Top 5 Films of 2025 (So Far), The Apartment at 65

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Speaker 3: What kind of a show you guys putting on here today?

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Speaker 5: You're not interested in art?

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Speaker 6: Now?

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Speaker 5: No, Look, we're going to do this thing.

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Speaker 3: We're going to have a conversation from Chicago. This is Film Spotting celebrating our twentieth year. I'm Josh Lars and.

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Speaker 6: I'm Adam Kempenar.

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Speaker 5: You may not realize it was Kubilik, but I am in the top ten deficiency wise.

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Speaker 7: And this may be the day promoshit wise.

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Speaker 5: You're getting a satellite.

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Speaker 3: Mister Kirk could be already.

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Speaker 6: That's Shirley McLain and Jack Lemon in the Apartment, one of the all time greats, you know, movie wise.

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Speaker 3: Billy Wilder's Best Picture winning film turned sixty five this year. We give it another.

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Speaker 6: Look and our top five films of twenty twenty five so far, That and more.

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Speaker 3: I think Kiki Palmer and Sissa are both due for promotions.

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Speaker 6: Why you're still trying to be incorporated?

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Speaker 7: Do your own thing?

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Speaker 6: And what's that live to pay Jay Ahead on Film Spotting.

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Speaker 6: Welcome to Film Spotting. The Apartment was inducted into the Film Spotting Pantheon back in twenty ten. Josh, this was just a couple of years before you join the show. I hope you'll be a mensch and let it keep its pantheon status.

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Speaker 3: I wish I could pretend to bring some suspense into this conversation, Adam. But yeah, yeah, I think I'll be in agreement here.

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Speaker 6: It's safe. It sounds like later in the show. A Pantheon Project review of Billy Wilder's Bittersweet corporate comedy, which won five Oscars back in nineteen sixty one, including Best Picture and Best Director for Wilder. But first the best films of twenty twenty five so far, we are into July and we thought we would start with some listener choices. A couple of weeks ago, we asked listeners to choose their favorite of the year so far, Josh. We provided them with these options. Danny Boyle's twenty eight years later, Steven Soderberg's Black Bag, Selene Songs, Divisive, Materialists, Bong Juneo's Mickey seventeen, Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme, Ryan Coogler's Sinners, or they could go other and write in their own choice. How did it come out?

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Speaker 3: Materialists divisive enough to land in last place with only one percent of the vote. Here close to that two percent for Mickey seventeen. Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme received seven percent of the vote, closely followed by Danny Boyles twenty eight years later that got eight percent of the vote. Then a jump here to the top three, Black Bag sixteen percent. Other So this will be interesting for the comments. Other received nineteen percent. But pretty much running away with this was Sinners forty five percent of the vote.

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Speaker 6: Well, let's find out what some of those other options were. Julio Olivera says, look, of course at sinners, but I'm kind of bored of The Sinner's Talk already, so I'm going to give my vote to the third movie on my list, Friendship. Maybe it'll finally get some film spotting attention. So spoilers for Julio and everyone else, Friendship is not going to make either of our list. Josh, you remain the only Film Spotting host who has seen Friendship. I did a lot of homework in preparation for this top five, but Friendship was one I didn't really feel like I needed to see. But you were at least moderately positive on it.

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Speaker 3: I wasn't. I swear I talked about it on the show, but maybe not. Maybe I saw that around the time when I was traveling and just didn't work out to give it a few minutes. But yes, I am positive, Julio. Unfortunately, yeah, not positive enough for it to make my top five of the year so far. We also heard from Eli Price, who is going the Sinners route. Eli said, I voted for Sinners, but my actual favorite, by a tiny margin, is Soderberg's other twenty twenty five film, Presence. Okay, so an other vote maybe there, Eli. He says, I love the high concept technical idea of the Ghost pov. But even more than that, it was the perfect medium for that cathartic expression of ecstatic emotion that in real life would be over the top. It's one of my favorite things that films can do that David Lynch captured better than anyone else. And it's one of those things that just happens to you as you watch, as opposed to you seeing it in or reading it from the film. I get that it's a very subjective experience, but it happened to me with this one plot in story mechanics aside, I can't deny what it did to me.

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Speaker 6: I also had a great experience with presence. Thank you for that. Eli. Here's Eric Brayban other The Ballad of Wallace Island, a special film featuring one of the best performances of the year, comedic or otherwise from Tim Key. It's a film about nostalgia that manages to leave you looking toward your future with renewed optimism. This is a film I recommended on the show. Wasn't really in even top ten consideration for me, but a movie I do like and I encourage people to see.

