The Phoenician Scheme, Bring Her Back, Pavements, Tarkovsky Marathon Awards

00:00:03
Speaker 1: What kind of a show you guys putting on here today?

00:00:06
Speaker 2: You're not interested in art?

00:00:07
Speaker 3: Now?

00:00:08
Speaker 4: No, Look, we're going to do this thing.

00:00:09
Speaker 2: We're going to have a conversation.

00:00:13
Speaker 5: From Chicago. This is Film Spotting celebrating our twentieth year.

00:00:17
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Larson and I'm Adam Kempinar. I've appointed you sole heir to.

00:00:22
Speaker 5: My estatement, which you may come into sooner rather than later.

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Speaker 6: Why it's been six years since our last meeting.

00:00:30
Speaker 1: I have my reasons, which are what my reasons I'm not saying.

00:00:35
Speaker 3: I'm saying.

00:00:36
Speaker 1: I'm not saying. Wes Anderson and the Wes Anderson Players are back in theaters with the Phoenician Scheme.

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Speaker 5: We've got a review, plus thoughts on the new meta music doc Pavements and the horror film Bring Her Back. That more ahead on Film Spotting.

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Speaker 3: Experience and membership. That that's what you're building with American Express Business Platinum get two times membership rewards points per dollar on eligible purchases and key business categories, as well as on each eligible purchase of five thousand dollars or more on up to two million dollars in eligible purchases per calendar year. American Express Business Platinum. There's nothing like it. Terms apply. Learn more at AmericanExpress dot com, Slash business Dash Platinum.

00:01:25
Speaker 1: Welcome to Film Spotting and Josh, Welcome back from Japan. How was the trip?

00:01:30
Speaker 5: Thank you? The trip was wonderful. Good to be back. I have some travelog notes. Maybe later in the show I will share, because a great trip as a movie lover, not just to see the country, but just to have watched so many movies from Japan. It was really really cool.

00:01:45
Speaker 1: We did miss you, though, I think we had a couple of pretty good shows. Always fun when Michael Phillips drops in Aisha Harris from NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. We talked a little Mission Impossible in movie Stunts, and then last week Clue at thirty and I don't know if you've had a chance to listen to it yet. You don't do movie quotes, but hopefully you enjoyed listening to us talk movie quotes.

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Speaker 5: It was fun. Although I have to get to the top five, haven't made it that far. I'm in the midst of your clueless review, which is a blast. I mean, Aisha probably one of my top five movie podcasters out there. So to get to hear her on an entire show as a delight, and of course it's always a delight to have Michael, even if the two of you were way too soft on Final Reckoning. I mean, I wanted one of you to like, and I didn't want everyone to be down on the movie. But man, both of you, come on.

00:02:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fine. This week. I knew you would not want to miss this one. Wes Anderson's latest, The Phoenetian Scheme. We'll have thoughts on Alex Ross Perry's pavements. I saw that one you saw bring her back from the Assy horror duo Danny and Michael Philippoo. We'll put a bow on our Andre Tarkovsky Marathon with the Holy Fools. That's what we're calling our Andre Tarkovski Marathon. Awards and listeners will decide once and for all, which is the best mission colon Impossible, But first, the Phoenician Scheme. It's Wes Anderson's twelfth feature and his third project in as many years. It follows twenty twenty three's Asteroid City and also from twenty three his Oscar winning role Doll Schortz. For the new film, Anderson has assembled several members of his growing ensemble, along with some new faces, for a fifty set taale about a wealthy and widely despised industrialist, Nisio del Toro's Jajacques Corda, who seeks to settle his affairs both personal and professional. Here's del Toro with Miathreppleton's liesel Corda's estranged nun in training daughter.

00:03:42
Speaker 6: As yours.

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Speaker 7: I don't have a passport.

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Speaker 3: Normal people want the basic human rights that a company citizenship in any sovereign nation. I don't.

00:03:54
Speaker 1: My legal residence is a shock and Portugal.

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Speaker 8: My official domicile is a hut on the Black Sea.

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Speaker 5: I certificated abode as a lodge perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sub Sahon rainforest, accessible only by goat bath. I don't live anywhere.

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Speaker 4: I'm not a citizen at all.

00:04:12
Speaker 1: I don't need my human rights.

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Speaker 5: Adam, I have a question for you that we've circled around, touched on here and there over the years. Given our admiration for the movies of Wes Anderson and so many of the actors in them, what exactly makes for a standout performance in a Wes Anderson film? The writer director has fostered career turns for a host of notable actors. My list would include these, Bill Murray in Rushmore and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zasu, Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums, Ray Fines in The Grand Budapest Hotel, Jeffrey Wright in The French Dispatch, and Jason Schwartzman and Scarlett Johansson in Asteroid City. In each case, I'd argue his movies either inspired the perform to shift into a higher gear. I'd put Murray, Fines and maybe Schwartzman in this category, or it allowed them to delightfully drill down into the qualities that have always made them distinct. Here I'm thinking of Hackman, Wright and Johansson. And so what to make of Benicio del Toro In The Phoenician Scheme. He plays Jaja Korda, an unscrupulous business profiteer circa nineteen fifty. At the start of the film, after surviving yet another assassination attempt, Korda feels compelled to enlist his estranged daughter in his latest venture. That daughter, Lisel, is a Noviciate nun played by Mia Threppleton. He's basically seeking an air she hopes to steer the potential windfall toward the common good. Let's start with del Toro, Adam. This is the first Anderson feature with a clear main character since the Grand Budapest Hotel. After featuring Del Toro in one of the segments of the French Dispatch, the director has upgraded him to lead status.

00:06:01
Speaker 1: How did he do? Hmm, Well, I don't know where you've landed on this movie, but I think the prompt is a good one, and I'm trying to read between the lines a little bit. Of course, I could be wrong, but it suggests to me that maybe we had a similar reaction to this film. Is there a future where I revisit Venetian and find it significantly funnier and more profound as was the case with Grand Budapest. Yes, But unlike Corda's redemption arc, mine isn't imminent, and Del Toro's dispirited performance is a factor in my disappointment. Disclaimer, I'm a fan of del Toro as an actor, as most I think intelligent Sinophiles are, and I'm not suggesting that he's not committed to the performance. Josh, of course he is. I can anticipate the rebuttal I can understand the arguments for Del Toro's what I would call mostly deadpan, kind of above it all performance. Here's he's figuratively and sometimes literally an above it all character, right flying around the world on air corda almost single handedly shaping the course of world events. He wants to portray a coolness, a detached nature, an unflappability. What's his favorite line, I still feel very safe. Nothing phases him. He wants to I feel very safe, I feel very safe, or he wants to project that nothing is phasing him. I get it, including it seems having nine sons, having one daughter, the death of three wives, several near death experiences until this one. That's what the entire film is about, a near death experience that finally phases him, that finally gets him to embrace his daughter, his family, life outside of business. And I wouldn't say that the performance is in entirely robotic, but every line reading is just clipped enough that even with all the reasons I just gave why that choice might make some sense for the character. I never got the life, the energy what you said maybe about shifting into high gear. The energy I'll go back to what I said before the spirit that I needed to sustain my interest in the character and especially that transformation. And I'd argue that that's true on its own merits, but it didn't help that very early on you mentioned Hackman. Very early on, I saw the connection between Corda's scheme, this elaborately silly plan to overhaul the infrastructure of Phoenicia. That's really it turns out about reuniting with his daughter, and Royal Tenenbaum scheme to find a new place to live. That's really it turns out about reuniting with his children. The impetus for both the father's dying, except of course, Royal as a fraud, and Jajah genuinely fears death now he's even having dreams of being judged in the afterlife. These plague him throughout the movie. I don't say this negatively. Anderson is adding some new wrinkles which we can perhaps get into further, but he's as he does, He's covering some very familiar grounds stylistically and thematically, Bad Fathers redemption, setting aside ambition, accepting simplicity and humility. A lead performer, I have some the same ones you mentioned, not surprisingly in my notes. A lead performer bringing some of the same vigor to Korda as Hackman would have gone a long way, I think, but not just Hackman, fines in Grand Budapest, Scarlett Johansson, an Asteroid City, multiple Bill Murray options, and we could list others. I think it would have helped me anyway with the Phoenician scheme.

00:09:58
Speaker 5: I'm so relieved, relieved because if you had really gone for the Phoenician scheme and I had to come on this show and express my disappointment, I might have just whispered my review the only time so no one else could hear it but you. Because I love Wes Anderson so much. And yeah, let's get those caveats out of the way. I agree easily might revisit this. I'm sure I'll revisit this. I've seen it twice already. I'm sure I'll revisit it some more and come away with more admiration for it. It happens every time. I just rewatched the French Dispatch to refamiliarize myself with del Toro's performance there, and that movie leaped in my esteem. It's shooting up my Anderson rankings so yes, I agree with you. We may come around on this movie. I enjoyed it, I like it. I think it's good, but it was still a disappointment considering what my expectations are. And I've got to agree that Del Toro, for me is a big part of it. And I'm going to offer another caveat that you did. He's he has a strange place in my movie history, and that he's long been a favorite actor who I don't know if he's ever given a favorite performance. And what I mean by that is it's more his presence, this bulky sorrow he carries that he brings to his films that I've admired, his face, that rumpled mug. I just want to see that in every movie, and so when he shows up, he automatically is bringing something to films. I do think he's given some very good performances. Obviously the usual suspects his breakout, but you know, smaller films like he made a melodrama with halle Berry Things We Lost in the Fire. He's excellent in Sacario. I think a lot of people point to in host.

00:11:43
Speaker 1: Momography for which he won haven't seen it since Traffic came out.

