Which I'm very grateful for the way to live.

36:11

Yes So there is

36:14

this pro this this movie called it's

36:16

what's inside That was screening

36:18

as part of their midnight program. It was 11 p.m And

36:21

so I said hey good. Goodbye to the DB party

36:23

would have really loved to meet the director But I'm

36:25

gonna try to catch this one movie. Okay, so I

36:27

get to the movie 15

36:29

minutes before it begins Which is

36:31

not good like you you were supposed to get there like 30

36:34

45 minutes I'm one of

36:36

the last people to be let into the movie. I Have

36:39

a seat like in the third to front

36:41

row all the way to the side For

36:44

this movie called it's what's inside that again. No one

36:46

has ever heard of no one has ever seen before

36:49

Here is the premise that is in the

36:51

thing which I I will guarantee you does

36:53

not even give away What

36:55

the main thing that happens in the movie is? H-friends

36:59

are in a pre-wedding party

37:01

and And a strange friend

37:03

shows up to the party carrying

37:06

a mysterious suitcase That

37:09

is what is written in the Sundance program, right?

37:12

And that's all that's all I will say about the plot today and

37:16

The director afterward says please do not reveal more than

37:18

what is in the program up for I don't think

37:20

that's gonna like I don't think that's gonna hold. I

37:22

think it's like people will find out what happens Because

37:25

people are assholes But

37:27

this in my opinion This

37:30

movie is the story of

37:32

Sundance this year you know, it's like remember

37:34

when like brick debuted or Memento

37:37

or like get out like these

37:39

movies that debuted at Sundance

37:42

and then like became a huge story

37:44

I don't know that people were gonna

37:46

love this movie But

37:49

this is this is like a movie that shows this

37:51

director is gonna be a big deal one day in

37:53

my opinion It's what's

37:55

inside is one of the most

37:57

creative movies I've ever seen It's

38:00

just so many things in this movie were

38:02

were genius. I was like that is incredible

38:04

I've never seen anything like it and the

38:06

execution is incredible When

38:09

did is it is it been picked up? Is it

38:11

coming out? Do we know anything about the after I?

38:14

Saw the movie at the world premiere. It

38:17

was acquired by Netflix for 17 million

38:19

dollars Which is on

38:21

Netflix a huge purchase like that person

38:23

who made that decision probably was in

38:25

that screening with you like this all

38:27

Probably it's amazing. Yeah, and here's the

38:29

thing. Um, I Am

38:32

bummed that that movie is probably not gonna

38:34

get a big theatrical release Because

38:37

it's gonna be on Netflix However

38:39

order of magnitude more people will

38:41

probably see it. Absolutely. Absolutely But

38:44

but here's the thing Jeff It is such a good

38:46

movie to watch with a crowd like I can't anyway

38:48

here are movies that it reminds me of okay the

38:52

biggest one the closest one is talk to me the

38:55

Horror film from last year like this is gonna be this year's

38:57

talk to me. I think It's

39:00

kind of like talk to me in terms of like the

39:02

premise but also The tone

39:05

of bodies bodies bodies, you know Like people

39:07

just bouncing new movies that made my top

39:09

tens of the years the last two years

39:11

Jeff you are going to Wicking

39:13

Oh also a can't be in the infinite

39:15

two minutes. Remember that movie? Yeah, also my

39:17

top ten of the year This is a

39:19

simple premise that we're gonna like explore. It's

39:22

like all those movies and Not

39:24

wait, it's my favorite movie of the festival so far

39:27

It's called it's what's inside. It's gonna

39:29

be a big deal. My guess is it'll be on a Netflix this

39:32

year like probably the end of the Year, like yeah,

39:34

I'm gonna put their play right like fair play got

39:36

picked up at Sunnance and then came out in like

39:38

the fall So I think this will probably follow a

39:41

similar schedule fair play was like a big awards pitch,

39:43

too So I don't know how this fits. Yeah, I'm

39:45

really curious to me. I had the same thought was

39:47

like I don't know. I don't know how this is

39:49

gonna fit but The

39:52

thing is it's a good financial decision. There's no

39:54

there's no big stars in this movie Like there's

39:56

no the biggest star I want or one of

39:58

the most recognizable stars like Brittany Grady, you

40:00

know, but like it's not a

40:02

movie that I think would do well in theaters But it's

40:04

a movie that if you watch it with other

40:06

people is a blast and I will say it is

40:09

gonna screen at South By Southwest apparently so

40:13

And probably will be playing at other festivals So you will have

40:15

the chance to watch it in the theater and I recommend you

40:17

try it I know this

40:19

is really vague because like I don't want to reveal

40:21

what happens in the movie, but it's all it's good.

40:24

It's awesome and and Yeah,

40:27

it was really special to be there for

40:29

the first time it was seen by I felt

40:31

like I was seeing a genius being discovered You know, I

40:33

mean like that's that's how I felt. So anyway, that's it's

40:35

what's inside It's one of the things I've been watching us

40:37

on is the vineyard you had a chance to watch something

40:39

from Sundance as well, right? Sure. Yeah,

40:41

I saw a turtle you which is a

40:43

Sundance documentary by Hans block

40:46

and more It's a rice alike

40:48

and this is about the trend

40:50

that's happening of companies building AI

40:54

avatars or AR personalities of your

40:56

dead loved ones and that's

40:58

what the entire thing is about It's

41:02

kind of fascinating it's kind of creepy because

41:04

we've seen so many things blow up lately

41:06

You know, we've seen the rise of chat

41:08

GPT and all of open AI stuff Everybody's

41:10

kind of excited about what could be possible

41:12

with large language models at the

41:14

same time Yeah, we see

41:16

how the entertainment industry is dealing with it But this

41:19

is a really interesting look because I feel like for

41:21

tech and for people I mean, this is such a

41:23

human thing, you know, we are so worried about what

41:26

happens after we die, you know or trying

41:29

to achieve some sort of immortality or at

41:31

least trying to Talk to

41:33

our loved ones who we can't talk to anymore to get

41:35

some sense of closure This

41:38

is a really interesting documentary because there

41:40

are companies already working on this There

41:42

are companies that will let you build

41:44

a chatbot of your dead loved one

41:46

based on you know information that you

41:48

submit and information it crawls and People

41:52

are doing this Both

41:54

for personal reasons, but also like I think for

41:56

really wrong reasons to like some people people are

41:58

just asking it like So what is life like

42:00

on the other side? You know, what is it like to

42:03

be dead? That's not what's

42:05

happening, right? It's a computer. It has no

42:07

information to give you about that. Of

42:10

the personalities of your loved one and maybe

42:12

you can have some sort of meaningful conversation

42:14

but it's sort of like constructing

42:16

an imaginary friend, you know, that you were

42:18

conversing with but it only knows what you

42:20

know. It only, you know, it only knows

42:23

the information you're putting in. It's not your

42:25

loved one on another plane of

42:27

existence or something. So I don't know, there

42:29

are a bunch of these companies. I'm really

42:31

worried about this trend and this movie kind

42:33

of follows a bunch of several

42:36

different things. There's also a company

42:38

doing like VR avatars of

42:41

your dead loved ones as well. And it goes

42:43

into how like that company is trying to like,

42:45

they basically treat it like a TV show. Like,

42:47

okay, this person lost their child, right? And they

42:49

really want to connect. They really want to have

42:51

like good final words. So they build the model.

42:54

They kind of build how this thing

42:56

reacts. And I just find it

42:58

kind of terrifying and kind of, I don't know,

43:00

kind of sad as well too, because to me,

43:03

I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a therapist

43:05

but I don't feel like this is necessarily

43:08

the best way to deal with extreme grief

43:11

or at least I don't know what people can end up doing with

43:13

it, but AI and large language

43:15

model technology like allows this stuff to happen

43:17

and companies are just ready to capitalize on

43:19

it. So that's kind of what I'm, I'm

43:21

just feeling terrified about this prospect. Like AI

43:23

is, we're worrying about it in so many

43:25

different things but now people just want to,

43:28

it almost feels like they're capitalizing on people's grief. And

43:31

I'm always worried about that death capitalism industry. And yeah,

43:33

it just seems like this is clearly an example of

43:35

that. Did you get to check this one out Dave?

43:38

No, but it is available online. So I may

43:40

check it out in the online portion of Sundance. And

43:43

by the way, I should point out, there's

43:45

dozens of Sundance movies available online. You can get

43:47

tickets, you can purchase, go and purchase a ticket,

43:49

watch it on an app on your, on your

43:51

TV. It's like a great experience. At least it

43:54

was last year. I can't vouch for it this

43:56

year, but I am planning to watch like probably

43:58

another 10 movies. This next. weekend

44:01

and I'd recommend people do that as well. Let me ask

44:03

you guys a personal question. You

44:06

know putting aside the commerce elements of

44:08

it, would you guys

44:10

ever consider using a AI

44:13

avatar to cope with the death of a loved one? No.

44:17

No? I think I might. Yeah. I don't

44:20

know if it would be about coping necessarily.

44:22

I think it would be a more of

44:24

an experiment and a, I

44:26

don't know. I don't know. I think I

44:28

could see that. It's weird that there's

44:33

a part of me that would want my kids to be able to do it.

44:35

Like I think the volume.