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Speaker 3: I think you're a fan of this next one too, Adam the hand comes from Casey Linsmeyer Ephis is the best baseball film since Moneyball, A beautiful elegy to baseball lovers young and old who are not ready to leave the game.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, very good film. And we have a few more here that were other choices. Josh and neither of us have seen these films, so definitely didn't make our listen good to put on the radars of all of our listeners out there. We start with Zach, Well, this one, this one is surely at least on the radars, whether or not people chose to see it or, like us, decided it wasn't worth our time. I actually can't remember. Maybe you did see the one? Did you sit this one out?

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Speaker 3: I'm off the MCU bandwagon, and yeah, despite the relatively good word on this pick, it wasn't enough to push me to get back on board.

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Speaker 6: Okay, so you know what Zach is picking. I can't believe we are halfway through the year and my favorite film is an MCU movie. Thunderbolts took me back to a time when Marvel was provocative, set pieces were practical, and performances actually felt human. I enjoyed every film on this list, but none of them surprised me like Thunderbolts.

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Speaker 3: Here's Greg Waterworth Junior. For me, it's the little scene Freaky Tales. This is from Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. Greg says this plays like a movie mixtape, not only in the way it presents four intertwining stories, but because it is clearly an homage to other filmmakers. Absolutely loved it.

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Speaker 6: Here's JP Aguire had to go with other for nay Ja TiO. After I heard about this movie making a billion dollars in its first eleven days in China, It's now the fifth highest grossing movie of all time, I had to see what the hype was. What I got was one of the greatest animated spectacles I've ever seen. I even went as far as seeing it about four times in theaters. If you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favor and try to find a way to see this animated cinematic achievement. The spelling of that, if you are now really eager to check it out is ne zha two.

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Speaker 3: All right, Thank you, JP. Our last comment here comes from Dan Westler. Tend to Barry, the debut feature by Hailey. Elizabeth Anderson punched me right in the Gut and it's currently my favor of the year. On the surface, it's a slice of life portrait of a young woman trying to make it in the city. Underneath, it has serious American Honey vibes as it explores the broadest themes of human connection, the value of existence, the passing of time, and why and how we go about living in the moment. To me, it even rivals Charlie Kaufman Senectage New York and its exploration of individual consciousness versus shared human experience. I truly hope you guys catch up with this one because I think it belongs on the Golden Brick ballot.

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Speaker 6: It is a title I had heard of, and when you're saying American Honey by way of Senecticky New York, I have to say I am encouraged to see it. How about you, Josh?

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Speaker 9: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: I mean, the Golden Brick list is strong already, but we're always looking for for more candidates to either see in the next couple of months or catch up on, so we'll add this one to the list.

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Speaker 6: Dan, we thank everyone who voted and everyone who left a comment. Let's get to films. We've definitely seen because they are making our cut for the top five films of the year so far, we decided to mix up the format a little bit. We're going to go against our instincts here and rather than get real in depth explaining why these are the standout movies of twenty twenty five, we're going to try something new. Let me see if I have this right, Josh, be concise. I don't know if I'm going to pull that off after looking at my notes, but maybe you can, Maybe you can explain why we're going that this time.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it was sort of my idea, and I'll confess, especially with this first pick here, I'm not going to entirely adhere to it. Oh No, I think the thinking I will with other picks. The thinking was a few of these movies we've already talked about on the show, perhaps even given a full review. Yes, these movies may be strong enough to stay on our lists at the end of the year, and so we'll be discussed further on our top tens there. And you know, we only have so many thoughts about movies, Adams, so we don't want to spoil all of them.

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Speaker 6: That's right early on, But you can only go to that well, so often.

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Speaker 3: Mostly just don't want to be repetitive. So so, yeah, I will be more concise with a couple of these picks that are familiar. But yeah, the one I'm starting with hasn't been touched on at all on the show, So bear with me a little bit more. Here. Is that kind of how you thought about things generally?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, I did try to be more concise. I was jotting down a bunch of bullet points and then I realized is getting long winded as usual, and I started moving things around and actually being a little more succinct. But we are essentially trying to approach this as more of a check in. We've got a big discussion, and I think it will be a long, fruitful discussion of the apartment coming up. We don't need to make this a very drawn out segment, and we don't want to cannibalize comments and thoughts that we might have later in the year. And I think some of these movies, surely some of these titles for both of us, are going to make our end of year list. You also suggested, and I don't know if you went this route, but I ended up going this route. We may also feature some other critical voices who have articulated out what makes these movies really good. One other thing we decided to do. I suggested this, and we're gonna try it. We're not gonna rank them, We're just gonna go in whatever order we desire, but it will culminate with the two films we have in common. There's a lot of overlap so far. I do know this. You'll hear this. I think as we go through these choices, there is a fair amount of overlap in terms of the movies that we were considering. The movies we have maybe in our top ten or fifteen so far, but in terms of our top fives, we have two in common. So we are going to build up to those top two. And I'll say this, Josh, I think we could give listeners one hundred guesses and they would never come up with this.