00:11:47
Speaker 5: There, you Go Traffic is a good one. And you know Steven Soderbergh's two part revolutionary biopic Chua. He's he's kind of even though he's the title character, he's a little bit at the periphery of that. But still that presence he has is so in strong. So I have admired del Toro for a long time. Was thrilled to hear he was the focus of this. But I gotta say, Adam, especially when I look back at that French Dispatch performance. You know the painter there, this homicidal painter, depressive painter who creates this great work while incarcerated. That seemed to fit what del Toro does best. It allowed him to burrow into his unique presence in a better way. He I would say, along with Jeffrey Wright, he kind of formed the French Dispatch's soul, and he's not allowed to do that here. This is where he's asked to stretch, and it doesn't work. I'm not saying del Toro doesn't have range, but it doesn't work because he's asked to conform to a particular Andersen type, the one we're familiar with, fast talking, deadpan. You mentioned it. These linguistic gymnasts who perform, you know that they stick the lane with a powerfully emotional line you didn't expect. And you know, you can see why Anderson cast him here as Korda. You touched on some of these things. He has a weariness to him. Del Toro's face fits the part for sure, that face. You know, even when he was young, it looked like he'd seen too much. And Korda is definitely a man who has seen and caused too much, so I get it. But whenever he's asked to deliver that fast pattern, especially I found when he had to like shout and get loud, it rang false to me. Yeh, And I just think that it's the rare case of Anderson trying to mold an actor to his style rather than offering a way for them to flourish within it. We don't see this very often. If we did an exhaustive examination, we might be able to find a few sore thumbs, I guess you could say, But for me, this is one of them. And it was a major why the movie was you know, it was a major reason for my disappointment.

00:13:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe the reason why I didn't mind him so much In Dispatch is some of the things you are particulated. There, he's more blatantly comedic. I think soulful is the right way to describe him there. But also, yeah, it's a supporting turn, and here he is asked to shoulder a little bit too much. I think it's not just del Toro, though, And this is something else I want to get your thoughts on. But I will note or I'll preface my comments here by saying it's probably more about the story and the structure and the size of the ensemble than it is about the performers and the performances themselves. But this is one of those Anderson instances for me where most of the characters felt like the sum of their eccentricities. If you're being reductionist about Anderson, this is the criticism that some throw at him that I don't think is usually justified, But here it felt like it was appropriate. Most of the characters were whatever weird accent and or costume and or repeated word or phrase and or mannerisms or walk that they had. I might not have guessed this going in, but the only actor for me Josh who got the assignment or I guess, depending on your perspective transcended the assignment was Michael Sarah. He's Michael Sarah.

00:15:15
Speaker 6: He is right.

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Speaker 1: He was the only one who had the intelligence that the film needed, who had the eccentricities, who brought the accent work and brought the humor that you needed, but also still had an intelligence and had the emotional intelligence. You understood what he wanted and what he needed as a character. And every single time he expressed any kind of longing for Liesel and sometimes he's just barely expressing it. It's very subtle, it's kind of seeping out of him, and other times he can't stop it from coming out. You really do feel something and feel for him as a character. I felt like Josh within the first five minutes of him being on screen. Oh, Michael Sarah just has to be in every Wes Anderson movie after this. And there are others like Brian Cranston and Tom Hanks who I think are good. Obviously, they're very good actors, and we've seen Tom Hanks in Cranston as well in other films of Anderson's, including Hanks in Asteroid City. But when you see them in this film, if they made you laugh or you like certain line deliveries or that sequence itself is something you found amusing. I don't begrudge you any of that, but for me, I needed more. I needed more from those sequences than just goofy line deliveries, and I felt like in the case of most of these sequences, that's what I was getting, including Jeffrey Wright talk about feeling like I'm getting an actor who he is used so brilliantly before and was just given nothing to do.

00:16:55
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's a one joke character for sure. And to your point, part of this is the nature of the storyline where he's having these series of meetings with different people, so most of them are just going to appear in a short scene. I think that I would put on the list of those who transcend that structure and make their scenes count. I would put Tom Hanks, I would put Brian krantzton I think they're great this basketball game they play. And I would also put Richard Ayoati, you know, who showed up recently as part of the troop, and I think he's just a natural fit. But let's let me go back to Sarah, because it's sort of a like, yes, of course, you know, of course he would be able to do this just his other comic performances. But you are so right about the emotional notes he also brings to it, and I think he does fall into that category of getting the opportunity to shift into a new gear. I think Sarah has given performances that have hinted at this. He's just not all He's not always just purely comic, but this really allows it to flower. I'm not going to deliver the line the way he does. I'll save it for a mascer theater a few years from now in the future. I think he should get a Best Supporting Actor nomination for the way he pronounces Holy Moly at one moment. That is, if you're, you know, tentative about seeing the Phoenician scheme, go see it for that. It's worth it. It's worth it for Sarah's overall performance. Before we move on from performances, we should probably at least way in on Mia Threapleton, who is essentially a co lead here as Lisel, a relative newcomer, certainly new to me, though she has done some work, and I'll just say, you know, she has the deadpan demeter down. She fits more naturally than del Toro does, but maybe almost too well. I did feel that she built this emotional fortress that the character does that fits but doesn't allow it to be penetrated, and the way the best st Anderson performers give you glimpses of the cracks and allow. I love that you said seep. That is such a great word for how emotion comes through in Anderson films. It's just like little little drips or cracks, And I don't know. Again, her first performance in a film of his, I think she's very good, but it for me was missing that until fairly far on. This possibility of romance comes in, and then I believe she starts to show us a few cracks and is really good, So I think she's promising. I think, yeah, I think she's good here, but maybe, you know, not a highlights in the same way that Sarah is.

00:19:24
Speaker 1: Yeah. I had some of the same reservations that I expressed with del Toro as well. The tough part of all this, look, it's the subjectivity of comedy, especially, and this is a comedy. My theater wasn't very full. I mean there were at least twenty people there, maybe more, and it wasn't very racaus with laughter, Not that that really matters either, but Josh, I will say there was a woman directly behind me in the theater, and I am not exaggerating when I say when I estimate she must have laughed two hundred and fifty to three hundred times throughout this movie. The movie he is like one hundred and five minutes, and she she expressed some form of amusement at least at least two point five times per minute. And I don't know if it was just her type of kind of absurdist humor, or is she some kind of Anderson super fan, because it was almost like the anticipation of something funny happening was enough show Michael Sarah sitting in the chair laugh's cracked to the shoe boxes on the floor.

00:20:32
Speaker 5: Laugh.

00:20:32
Speaker 1: Every single choice Anderson made provoked a laugh for her. I know our producer Sam had a similar response to the film. He's going to be very unhappy listening to this review. Yeah, Slack comments to us. But I just felt like I was in a constant state of anticipation. I was just waiting for the amusement. And I think that structure and all the things we've talked about is part of it jokes without steaks isn't that much different for me than drama without stakes. And when you've constructed your entire plot around what is so clearly a maguffin where none of the details matter, you just recognize early on that the details of the Phoenician scheme are not what this is about. And that's fine. I can buy into that. But then I also understood, or felt like I understood where this was going. I didn't really feel like I was going to get any surprises around where the emotional beats were going to be. I didn't feel like I did truly get maybe any really great revelations until the very end of the film around that, to be totally honest, and so I just didn't I didn't have any work to do. It didn't give me anything to do to be really engaged in terms of the story or to be engaged by these characters. And then coming off, I know this really isn't fair, But the only reason I'm even saying it, Josh, is this is Wes Anderson, who, as we noted, not only are we both fans of his work, but he does fit that capital a tour billing where there are threads stylistically, and there are threads thematically throughout all of his work. And so when one he's made, now, what did we say? This is his twelfth film, and when I've only had two for me that haven't worked, and one of them I think. I still gave a favorable review to Darjeeling Limited, and I've only seen it once back when it came out in two thousand and seven or whatever, So who knows how I'd feel about it now. I mean, it's been almost twenty years, only two again that I say I'm not really really high on. You have to wonder, well, what it is about this film that isn't working for me? And I go back to the last film I saw, Asteroid City just stirred me so much. I'll use these words again intellectually and emotionally for me in this movie just left me so dead on a rival. And so I'm in this state where I'm comparing it. I'm I'm trying to grab onto or latch onto what it is about this movie that that didn't work, and it is it is something about the lack of emotion that I can attach to the characters and and those storylines and the absence of stakes and I think it also has something to do with the absence of any kind of stakes or arc really with the characters. I'm not saying there isn't an arc. We know where that right, there's an arch is going. Yeah, we know where it's going from the very beginning. It is there. But the kind of flimsiness, the silliness of the plot I think ultimately for me worked against it.

00:23:44
Speaker 5: I don't know that i'd agree that for me, humor has to have stakes, because as you're describing those shoeboxes that the woman laughed at. This is at the beginning where Korda is describing his grand scheme to lisl and he has each stage of it in a shoebox, and then it'll cut to like, well, there's a glovebox that has another there's a reason why it's in a glovebox and not a shoebox that makes me laugh. There's really there's really nothing important about it. But I do get that sort of humor. And I will also say similarly, and here are some reasons I want to move into why I would still recommend the film even though it's lesser. Wes Anderson for me similarly that opening credit sequence, which is an overhead shot of Corda in a bathtub and in this elaborate bathroom with tile, and there are women in nurses uniforms moving back and forth. There is a bidet on the top of the screen where a champagne bottle is chilling.

00:24:38
Speaker 1: In some eyes.