44:40

Unfortunately they have a whole corpus of. Well that's

44:42

what I was going to say. The volume of

44:44

data available for me to

44:46

my kids is a lot different than my father

44:48

to myself. Yeah. Yeah. So

44:52

in a way I would be like if that helped them, I

44:55

would totally want them to do it. That said, I don't

44:58

know how far away, like you

45:00

said setting the commerce aside. Yeah.

45:04

Which is a big deal to set the

45:06

commerce aside. Right. I don't know how far

45:08

away from visiting a medium this is, which

45:10

is something that. Yes, absolutely. That angers

45:13

me. Like infuriates me.

45:16

The idea that those people exist

45:19

makes me viscerally angry. I

45:22

think that they should be imprisoned.

45:27

Punished. They're criminals. But I

45:30

think as long as you're being upfront about what

45:32

this is. Right. It's a little different. Which by

45:34

the way, people are very bad at doing right

45:36

now. True. People are not

45:38

good at being upfront about it. Well the fact

45:41

that D'Vinjis said it, that people are asking what's

45:43

on the other side is proof of that. I

45:45

think even if the companies are upfront, people will

45:47

use it in their own ways too. You can't

45:50

really control user behavior sometimes. But this is like

45:52

a really sophisticated autocomplete based off of your loved

45:54

one's personality. He knows what it is. Right. So

45:58

it's infuriating to see the documentary. covers some

46:00

of the founders and some of the people working at these

46:02

companies. Like one of them is just like straight up like

46:04

a libertarian tech bro. It was like, Hey man, I'm just

46:06

making this thing. And I don't know what's going to happen.

46:08

It's really up to the people. And I'm just like, you,

46:11

you fricking scum of the earth. Like you know,

46:13

people just want to talk to the people they

46:15

love and you don't, you have no responsibility about

46:17

what happens or if your AI goes off the

46:19

rails. Like one, one thing was like, uh, somebody

46:22

was talking with their loved one and they were

46:24

like, what's it like in heaven? And I was

46:26

like, I'm not there. I

46:28

mean, hell. Oh, that's rough.

46:31

Yeah. Don't love that. Yeah. No, don't

46:34

love that. No. Anyway, but, but, but

46:37

here's like the other side

46:39

and maybe this is Pollyanna of

46:41

me. But

46:43

if there is some

46:46

situation where I am not around,

46:48

you know, I, I, and

46:51

my kid. Need

46:53

some advice. And there

46:56

was something I said on

46:58

a podcast at one time

47:00

that no one would be able to

47:02

find, except this AI program

47:04

has been trained on it and it plucks

47:06

out this little bit tidbit of advice that

47:08

helps my kid get through the day when

47:10

I'm not around, like that's beautiful.

47:13

And that is something that technology could

47:15

allow. And

47:17

I don't know. I imagine

47:20

that kind of thing would be

47:22

useful and beautiful and heartwarming. And I,

47:25

so yes, is there a dark side?

47:27

Absolutely. But I don't necessarily feel, I

47:29

can't, it's kind of a baby with

47:31

the bathwater thing for me. I don't

47:33

know. It's almost like, that's

47:35

a nice thought, Jeff, but that implies

47:37

that your son is not going

47:40

to listen to all 600 hours

47:42

of podcast that he does. Which is like, what

47:44

wouldn't that be? The first thing he does once

47:46

he gets his own, you know, iPhone or whatever,

47:48

you know, like, run to that podcast app and

47:51

download it. If

47:56

you're listening, clean your

47:58

room. All

48:01

right, David, you had one other thing to say about

48:03

that? I mean, listen, I think

48:05

it's a fascinating documentary. It's just fascinating to see how quickly

48:07

a lot of these companies have spun up and have gained

48:10

billions, or not millions, at

48:12

least one has hundreds of millions in

48:14

funding from VCs. And

48:16

it's also this whole Silicon Valley thing of never

48:19

wanting to die or wanting to cheat death in

48:21

a way. And people

48:23

are talking about AGI and artificial general intelligence

48:26

and what that could mean to you. And

48:28

stuff is kind of related. So it is funny

48:31

how this movie just kind of get to the

48:33

mystical side of AI and kind of what

48:35

we're expecting from it. We're expecting some sort

48:37

of magic. We're expecting it to give us some sort of

48:39

deep metaphysical connection with people

48:41

who don't exist anymore because it can get

48:44

us answers that sound like them. So

48:47

hey, it seems like we are in for a mess

48:49

as a society with all of this AI stuff. And

48:52

this movie is just another example of how that's going

48:54

to be kind of a mess. That's

48:56

really all I can say. And I think the movie

48:58

is worth watching. It's Eternally You. I don't think it

49:00

has distribution yet, but this feels like a Netflix thing

49:02

or something that will pop up on the streamers soon.

49:05

And it will be available in the Sundance online portion, which

49:07

is where I plan to watch it. Let's

49:10

take another break for a sponsor. We'll be back with more and what we'll

49:12

be watching right after this. Jeff Kanata, hit

49:14

us up with something else you've been

49:16

watching. We talked a little bit on

49:18

the After Dark about New Year's resolutions.

49:20

And I said, I don't really

49:23

make New Year's resolutions. Here

49:25

I am telling you that I kind of decided that

49:27

this year I'm going to

49:30

do a better job at trying to watch more

49:32

anime. Wow. Hey.

49:35

Yeah, I'm not an anime guy. I

49:38

have not been. I've watched a fair amount,

49:40

but I'm just not drawn to it. But

49:43

I hear people like Devindra and others of

49:45

my friends speak so

49:47

highly of some anime. I

49:49

decided this year I'm going to try to be

49:52

a little better. The right thing, Jeff, I can

49:54

get to stuff that will really make you happy.

49:56

I appreciate that. And so I'm going to do

49:58

better to try to weave. some more

50:01

anime into my watching menu. Speaking

50:04

of menus, one

50:06

of the first... See what I did there, Dave? I

50:08

can't believe you're the one bringing up the show too, Jeff,

50:10

so go for it. I decided

50:13

to check out Delicious in Dungeon, which

50:15

is an anime that is on Netflix

50:17

at the moment. And this

50:20

is a

50:22

delightfully weird notion.

50:25

It's structured very

50:27

much like a video game, actually like

50:29

a roguelike video game, where

50:32

the characters are

50:35

delving into a dungeon and they can

50:37

go deeper and deeper into the dungeon.

50:39

And every time they die, they start

50:42

back up at the top of the

50:44

dungeon and go back. I mean, it

50:46

is like straight up a video game,

50:48

very D&D tropes. It's a fighter, a

50:51

rogue, and a healer. It's

50:53

the holy trinity of D&D

50:55

classes that start

50:58

this show. And basically what

51:00

happens before the show starts is they have

51:02

been deep in the dungeon with one

51:05

of the characters' sisters who gets

51:07

eaten by a dragon. And then

51:10

they all die and they're off the back of the top

51:13

of the dungeon. Well,

51:16

it turns out this particular dragon digests

51:19

very slowly, we're told.

51:21

And so they have an opportunity

51:24

to rescue her before she is

51:26

digested. All they have to do is get

51:28

back to that point in the dungeon, which

51:30

is very deep, which is not easy to do. So

51:33

they start going, and then

51:35

they run into another character. And

51:37

it turns out this character

51:39

and the brother of

51:42

the lost digesting

51:44

girl is, um, they're

51:47

really into eating monsters. They're

51:51

like super into, like,

51:54

it's a fetish. It's a

51:57

compulsion. The weird Pittsburgh show. Yeah. taste

52:01

the forbidden, which is these

52:04

diabolical fantasy monsters that are

52:07

at the various levels of

52:09

this dungeon. So

52:12

the show transforms into

52:14

this goofy hybrid

52:16

of a

52:18

swashbuckling adventure fantasy Dungeons

52:20

and Dragons type thing,

52:24

and a cooking show. It

52:28

literally will take a complete

52:31

180 turn away

52:33

from what we're doing to explain to

52:36

you in detail

52:38

how these creatures

52:40

are prepared, all

52:43

the things you want to do to them, how

52:45

you have to harvest them, their various body parts,

52:48

like super deep, like

52:50

a cooking show. Not like, oh, we're

52:52

gonna cook the thing now. No, it's

52:56

super close up images of all

52:58

the preparation, like what you do.

53:00

And it's all nonsense. It's all made

53:02

up fantasy stuff. You know, it's

53:04

all mythological creatures, but

53:07

it's so fun. The level

53:09

of commitment to

53:12

the bit, you know, the level

53:14

of imagination that they've

53:16

gone through thinking about like,

53:18

okay, well, if this was

53:20

actual food, how

53:23

would you prepare it? What would it take?

53:25

How would you make what, what kind of

53:27

effects would it have on the body? What

53:30

would you want to add to it to

53:32

enrich the taste? It's so detailed. It's so

53:34

thought through that you

53:36

have, you know, the mushroom monsters and it's like,

53:39

well, you pop their legs off, you know, you

53:41

have to slice them in a certain way and

53:43

there's organs stuck in it and it'll have like

53:45

diagrams of where their organs are. And

53:47

it's all like, you know, anybody

53:50

who's played a fantasy

53:52

role-playing game on the computer or,

53:54

you know, on

53:56

the tabletop, you've run

53:58

across all these mythological creatures. creatures, you

54:01

know, all the time, you rarely

54:03

think about

54:05

their anatomy, like the level of, okay,

54:10

let's take this completely seriously

54:13

and analyze it

54:15

like it was, you know,

54:17

fine dye, like it's like it's, you

54:20

know, you're watching a, you

54:22

know, a show about preparing the

54:25

perfect chicken or something, you know, it's,

54:29

there are a bunch of animations about that, Jeff,

54:31

about like just food preparation. I watched one that

54:34

was about bread, just bread preparation.