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Speaker 3: Combo, probably not given our history and our affinities. And yeah, I think that's fair.

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Speaker 6: Okay, start us off. What film are you going with first? As one of your five favorite films of the year so far?

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Speaker 3: Going to start with that title that hasn't come up on the show at all, And it's also the title that once I sat down and wrote about it extensively. Did jump up to my number one slot of the year so far. It is Universal Language. This is the second feature film from rising Canadian director Matthew Rankin. I did not see his debut the twentieth century, so we'll have to make time for that at some point. But Universal Language, which basically imagines in alternate Canada where the Persian language is commonplace, so alongside English, alongside French. Basically we follow a collection of Persian speaking characters through various areas of Winnipeg. And interestingly, Winnipeg is also dotted with signage that is in Persian too, so even Tim Horton's exactly exactly and right now particularly worth noting Persian primarily spoken in Iran, so some timeliness there. Now, there's just to give you an idea of who we're following. There's a pair of school age sisters who are attempting to retrieve paper money that's been stuck in the ice. There's a tour guide who's leading this disgruntled group across the frozen landscape. And there's this disillusioned bureaucrat played by rank and actually who's abruptly left his job in Quebec and has come to Winnipeg to visit his mother. These are lightly comic vignettes. I think you could describe them. They're very the comedy is very dry. Inspired by the winter air that you see here, I would say rank and at least based on Universal Language is following the footsteps of the Swedish filmmaker Roy Anderson, who films we have talked about on the show, an American independent like Jim Jarmusch a little bit. I also in the compositions, and this idea of like a snow globe we're in Wes Anderson came to mind. And then of course you have to name check Guy Madden, right, who not only shares the Winnipeg background, but I think also I haven't seen a ton of Madden, but I think from what I have seen, this inclination to experiment with, you know, what a cinematic narrative can actually be. So I'm going to leave it there because this is number one pretty much guarantees a slot on my top ten at the end of the year, when I hope to talk about what makes Universal Language so special.

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Speaker 6: Some are Yeah, this was among the bits of homework that I did and didn't make the cut for me, but is in my top ten honorable mention and those were all my touch tones as well. Definitely thought about Roy Anderson, who was a significant part of a marathon that we did a few years back. Jarmish, Yes, Guy Madden with Winnipeg. One of the recurring jokes in the film is every time Winnipeg is mentioned, they keep suggesting that it's in Alberta, even though he keeps saying, no, it's Manitoba. And that's never really resolved. And you're right. I even did think about Wes Anderson in a couple of specific instances with shots or just lines, even just moments of humor that felt Andersonian one s not two s's right. So I was thinking about all of those filmmakers. But it certainly feels like Rankin is doing his own things. And even though I get why you call them vignettes, because especially early on, that's exactly what it feels like, it feels like they are very much separate. And I think that one of the strengths of this film. And I don't think this is anything away, because you certainly feel this or recognize the connection start to take hold pretty early on, you start to see that there is a connection, that there is connective tissue that is holding all of these stories together, and I think that's where it starts to really create some poignancy. So I'm with you on recommending universal language. A movie maybe available VOD across different platforms. I saw it on Canopy. I believe.

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Speaker 3: Okay, great, Yeah, the library online streaming service so perfect.