00:24:39
Speaker 5: I mean, these are like, I can see why that woman is laughing so much, because that is a fixed shot that is not only very funny because of touches like that, but it is a brilliant example of blocking and choreography and patterns. Some of it is funny, some of it is just beautiful. It's character work. We're learning so much about Core even though we're not even seeing his face. And you know, there are filmmakers who could go an entire career and never create something as masterful as the Phoenician Scheme's opening credit sequence. I had high so after that I did. And so there's a lot, a lot of good stuff here. But to go back to some of your reservations, which I would just echo, is you know a lot of the gags and phrases repeat more so it feels to me than in other films. The joke about the business negotiations devolving into shouting matches. I wouldn't have laughed alongside the woman the first time, and we get that every time. As you pointed out, this redemption of the Rep. Skellion at the hands of family members much better done in Royal Tenenbaum, Steve Zasu, and I would argue as well, fantastic, mister Fox. And here's one thing that I wouldn't expect to bother maybe most viewers, and bother as a strong word, disappoint again, I'll lean on that, but I did want to get your feelings on is I found for as much religious content there.

00:26:03
Speaker 1: Was in here. This is where I was going to go next.

00:26:06
Speaker 5: This to be to me again, eager to dig into some reviews that are looking at this explicitly. I found it to be religiously overt and theologically thin. And the only reason I would say that now, let me just tick some of the references here so people might not have seen it yet. No religiosity is all for the movie. Lisa, of course, is this novitiate nun. She accuses her father of unholy mischief. I like how he says to her, well, you can still believe in God if you want but he takes away her rosary and gives her this, you know, secular bejeweled one. There are those afterlife visions of Korda you've already mentioned, where Bill Murray shows up as God. The word biblical is thrown about us quite a bit, but I really found it to be just referential religiosity. And I have found a lot of his other movies to offer, perhaps unintentionally, but very reson its spiritual significance. I would point particularly to the French Dispatch and the use of color and black and white I've written about, you know, the significance of how of those I'm not going to go into all of this here, but rushmore for me, the Grand Budapest Hotel, and of course the Yearning in Steve su Sewitch why I like that movie more than most people, and the symbolism of the jaguar shark and the search for transcendence. So I have found a lot of spiritual resonance in Anderson's movies. Maybe I'm one of a few people who are reading them that way, but seeing all of these religious touchdowns in the Phoenician scheme perked my ears up, of course, and yet there wasn't a lot underneath it. Ye, this movie's highest I would say this movie's what it believes in the most. And again, this is fine if this is what Anderson wants to posit. I just think it's less interesting to me is sincerity. Sincerity is the ultimate good in this movie. And there's a key scene where Lisa and Cordar talking about prayers, and I think she says something about how she doesn't pray. Praying isn't just asking for what you want and getting it. What matters, she says, is the sincerity of your devotion, and Korda responds, that's it. And this is really a trajectory of them reaching a point of sincerity with each other. Their first meeting, neither one of them is sincere. He offers this quick apology about not seeing her for six years. She does the sign of the cross, reil quick and says, I forgive you. Neither of them mean it in that moment, right, But we see them move towards points of sincerity as the movie progresses in their relationship, in their being in the world. And I think that's well and good, that that's a you know, an interesting theme of its own. It's just maybe a little thinner than what I've been able to mine from some of his other movies.

00:28:51
Speaker 1: Yes, and going back to Royal tenebaumbs for a second the reason why a moment like the one at the end between Roy and Chazz resonates with us so strongly When he says I've had a really tough year and he says, I know you have, Chazzy. It's them being empathetic with each other. But it's also them being sincere with each other. It's not as if they haven't been truthful with each other. I think they've been. They've both been truthful with each other at different points throughout the movie, in some cases very harshly so. But they're being sincere in that moment. And we don't necessarily feel like we get a lot of sincerity in Wes Anderson's films, and so when the movie builds up to a moment like that, it feels really earned and that movie earns it. And so that for me was another connection there. When we get that exchange in this movie, I wanted to go there. Certainly, this is more your corner than mine, and I think you expressed that really well. I wouldn't disagree with you. But when I alluded earlier to there being a few new wrinkles doesn't necessarily mean they're good wrinkles, but at least it's different. And it sounds like it is you're saying, it's more overt here. I don't remember from his previous films him dealing this directly with the spiritual, with these types of sequences where we have characters who are openly wrestling with the notion of an afterlife, wrestling with the notion of judgment. And I will pretty I won't spoil it, but we have when we have a character like Jajah face off with another character later in the film who he refers to as biblical. I took that to mean he's using biblical there in the sense as otherworldly. I'm taking that to mean inhuman almost, not that not that religion is monstrous necessarily, but otherworldly as in monstrous, as in the opposite of real. And he's been on this journey towards becoming an actual, real person in the world, part of the real world, not above at all. And this character, and this character is portrayed even that way. He's portrayed like an otherworldly, supernatural kind of biblical figure, someone you don't believe is part of this world, and so that was interesting to me. I think I agree with you that I'm not necessarily convinced that he's doing it in anything more than a very superficial way. But it's there in a way that I hadn't seen before. And those black and white sequences to me felt like something more out of like a dryer film than a Wes Anderson film. So again interesting. The other part that was new to me, And I want to be clear about this. Even watching this film and what I'm about to say, I don't think Wes Anderson. My feeling watching a Wes Anderson film is that there's no part of him as a screenwriter or filmmaker who's paying a whole lot of attention to the real world that's happening around us, the political world. I don't well, I don't think he's that caught up with Josh or that interested in being overt about making those connections anyway. Okay, I think he does want to make larger statements about the kind of thing as we're talking about, about the kind of person that you are, about being a real person in the real world, and about being a sincere person. I think those things matter, and unfortunately, those types of phrases these days make you a political person right in the world that we live in. So I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth, I suppose. But what I'm arguing is that he's someone who is not overtly political, and he's not someone who is trying to make films that are allegorical statements that are about one to one connections to things that are happening in our world today. Nevertheless, when you have a main character like the one we have here in Korda, who is this industrialist, who is this businessman who is caught up in the gaps in economics and we're talking about widgets right and where money windfalls are going to come from, it does connect Anderson to the real world in a way. Most of his other films, if not all of his other films, have been a little bit more fantasy land. I think it's fair to.

00:33:28
Speaker 5: Say, yeah, I mean, this is the is Korda a Trump figure? Is Korda a Musk figure question which definitely crossed my mind. I dismissed it fairly quickly because I was in a Wes Anderson movie and didn't want to think about either of them for the but I think and further reflection, I can see it it does entirely work that way for me. But I will say we mentioned Sam's more positive response our producer, and he does when he wrote about this on Letterbox, give an interesting Quorda in this light, so I can understand how that it might strike people that way, even though it didn't have a lot of traction for me.

00:34:10
Speaker 1: No just to offer, I just want to be clear, it doesn't for me either. Ultimately, that's where I'm going. It doesn't for me either, though I do think, just to repeat what I said a little bit here, I think it is a little bit more connected to the real world than I usually come away with from Wes Anderson. But the bigger point is just that you have. What I think is interesting is you have a character in Korda who is caught up in It goes back to this ambition idea. He's swept up in the idea of this scheme which is all about we don't even know what it's about, but it seems like he is obsessed with the idea of whatever he does for the world, whether it helps people, hurts people, or whatever. It's all about being something grand, profound, having his name on it, it being the kind of thing that people know he did it, and it was this sweeping, momentous thing that affected humanity. And without giving away the ending, what he comes to learn more than anything by the end is not just that he has to change what kind of person he is. It's that the types of change that you can actually enact on society, the types of things you can do, can actually be very little things. They don't have to be those types of things.

00:35:29
Speaker 5: And I should say I really like the ending. I you know, we know what's going there, but I think it's handled in a lovely way, with a patience, with a quietness. Notice that Korda doesn't talk very much, and it allows Deltor to get back to what he did in the French dispatch, where his painter did not talk very much, but it allows him just to be in the scene. And so I really like the ending of the Phoenician Scheme. Let me just offer a little bit of a defense of Anderson to my mind as a political filmmaker, though you're correct, he's never very overt about it. But the first time I started to think about him this way was probably the Grand Budapest Hotel. Again fictional histories, fictional countries, but definitely confronted what it means as a person to be caught up in the flow of fascism. And that made me think, you know, I think we got a hint of this in something like The Darjeeling Limited, which I would agree with you as one of his lesser films as well, and that is maybe a clumsier attempt in how he engages with Indian culture. There are some you know, questions about that now, but I think you can see a person trying to think about living in a world and connecting with the world that is not your world.

00:36:47
Speaker 1: And so that's a.

00:36:48
Speaker 5: Little hint of it. And you know, beyond Grand Budapest, I consider and I think we talked about.

00:36:54
Speaker 1: It this a little bit.

00:36:56
Speaker 5: I love Dogs as being this story of you know, again, a domineering government forcing deportation. We were in the first cycle of that when that movie came out, and now we're in the more rancid, alarming, terrifying cycle of it this time. Now that's not something that the Phoenician scheme necessarily addresses, but I to my mind, I love dogs absolutely so I think that ability.

00:37:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, he does. Of all of his films, that one probably stands out the most. And I hear what you're saying about Grand Budapest. That's certainly there. But even that film, that's or those questions aren't the ones I come away from that movie thinking about. They're not the questions I come away even from.

00:37:38
Speaker 5: It's not the prime concern of the film.

00:37:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was. I was trying to think of I had another film of his that has a government connection, Oh, Asteroid City. Even that film that obviously has the government directly involved. I don't come away from that movie thinking about the government or politics as the key element of it. But you're right, it's definitely there. The Phoenician Scheme is currently out in wide release. If you see it and agree or disagree with our takes, you can email us feedback at filmspotting dot net.

00:38:08
Speaker 5: Our objective disrupting, obstructing, impeding Cripplin Quarters Enterprise in any manner.

00:38:14
Speaker 1: Possible, Get the hand grenades.

00:38:17
Speaker 5: Listening is the number one thing you can do to support an independently produced show like ours. There are a couple of other things you can do. Take a minute to give us a rating or review, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Doesn't matter if you're a first time listener or if you've been listening for twenty years. Every new review helps us reach new listeners. Another way to support us join the Film Spotting Family at film spottingfamily dot com. We want to thank family member Eric Sullivan right here in Chicago. Eric's letterbox handle isp sully EPs U L L Y. I'm happy to follow him there.