54:36

So like there was such a unique subsection

54:38

of food and stuff like this seemed inevitable

54:40

that they would go and just be like,

54:42

okay, fantasy, fantasy cooking, sure, whatever. That's

54:45

cool. I find

54:47

it oddly compelling

54:50

because it is, you know, a lot

54:52

of anime rides that line between the

54:54

goofy and serious, right? The kind of

54:57

wacky characters and wacky situations, but also

54:59

it, you know, deals with really intense

55:01

themes and stuff like that. And I

55:03

think that's kind of what

55:05

a lot of people like about anime. And

55:07

I like that this show does it

55:09

in a very particular way. And I

55:13

think there's only as of our recording right now,

55:15

there's only three episodes out the fourth episode comes

55:17

out a day after tomorrow. But

55:21

I'm in, I'm going to watch this whole series. I love

55:24

it. I find it so fun. And I

55:26

love the, you know, the sort of

55:28

ren and Stimpy closeup is a, is a

55:30

matte painting, you know, that, that aesthetic thing.

55:32

They do that a lot where like, they'll

55:34

show the food and it'll cut to a

55:36

completely different art style to show it in

55:39

this very delicious form. It's

55:41

fine, but the characters are wacky and the

55:43

situation, they're still adventure and they're still fun.

55:46

So I'm a big fan. I'm into it.

55:48

Delicious in dungeon on Netflix. Wow.

55:51

You know, Jeff, I'm really impressed that you're kind of

55:54

venturing outside your own comfort zone, you know, to

55:56

try to expand your horizons. That's nice. That's nice.

55:58

That's good. Thank you. Delicious

56:00

in Dungeon is the name on Netflix. Alright, I

56:03

will talk about a movie called Sasquatch Sunset.

56:05

Now, did you guys hear anything about this

56:07

movie by any chance? I've heard about this

56:09

movie, so please. Yeah. So,

56:13

Sasquatch Sunset is a movie by the Zellner Brothers.

56:15

Have you seen anything by the Zellner Brothers? These

56:18

are the people who did, they

56:21

did the movie Kumikovich

56:24

Treasure Hunter. Oh,

56:26

right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

56:28

A kid thing. Anyway,

56:31

so, anyway. I

56:36

don't think so. So, Sasquatch

56:38

Sunset. Here

56:41

is the, here is the movie. It's

56:44

for Sasquatches making

56:46

their way through the wilderness during the

56:48

course of a year. That's the movie. Sasquatches

56:51

are real. I think you

56:53

may have just watched a Geico ad

56:55

in two hours. So,

56:59

Jesse Eisenberg and

57:01

Riley Keough play two of the four Sasquatches?

57:04

I did hear about this. I heard they went

57:07

to Sasquatch school to find out how to move

57:09

like a Sasquatch. And

57:11

there is a lot of eating

57:13

and pissing and shitting and fucking.

57:16

As, you

57:19

know, it would be what Sasquatches would do. And

57:22

at Sundance, they have these things called press

57:24

and industry screenings. So, like all the press

57:27

screenings for the press people and industry people

57:29

are held in a separate theater than the

57:31

public screenings. And it's generally accepted when you go to

57:33

one of these screenings that you can leave in the middle. Like,

57:37

oftentimes the person who is like bidding on the movie is

57:39

in the theater. And they're like, I got to go, but,

57:41

you know, put in a $12 million

57:43

bid on this movie or whatever, you

57:45

know. Sasquatch pitch. Bye. Bye. Man,

57:48

I'm long on Sasquatch. I

57:52

will, so I'm trying to tell you that like,

57:54

you know, it's a normal, think of it like you're at a

57:56

cinema in a normal sized theater. And that's where

57:58

all the critics are. And you know, people

58:00

leave during the course of the movie. Mm hmm. That's

58:03

a normal occurrence. A listener,

58:05

let me tell you, I have never seen more

58:08

people leave during a present industry screening than in

58:10

Sasquatch Sunday. I'm going to

58:12

say, uh, I'm going to say, fitting on

58:14

it. They're all,

58:16

they're all rushing to say bye, bye, bye. Um, I'm

58:18

going to say something on the order of like anywhere

58:21

between 30 and 50 people left

58:23

this screening in the middle of the like 20 to 30 minutes into

58:25

the screening. Uh,

58:27

and look, there's many

58:29

reasons why that might've happened. The

58:31

biggest reason is I think you get 20 minutes into this

58:33

movie and you're like, I think I understand

58:36

what this movie is. I

58:39

don't need to say for the rest of them. I'm

58:41

not picking up what these Sasquatches are putting down. And

58:44

by the way, like, I think for the most part,

58:46

those people are correct. You know, like there's not that

58:48

many surprises. Real big twist at the end with the

58:50

Sasquatches. Yeah, not really. I don't think they're in modern

58:52

times. Whoa. Well,

58:55

we'll see. Anyway, uh, TBD, what time is

58:57

there in? Uh, the other thing is, the

59:00

other thing is, um, uh,

59:03

the movie's like pretty gross, you know, like

59:05

you have, uh, like I said,

59:07

all the bodily functions graphically depicted, except

59:09

it's Sasquatches doing them. But

59:12

you know, Jeff, I think you would appreciate this

59:14

movie because, um, the commitment

59:16

to the performance is extremely high, you

59:18

know, like, are they, is it, um,

59:21

uh, motion capture or are they in suits? They're

59:23

in suits. Yeah. So, so they're,

59:25

they're dressed as Sasquatches. They

59:28

are behaving. They're there's no,

59:30

no dialogue in the movie. They're, they're

59:33

making Sasquatch noises. Love it.

59:35

That's, that's the whole movie. And they

59:37

need to like eat shit that grows on the, you know,

59:39

like each shit in the forest and like do all this

59:41

other stuff. And like each stuff that grows on trees and

59:43

you know, like is

59:45

it just a hangout movie or is there a plot?

59:49

You kind of see the difficulties they

59:51

have in moving through the forest and,

59:53

right, and how fragile nature is. But

59:55

I think the movie also invites you

59:57

to see. the

1:00:00

humanity of Sasquatchists, right? To be like,

1:00:03

we're not so different. Sasquatch and I.

1:00:05

All too overlooked, the Sasquatch humanity. Exactly,

1:00:07

exactly. Gotcha. And to that degree, I

1:00:09

think it's actually quite effective. So

1:00:11

I actually like that. Intrigue. It's

1:00:14

one of the big kind of buzzy things that

1:00:16

came out of Sundance. And there was also, I think there

1:00:18

was a lot of walkouts at the premiere too, if I'm

1:00:20

not mistaken. I'm not sure about that. But

1:00:23

it was kind of one of those things where you kind of

1:00:25

had to be there to

1:00:27

see the reaction to Sasquatch sunset

1:00:29

at Sundance. Anyway. Part

1:00:32

of it too is you're talking about the

1:00:34

pithy descriptions of these movies. You

1:00:36

don't want to sit there for two hours for a

1:00:38

movie you think you're gonna hate, right? Because that's your

1:00:40

brand new time. You could go watch another movie. Exactly,

1:00:42

exactly. That's the game, you know? That's

1:00:44

the thing. Let me tell you guys, there

1:00:47

is something

1:00:49

called an express pass for the final half of Sundance.

1:00:51

So the idea is you get into anything you want.

1:00:55

That pass for five days, and

1:00:58

any guesses as to how much that, getting into five days of a

1:01:00

film festival, any guesses as to how much that would cost? Okay,

1:01:03

yeah, very close. So

1:01:06

let's say you can see at most,

1:01:09

six movies a day, that's even pushing it. Probably five

1:01:12

movies a day is most you can see. So you

1:01:14

get to like push people out of the lines, like,

1:01:16

express pass coming through. I mean, $4,000 for this. I

1:01:19

mean, that's literally what does happen, except for the part

1:01:21

where they say they paid $4,000. But

1:01:24

yeah, they get in first. But

1:01:26

that's like what makes it. Amazing. 25, 30 movies for $4,000.

1:01:30

It's just like, ooh, that's tough to

1:01:33

justify. But

1:01:35

you're right, Devin, that's

1:01:37

also a lot of money to pay for even one

1:01:39

movie that you don't like. Yes. Yeah.

1:01:42

So it's like, you don't like it, just get out of there. Just get

1:01:44

out of there. All right. Devin, you're

1:01:46

a hard one. Hit us up with something else you've been watching.