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Speaker 6: So the first one I'm going to mention is a movie we have given a full review too, and quite recently. I suppose I can say it's my number five choice. I had four that for sure we're going to make my list, and a lot of options contending for the fifth slot. I ultimately went Believe it or Not with Danny Boyles twenty eight years later, and this affords me an opportunity for a quick correction Holmes Spotting Family discord. This came up there A couple of users responded to my point that the men in this village they leave the island, it seems only to kill zombies and for no other practical reason, or at least the practical reason isn't the primary reason, And Joe Nielsen in the forum said, correct me. If I'm misremembering, but don't. They cut to a bunch of log trees at one point, and the father even says something like this is why we come out here, and Mac Johnson replied, yep, I think that's right. They have excursions to the mainland for resources like timber and need skilled hunters as protection. And I do remember a line at one point. I remember that line about hunters needing hunters, So I think Joe and Mac for that, they do need to venture out this journey though, And what Spike is ultimately being trained for certainly remains all about killing, and that's what they're celebrating upon his return. And for this show, this top five show, I looked at David Erlock's B plus Indie Wire review and curiously, Josh he commented, like we did, of course, on the iPhone visual aesthetic, the lo fi kind of bullet time zombie kill approach that Boyle took, and he responded to it the complete opposite way that we did. He suggested that Boyle actually ends up kind of fetishizing the zombie kill shots. It emphasizes the coolness, Erlik says, the coolness of each arrow to the neck. At the same time, the story begins to suggest that the infected might not be quite as mindless as they seem. We saw it differently, But then he says, this what the approach sacrifices and scares soon begins to make up for in that other, weirder kind of tension. Indeed, and with more earnest grace than any films have tried to humanize zombies before, echoing a point I raise and we discussed during our conversation twenty eight years later. Is increasingly preoccupied with the idea that the difference between us and them is only a matter of perspective. Honestly, I cringed at the movie's first indications that it was going to explore how the effectedd have evolved so boring, so far removed from the primitivism of the original. But Garland's script iterates on that concept in such radical and unexpected ways that I couldn't help but surrender to its potential. That's a great way to put it, I too, especially on further deeper contemplation of the film. I surrendered. I surrendered to the potential ramifications Josh that it raises. I surrendered to the potential I see for the rest of the series, and I'm waving the white flag so hard it surrendered that I am proclaiming it one of my films of the year. Not available vod or streaming yet, probably a couple months away, still it's one that is still available in theaters twenty eight years later.

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Speaker 3: Did not like it quite as much as you did, so didn't crack my top five, probably probably not my top ten either, But yeah, I loved what they were attempting with the movies, just stuffed with ideas, all of them and drinking. I wanted to since this is up coming up again, there's something I meant to ask you and didn't get a chance to. But in twenty eight weeks later, which we did as a bonus episode, we were wrong ones a bonus episode for our film spin and family members. I think one of the hiccups you talked about is the lack of logic to the kids there going out into the into town unaccompanied, and that whole sequence, did you because one hang up I had here with twenty eight years later, and usually I let this stuff go, but to me it was even more egregious and again new film. I'll dance among the details here, but more egregious the circumstances of Spike returning to the mainland. Did that I'm not saying it's a fatal flaw to the film, but did that trip you up at all? Just because it was kind of a mirror to what happened in twenty eight weeks?

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Speaker 6: It did? It did trip me up in the moment. I had a similar response. I may have actually even been sitting next to Film Spotting producer Sam van Halgren and said, oh, so this is just going to be a recurring thing with this series, right. But as I watched the rest of the film, and certainly as I thought about it more and how I tied that decision to the larger ideas of the film, I didn't see it as egregious. That's why I'll put it idly see it as egregious.

00:21:25
Speaker 3: I mean I let it go in weeks, so you should be able to let it go in years.

00:21:29
Speaker 6: All right, let's get to your next pick.

00:21:31
Speaker 3: I'm going to go with one of them days, which speaking of the Film Spotting family, this came up briefly because our recent bonus episode was on our top five performances of the year so far, and I talked about Keki Palmer raved about Kiki Palmer there here in one of them Days. She plays Drew, this hard working la waitress who is struggling to make ends meet no matter how many hours she puts in. And yeah, absolutely Palmer is the anchor of the film, but she's not the only reason the movie is on my top five list of the year so far. She's the steady pro who's making space for Sissa in her acting debut here as Drew's roommate Alyssa. These two together are just comic magic. They have these rat tat tat exchanges you can barely keep up with, but if you can follow them, there's a laugh every time they're turning to each other and saying something.

00:22:27
Speaker 7: For real, I am sorry. I wasn't trying to be.

00:22:35
Speaker 5: Because actually you're on time.

00:22:37
Speaker 10: I got off at seven, I got you good.

00:22:43
Speaker 2: And I still got you this.

00:22:50
Speaker 8: Yes, And I really shouldn't have done it because you're gonna blow up the bad doing.

00:22:53
Speaker 7: But don't worry about me. I'll be fine. Two kisses up to God, and I'm the trses that have to do with.