00:38:51
Speaker 1: Eric writes, I first heard about you through Wbeasyads after moving to Chicago in twenty thirteen, but the first episode I ever caught was the Top Ten of twenty seven team with Michael Phillips and Tasha Robinson. I had recently gotten movie pass and with it the number of films I watched skyrocketed, so I was desperately looking for some context to help organize my chaotic viewing. I loved the marathon conversation of the Top ten so much I immediately made a list of all the films mentioned still in theaters that I hadn't seen yet so I could add them to movie passes. Rapidly declining credit report.

00:39:20
Speaker 5: The days of movie pass That was quite a little drama for a while there.

00:39:23
Speaker 1: I think we even had one or two ads for movie Pass. You know, they just went in the tank. Favorite review or segment. I loved the Christopher Nolan OOV review. Nolan was one of the first filmmakers I made a conscious effort to check off his filmography when I first got into movies in high school, so it felt like fate that he was the first director to get the OOH review treatment. Please keep this segment coming. Yeah, we've been out of the OOV review game for a while, and I love the Every time I SA say that, I think about I think about the people. A couple people who have written in over the years and told us that we were mispronouncing the word. I can't shake that. No, we're not. We made up a new word. It's over.

00:40:00
Speaker 5: You gotta love the correctors out there.

00:40:03
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, but we have been out of this game for a while. That was something we started during COVID. Maybe it's something it's our marathons, except it's not marathons because rather than filling in blind spots, we are actually just revisiting or visiting the entire filmography. Start to FAA. It's like, great idea, it's the blank check thing. Basically, else is doing this. Yeah, it's it's kind of blank check but without the humor. Really a review we got wrong, only Adam really got this wrong. But Book Smart is one of the best comedies I've seen, and I will hear no arguments to the contrary. Okay, I won't argue with you. Letterbox Top four, Spirited Away, The Sting, Casa Blanca and Her Okay, good stuff. Favorite movie revisited recently Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a random film or filmmaker that Eric loves, Sorry to Bother You, and a movie credits with becoming a cinophile. You don't hear this one often. Lum Dog millionaire Danny Boyle. Thank you Eric for being part of the family and for all of those years of listening. In addition to keeping us doing what we're doing, your support comes with perks. Get to listen early in ad Free, you get Sam's weekly newsletter, You get exclusive opportunities like being part of the film Spotting Family discord, and you get our monthly bonus shows. We are looking ahead a couple of weeks to our bonus show for June. Our plan is to share our performances of the year so far. That is in anticipation of the show. We will share in our main feed in July our top five films of the year so far. Sounds like Michael Sarah's got a pretty good shot, and you will say, Josh.

00:41:41
Speaker 5: I'll also be I'll be talking about another film on this episode that has a strong contender performance over that lay.

00:41:48
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:41:48
Speaker 1: Film Spottingfamily dot Com is where you can learn more.

00:41:52
Speaker 6: This episode is brought to you by Peloton break through the busiest time of year with the brand new Peloton Cross Training tread Plus powered by Peloton on Iq. With real time guidance and endless ways to move, you can personalize your workouts and train with confidence, helping you reach your goals in less time. Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training tread Plus at one Peloton dot Com.

00:42:18
Speaker 1: In the world of matchmaking.

00:42:19
Speaker 4: This weekend, your client is getting.

00:42:24
Speaker 1: Some nice sweet see. No one plays the game better.

00:42:27
Speaker 8: Than Lucy fixed to doctor, lawyer, banker and I get along much better with girls in their twenties, but love isn't part of her equation.

00:42:35
Speaker 3: I don't want to fight about money with my boyfriend.

00:42:38
Speaker 5: You know how hard it is to make you Happy.

00:42:40
Speaker 1: That's from the trailer for Materialists, the latest from Past Lives director Saline Song. It opens in wide release this weekend. Dakota Johnson Josh is a Manhattan matchmaker for the rich and powerful who finds herself in a love and money triangle between Pedro Pascal's rich investor and her poor semi employed actor ex boyfriend friend Chris Evans. Who are you picking Josh and the petition?

00:43:04
Speaker 5: Great question. I just don't know how you can go in any direction other than Pedro Pascal. And I say that now, I forget where he ranked on our Chris Evans Power rankings, Papro one of our best shows. No Chris Evans. I mean I have a big fan of Chris Evans, you know, and so yeah, I thought about this a little bit, but really, come on, it's it's got to be Pedro Pascal.

00:43:28
Speaker 1: I want to go.

00:43:29
Speaker 5: You know, the way this is set up, He's the guy you're not supposed to like, right, Yeah, like the well semi employed actor ex boyfriend. I'm going to buck that trend. I'm going to buck the romantic comedy trend and go with the rich investor.

00:43:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I like to eat I'm going with a fascal now. I read that plot description as if you didn't know. Is it possible that you have already caught up with Materialists?

00:43:53
Speaker 7: No?

00:43:53
Speaker 5: I will be seeing it depending on how long this recording goes.

00:43:56
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you got to get there, so I gotta hit Fascinator tonight.

00:43:59
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's okay.

00:44:01
Speaker 1: We will have a review of Materialists next week. Also, we'll review Mike Flanagan's The Life of Chuck starring Tom Hidlston that expands to more screens this weekend. What about that one, Josh, any luxing.

00:44:13
Speaker 5: Need touch that one? We'll be doing later this week.

00:44:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have some viewing ahead of us for a schedule of our future shows, including that best of the Year so Far episode that's coming and our top five Jack Nicholson scenes. Yeah, talk about some homework we need to do. We are tying that in with our One Floor of the Cuckoo's Nest Sacred Cow slash Pantheon project review coming up. You can visit film spotting dot net slash episodes. You can understand you're very upset, Kittridge. You've never seen me very upset.

00:44:45
Speaker 2: All right, enough is enough? You have brought it cajoled and killed, and you have done it using loyalties on the inside. You want to shake hands with the devil, That's fine with me. I just want to make.

00:44:55
Speaker 1: Sure that you do it in hell. Scene from the one that started it all, Tom Cruise and Henry Turney in nineteen ninety six's Mission Impossible, directed by Brian de Palma. This is radio, so you'll have to conjure up the Dutch angles on your own. It's time for some pull results. A couple of weeks back, guest Michael Phillips and I had a review of the eighth and presumably final Mission Impossible, the Final Reckoning. We also shared our top five movie stunts, and we asked you to choose one and only one Mission Impossible film. Let's get to the results. I don't think we need to read the options. We know there have been eight Missions Impossible, so Josh, let's get to the results. In last place?

00:45:41
Speaker 5: With point five am I reading this correctly?

00:45:43
Speaker 1: Point five percent of the vote, I guess. I guess Sam decided to throw the Final Reckoning a bone.

00:45:48
Speaker 5: Okay, and apparently you and Michael voted for it though time in last place, Here we have next mission I Possible two, the John Wu installment one percent there, maybe that's John Wu's vote. I don't know, Dead Reckoning two percent, Mission Impossible three. That one came from JJ Abrams seven percent of the vote. Then we get into the you know, the top tier, the stronger tier of films. I would say Ghost Protocol from Brad Bird received fourteen percent of the vote. Rogue Nation Christopher McCrory on that one, nineteen percent of the vote. Jumping back to the very first film, The Palmas, that received twenty three percent of the vote, but winning it was a mcquory installment, Fallout got thirty four percent of the vote.

00:46:30
Speaker 1: So that was my pick. That was Iish's pick. Did we get your vote at any point? I guess not right now.

00:46:37
Speaker 5: I don't think so. I don't think you have a favorite I had. You know, Fallout for me is at number two, So totally understand it, completely reasonable pick. I have as my favorite Rogue Nation, and I have as by reason Rebecca Ferguson.

00:46:49
Speaker 1: Sure she's also in Fallout, so I can claim that reason too.

00:46:53
Speaker 5: That's true. Yeah, Fallout she introduced though, right that? I think so that Bagerass at the Opera, You know, that. Yeah, that goes a long way for me.

00:47:02
Speaker 1: Okay, let's hear from our listeners. Richard Breen says I rewatched the entire series before Dead Reckoning and rewatch Dead Reckoning before the final Reckoning. For me, without question, fallout as the best and the only bona fide five star classic in the series. As others have said, Rebecca Ferguson's il Safaust is the standout female lead of the series, and I also like the genuine personal stakes at the end with the reintroduction of Michelle Monahan's Julia into the mix.

00:47:26
Speaker 5: Here's Dave Allen. I voted for Mission Impossible one due to its excellent pacing, directing, and interesting camera shots, all hallmarks of a good Brian to Palmer film. Mission Impossible three is a very close second for me, though, with its pivot to Ethan's private life and an all time great villain in Philip Seymour Hoffman.

00:47:42
Speaker 1: I'm Gonna Hurt Her Aaron Teachman in La Bonus Massaker Theater. I am an absolute sucker for this franchise. I will watch any of them at the drop of a hat, even Woo's weird ripoff of Notorious I revisited the original not too long ago, and it is a great spy thriller, no question where the series swerves and sticks. The landing the absolute best, where character and stunts are wonderfully in balance. I have to go with our introduction to Rebecca Ferguson's ill Sa There it is Josh twenty fifteen's Rogue Nation.

00:48:11
Speaker 5: I like it. Here's Colton Butcher. This is one of the most stable franchises we have. Even the bad ones are at minimum entertaining. I am a mission impossible to apologist for me. The series really nailed it with Ghost Protocol, the globe trotting, the gadgets, the Quippi dialogue, and the stellar action set pieces. I put so much of the success of this movie on the shoulders of Brad Bird. He has a real knack for action. I'm thinking The Incredibles and even Ratitu He's small scale set pieces. He also brought a joy in cartoon chaos to the series that feels really fresh. Though I've enjoyed McCrory's films, I wish Bird would have been the one to helm this franchise. The Burj Khalifa stunt is my favorite in the whole series crews running across and scaling down the tallest building in the world will never not be breathtaking.