1:01:49

You know, I wanted to do something

1:01:51

a little different. And as you're talking

1:01:54

about, like, highfalutin Sundance films, Dave, Jeff,

1:01:56

you're getting into anime. I want to talk

1:01:58

about something. that I've been watching way

1:02:00

too much of lately. That is

1:02:02

Blaze and the Monster Machines. Jeff,

1:02:05

are you aware of this show? I am aware,

1:02:07

I am not a viewer, but should

1:02:10

I be? I

1:02:12

will say no, in fact, I'd try to keep your

1:02:14

kids away if you can. I don't

1:02:16

know, this is a new section, Kid Corner, but occasionally

1:02:18

we like to talk about kids' shows, and all of

1:02:20

a sudden my daughter, she's

1:02:23

just going from show to show, and weirdly it's

1:02:25

probably the Paramount app, which has a whole

1:02:27

bunch of kids' shows. It has Peppa, Pet

1:02:29

Dora, it has a whole bunch of

1:02:31

things all at once, and Paw Patrol, so she just kind

1:02:33

of sees other things she goes to. And

1:02:36

I try to maintain

1:02:38

a strict fence of like, okay, we're just watching this,

1:02:40

we know what this show is, you can watch this.

1:02:44

Sometimes my daughter has learned she could just tap the

1:02:46

iPad now. She can explore and do

1:02:48

stuff on her own. So she has found Blaze and

1:02:50

the Monster Machines. This is ostensibly a

1:02:52

STEM-related show. This is a,

1:02:54

it teaches you like science

1:02:56

tech engineering concepts.

1:02:58

It's about anthropomorphic monster

1:03:01

machines, living in a world which

1:03:03

also happens to have like a couple kids in it for

1:03:05

some reason. There are also like

1:03:08

animals that can become vehicles. This

1:03:11

is one of those like cars universe things where you

1:03:13

don't want to think too much about the structure of

1:03:16

this world or why anything matters. But

1:03:18

I just wanted to say, this show

1:03:20

is also a prime example of how you do a

1:03:23

supposedly good kids show badly because it is

1:03:25

a STEM show. It is something, it teaches

1:03:27

about things like propulsion and like how things

1:03:29

move and how to make a lever and

1:03:31

things like that. Oh, cool concepts for kids.

1:03:35

The problem is it is so

1:03:38

badly written when it comes to just

1:03:40

like the dynamics of like good and

1:03:42

bad. It's so focused on

1:03:44

STEM concepts. It

1:03:47

creates this character named Blaze who I think

1:03:49

is an absolute monster. Because

1:03:51

in this show, he's a monster

1:03:53

machine. He's the good

1:03:55

guy. He's actually voiced by

1:03:58

a famous game after. Nolan

1:04:00

North, his voice is Blaze, so

1:04:02

I felt like I recognized that voice. Blaze

1:04:04

can never lose, guys. Blaze

1:04:06

has this thing called Blaze Speed

1:04:09

or something like that. It's a special power that gives him that

1:04:11

speed. As you do. As you do. There's

1:04:13

another monster named Crusher who's

1:04:16

always the bad guy, always the villain, always

1:04:19

building devices to cheat during races and other

1:04:21

missions and things like that. Crusher

1:04:24

gets punished for building

1:04:26

things to go faster. Blaze,

1:04:28

inherently, has the power to

1:04:30

go faster. Nobody else does, but

1:04:32

Blaze does. Blaze always

1:04:34

wins. What is

1:04:36

this teaching, kids? I go, I've

1:04:38

actually watched a couple episodes with my daughter and

1:04:41

I'm just like, nothing about this makes

1:04:43

sense. You can't just shove them into something and

1:04:46

then have no concept of the

1:04:48

actual storytelling of right and

1:04:50

wrong. I was looking up stories about this. People on

1:04:52

Reddit are saying their kids are

1:04:54

now obsessed with only winning. They

1:04:57

become monsters. Blaze only wins. They

1:05:00

should call this movie Blaze and the Fountainhead,

1:05:02

more like. Blaze and the Fountainhead, yeah, basically.

1:05:06

Blaze and the Fountainhead. I don't know. This

1:05:08

is one of those things where it's like, you think

1:05:10

it's like, oh, this is educational. They put STEM in

1:05:12

the description. People talk about it. It has decent ratings

1:05:15

on common sense media and things like that. But

1:05:17

at the end of the day, it's teaching

1:05:19

kids that you can never lose. That's

1:05:22

basically it. You're the good guy. He

1:05:24

can never lose. And there is no

1:05:26

nuance to characters or your dynamics. And

1:05:28

somebody's always bad. I

1:05:31

just want to say, I think this is

1:05:33

bullshit. I think bullshit to Blaze

1:05:35

and the monster machines. That's

1:05:37

my reason. I thought the Nenigans on Blaze.

1:05:39

On Blaze. The

1:05:41

Lex Luthor was right idea.

1:05:44

Pretty much. Krechter's just trying to

1:05:46

win. Because Blaze always

1:05:48

wins. What are you supposed to do? Superman has...

1:05:50

Can you... Everything. What?

1:05:53

What? Come on. Come

1:05:55

on. Anyway, that's Blaze and the Monster Machines. Don't watch it.

1:05:58

How did you watch it, Devendra? It's on Paramount,

1:06:00

the one where you can also find Showtime.

1:06:03

Jeff Kanata, the one

1:06:05

where you can also find Showtime. Rose Turpig. Jeff,

1:06:08

can we save these other items for the After-Arts,

1:06:10

because we are running a bit long today? Sure.

1:06:14

What do you think? Okay, cool. Well,

1:06:16

yeah, in that case, that is what we've been

1:06:18

watching this week. And

1:06:20

yeah, we're running a little long, so a couple of items

1:06:23

we had for what we've been watching will put the

1:06:25

After-Arts. But anyway, let's get to some

1:06:27

weekly plugs. Weekly

1:06:34

plugs, the part I show each week where

1:06:36

we plug something else we've been making. I

1:06:38

want to throw out a shout out to

1:06:40

decodingeverything.com. This

1:06:43

week I did a diary and

1:06:45

wrote about all my experiences at Sundance.

1:06:48

And you can find all that at my free newsletter,

1:06:50

decodingeverything.com. I wrote about pretty much every single movie I

1:06:52

saw. And I'm

1:06:54

sharing just the highlights here on the film cast.

1:06:57

Like, the most notable, biggest stories. But there's some

1:06:59

minor stories on there as well that are worth

1:07:01

checking out. So decodingeverything.com is where you can read

1:07:03

all about it. Devin, your hardware, your

1:07:05

weekly plug. I want to shout

1:07:08

out, I did a review at engadget.com about

1:07:10

the framework Laptop 16. And

1:07:12

people have talked to me about this thing. This

1:07:14

is a modular laptop. You can replace pretty much

1:07:16

every single component in it. Eventually

1:07:18

you could replace the video card or even the

1:07:20

CPU. It's a really cool thing. Unfortunately,

1:07:22

I don't think it's actually very good as a gaming

1:07:24

machine. It's a little too slow. And

1:07:26

it's very expensive for what you get. But I

1:07:29

know a lot of people, I know a lot of computer

1:07:31

nerds who want to just like tweak things and keep a

1:07:33

computer for maybe 10 years or something. So if you're one

1:07:35

of those people, this could be the computer for you. Now

1:07:37

check out my review. All right, Jeff

1:07:39

Kanata, your weekly blog. canio.com/Jeff

1:07:42

Kanata. If you are

1:07:45

looking for a pick me up, a gift,

1:07:48

just something to brighten your day. Think

1:07:51

about a limerick. A limerick. I

1:07:54

write them for you,

1:07:56

available for purchase at

1:07:58

cameo.com/Jeff Kanata. do I

1:08:00

write them? I also perform them. They are delivered

1:08:02

by video to you or your loved one. Check

1:08:06

out 150 plus five

1:08:08

star reviews at cameo.com/Jeff Kanata.

1:08:10

Happy customers who've gotten bespoke

1:08:12

limericks written just for them.

1:08:15

Check it out cameo.com/Jeff Kanata.

1:08:18

And patreon.com/film podcast is where you

1:08:20

can support this podcast. Sign up

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after dark's. Join over 3000 other

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1:08:30

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1:08:32

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1:08:34

financial hardship, you can only support us for free by

1:08:37

leaving a star rating for us and Apple podcasts or,

1:08:39

uh, or recommending the show to a friend.

1:08:41

You know, guys, I

1:08:43

want to tell you a quick story. I

1:08:47

bonded with my

1:08:49

seatmate coming home from Sundance.

1:08:53

Uh, you know, we're kind of like, Hey, what, what

1:08:55

are you doing? Oh, I'm skiing. Oh, I'm going to

1:08:57

Sunance. Oh, you're into movies. And

1:08:59

I've told him I have a movie podcast and,

1:09:02

um, he literally

1:09:04

downloaded the podcast right

1:09:07

there and list that's left on the flight.

1:09:10

Dave, we got to get you on more flights, baby.