00:22:57
Speaker 3: Your Stomachus is not God Hills All things girl, you electors. What I like about their dynamic is it. It reveals that these two characters, Jreunalissa have a shared understanding of a couple of things each other, who they are as people, the community they're in, and then the larger world around them. And then this ties to the plot how the economy has been basically arranged against them. And so there is some sly social commentary here in one of them days, I think I love Kat Williams as this this profit of sorts who just hangs out lucky around the painting. Don't do it.

00:23:35
Speaker 6: It's a trap.

00:23:36
Speaker 10: You want alone.

00:23:38
Speaker 6: If you don't have the money this month, you're not gonna have it next month. Your my credit score is.

00:23:42
Speaker 3: Currently a little beyond those social commentary little jabs and nuggets. I think this is just consistently hilarious. So there is more to praise here that I'll hold off on just in case one of them days. I've got it right now slotted at number five. So depending on how great you know, the next couple of months are, it could fall off the top ten. But just in case it sticks around, I'll say more later.

00:24:06
Speaker 6: Yeah, one of them days, for me, this will be the choice of yours that I say, I just like I like One of Them Days. I definitely think it's worth seeing, and I definitely think it's worth seeing for those performances, especially Keeki Palmer, who is just undeniably a movie star and a great actress. It felt to me, even with its its satirical elements and with its humor and with enough little spins it puts on the formula, it's just formulaic enough. It hits all the familiar beats you know exactly it's going to hit, and it hits them precisely the moments you know it's going to hit them. That it didn't wow me maybe the way it did you. But again, those performances are great, and it is a very funny movie. So One of Them Days is a movie I also recommend. I think you said this, or if you didn't, I'll reiterate on Netflix.

00:24:59
Speaker 3: There you go, right therefore, Okay.

00:25:01
Speaker 6: My next choice is another one we gave a review to, and another one that you liked. You like this one more than twenty eight years later, but another film that you felt was maybe too stuffed with ideas, and it's Ryan Kugler's Sinners, the number one choice of the majority of our listeners. The headline to Angelica Jade Bastien's Vulture review is Sinners is bold, ambitious, and just misses greatness. Just missing greatness isn't something I'm going to quibble with, because the boldness and the ambitiousness are so great that while you can talk about the different genres and traditions that Sinners draws from, which we did to some extent in our review, what can you actually compare Sinners to Sinners feels singular and distinct from Coogler's other work On Letterbox, Angelica says it doesn't cohere, and I found the horror lacking of visceral quality it needed. But the film was bristling with rich ideas, dynamic performances, and one musical sequence that delineates the lineage of black music that touches cinematic transcendence. I don't have strong thoughts on the visceral quality of the horror, but we agree on the coherence. I brought that up. She's specifically referring to the scripts. She phrases it the script's inability to cohere once the true action is underway. I mentioned that I think once all hell breaks loose, then there is a lack of clarity when it comes to how all of that is stage That was really my only, or at least my primary hang up with the film. But she says, it's a film that got under my skin and continues to haunt my imagination, and I get that. I felt similarly when you can talk about a movie Josh haunting her imagination, bristling with rich ideas and having dynamic performances, and this one certainly does. Speaking of our bonus show that you mentioned our performances of the year Family episode, I singled out as you did one me Mosaku. I also talked about Hailey Steinfeld, Michael b Jordan, Delray Lindo, who has to be a Locke for a Best Supporting Actor nomination. All of that's significant, and I do share, obviously all those sentiments, including sharing the sentiment about that musical sequence at the core of the movie that she says touches cinematic transcendence. That is just one sequence, but that is the appropriate register to be in that I think the movie demands you to be in when you're trying to describe what Coogler is reaching for with Sinners, and more often than not, what he achieves or comes close to achieving with sinners, and I'm rewarding him for that. That's why it's on my list.

00:27:57
Speaker 7: You keep dancing with the devil, one day he is going to follow you home.

00:28:17
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think I'm with Angelica on the just missing greatness. I've got it on my top ten so far. It's at I think at number eight. It's a It's a can't miss film of the year, absolutely, and you know you're right in that. It's hard to say what movie is this like? But I do want to just throw out there, and I think I might have mentioned this at some point, not in our review proper, but at some other point. Two thousand and six is Idlewild, just because it's a movie I love that has kind of gotten forgotten to history. It's a period musical featuring the hip hop dual Outcast and set in nineteen thirties Georgia, and it speak easy, so doesn't have that horror element at all.

00:28:57
Speaker 6: The narrative empires.