00:48:56
Speaker 1: Finally, here's Tory lightcap ForWords Henry Cavil, arm Reloading. A few more words, Josh, fall Out. That's the movie. The arm Reloading appears in thank you to everyone who voted and left a comment. We have our definitive winner. Our new poll asked you to pick a Wes Anderson film, but only from his output over the last decades. So this is post Grand Budapest Hotel, Josh. The options in chronological order.

00:49:31
Speaker 5: Are Isle of Dogs, The French Dispatch, Asteroid City, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and three More, or the Phoenicians Scheme.

00:49:42
Speaker 1: Well, you said that the French Dispatch is now shot up your ranking, or it's edging its way up there, So where are you going with this one?

00:49:51
Speaker 5: It certainly is, but not enough to move ahead of Isle of Dogs. I just I'm a sucker for his stop motion stuff in general, and that one is so rich that it's firmly rooted at I think number two or number three possibly in my rankings for Wes Anderson film. So I'm gonna go Isle of Dogs. How about you?

00:50:11
Speaker 1: Well, I was trying as you were talking, I was hoping you were gonna tap dance a little bit more and I would bring up my Wes Anderson there it is, bring up my Wes Anderson ranking and see what I have. Well, okay, there's my answer. That is not exactly how I thought it would go. I thought for sure my answer was going to be Asteroid City. Yeah, but at least according to my ranked Wes Anderson list over on Letterboxed, which hasn't been updated since October twenty twenty one, so it's missing at least the Charlotte films. Yeah, and the Doll films. Right. I have Isle of Dogs at five. Okay, I have Isle of Dogs at five, just as still good Grand Budapest Hotel. The last time I watched that, which I don't think was for the show. We may have talked about it briefly, but I think it was just as part of a COVID watch of Anderson's films with my kids. I just really went for that film. I liked it when we reviewed it, I wrote it positively, but I really went for it when I rewatched it. So I guess I have to answer Isle of Dogs. Even though I thought my answer was Asteroid City.

00:51:25
Speaker 5: There you go, kind of a revisit of Asteroid City, you know, might push it ahead. But hey, if there's if there's a takeaway, and you haven't checked out Ale of Dogs yet, if you're like, eh, I like his stuff, not the stop motion, really give it a shot because it so gets wonderful.

00:51:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, vote in that poll and leave a comment at filmspotting dot net. And before we move on to your Japan talk here, Josh very fitting with Isle of Dogs. Maybe I can actually look through at filmspotting dot net and just give everyone a quick glance, because Say likes to post these full questions before we read them here on the show. It is very very early in voting, but it is Asteroid City and Isle of Dogs that right now are duking it out for that top spot. Again, very early in voting. Now that's out of the way, tell us a little bit about Japan and any film spotting listeners who you had the chance to meet up with.

00:52:18
Speaker 5: We did have a meetup, which was fantastic. And yeah, the reason I just wanted to say a few things is because this really is a cinophile dream destination. There's a movie you know everywhere you look. And I'm by no means an expert in Japanese cinema, so you don't have to be. I just think most movie fans have seen enough to feel like you're kind of walking through so many of those movies. Obviously, Miyazaki was everywhere, especially once we got outside of the major cities and a little bit into the mountains alongside these volcanic cliffs of one of the coasts where the water was just like exploding very panno. Yeah, I mentioned you and Sam we had talked about there's Jibli Park which you can go visit, and I've heard wonderful things, and we didn't put it on our itinerary because it would have met a whole extra day. It's not like near a major destination, and I just kind of thought, h I hope I'll get enough of that sense just being in these other areas of the country, and that was absolutely the case. I mean, some of these traditional ins we stayed in echoed Ozu's domestic spaces, the castles we were able to see are you Kursawa Samurai films, and then Tokyo itself. You've got you know, so Toshi Kon's Tokyo Godfathers came to mind, but other anime, Makoto Shinkai's Weathering with You your Name, this stuff, it's just everywhere. So really encourage anyone if this is maybe on a travel list and you're a movie fan, to give you a push to go ahead and do it and.

00:53:52
Speaker 1: Real quick, Josh, you may not remember it. And also just for the benefit of our listeners. Back when we reviewed in the last year or two, than Vendors film Perfect Days and we did our top five, I think Tokyo movies I brought up or I put on my top five list Tokyo Go, which is a Vendors documentary from nineteen eighty five. That's essentially the conceit of that film is that Vendors is such a fan of Ozuo, so it's Ozoo focus. But he went to Japan and was like, I can't view Japan through any lens but through the lens of Ozuo films, and yeah, that's how that's how he went through the country basically was filming it, but having to visit all the different landmarks that he saw in Ozoo's movies. So I highly recommend that film if you haven't seen it, Tokyo yah.

00:54:41
Speaker 5: And that's on my list. I honestly, I came home and was like, I only want to rewatch every Japanese movie I've ever seen, and I only want to watch Japanese movies going forward or Japanese related. I think we might have you know, we might have seen one of those bathrooms in Perfect Days, actually, the one where the it's you can see into it and then when you lock the like colors cover the unless maybe those are common, but we saw one like that for sure. Okay, the meetup so much fun. I have to thank at the top here Mela, a listener who started listening to us. She said because she just wanted to improve her English and was looking for podcasts and has been listening for a long time. But she made the reservations for us. At this great cocktail spot. There were these tea infused cocktails. Adam, you know I'm a tea drinker, so those were quite delicious. Thank you, Mila. We also met up with Michael, who recruited two friends who like movies haven't listened and he thought here's a way to hook him. So I hope David and Greg, you guys are listening. Joe and Felicity. So great to meet the two of them. I think Joe is maybe more of the regular listener, but Felicity, his wife, really brought it. When we were talking about our favorite films of the last twenty five years, came in with a Meek's cutoff poll. So that was fantastic. Tom, who was there. Tom has lived in Tokyo or Japan at least for thirty five years, originally from Wisconsin, says he's never going back. And then Terrence as well, who might have been the longest time listener there. I think I have that right. Certainly he was there within the first year or two.

00:56:19
Speaker 1: I believe.

00:56:20
Speaker 5: Terrence said, so good to meet those listeners. And then I have to mention Yo Taro, so Yo Tiro. Debbie and I went for a food tour the night before and a lot of fun two guides. Yo Taro was one of them. And you know, if you've ever done one of these, you hit a couple spots and you walk to them, so you're chatting in between. Pretty quickly realized hardcore cinephile like this. I forget how it came up, but he knows his stuff, and I feel bad. Towards the end of the tour, the two of us kind of just drifted towards the back and we're just talking movies and I kind of stole one of the guides for the rest of the night. But yeah, I just said to him, hey, why don't you join us tomorrow night if you can. So he came and was great to have him as part of that. Hopefully he is listening now as well. And yet to bring it back at him to Isle of Dogs and Lost in Translation, I was curious to hear from him how movies like that are received in Japan, because I know there's some talk state side about cultural appropriation or lost in translations case, you know, the depiction of the Japanese in that movie. And real quick, just a couple funny things Yotaro told me is at least in the people he talked to Lost in Translation he said, yes, was a little insulting, but not wrong. So that was his feedback on that and Isle of Dogs. He just said, everyone I know loves Wes Anderson and completely understands that everything there was from a place of like deep admiration and appreciation and celebration. In Isle of Dogs at least, So I'm not saying everyone has to feel that way. I think concerns about you know, the references to Japanese culture there are legit if you feel that way, but just interesting to hear that perspective from Yataro. So yeah, thanks to those folks for meeting up. It was a great chance to do that while we were traveling.

00:58:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's very cool, and we knew this already, but I'll go ahead and underline it here. I previously had the record for farthest flung meetup hell Sinki from Chicago to hell Sinki. This was back in maybe two thousand and eight. I think four listeners came to that meetup, and it was cool, it was great. It was incredible that there were four listeners in hell Sinki meeting me at a bar. Right Chicago to Helsinki about forty five hundred forty three forty five hundred miles away. You met up with the listeners in Oslo, Norway. Right, that's about four thousand, So it's a good time. I just googled it. That's sixty three hundred miles to Tokyo. So I think the only way we're going to beat that is if one of us gets to Australia some day. I don't know. Maybe you've already been to Australia, Josh before you joined the show.

00:59:01
Speaker 5: No, I would love to, and I have a sense we'd it'd probably be a pretty good size.

00:59:05
Speaker 1: It would be a good size beat up.

00:59:07
Speaker 5: So let's put that on the to do list.

00:59:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some film festivals there. We can justify that for sure. We got to do it.

00:59:16
Speaker 4: Welcome You're the best ban in the nineties for kids who felt like everything was stupid and everything sucked.

00:59:28
Speaker 1: They were your band.

00:59:31
Speaker 5: That's from the trailer for Pavements. The quote real film about a fake film about the world's most important band from director Alex ross Perry. We reviewed a handful of his films on the show. Adam Hersmell Queen of Earth. Listen up, Philip.

00:59:46
Speaker 1: I've interviewed him too on the show.

00:59:48
Speaker 5: There You Go. The band is Pavement, which had a critically acclaimed, popularly ignored run of five albums between nineteen ninety two and nineteen ninety nine. What do you think of this film, Adam, and what if any relationship did you have with Pavement before seen it? That was our prime I'm thinking like college.

01:00:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, years.

01:00:10
Speaker 5: So you know, I had a good friend who had much better taste in music than me, even though I thought I had great taste. Then Greg Van Dyke, I don't know if he listens, but shouting him out. He was into Pavement. I heard Pavement when I hung out with him, but other than that, you know, I wasn't too familiar. How about you.