1:09:12

Yeah. So we have a new listener who

1:09:14

might actually be listening to this. I didn't tell

1:09:16

him I would talk about this. So, you know,

1:09:18

I'm not going to reveal the person's name. Uh,

1:09:21

he downloaded our top 10 episode. He thought that was

1:09:23

great. Um, and,

1:09:26

uh, he

1:09:28

asked me if I read podcast reviews and

1:09:30

I said, no, I don't, it's too stressful. And he said,

1:09:34

you know, this is, there's a, there's a

1:09:36

maxim in customer service, uh,

1:09:38

that for every 10 people

1:09:40

who like what you're doing, one

1:09:43

of them will tell you that they

1:09:45

like it. Uh, and for every one

1:09:47

person that this pretty low, absolutely. And

1:09:49

for every one person that dislikes what

1:09:51

you do, what you do, they

1:09:54

will tell 10 people that they don't like

1:09:56

it. Yeah. And, uh, I

1:09:58

think that's very, very accurate. And actually like

1:10:02

I posted about this on threads yesterday

1:10:04

and some people Responded to me

1:10:06

said they said yeah Like my parents used to work

1:10:08

in a restaurant and they really they would feel bad

1:10:10

about asking people for positive reviews But

1:10:13

then they realized that that maxim is true like One

1:10:16

angry person will like leave like multiple

1:10:18

terrible reviews whereas like if they're positive

1:10:20

no one will say a thing Yeah,

1:10:23

so that's my way of saying Please

1:10:26

don't use the help That's

1:10:31

my way of saying please for the love of God Leave

1:10:34

a review for us because a tiny

1:10:36

tiny fraction of people who enjoy

1:10:38

the podcast actually leave a review

1:10:41

Alright, yeah Anyway done Anyway,

1:10:45

let's get to our view of Ferrari Welcome

1:11:25

to the film cast review of Michael Mann's

1:11:27

Ferrari I'm gonna read the plot summary of

1:11:29

this movie from IMDB set in the summer

1:11:31

of 1957 with Enzo Ferraris auto-empire

1:11:35

in crisis the x-racer turned entrepreneur

1:11:37

pushes himself and his drivers to

1:11:39

the edge as they launch into

1:11:41

the Mille Mille Yeah, a treacherous

1:11:43

1,000 mile race across Italy So

1:11:47

we are reviewing this movie on the day that

1:11:49

this movie is out on video on demand It

1:11:52

was in theaters for a few weeks. We

1:11:54

are so smart. We timed us perfectly. Yeah, yeah

1:11:56

Completely attentional. Yeah, I'm it so that this came

1:11:58

out at the right time And not

1:12:01

only that, we have a veritable expert on all

1:12:03

things Michael Mann to join us for this conversation.

1:12:06

He is the producer and host

1:12:08

of One Heat Minute Productions, which

1:12:11

podcasts about Michael Mann movies, minute

1:12:13

by minute. Blake Coward, welcome back

1:12:15

to the film cast. Thank

1:12:17

you so much for having me, lads. It's great to

1:12:19

be back. I mean, last time we spoke about an

1:12:22

awful Batman movie. And

1:12:24

this time, you brought me back

1:12:26

to talk about my favorite movie of last

1:12:28

year, which I want to say thank you.

1:12:31

I'm genuinely thrilled. Oh, kind of a

1:12:33

Batman movie, I guess. Well,

1:12:37

strong words about your favorite movie. This is

1:12:39

Michael Mann's first film since 2015's Black

1:12:41

Hat, I want to say. Is that

1:12:43

right? Yeah. And

1:12:46

obviously, I'm just going to say, look, Blake, I know we

1:12:48

disagree on this. I'm going to say I think he's had

1:12:50

a little bit of a mixed track record. On

1:12:53

the one hand, he's made some of the

1:12:55

greatest films of all time. And

1:12:57

on the other hand, he made Black Hats. And

1:13:00

so, you know, at now, before K.R.E.

1:13:02

released with the director's cut, maybe. I

1:13:04

would just say that the soy boys are coming

1:13:06

for you, man. The Black Hat fans, I call

1:13:08

them the soy boys, because they're always interested in

1:13:11

manipulating soy futures. Is that in his news? The

1:13:14

soy boys, you got to watch out. You got to

1:13:16

work on that branding, though. I

1:13:19

think that term has been co-opted by

1:13:21

some other folks. In

1:13:24

any case, despite

1:13:26

my mixed feelings on Michael Mann, I

1:13:28

was very excited about Ferrari. He got

1:13:30

a lot of money to make a

1:13:33

movie, kind of a biopic

1:13:35

about Enzo Ferrari. So Blake

1:13:37

Howard, without getting into spoilers, tell us what

1:13:39

your overall thoughts were on Ferrari. Why was

1:13:41

it your favorite movie of 2023? Well,

1:13:46

like, at a really sort of superficial or

1:13:48

high level, it's a movie

1:13:50

set in 1957 with beautiful

1:13:54

Italian suits and

1:13:56

people drinking wine and people

1:13:59

interrupting. because

1:14:01

they would prefer to time the

1:14:03

races on stopwatches, sensational

1:14:06

cars, really

1:14:09

powerful human drama. Michael

1:14:14

Mann directed it, like everything that I like

1:14:16

about movies here. It's

1:14:19

great actors, it's thrilling sound, it's terrific

1:14:21

direction and I just found it to

1:14:24

be, and Dave, look, we

1:14:26

can totally agree. The spectrum of Michael Mann

1:14:28

movies, I love all Michael Mann movies, so it's just like there's

1:14:32

a spectrum. I

1:14:34

also have those interactions with folks online that

1:14:36

are like, oh, Black Hat's his best movie. I'm

1:14:39

like, sit down, go home, go to sleep. It's

1:14:42

nice of you to say that, but there's like nine other movies

1:14:44

that are better. Why

1:14:47

I love Ferrari so much is because

1:14:50

I just found it to be so elegant. I

1:14:52

feel like older filmmakers

1:14:55

sometimes, they lose

1:14:57

some of maybe their flesh. It's

1:15:00

kind of the same thing you think about, or

1:15:02

I recently thought about with Paul Thomas

1:15:04

Anderson and The Phantom Thread, where

1:15:06

if you look at The Phantom Thread

1:15:08

and then you looked at Boogie Nights,

1:15:10

they are two wildly different stylistic movies

1:15:12

from the same filmmaker. Whereas

1:15:15

I found Ferrari to just be so

1:15:17

elegant and so

1:15:19

purposefully timed and has these

1:15:21

amazing set pieces, timing

1:15:24

a race in a sacrament, the actual

1:15:26

racing scenes themselves, the opera scene

1:15:28

at the central part of the

1:15:30

movie that flashes between character motivations.

1:15:33

I was just kind of blown away that it is

1:15:35

a huge spectacle in many

1:15:37

respects, but it's also really unpredictably

1:15:41

nuanced and emotional. I

1:15:45

just loved it. It just really

1:15:49

made me feel so great to be back

1:15:51

in such a master's hands. It

1:15:55

is a long time since watching a Michael Mann

1:15:57

movie that wasn't pushing the

1:16:00

technological envelope or wasn't trying to

1:16:02

push bad, just this kind

1:16:05

of mainstream storytelling, it is kind of

1:16:07

a pretty nuts and bolts story. It is what

1:16:09

it is, but I just found it

1:16:11

to be so elegant. So that I think if

1:16:13

that's what I was talking about

1:16:15

one aspect of it that speaks to

1:16:18

it was just exceptionally elegant storytelling, not

1:16:21

too showy, just very confident. And

1:16:23

yeah, it's kind of like a, I don't know,

1:16:26

like a Soderbergh too. He has this where it's

1:16:28

just things are elegant, things just feel like has

1:16:30

happened. He's not trying too hard to

1:16:32

say, look at this stylistic thing I'm doing, but

1:16:35

man alive, there's some great set pieces

1:16:37

in this movie. And they just, if

1:16:40

you're not into them, it might

1:16:42

slip past you, but me, a Michael Mann

1:16:44

psycho, well documented, I

1:16:47

was completely taken with the

1:16:49

entire film. All

1:16:51

right, excellent summary. You know, just a quick word about

1:16:53

the look of the film. His

1:16:56

last few films have heavily employed

1:16:58

digital video, specifically thinking of black

1:17:00

hat, public enemies, Miami Vice and

1:17:02

collateral, right? Yes, yes. A lot

1:17:04

of heavy use of digital videos

1:17:06

in ways that were very obvious,

1:17:08

right? It was public enemy, specifically,

1:17:10

that's a movie set long

1:17:13

ago, but was shot using digital video

1:17:15

very consciously, yeah, very consciously trying to

1:17:17

make it feel anachronistic, I think. But

1:17:21

this movie, I felt like was just the

1:17:23

the the aesthetic,

1:17:26

the way the movie was shot, none of it

1:17:28

called attention to itself in a way that that

1:17:30

it did for public enemies, as an example, right?

1:17:33

And so I'm kind

1:17:36

of curious, like what's what

1:17:38

was behind the decision making? Was that a conscious decision?

1:17:40

Or have digital cameras just gotten so good now that

1:17:42

it doesn't matter if you're shooting on them anymore? You

1:17:44

know, anyway, I believe

1:17:47

I don't know, a bit of all that

1:17:49

if you follow Steve Yedlin's, you know, Ryan

1:17:51

Johnson cinematographer, like his stuff about digital cinematography

1:17:53

shows that it's come a long way. Yeah,

1:17:56

certainly. Yeah, certainly. Since public enemies, you know.

1:17:58

Yeah. I

1:18:00

think it's the cool

1:18:02

thing about, if you just

1:18:05

start with collateral, I think

1:18:07

Michael Mann's form and function

1:18:09

with digital cinematography is really

1:18:12

clear. There's a great set of clarity with it.