00:28:58
Speaker 3: There are no vampires, so maybe maybe a few less swings than Coogler takes, but man, the effervescent spirit, the musicality definitely it shares in commons. So a great overlooked movie to catch up on Idlewild if you are as we are big fans of Sinners.

00:29:19
Speaker 6: Sinners available vod if you haven't seen it yet.

00:29:22
Speaker 3: All right, let's go with my number two of the year so far, and this is one we didn't review together, but I did talk about on the show earlier. It is a Golden Brick nominee at this point, and it's Grand Theft Hamlet. This is the documentary consisting entirely of footage from inside Grand Theft Auto Online, the open world video game. Basically, during the pandemic, two out of work actors in the UK, Sam Crane, Mark Ostervin, they came up with this idea to put on a version of Hamlet right within the game. So they held auditions with other players strangers, they led rehearsals, and then they allultimately did stage a complete performance.

00:30:02
Speaker 5: We are putting on a production of Hamlet, did GTA online for the first time ever.

00:30:08
Speaker 11: We are looking for actors.

00:30:09
Speaker 7: So I'm an audition.

00:30:11
Speaker 3: Please try to stop us.

00:30:12
Speaker 9: Stop.

00:30:15
Speaker 3: Oh they got me. I didn't know what to expect going into this. Adam kind of just checked it out out of pure curiosity and figured it'd be something an experiment that maybe I thought was interesting and then forgot. This thing renewed my faith in humanity, just the sense of community and camaraderie that was able to be formed within this online context. So I'm going to go with a quote from a critic here to bolster my pick. It's from the great Amy Nicholson. She's got a wonderful review of Grand Theft Hamlet in the Los Angeles Times, and she did touch on one of the things I appreciated about the way the doc merges high art and low art. So here's here's Amy Nicholson paired alongside Shakespeare's lines about grunting and sweating under a weary life. Even the non playable background extras seem imbued with a soul. And so yeah, there is one There is one scene in particular that captures that. That was where I was like, am I really responding to this movie the way I feel like I'm responding? And yeah, it was a powerful watch. If you have not seen Grand Theft Hamlet and you're a movie subscriber, you're lucky because it's streaming there right now.

00:31:33
Speaker 6: And I think it's worth pointing out if you are an Amazon Prime number, there may be other ways but if you're an Amazon Prime number, you can start your movie subscription with a seven day trial, So that's another way to see Grand Theft Hamlet. That is another film that I saw in preparation for this list and kind of just miss my list. Josh, It's in my top ten, so an honorable mention.

00:31:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was curious to hear what you thought of it.

00:31:57
Speaker 6: It's a must it's a must see film of the year, and it does have contenders for some of the most moving moments of the year. But there are certainly going to be one or two contenders for funniest moments of the year from this film, and I didn't expect I maybe didn't expect either of those that it would be as funny or as moving as it is. But just in terms of the artistry, the potential artistry of the world that's created, and the control that the artists have, that the filmmakers have over that world and what they could stage, what they could actually control within the world staging this play really kind of astounded me.

00:32:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, good, I'm so glad you had that reaction. And to that point about control and how they formed this material, I should note that Crane's partner of filmmaker Penny Grills joined them in the game as a character, and then her avatar basically recorded a lot of that footage. So she's definitely a crucial creat component to Grand Theft Hamlet.

00:33:02
Speaker 6: Okay, my next pick is a film that you recommended previously on the show, but I hadn't seen it at that point, so we didn't get to have a full discussion about it. And I know, you know, coming off what I just said about Sinners, if you call too many things singular, it loses its meaning or weakens it's meaning, certainly, But what else Josh is like vulcan Issidora the new film, the latest film from Joel petrichis And I know from our bonus show, the Family Bonus Show, that some people didn't really understand what I was saying. Vulcan. It's one word, Vulcan, like spock v U l C A N. And then Isidora is z A d O r A vulcan E'sidora or you can look up Joel patrichis p O t R y kus. We talked about his film. I think he was a Golden Brick contender for Buzzard back in twenty fourteen. Yes, this movie could go on a list with movies like Kelly Reikert's Old Joy, even maybe Good one from last year, which was a top ten movie for you movies. There are others men on camping trips, struggling to connect as friends or find meaning in their lives. At least you think that's what this movie might be before you realize that you just have to give yourself over to Petrychis and let the writer director be your twisted guide on this mysterious journey through a Michigan forest, following these guys as they carry out some kind of packed and Patrychis here is not just a writer director. He is also co starring along with Joshua Burge, who was the star of twenty fourteen's Buzzer. This is in that same universe. Burge is playing the same character he played then, Marty Jacketanski. Petrycas is playing the same character he played in Buzzer, Derek, though I think a much small I can't remember, I'll admit from Buzzard it's been a long time. The chances of either actor getting any attention from critics or awards groups at the end of the year is nil. Which I think is unfortunate because the tightrope walk of annoying energy and fearful anxiety that Petrychis performs is so good, and it's matched by Burges's alienation and pain.