01:00:27
Speaker 1: I think when I got to college, I was still listening to hair metal, so I definitely wasn't listening to Pavements and never got in to Pavement. Before I watched this film, I only knew Stephen Malkmus by reputation. His name came up enough in certain circles that it's like when you're in cinophile circles and certain directors would get named or movies would get name dropped, and you'd be like, oh, I have to no and act like I know who they're talking about. That's what would happen with Malcolm and Pavement, but I never knew who they were talking about. And now that I've seen this movie, which I'm a big fan of, I have a feeling I'm going to go down the rabbit hole. You're on Spotify pretty soon we see this footage pretty early in the movie from MTV, Beavis and butt Head hilariously suggested Pavement needed to try harder. Oh no, it's another one of these I need to try harder. Yeah, I'm I'm like, they're not even try. Come on, come on, I want to start over again.

01:01:46
Speaker 6: En this time.

01:01:46
Speaker 1: Try because you know they're like this, this slacker band, right, You certainly can't lob that criticism at Alex ross Perry, who crafts a mock biopic, art installation, and jukebox musical all in service of a heartfelt documentary tribute. That plot synopsis doesn't really do the movie justice, because yes, there is a fake movie, right, this mock biopic that is a huge part of the documentary. But the movie really isn't at its core about the fake movie. The fake movie is there really because it's there to serve I think the documentary itself. Late in the movie, Scott Canberg, a member of the band who goes by Spiral, stares he's being interviewed at the opening of the art show, and he says something that really resonated with me.

01:02:42
Speaker 3: You're just arriving.

01:02:43
Speaker 9: This must be a little overwhelming, all.

01:02:46
Speaker 4: Right, I'm just freaked out.

01:02:49
Speaker 9: Yeah right, this is your life.

01:02:52
Speaker 2: Start trying.

01:02:57
Speaker 4: How thought it was supposed to be fake?

01:03:00
Speaker 6: All real?

01:03:01
Speaker 1: There are so many layers of artifice to this movie, Josh as you can imagine. Who knows exactly what he's referencing when he says, I thought this was supposed to be fake. It's not clear all of these events or works were invented for the movie. They aren't happening independently of the movie, so in that sense, they aren't real. Our friend Griffin Newman from blank Check isn't really playing the drummer Steve West in a pavement biopic called Range Life. He's playing drummer Steve West in a pavement biopick called range Life that's being spoofed in the documentary Pavements. But here's the thing. When you amass a bunch of real paraphernalia and ephemera from the band's past and display it in a space and then bring together in that space the band and fans and others as if it's an actual art exhibit, and it provokes an actual emotional response in people, then guess what, it's an art exhibit. And that's kind of how the movie. The entire movie functions. The soundtrack to the End Montage is the final song of the musical that Alex Ross Perry has created, composed by the way, by Keegan DeWitt, who did the music for Hearts Beat Loud, that really good Nick Offerman movie from a few years ago. And the final song is this collage of multiple Pavement tunes, and we're seeing some of the song being performed as part of the musical, but it's mixed with highlights from the band's final performance of the tour in twenty twenty two. That the doc is covering the performance the rehearsals that the movie covers footage from the past. It's basically a snapshot of the entire film, right, it's the end Montage. And here I'm going to reference another line from the movie when talking about why he conceived the musical. This is like ten or fifteen minutes into the movie, Perry on camera says, and I I thought, wouldn't it be funny to take all these Pavement songs, slacker songs, alternative, whatever you want to call it, ironic put them in the most sincere art form possible musical theater. See if it works well. Not only does it work. All of a sudden, it starts getting a little dusty, sitting on my couch watching people in a fake musical sing songs I don't know by a band I don't have any connection to, which says something about Malcolmus as a songwriter. It also says something about I suppose how much of a sucker I am for the sincerity of musical theater. There's that word again, sincerity, And you know Malclmus, he has some of that Dylan esque innately caginess about him, though caginess probably isn't the right word, because unlike Dylan, he's not remotely as antagonistic. There's a little bit of it there, but he's not as antagonistic. It's more of that kind of apathetic unwillingness to fully engage with any one who's trying to engage with him. It's a lack of it's a lack of desire or just energy to be understood. But you know, Perry, he does what any good filmmaker, any good documentarian does. He meets him, and he meets the band and its legacy on their own terms with this this low key, chaotic, absurdist pastiche I really dug the film, and yeah, wasn't kidding. I haven't done it just yet because I just finished the film today, but I certainly heard enough songs that that I was interested in to want to devote some real energy to hearing the band. I'm a little embarrassed that it's taken me this long, especially because I should have been I should have been experiencing it as it was happening, as you suggested, but that just wasn't the case for me. So better late than never, maybe, Yeah, for sure.

01:06:53
Speaker 5: And wow, I've I've been hearing a lot of good stuff about Pavements, but that was a rave So definitely definitely gonna have to catch up with this one.

01:07:00
Speaker 1: Pavements is in limited release, including in Chicago. Quick note too, if you want to hear I'm hoping they're gonna rave about it. I'm assuming at least two people will, because it's entirely possible, Josh that Keith Phipps and Scott Tobias were the first two people in my life who I heard talk about Steven Malkmess Okay, right, Yeah, so maybe Tasha will be the contrarian as she often is there and we'll see what Genevieve Koski brings to the table. They are, of course, the hosts of the Next Picture Show looking at cinema's present via its past, and their new pairing is inspired by pavements. They're calling it music nautobiography. They're pairing pavements. Of course, I brought up Dylan. They're pairing it with Todd Haynes's I'm Not There. You can hear that. New episodes of The Next Picture Show drop every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. You managed to squeeze something in since your return from abroad. It's Bring Her Back. The Sally Hawkins as a Psycho Foster mah movie from the Australian and directing team Danny and Michael philipp who you know as a former foster dad. I had to recuse myself from reviewing this movie. Actually, it's just because the trailer looked creepy as hell, and you know, I'm a scaredy cat.

01:08:13
Speaker 5: What did you think, oh man, I didn't even think about that this plot. But yes, yes, I don't think you have any Laura in you, Adam, which is the Sally Hawkins kids out this So yeah, this is a very impressive step forward for this sibling directing team Danny and Michael Philip, who I like, talk to me. It was one of those where it showed more promise, and they are delivering on that here. It is beyond creepy disturbing in a ton of ways. They are definitely becoming a toeurs of self inflicted gore. So if that's a thing, you know, you don't really have time for avoid this. But there's a lot of good stuff here in terms of real characterization and a firmer command of plot and a patience with the camera that's new that I think is good. But this really elevates because of Hawkins' performance. And I'm not going to say much more about it because we are doing that bonus episode for our film spotting family members listing our favorite performances of the year so far soon, so you know, become a family member or if you are one, look forward to that if you want to hear me say more about Hawkins. But yeah, she's great and overall with these two films, I won't go too much into the plot, but very interesting how the Philippos seem to be drawn to stories about people who refuse to accept death attempt to subvert it. And then pay a really awful price. They explore that in very different ways in both movies, but it definitely seems to be something they're interested in, and I don't think it's just on a surface level. There's this one is also a very evocative meditation on the madness of grief that is yeah, unnerving, but impressively done.

01:09:57
Speaker 8: A lot of the Nasties family just like you guys.

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Speaker 5: Does he look like candy?

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Speaker 8: He's a beautiful boy, just needed someone that get keep in special kid, you luck you Annoi.

01:10:13
Speaker 5: So for horror fans, you've probably already seen this, but if not, it's in wide release. Makeroom for bring her Back. Let us know what you think. Feedback at filmspotty dot net.

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01:11:37
Speaker 1: That's from the opening of Andrea Tarkovsky's Andre Rublev one of five titles in our Tarkovsky Blind Spots Marathon. The goal of this marathon, Josh was not only to see blind spots, see some great movies or potentially great movies that we have never seen before. But to become completest of the Russian master's work not so hard. He only made seven features. We have now done it. We have one more job to do. We have to complete the Marathon Awards our favorite performances, scenes, and more. We're calling these awards the Holy Fools. The clip we came into the segment with features one of several holy fools featured in the work of Tarkovsky. At least I'm assuming he's a holy fool. He's jumping off a church in some kind of contraption like a hot air balloon. He is sailing away into the sky. It probably isn't going to end well for him. He has a whole lot of people who are shouting at him and urging him to not partake in this endeavor. He believes, but he believes he will fly. It's all about faith, and you know what, he flies, at least for some period of time. So we thought that was as good a segue as any into our Holy Fool Awards. We have five category supporting performance, Lead performance, our Tarkovsky Moment, which we'll get into more once we approach that category, are your favorite scene or best scene, and then finally best Picture. The films were The Steamroller in the Violin, Ivan's Childhood, Andre rublav Stalker, and Nostalgia. Josh, our first category is supporting Performances. I'll give you a few of the nominees here, maybe the complete list, but just a few names. From The Steamroller in the Violin Vladimir Zamansky, who's Sergei. I believe he's the steamroller or not the machine, but the guy driving it from Ivan's Childhood, Masha Valentina, Malayavina galtzev Ev, Jenny Zarakov from Andre rublov kirol Ivan Lapakov, Nikolai Grinko is Daniel, and Nikolai Berliev is Boriska from Stalker. There's maybe at least three different options, including Anatoly Solnitsen, the writer, Nikolai Grinko, the professor Nostalgia, Domenico are Holy fool Erlyn Josephson or Domisiana Giordano Eugenia. Do you have a winner from those options, Josh.