1:18:14

I need to shoot this because literally,

1:18:17

and this is what I've

1:18:19

learned speaking to some of the great people we've spoken

1:18:21

to about Michael Mann films, like Elliot Koretz, who's

1:18:23

a great sound designer, if any of you fans, and

1:18:26

I'm assuming a great bunch of

1:18:28

film fans, like IMDB

1:18:30

Elliot Koretz as a sound designer, he's done

1:18:32

a million movies. But Elliot spoke

1:18:34

to my co-host Katie Walsh and I on our

1:18:37

show about what happened when

1:18:39

you used digital video in Los Angeles at

1:18:41

night for collateral. And he said, it opens

1:18:43

the depth of field. And as a sound

1:18:46

designer, I have more space that the audience

1:18:48

needs addressing in the soundscape of the movie.

1:18:51

And so Katie and I were kind of like,

1:18:53

oh my God, like that is such a dimension

1:18:56

to how that story is told.

1:18:58

And I think your spot

1:19:00

on Dave, I love that summary. Public

1:19:03

enemies is intentionally anachronistic because the

1:19:05

film is talking about

1:19:07

a change of, I

1:19:09

guess, like old Western bank

1:19:11

robbery to contemporary crime, like

1:19:13

organized crime. And so the

1:19:17

flux of the digital cinematography, butting

1:19:19

up against the actual time is

1:19:21

actually helping to serve the message

1:19:23

of the movie. Whereas with Ferrari,

1:19:26

he feels like he's not the

1:19:29

the the aesthetic of the film is

1:19:31

about and the only way

1:19:33

I can describe it is if you've

1:19:35

ever been to Italy, if you've been lucky

1:19:38

enough to be in Europe, if you've experienced

1:19:40

an Italian sunset like I went for a

1:19:42

friend's wedding like 15 years ago in Tuscany,

1:19:44

I just can't describe to you what the

1:19:46

light is like in Italy. And

1:19:49

Europe just does it better. That's

1:19:51

the unfortunate thing. I have

1:19:53

a distinct memory of being on like a hilltop in Barcelona

1:19:55

and be like, why don't we have

1:19:57

this? Why is this different? It's

1:20:00

like I don't understand but I was in

1:20:02

Italy looking at the sunset and I'm like

1:20:04

why? Like I'm like why does

1:20:06

this look so beautiful and I feel like

1:20:09

everything about the decor

1:20:11

and this I don't know this

1:20:13

sort of classic timeless I

1:20:17

mean in Australia especially Sydney every

1:20:20

second day we knock down a heritage

1:20:22

listed building and put up some monstrosity

1:20:25

right and in Modena the same cobblestones

1:20:27

that Enzo Ferrari literally walked on in

1:20:29

1957 are there. You

1:20:32

know there's a scene where Michael Mann

1:20:34

has talked about and Bill Getterbury another

1:20:36

great legendary chronicler of Michael Mann and

1:20:38

a dear friend. Enzo

1:20:40

Ferrari's barbers grandson still

1:20:42

works at the barbershop where his

1:20:44

grandfather worked and cut Enzo Ferrari's

1:20:46

hair and face like these places

1:20:48

exist and so I think that

1:20:50

the cinematography and the texture and

1:20:53

another great cinematographer Eric Messerschmitt they

1:20:56

just were like we are going to capture

1:20:58

the warmth of this place

1:21:00

even though there's some pretty gnarly hairy stuff that

1:21:02

they have to show in this movie but I

1:21:05

feel like the warmth of the cinematography

1:21:07

is about capturing those nuanced colors

1:21:09

and just the texture. I feel

1:21:11

like very much form and

1:21:13

function for this one. It wasn't trying to

1:21:15

push it for some you know stylistic quirk.

1:21:18

It was just what is the story made?

1:21:21

Well 1957 in Italy is basically

1:21:23

yesterday. 1957 in America is like

1:21:25

wow that's ancient history but in Italy that's like what? Now

1:21:32

we're talking you know thousands of years

1:21:34

of history. Yeah 1957 is like a

1:21:37

significant portion of America's lifetime whereas you

1:21:39

know not the case for Italy right

1:21:41

so. Anyway do we

1:21:43

have hardware? Yeah. What

1:21:46

are your thoughts on Michael Mann's Ferrari? I

1:21:49

feel like Blake I could just boil

1:21:51

down everything that you said to it

1:21:53

gets the vibes right? Yeah it vibes.

1:21:55

It's the vibes. It's the Michael Mann

1:21:57

vibes that I love so much. also

1:22:00

a maniac for this man because

1:22:02

I don't always love his movies but I

1:22:04

love his aesthetic, I love how he tells

1:22:06

stories. There was a

1:22:08

tweet recently, somebody was saying like, Taylor

1:22:11

Swift makes these songs that distinctly get

1:22:14

to the heart of what women are thinking and feeling

1:22:16

and I wonder if men have that. I

1:22:18

will tell you, yes. His name is Michael Mann.

1:22:20

Michael Mann

1:22:23

makes romantic Bon Jovi but okay,

1:22:25

all right. I'll have Bon Jovi.

1:22:27

I mean, take your take.

1:22:29

Jeff held up a Bon Jovi vinyl

1:22:31

for everyone. But

1:22:34

no, that's kind of what Michael Mann

1:22:36

feels like for me because he's

1:22:39

a filmmaker who makes these deeply

1:22:41

emotional, almost operatic films and there's

1:22:43

actually an opera featured in the middle of this

1:22:45

movie, I think is a great effect. Just

1:22:49

the experience of watching this, of being in

1:22:51

this world, of being around these people and

1:22:53

he is so good at drawing

1:22:55

portraits of very, very competent people.

1:22:58

His movies are almost always competent

1:23:01

porn, but the

1:23:04

driven nature of Enzo Ferrari as played by

1:23:06

Adam Driver here, I just like, I

1:23:08

don't know, it just deeply hooked me. I've

1:23:11

seen this movie several times already. I

1:23:14

had a screen error and it was fine.

1:23:16

It was fine when I was talking about

1:23:18

it in December. I just recently saw this

1:23:20

movie in the theaters and it like knocked

1:23:22

me off my feet. Because

1:23:24

the sound design comes through more, the actual

1:23:26

look of the film just

1:23:29

shines a lot more. I felt

1:23:31

like going to see this movie, it was probably the third time I

1:23:33

saw it. But seeing this

1:23:35

movie in the theater, I felt like an old man going

1:23:37

to the opera and just being like, well, I've seen the

1:23:40

story before, I'm just gonna be here. I

1:23:42

know when I'm gonna cry. I know I'm gonna tear

1:23:44

up. I know when I'm gonna feel moved by this

1:23:46

entire situation. And in many

1:23:48

ways, this is kind of

1:23:51

an unusual biopic because it is just a

1:23:53

very specific set of time that we're following,

1:23:55

like a really momentous occasion for Enzo Ferrari.

1:23:57

But at the same time, it does also

1:24:00

lean on some of the tropes that we've

1:24:02

seen. I know Davey pointed out like there

1:24:04

is a direct line from Waccard, you know,

1:24:06

the wrong son died in this movie. Wrong

1:24:08

kid died. Wrong kid died. In the first

1:24:10

15 minutes of the movie, a character says

1:24:12

wrong kid died. That is apparently also a

1:24:15

line that Ferrari's mother also actually said. So

1:24:17

what do you, you know,

1:24:20

what do I want from this movie? What do

1:24:22

you want? What do you want? Authenticity? You want

1:24:24

brits and millitude? Um,

1:24:27

I can't just say,

1:24:29

authentically trite. Yeah. Authentically trite.

1:24:31

Like I can't say for any

1:24:33

cat, like I'm half

1:24:35

Maltese. And for that's

1:24:39

an old Maltese grandmother that like

1:24:41

hit me right in the headshot.

1:24:43

I was like, oh, man, there's that

1:24:45

Catholicism. My belt. The personalities in

1:24:47

this movie. Because

1:24:49

you instantly know who these characters are. Like

1:24:51

you see who Ferrari is almost right at

1:24:53

the beginning. Like a guy quietly getting up

1:24:55

and he's a man known for big loud

1:24:58

cars, but he is sneaking out of his

1:25:00

house and rolling the car out and not,

1:25:02

you know, turning on the engine. That all

1:25:04

says something. Penelope proves as a cruise as

1:25:06

soon as we see her is just like

1:25:09

a fierce lion. Like you see everything

1:25:11

that this character is. And I love

1:25:13

her portrayal of that character too. Like

1:25:15

you can tell like she is somebody

1:25:18

who has a personality who has a sense

1:25:20

of self, but is also so deeply drowning

1:25:22

in her own grief that she can't really, she

1:25:24

just doesn't give a fuck about the world anymore.

1:25:27

And she's somebody who approaches the world like that.

1:25:29

And I found that more and more compelling. You

1:25:31

know, every time I saw this film, I

1:25:33

love this movie. I think it is a

1:25:35

really interesting portrait of a man who's just

1:25:37

driven to do these things because he's a

1:25:40

very good engineer. And he can help achieve

1:25:42

like things that we've never seen before on

1:25:45

the racetrack or, you know, on major

1:25:47

races all throughout the world. Watching this

1:25:49

movie again reminded me actually of the

1:25:52

Iron Claw, because that's another story

1:25:54

of people basically

1:25:56

doing whatever it takes to achieve

1:25:58

the impossible. possible to achieve

1:26:01

some sense of greatness at

1:26:03

serious cost to themselves and to

1:26:05

others also makes me think of

1:26:07

how complicit we are in enjoying some of these

1:26:09

things too, especially like we'll talk about what happens

1:26:11

at the end of this movie. This

1:26:14

movie is a lot of things, but I

1:26:16

think it really does fully encapsulate what I

1:26:18

love about a Michael Mann movie because at

1:26:20

the end of the day, it is a

1:26:22

deeply romantic story about a man who is

1:26:24

driven to accomplish something great. And

1:26:27

it doesn't, it kind of like

1:26:29

gives the entire story room to breathe around it.