00:35:26
Speaker 3: You still owe me money for what I paid your bail that was seven hundred bucks and said, you pay me back and if you don't go to your court thing, I'm not gonna get that back.

00:35:36
Speaker 6: Well I'm not going to court.

00:35:38
Speaker 3: Well, then you owe me money. Man, you don't get it.

00:35:42
Speaker 6: The money doesn't matter anymore. The Jaeger Grail doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters anymore.

00:35:50
Speaker 3: I know that.

00:35:54
Speaker 7: Still seven hundred bucks.

00:35:56
Speaker 6: Though Bulcanesidora is at times discomfitingly hilarious but also deeply affecting, This is a fundamentally sad, sad movie, and I mean that as a compliment. You actually, Josh, have the second highest score for this movie your review on Metacritic. So I decided to ignore you and go to the one above it, pulling from the New York Times to validate my take. I think this is Jeanette Ketsulis. When everyone thinks you're a no count, then nothing you do can ever count. Patrichis, though an inveterate hand to mouth practitioner, persists in treating the lost and the left behind as if they matter, and his signature empathy is pronounced here spasmodically funny. The hardly a comedy, Vulcani Zadora is raw, moving and briefly horrifying, and honestly it had me. It had me from the opening shot of the two guys just walking down the road heading off to the forest, walking to death metal. I was like, I'm in.

00:37:03
Speaker 3: I'm sure, I mean death metal and you're already you know, you already saw Yeah.

00:37:07
Speaker 6: I love obviously, I love this film, and actually I have this as my number one film of the year right now. I think it's that good. I really hope people seek it out. And I think when they hear things like sad, and they hear things like briefly horrifying, there may be going to be a little bit put off. I was a little bit nervous going into the theater to watch it after hearing you talk about it on the show. The disturbing element to it just is not as disturbing as I feared it would be, at least my expectation going in it's not. It's not a Saw movie. It's not a movie that's going to overwhelm you with something grotesque. Sure it's not, but it is it is going to ask you to invest in something that is that is a little bit hard to consider. That's the way I'll put it. But it is a very smart movie and it is, as I said, a very sad movie, but in a very mature way, in an a poignant way. And I just really hope more people will give this movie a look.

00:38:14
Speaker 3: Josh Well, in the most disturbing element, which we won't spoil, I would describe it's not the point of the film. It's the folkrum. And I think that's part of the reason why you know it's distinct from something like a Saw movie, is it's not why we're there. And you know, I probably mentioned this when I did review it, but just to your point about how rough of a watch is it, I do think I wrote about it as outsider cinema, and by that I mean it's not a cinema about outsiders, which may be buzzard. I would have described as the first time we met this Joshua Bird character, Marty Jacketanski, you know, following this guy who seems on the margins of society in aggressive ways. Vulcan Esadora doubles down on that to become not about outsiders, but in outsider work. Because the movie itself is pugnacious. It's it's these are This is a movie that's understandably ostracized. Maybe that's why it's not getting as many viewers or as much praise as it deserves. But if it were any less accommodating, it wouldn't be itself. And so yeah, but it is worth pushing through the hesitation that listeners might have. Absolutely I agree with you there. It's on my top ten of the year so far.

00:39:32
Speaker 6: Right now, well, let's get then to our final two choices. These are our two shared choices, and Josh, you can take your pick. Which one do you want to start with?

00:39:40
Speaker 3: So let's start with Black Bag. You know, Steven Soderberg's marriage minded spyflick. It got a full review on the show, Adam, but I was raving about it without you, the Sodaberg fan on this show. I did go into my reasons in detail. Had a good conversation with guest co host Roxanna Hadadi, a Vulture. All that's to say, I've been waiting for this episode because I want to hear in full. We've touched on Black Bag and Passing. I know you like it, but I want to hear a little bit more about you know what you like about this one. I said, this was the most excited I've been about a Soderberg movie in thirteen years and took me back to like Magic. Mike, just describe myself as a Sodaberg normy. You know, his more mainstream stuff is what I tend to go for, and this is definitely in that vein. But yeah, as I said, you're much more of the Sodaburg devotee than I am. I know you're a fan of Black Bag, tell me more and just tell me kind of where it does rink among his work for you.