01:14:01
Speaker 5: All worthy considerations. The runner up for me was probably Girdano as the interpreter in nostalgia, just especially in the context of the films we've seen a refreshing foil to Tarkovsky's brooding men who we've been spending a lot of time with. I did appreciate her presence there, but I went for my winner with Nikolai Burleev in Andre ruby Lev. This is a bit of a cheat because his performance in Rublev as Bariska, this this boy bell maker. It's obviously informed by his earlier performance in Ivan's Childhood right where he's the title character. So you know, both have both of these performances, have this beyond his year's confidence for a young actor, that's crucial to the characters. And I just think in Andre Rublev he anchors that crucial final revelatory section where Buriska really helps Rublev clarify his creative purpose to my reading, and it's a compelling performance in its own right.

01:14:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, you said it very well. That's exactly the same line of reasoning I had, Josh. It was a little bit of a cheat because I was considering the really mature performance he gives in Ivan's Childhood one of the standout. Truly, I almost considered him for lead performance. He was my runner up there. Some of the most haunting moments from any performer that we saw leader supporting in this entire marathon were from burly Of in Ivan's childhood, and again he was very young. Then he's young of course in andre Rubelev as well. But I really did feel like it made sense to go with a holy fool in these categories, and especially in the supporting performance category. And that last chapter here, that chapter that features Bariska, you said it well, it is a crucial one in terms of us understanding the main character. That title character is transformation, and it's fun. It's a fun performance watching him, watching him make this up as he goes right right, which is really what he's doing. So we have the same choice there for supporting performance lead performance. Igor Fumchenko is Sasha. He's the one who plays the violin in the Steamroller. In the violin. We have Burlyev for Ivan's childhood anatotally so Lenitsen again for Andrei Rublev. Another person playing two characters in our marathon Stalker playing the Stalker Alexander Kadanovsky and from Nostalgia we have Oleg Yankovsky as Gortchakov. Where did you go with lead performance.

01:16:35
Speaker 5: I went with Alexander Kadanovsky as the title figure in Stalker, and I think for me, it's because it's something I came. This was one of the titles that I had already seen in this marathon, and I think I came to appreciate that performance more on this revision. The first time I was maybe just trying to keep up basically, and saw him figured I had him pegged. He's our guide. Yeah. When you first meet him, he's very stoic and reserved, and you're like, Okay, I know what his purpose is. I'm going to try to wrap my mind around what else is going on.

01:17:03
Speaker 1: But on this watch I.

01:17:05
Speaker 5: Realized, you know, it's a really rich, developing performance where he goes from turning very eager and almost giddy when he arrives in the zone. Later on he becomes agitated when the writer and professor don't show enough deference to the place, and then angry and irate at the end about their lack of belief in it. So he is he is a believer, right he and the performance here captures captures the notion of approaching the divine with fear and trembling. I think that's what I what I came to realize on this watch with Keidanovsky, he's for me, He's the most magnetic of Tarkowski's holy fools.

01:17:41
Speaker 2: So but she this timat Yes, this is prasic. Chiliak No stated, it's a LUs god soon just just speacause of the.

01:18:05
Speaker 1: Word I had in my notes. Josh was just his elusiveness. I felt like he was the hardest to grasp And first he's slippery, and at first you you don't think he's going to be that way. You think he's going to be very stoic, driven by this mission, just focused on what he has to get done, and he has this kind of profits mission, if you will. But that that isn't what he is. He shows that he's someone who has doubts as much as he also has faith. I feel like he is someone who shows that he doesn't always know exactly what he's doing, whether or not it's the right thing to do. He's making choices. And you know you said, you said magnetic. We do see from his performance. We see a lot of range. We see a range of emotion from him, and that's why he stood out to me as the the top performance as well. I think I think we're gonna have at least one other category in common here. These next two, I was gonna say, are where we we should diverge. But depending on how we interpret this next category, there is possibility of at least one more crossover. So Tarkovsky moment. The way we're sort of defining this is one of the one of the ways we've talked about and thought about Tarkovsky as a filmmaker is as a bit of a sorcerer. He does things with the camera, he does things in nature and with nature. Yeah, that feel supernatural. It almost feels like he's manipulating time and space. Is that a good way to frame it, because that's how we think. Yeah, that's how we think about it.

01:19:42
Speaker 5: You couldn't have said it any better.

01:19:43
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:19:44
Speaker 5: The with nature is the key part, I think.

01:19:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what's your choice? Boy?

01:19:51
Speaker 5: I mean so many nominees. Let me let me just go through the list of nominees here to show you how I struggled with this. Andre rublev I thought of the Hagan's frolicking in The mist Stalker. I think has three I talked a little bit about this in our review, But where the three of them are standing on a green hill in the zone at one point, and the sun just pierces through the fog and seems to anoint them, and then the fog comes back and the sun disappears. There's a quick shot at this well near the room, these ripples of dark water, a conjuring of something going on in there. And then again almost a throwaway shot of a dry river bed where a little dust devil suddenly forms. It's like, did he do that? Did he just happen to be there? You know, these sorts of things. Nostalgia, I think, also has three. The opening shot of a woman, children and the dog moving down a foggy hill. We spent a lot of time on that fixed shot of the poet's hotel room, where the adjustments to lighting, there's some water that seeps in, the dog comes in, you know, it just becomes this image of dreams, visions and memories all at once. My winner is the third option I had from nostalgia, though, and this is I'm not sure how nature plays into this one, which is why it gave me pause, but I had to go with it. It is the final shot of nostalgia. The poet, presumably this is after his death. It's implied he's sitting on that misty hill from the opening shot. The dog is there next to him, this recurring figure. There are buildings positioned behind him we've seen, which perhaps are his childhood home, but they seem to be miniaturized in a way, because all of this is taking place inside that ruthless abbey that we saw earlier in the film. Whatever techniques were employed, I can't say with how deep research I'm sure, but it just evokes the work of a sorcerer and an app name to my mind for this shot is sitting in eternity. It's just what that possibly seems to be trying to evoke.

01:21:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's a great point, and we spent some time on that when we talked about nostalgia a few weeks ago, and that scene right before it is one I thought about as well, with the writer character and the candle of course for best scene, which we'll get to in a moment, but I thought about it for this category as well. So many possibilities here, you know. I went back to the very first film. We talked about the steamroller and the violin and the violin lesson and the water playing the violin, and the way he hands over and shows the glass and the way the water is reflected, which for me was a way of expressing something ineffable that's happening as he's playing the violin a sort of reverie that's happening. And then you go to Andre Rubelev and we talked about this as well, the brushes that are in the water and when they're washed, and the way then that creates new ripples that are kind of undulating these new waves right in Stalker, and all of these are candidates for me as well. That you have to think about is just the best scenes from the marathon as well, right that transition, that long train ride that transitions us into the zone and going from that CPA tone into color, the hypnotic nature of that, no special effects, it's all just done with the long tape, the way the subtle editing is used, the electronic score, and then of course that transition to color. It's something nostalgia, the opening, the parting of those barn doors, and it's a portal from color the present to black and white the past. And I mentioned the penultimate scene before your last shot where we watched the writer cross that now dry lake or bed of water, whatever was there before the test of his faith, so many that we could point to. I did go, and this is where I thought we could end up with the same one, because I knew you would at least strongly consider it. I am going with Gorchikhov in his hotel room, the still hotel shot, and I do think of it as a nature shot. Part of the rain. I also think of it there's rain, and I also think of it as a as a magician shot. I think of it as a conjuring shot because of the way the camera is fixed, the way those walls feel almost like a painter's canvas in the background, the way the water is just coming in through the windows a little bit, and the sound that it makes is something that adds just kind of a neat little effect that adds to a sleepy quality, a hypnotic quality to it. And the way that that main character is sleeping on the bed. But the way the darkness, the way the room is lit, it's as if he sort of disappears into the bed, and then, as you said, all of a sudden, the dog from his past appears. You know, this is the moment where everything blurs together. We're past and present completely colliite in a similar way to what I described with the barn doors. Later, we know that he's been having these visions, but this is where it's happening, where we see it happening. It's not something that's inside his head. We're actually witnessed to it, and it's before our eyes that Tarkovsky plays it all out.

01:25:36
Speaker 6: It.

01:25:36
Speaker 1: It just stunned me the first time I saw it in Nostalgia.

01:25:40
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, great, pick.

01:25:57
Speaker 2: You bluekaisash Blue.

01:25:59
Speaker 1: Guys, if it is that brings us to best scene? Do you have a single scene that captured the marathon for you?

01:26:09
Speaker 5: Three were in contention. I did consider the carrying the candle more of a sustained scene for this quality, but I totally get why you thought about it for the sorcerer moment. The other one was will the bell ring in Andre rube Lev, You know you suggested the enjoyment level of that whole final section of watching this kid try to pull this off. It leads to this sequence of intense, you know, suspense, and I just love how that is handled. But I went with the finale of Stoker, where Stalker's daughter, she's called Monkey, is moving the glasses with her mind, and it's the first time you see it. I have to imagine you can't suspect that's coming, but as soon as it starts happening, you know exactly why, and that it absolutely had to happen. It's to me, it's the movie's evidence for the metaphysical against you know, the arguments of the writer and the professor to the contrary and others. We are back out of the zone where where things should be rational and scientific and understandable and maybe not. Yeah, so telekinetic Monkey, that's the scene.