1:26:32

And Adam Driver could embody Enzo Ferrari

1:26:34

as like a genuine character. Even

1:26:37

though he is decades too young to even

1:26:39

play this role, he still like does a

1:26:41

fantastic job. So yeah, I am right

1:26:43

there with you, Blake. I love this movie. You

1:26:45

know, I have the black hat 4K. I'm kind

1:26:47

of almost scared to revisit it because

1:26:50

I hate it. That's a banger. The director's cut is

1:26:52

actually really good. But it's not a 4K. So I

1:26:54

bought the 4K Blu-ray to watch

1:26:56

the director's cut in HD.

1:26:58

That's how much of a Michael Mann fan I am. We'll

1:27:02

get you the Sven cut. Speaking of Ferrari

1:27:04

being out on video

1:27:06

on demand today, the perfect timing that we're

1:27:09

recording this. As we're recording

1:27:11

the Oscar nominations have recently gone past. And

1:27:13

I know that my dear friend and I think

1:27:15

a friend of your show, Roxanna Haddadi, recently

1:27:18

tweeted because Penelope Cruz did not

1:27:20

get a nomination for an Academy

1:27:22

Award. And she wrote, which

1:27:25

I think is perfect, I will avenge you

1:27:27

my beautiful, terrible treacherous, stronger than the foundations

1:27:29

of the earth queen. And I

1:27:32

think that that perfectly encapsulates

1:27:35

everyone's feeling who loved this

1:27:37

movie of Penelope Cruz. Jeff

1:27:40

Kanata, I am extremely

1:27:43

curious. What did you

1:27:45

think of Michael Mann's Ferrari? Well,

1:27:48

Dave, I guess you

1:27:50

could say what I thought of Michael Mann's

1:27:52

Ferrari is best summed up in the form

1:27:55

of a limerick. Let's hear

1:27:57

it. in

1:28:00

trying to make the best car he

1:28:03

treats everyone bad he's not sorry

1:28:05

it gets good

1:28:07

but it's not right away

1:28:09

and i thought you're supposed

1:28:11

to start fast in ferraris

1:28:14

well played nice well played

1:28:16

you rhymed car he and sorry i

1:28:19

think with ferrari very very nice i'm

1:28:21

gonna i'm gonna take that away i'm

1:28:23

gonna sit on that Jeff car he

1:28:25

that's really good that's a little bit

1:28:28

um by the end of

1:28:30

this movie i liked it uh i

1:28:32

am much cooler on it than uh uh

1:28:34

devindra or blake um

1:28:38

i think you know you guys were talking

1:28:40

before we started recording about ali having the

1:28:42

greatest opening in the history of cinema i

1:28:45

think Ferrari may have the worst opening in the

1:28:47

history of cinema it

1:28:50

is a disastrous use of special

1:28:52

effects oh yeah yeah visual but

1:28:54

yes it's very bad yes it

1:28:56

is like who

1:28:58

what did he let his

1:29:00

kid do this part like michael

1:29:03

man's gonna do a movie but we're gonna

1:29:06

let some uh eighth grader do the first

1:29:08

five minutes of the movie or

1:29:10

not even five minutes two minutes whatever it

1:29:12

does so yeah yeah there's a flashback and

1:29:14

it looks like there's like five archival footage

1:29:17

that shot on i

1:29:19

want to say eight millimeter but like

1:29:21

not even a millimeter i didn't know

1:29:23

what it is yeah yeah it's disastrous

1:29:25

it's they put adam driver in

1:29:27

that period but yeah in the footage

1:29:30

but it it fools no

1:29:32

one when they cut from the actual

1:29:34

footage to adam driver it

1:29:36

looks ridiculously out of place and

1:29:38

absolutely amateurish and embarrassing and and

1:29:40

it serves no purpose on my

1:29:42

opinion like it did not need

1:29:44

to be included in the film

1:29:46

to understand the context of a

1:29:48

racer turned uh engineer

1:29:51

that aside it's only two minutes you get past

1:29:53

it quickly but i will say it

1:29:56

did not set a good

1:29:58

tone for me um and i just I

1:30:00

do think the movie finds

1:30:02

its footing, but

1:30:04

it takes a while for me to do it. It takes

1:30:07

a while to rev up, to use

1:30:09

more car analogies. Nellis. Let's keep

1:30:11

this up, yeah. It

1:30:14

starts in first gear, and I feel like

1:30:16

it really... And

1:30:18

it goes in reverse a little

1:30:20

bit. It stalls for a little bit.

1:30:23

It goes in reverse, Dave, what do you think?

1:30:25

How gears work, Dave? I don't

1:30:28

know. I don't know. Half an hour

1:30:30

of this movie is where the movie

1:30:32

should have started, in my opinion. I

1:30:39

think we get to the most interesting

1:30:41

stuff, and it is...

1:30:45

We get past it way too quickly. All

1:30:48

of a sudden, I did

1:30:50

not know Enzo Ferrari's story going into this

1:30:53

movie. I did not know the details of

1:30:55

1957's racing scene. I

1:30:59

did not read up on it before I watched the movie.

1:31:02

This was all new to me,

1:31:04

and I felt like, oh my God, all

1:31:06

of a sudden, the stakes

1:31:09

shot to the roof. Things get really

1:31:11

interesting and intense,

1:31:14

and now I'm in, and then the movie's like,

1:31:17

oh yeah, by the way, okay, we're past that.

1:31:19

It's like, whoa, oh no, that's where you start

1:31:21

the movie. I felt like for

1:31:23

easily an hour of this movie, it is

1:31:25

just vibes, and I love the fact that

1:31:27

you guys were on the wavelength of those

1:31:29

vibes. I was riding

1:31:31

on and off of them. I felt

1:31:33

like I kept going, what

1:31:35

does this guy want? Why

1:31:39

am I in this movie right now? What are we

1:31:41

doing? There didn't seem to be a

1:31:43

goal, and we sort

1:31:45

of arrive at some racing, but it's all

1:31:47

very nebulous. And

1:31:50

then all of a sudden, the movie's like, no, here are the stakes,

1:31:52

here's the excitement, and I'm like, whoa,

1:31:54

yeah, awesome, this movie's awesome. But

1:31:56

it took, for me, way too long to get

1:31:59

there. agree that Adam

1:32:01

Driver is phenomenal. And what an

1:32:03

outside the box idea for

1:32:05

someone like like you said, D'Avenger way too young for

1:32:07

this part, but he pulls it off. He

1:32:10

has this presence that

1:32:12

you I don't know anything about ends of Ferrari.

1:32:15

Personally, but I get

1:32:17

the sense that he was one of those people that could

1:32:19

walk in a room and everybody else stops what they're doing.

1:32:21

And Adam Driver with his height

1:32:23

and his and the look that

1:32:25

they get from them that Michael

1:32:28

man, you know, everything put together

1:32:30

polished and perfect look, he

1:32:32

really sells that is beautiful and Paddell de

1:32:34

Cruz is awesome as well. But I also

1:32:36

felt like I was

1:32:40

less interested in the infidelity

1:32:42

of Enzo Ferrari in his

1:32:44

interpersonal relationships than I was

1:32:46

in the in

1:32:48

the enterprise of him. And I felt

1:32:50

like the movie spent way too long

1:32:52

with the former and not enough time

1:32:54

with the latter for my taste. I

1:32:57

think this is a middling Michael man

1:32:59

effort. In my opinion, I do

1:33:02

think the movie is worth seeing and I do I

1:33:04

did enjoy it. I just feel

1:33:06

like it would you could lose a

1:33:08

lot of running time and it would

1:33:10

be sharper, better for me. And I

1:33:14

think, you know, ultimately,

1:33:16

when I would recommend seeing specially on video in

1:33:18

demand, I agree in great sound

1:33:20

would be great. I saw it in a movie

1:33:22

theater. But it with great sound on a big

1:33:24

screen. I think this movie deserves that. But I

1:33:28

don't think this is, you know, in the

1:33:30

top tier of his oeuvre for me. Yeah,

1:33:34

I'm kind of right there with Jeff. How

1:33:37

I have a lot of issues with the way the plot is

1:33:39

structured. The there is this big,

1:33:41

you know, kind of build up and then

1:33:43

the final act feels weirdly

1:33:45

anti climactic, I would just say. But

1:33:49

what I really appreciated about this movie is

1:33:52

the racing scenes. I just think they

1:33:54

are technically really well

1:33:57

done, really accomplished and

1:33:59

thrilled. To watch so and there's

1:34:01

a lot of them. There's like it's not just

1:34:03

like one racing scene There's like many many racing

1:34:05

scenes and you really feel the danger

1:34:08

of the excitement The

1:34:10

potential of these vehicles so

1:34:12

no the human beings did that yeah

1:34:15

Insane with no safety whatsoever. I'll

1:34:18

hurl myself across the planet and

1:34:20

it's better It's

1:34:23

either you survive or die. It's an honorary

1:34:26

choice of getting in the car. It's like

1:34:28

oh, yeah today I might not die, but

1:34:30

if it crashes. I'm dead There's

1:34:32

no like there's not a roll

1:34:35

cage or a really fancy smart

1:34:37

helmet or or seatbelts But

1:34:40

there's ashtrays Yes, which I

1:34:42

think is really like the fact that every

1:34:44

crash is just a body flying across the

1:34:46

sky Yeah

1:34:51

it's you know a Random movie popping into

1:34:53

mind as you as we're talking about this

1:34:55

is like the the fact that

1:34:57

it's that dangerous I feel like the

1:35:00

characters in the movie are underselling it whereas. I

1:35:02

don't know if you saw Really

1:35:05

random reference, but a perfect storm you guys And

1:35:09

like I want to say die

1:35:11

is a Diane Lane in that movie or anyway

1:35:14

Whoever Mark Wahlberg wife was in that movie was

1:35:16

like really really worried about him going

1:35:18

out into the sea to fish And

1:35:21

she's like I can't believe they're going out again.

1:35:23

You know, but he's like he's just coefficient Yes,

1:35:26

obviously the storm happened, and it was terrible, but it's like

1:35:30

Yeah people really in this movie. I

1:35:32

don't think communicate how dangerous this thing

1:35:34

really is Do you think

1:35:36

the first crash where the guy flies across

1:35:38

the field and like this is like oh? This

1:35:42

is a problem For

1:35:46

I just look at different haggis. I've got an

1:35:49

opening You're a no

1:35:51

we need you know we need you know we

1:35:53

should really innovate on bigger engines

1:36:00

I see literally any kind. No

1:36:02

cars, no cars had seat belts. Uh,

1:36:05

there was a whole like fight from car manufacturers

1:36:07

to even put in seat belts in the US.

1:36:09

So yeah, we were not very smart species, you

1:36:12

know? Yeah. But I got

1:36:14

to agree with Jeff too, that I

1:36:16

think the movie is worth watching. It's

1:36:18

my favorite Michael Mann film since collateral.

1:36:21

Like it suffers from biopic, which,

1:36:23

you know, it came out 20 years ago.

1:36:25

Like it suffers from the

1:36:28

same problems that many biopic suffer from, in

1:36:30

my opinion, which is we got to hit

1:36:32

these important beats in the story without like

1:36:34

the buildup necessary to make us really care

1:36:37

about those things, in my opinion. But

1:36:40

the racing scenes are cool and, uh,

1:36:42

and the biopic structure is executed, like relatively competently,

1:36:44

I would say. Yeah. So sliced biopic, it's not

1:36:46

like birth to death, you know, type of thing.

1:36:48

It's a slice of his life. But even then

1:36:51

there's just, there's, it feels like a bunch of

1:36:53

stuff where it's like, gotta hit this beat, gotta

1:36:55

hit this beat, you know, to me, to me.

1:36:58

Um, anyway, I still think

1:37:00

it's worth watching. It's one of the greatest

1:37:02

filmmakers of all time, uh, making a decent

1:37:04

biopic in my opinion. And the racing scenes

1:37:06

are excellent. So I mean, the people going

1:37:08

to this who want like Michael Mann in

1:37:10

a way he, he made fast boats, you

1:37:12

know, a thing in Miami vice. So now

1:37:14

we have fast cars and boy, are they

1:37:17

fast and boy, do the scenes just feel

1:37:19

like so different and unique as far as

1:37:21

racing movies go. We just

1:37:23

reviewed Gran Turismo like over the summer and

1:37:25

it just struck me like how visceral it

1:37:27

feels because so much of Gran Turismo stuff

1:37:30

was, you know, CG and special effects and stuff.

1:37:32

Whereas this is like, no, they, they had to

1:37:34

build like these classic era cars because they couldn't

1:37:37

use the actual ones. They're too special. Um,

1:37:39

and have people drive them and just like so

1:37:41

much of this just feels so fantastic.

1:37:44

Like how it's shot to, like, I

1:37:46

love the establishing wide shots, uh,

1:37:48

for the bigger races. And then you zoom in

1:37:50

to car level. Like it just really gives

1:37:53

you that sense of speed, which I think is

1:37:55

something you don't always get in a movie, especially

1:37:57

about racing. Yeah. I agree. racing

1:38:00

scenes in this movie are superior. Gran Turismo, I

1:38:02

thought, had really solid racing scenes. But I think

1:38:04

in this movie, it's even better. There's something about

1:38:06

the way the camera's moving along

1:38:08

with the vehicles, the way the vehicles look,

1:38:11

the way the mountain shines. The gear shifts. It

1:38:13

all comes together in a really beautiful way. I

1:38:16

think the pacing of watching gears

1:38:18

shifting, like very tactile, and that was one

1:38:21

of my friends was texting me, he's like,

1:38:23

man, Michael Mann can shoot the hell out

1:38:25

of a gear change. And I was like,

1:38:28

yeah. You feel it as the speed is

1:38:30

intensifying and these corners are coming. It's

1:38:32

special. I

1:38:34

love the guys arriving with just a

1:38:37

face full of soot. Yeah.

1:38:40

Just like. That's in your lungs? We didn't even

1:38:42

have. That's in your body forever? And a cigarette

1:38:44

hanging out of their mouth as well. Like a

1:38:46

lit cigarette and soot on their face. Great.

1:38:49

Cavalierly staring in the face of death.

1:38:52

These are men! These are men! The

1:38:55

idea that I was

1:38:58

just yelling about putting in some seat belts or

1:39:00

something, and these guys were like, we don't even

1:39:03

have a windshield, dude. Like just

1:39:05

dirt in the face. Dirt

1:39:07

on me. I

1:39:09

do want to say, I love the racing scenes, but I

1:39:11

think this is maybe that I

1:39:13

think I grew onto as I rewatched it.

1:39:16

But I think, yeah, it takes

1:39:18

a while before we get to the great stuff

1:39:20

in the last act. That is tremendous racing

1:39:22

stuff. You know all the sakes and everything.

1:39:24

The setup is of a

1:39:26

guy who is living dual lives, and

1:39:29

can't quite. He refuses to deal

1:39:31

with the, it's about dealing with grief.

1:39:33

He's refusing to deal with the death of his

1:39:35

son. Basically, his wife is there, just kind of

1:39:39

left to squander and fend

1:39:41

for herself. At the same time, they run

1:39:43

the business together. So how does that work?

1:39:46

Yeah. Like that is such

1:39:48

a wild setup to me. And

1:39:50

then she is still like, yes,

1:39:52

she's incredibly drowning

1:39:54

in grief, but at the same time, very competent about

1:39:56

what she's doing. And the minute that bank guy slips

1:39:58

up and is like, what? house? What's

1:40:01

going on? And the way she looks at him and he's

1:40:03

like, Oh, I,

1:40:05

she's going to kill me. And that is the

1:40:07

entire scene is just like her staring at him

1:40:09

and like concluding business. But he is like, Oh,

1:40:12

my life is over. The way she

1:40:14

handles that and immediately goes like, we're going to this

1:40:16

town. We're going to go look for this thing. Um,

1:40:19

I think all the scenes like, yeah, there's a lot of like,

1:40:21

there is a lot of like talky stuff. There's a lot of

1:40:23

drama, but it does set up this guy's

1:40:25

kind of wild life that he's built

1:40:27

for himself. At the same time,

1:40:30

he is ill, commandatory. Like he is, he

1:40:32

is the leader of this company and everybody follows

1:40:34

what he does. I just found that fascinating.

1:40:36

You know, like it's not necessarily

1:40:38

relatable, but at the same time, I did

1:40:41

see the appeal be like, well, this

1:40:43

lady's a lot right now. So I'm going

1:40:45

to go to Shailene Woodley. She's very nice.

1:40:47

She's so sweet. She's picking fruit from trees.

1:40:49

And she is like, we have another son.

1:40:51

And she's making me ravioli. Like it's making

1:40:53

ravioli. And she is just like way too

1:40:55

understanding of this whole situation, but at the

1:40:57

same time does not accept the bullshit of

1:40:59

like, Hey, we started this when

1:41:01

we were young, and I didn't realize what we were

1:41:04

doing. Like even that is there. So I appreciate that

1:41:06

almost every character in this movie has like that

1:41:08

texture to them. You know why they're there.

1:41:10

You know why they feel the way they

1:41:12

do. And the drama between them to me

1:41:14

feels even as interesting

1:41:16

as the racing scene. So that's why I'm

1:41:19

like really rooting for the film at this

1:41:21

point. Yeah, that's where I am. For me,

1:41:24

the setup of a guy who's literally

1:41:26

on the precipice of ruining his entire

1:41:29

company, potentially ruining the financial stakes of

1:41:31

an entire town. And also

1:41:34

on the on the precipice of ruining

1:41:36

both his lives, because he kind of has to

1:41:38

at that point, that's where the stakes are. So

1:41:40

by the time we get to the Mille Emilia,

1:41:43

for me, I'm already at another level. Look, I'm

1:41:45

completely invested in the unpredictability

1:41:47

of what is going to happen based on all of

1:41:49

the character and the drama establishing. Like for me, that's

1:41:51

the dynamism of the movie. It's like once you then

1:41:53

get to the Mille Emilia, it's like, I