01:27:25
Speaker 1: So I'm going with a moment that I devoted a lot of time to during our first discussion, and it could be seen as a single shot, but I am thinking about the entire sequence, and it's the suspended kiss among the birches in Ivan's childhood. And the reason I am thinking of it as an entire sequence is well one, I do like the fact that we're getting the birches in there, which is something Tarkovsky returns to again and again throughout the films. That we saw something about those white trees, something about them from his childhood. Perhaps we read something about her. I saw somewhere something about the innocence of that or from that time in his life that he clearly responded to. And this is an exchange between an innocent character, a female character, and a military man in charge who has designs on her that are not innocent in nature, that are definitely very sexually charged. And we are very nervous for her as viewers, and she's nervous. There's a lot of anxiety as they are walking amongst those birches. Nothing really does end up happening that is abusive or terribly untoward. In a moment, she walks along this tree that is elevated, it's down on the ground, it's fallen, and it's elevated over a crevis and he actually steps out over it first and grabs her and takes her out over this crevice and he holds her, He holds her in the air, suspends her over this and kisses her. It's this grand gesture and he holds her there and then you know, allows her to pass on the other side. So it's this moment where she didn't ask for it, and in that way it's not romantic, Josh, or it shouldn't be. She doesn't back away from it. There's an element of beauty to it in the way he films it, the way she's suspended. There there's something graceful about it, but it is also something where, you know, the word I think I use when we talked about it was there's something obscene about it. There's something where he's forcing himself on her, and the whole scene has been about him building up to that, and for me it also captures it's just an incredible The shot itself is so Tarkovskian, where it's this low angle shot of him holding her suspended in the air, and everything about the framing of it is like a masterclass of cinematography. But then it's also this shot that encapsulates the beautiful and the brutal that I think he is always wrestling with.

01:30:23
Speaker 5: Yeah, beyond even all those complicated layers you're describing going on in terms of character and narrative, to speak to the beauty of it, you know, groves of birch trees or you know sometimes aspen groves are used this way common in films because they are so striking and just the lines, and especially in black and white. To understand why we've been going on and on throughout this marathon, and you know, blubbering about how beautiful certain shots are. All you have to do is see this scene and then compare it to any other movie with birches in it, and you'll realize, like, oh, no one knows what they're doing for something like this, Like Tarkowsky in this case, we should note working with cinematographer Vadim Yusov, that there's just an eye here as you described it, and I for noticing and framing and lighting and capturing these locations in nature, that's like unlike anything else except maybe like Ansel Adams photography is what comes to mind in terms of this particular shot. It's a beautiful one.

01:31:25
Speaker 1: So I know, as we get to best Picture and we wrap up our holy fool Tarkotski marathon a words, I know that you have already posted your letterboxed list, your official ranking. Since you are a completist, you have all of the Tarkovski films ranked. I have not posted mine yet, but I do have my list ready. It's in private mode. I've been waiting for this conversation. I've been waiting to make my list here to finally post that, and this was really really hard, as I will explain a little bit more about in a moment, what is your pick for best picture? And is it possible that your pick for best picture is in fact your best Tarkovski film. You're number one overall?

01:32:10
Speaker 5: Yeah it is. And I will say before I get into it, that Andre Rublev, which was my major blind spot for me, the main reason to do this marathon, gave my pick for my favorite a good challenge. But it was that second I think, I think only my second look at Stalker, the first Tarkovski that I did ever see, that cemented it as my personal favorite of this marathon and of all of his just irresistibly for me, combined sci fi and spirituality, endlessly mysterious. I have, by no means have it figured out. I have a little better idea, I think this second time around. But yeah, it's at the top for me. And you know, as I'm sure you'll probably get into. The reason this is so hard is now I'm counting if we use you know, when you're talking about masterpieces, all time masterpieces, this is where five star letterbox rating is a little more helpful. I've got one, two, three, three all time masterpieces from him Stalker, Andre Rublop Nostalgia, and then I've got here, you know, in the four and a half out of five range, I've got Solaris The Sacrifice and Mirror, which we did a couple of years ago, and that is just great films, just great films, Ivan's Childhood and The Steamroller and the Violin. Yeah, so this wasn't an easy pick, but I do feel good where I landed with Stalker.

01:33:29
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, as I've said before, I still have Solaris not part of this marathon, but part of a previous long ago, maybe the second marathon that was ever done on this show. So Laris was part of that, and I still have it as my number one. And maybe if I rewatched it now in light of having seen all of these other films, that wouldn't be the case for me. That film, the concept, the central idea, the central question of that film is still the one that just grabs me the most, excites me the most to think about. Yeah, that's the reason why it's still number one. But as you were just talking about, I looked at my letterbox list. I gave Andre Rubelev Nostalgia and Stalker and for that matter, Mirror, which was part of another marathon. We did a few marathons back. I gave those four films four and a half stars. How do you pick? How do you pring between those four movies? Which one's gonna be number two? And I certainly could have made the case for myself to not go with Stalker, because then i'd have, I suppose, two sci fi movies in the top two spots. But I ultimately decided I don't care. Really, Okay, yeah, I mean, I know he made two more films after this, with Nostalgia, which obviously I think is great, and Sacrifice, which I don't like quite as much as you. But I also could stand to rewatch Stalker. I guess just feels to me, Josh, I have rublev Third, so again, it's really close. But Stoker feels it feels to me like it could be the pathiosis. From a filmmaking standpoint, from a faith standpoint, from his wrestling with the need for art and beauty in a brutal world. As I said, standpoint, it feels like it's all it feels like it's all there. And from from just a standpoint two of when I think about the Tarkowski films, I want to revisit and I do feel like they're films you're going on a journey with, Like the characters, you're going on a journey. Right, other than solaris the one where I feel like, Okay, I'm ready to get back on the train. I'm ready to get back on the train. I'm ready. When we talked about it, I said, you know, it's one of those movies you have to get on the same rhythm with it. You have to want to get on that rhythm. Well, I'm ready. You know I could do that again. I want to get on that train again. I want to re enter the zone. I want to reconsider its mysteries and all the enigmas. I'm okay with it. It feels to me like one of those films. And I'm not saying the other films aren't as well, but I'm saying Stalker, to me, just slightly above the others, feels to me like the one that you could dust off at minimum every couple of years, but probably every year and just say it's time. It's time, it's Stocker time. I gotta do it right.

01:36:20
Speaker 5: I don't know what time of year that would be, but that would be a worthy, a worthy enterprise. I thought you might go with Andre Rublav. Yeah, it was to be honest, and as I said, the one that was pushing at a possibility for Best Picture for me. But yeah, a lot of crossover for us this time.

01:36:35
Speaker 1: It was that'll do it. Officially, it's over our Tarkovsky Marathon. We don't have another one planned for this year. We're getting you know, into summer here and then fall and then end of the year. But of course we will have another one on the books for next year. We'll keep you posted as those plans emerge. More about our marathons, there are over fifty of them now. That info is available at film spotting dot net Marathons. Josh, That's our show.

01:37:03
Speaker 5: You could find Adam and the Show on Instagram and Facebook and letterbox at film Spotting. I'm at Larsen on film We are independently produced and listeners support it. You can support the show by joining the film Spotting Family at film spottingfamily dot com. You can listen early in ad free. That way, you'll also get a weekly newsletter, monthly bonus episodes, and access to the entire show archive. For show t shirts and other merch go to film spotting dot net.

01:37:29
Speaker 1: Slash Shop in that show archive mostly reverse chronological here, lots of Wes the dollshorts nine, Asteroid City nine to twenty five, French Dispatch eight forty seven. We did a rushmore Sacred Cow that was fun, six point thirty Isle of Dogs, and our top five Wes Anderson scenes. At some point we're gonna have to revisit that and redo it, aren't We see four.

01:37:50
Speaker 5: As we were. As we've been talking about performances, like characters or performances, is a good one sometimes, Okay.

01:37:56
Speaker 1: Royal Tenenbaum Sacred Cow that was with Sam van Halgrin, even though he does appreciate Royal ten and bombs in a five to eighty nine Grand Budapest Hotel for eighty one Moonri's Kingdom. That was episode four hundred Live with Dana Stevens and Michael Phillips. Somehow it looks like mister Fox did not get a full review. So Geeling, Yeah, Darjeeling Limited was reviewed back on one eighty one, and that's where I interviewed Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman. It's kind of sad though, that that's the only time I've talked to Wes Anderson in the show's history was one eighty one and little bit of crossover with another movie that came up on this show. Jason Schwartzman is in Pavements with Alex ross Perry. He's also in at least one other Alex ross Perry film, Top of Mind, which is Listen Up Phillip, and I interviewed Jason Schwartzman for Listen Up Philip The Life of Quatic. We talked about that on a May twenty twenty Bonus episode, and Sam is written in here Bottle Rocket thirtieth anniversary Sacred Cow. In twenty twenty six Let's Do It streaming, you can see Echo Valley. Julianne Moore gets a visit from her attic daughter played by Sidney Sweeney, and becomes an accomplice to murder with Donald Gleason as a sleazy dealer. In limited release, you can see The Ballad of Suzanne Cizar. Mariah Gates says, an experimental meditation on who owns History? A sumptuous and thought provoking film that's at the Cisco. Prime Minister is also out in limited release. This is a documentary about the New Zealand Prime Minister just Sinda Ardern and this is a movie that played at Sundance Documentary I saw, recommend it definitely worth seeing. Out in wide release, you can see the live action adaptation of How to Train Your Dragon. That's the twenty ten animated film and Yeah materialists Selene Songs follow up to twenty twenty three's Past Lives with Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans. We plan to talk about that next week, along with Mike Flanagan's Stephen King adaptation The Life of Chuck, which is expanding.

01:39:57
Speaker 5: Film Spiding is produced by Golden Joe Desso, Sam Vanhlgren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempinar. Special thanks to everyone at wbeazy Chicago. More information is available at wbeaz dot org. For film Spotting, I'm Josh Larson.

01:40:14
Speaker 1: And I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening.

01:40:17
Speaker 2: This conversation can serve no purpose anymore.

01:40:21
Speaker 1: Good fine film spotting is listeners supported. Join the film Spotting Family at film spottingfamily dot com and get access to ad free episodes, monthly bonus shows, our weekly newsletter, and for the first time, all in one place, the entire film spotting archive going back to two thousand and five. That's a film Spotting family dot com

01:40:57
Speaker 4: Panically