00:40:38
Speaker 6: It hasn't even been a great year. It's been a great half year for us Sodaberg heads, the truly committed we never gave up hope and he's delivered too. I think, two really wonderful films.

00:40:51
Speaker 3: I am a fan of Presence as well.

00:40:53
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, in this first half of the year. And how about David Kep writing the screenplay for Backbag Redemption I'm going to say a bigger I'm a bigger fan of this script than I am of the last film of his we discussed, which was Jurassic Park Rebirth.

00:41:07
Speaker 3: Oh last on a winning streak. As far as I'm concerned.

00:41:10
Speaker 6: I know, I know this is a legitimately sexy film, and I was gonna say despite, but I know you've got a great line here, maybe because of how monogamous the central couple is. And as one of my favorite, well maybe my favorite character in the film, as Clarissa says, my god, that's hot, and there are those moments that really sizzle in the movie, Marisa Abela gives one of my favorite scene stealing turns of the year. It's sexy, it's sleek, it's suspenseful, Monica Castillo. She sums it up nicely in her four star review for Roger Ebert dot Com, and she makes a connection that perhaps helps explain why I went so hard for this movie. She says, in a spiritual sense, Black Bag shares some DNA with the simmering tension of Soderbrook's excellent romantic crime drama Out of Sight, in which a US federal marshall Jennifer Lopez falls under the spell Wayward Criminal with the Heart of Gold George Clooney. But in Black Bag, the sexual chemistry between Fastbender and Blanchette feels like a tango, smooth and sharp, gliding across the floor with nothing to break the concentration on each other's eyes. Yet the speed of the dialogue feels closer to that of a screwball comedy. Every conversation is a test of wills and smarts, a tennis match between players who think they're each at the top of their game, but as we've seen many times, only one player goes home the winner.

00:42:25
Speaker 3: Have you ever physically assaulted a significant other during an argument?

00:42:29
Speaker 5: Oh?

00:42:30
Speaker 8: You know?

00:42:30
Speaker 10: I have?

00:42:32
Speaker 3: Again? Yes or no?

00:42:35
Speaker 6: Yes, enthusiastically every scene in this film, Josh opens up new layers, new possibilities. And I don't know how many films in the espionage genre you can say this about. It's more coward than La Car A Black Bag favors penetrating parlor conversations, over rousing car chase and exotic covert operations. Think about it. Any scene you might consider a set piece in this film, or if I just asked you give me your top three or four favorite slash most exciting scenes in this film, I guarantee you, and if we pulled most people who have seen this film, there's really nothing else to consider. All the choices would be two or more people in a room with at least one table and people sitting around them. Right, there's in terms of conventional spy stuff. Right, there's like one handoff, which is pretty brief and I don't recall exactly, but we might only experience that head off through a screen. I don't know if we actually even ever see it or experience it the way the characters actually do were detached through that screen. So there's none of that conventional spy stuff. It is all like parlor drama conversations and yet riveting MH.

00:43:59
Speaker 3: Scene of the year stuff. One of those conversations, as far as I'm concerned. So where does it land? Is it like top tier? Would you say it's top tier?

00:44:07
Speaker 6: Oh? You know you're asking me that, And maybe you can vamp a little bit or give me some more of your thoughts on it while I look it up, because I do think that I added it to my Soderberg ranked list, and I'm fairly high. But Soderbergh for me is I don't. I don't put him in the same category or hold him in the same esteem as the Kohen brothers, but I do like so many of his films that I wouldn't be surprised if I have Black Bag in like eleventh place, Josh, but I still really like it.

00:44:40
Speaker 3: I guess that's why I asked the tier question, like, you know, do you do you consider it like in that upper tier? Is it like the one right below it? Because yeah, the Cohen's or you know, Pta or Wes Anderson are similar examples where there's like the masterpiece tier and then there's the great films tier. So yeah, for me, I mean it goes back to my e my idea of me being a Soderberg normy, like I really go for something like Contagion or even Solaris, which I know is a remake of Tarkovski but is also a George Clooney space vehicle, and the other stuff of his that I really really like is the more conventional stuff, even though overall I like his films, like I'm overall positive on him, but yeah, this is definitely top tier for me.

00:45:30
Speaker 6: Okay, I'm looking at my list. It turns out I haven't updated it. It would definitely be at minimum, it would be in twelfth place because right now I have his twenty twenty two film Kimmy in twelfth place, and I like black Bag more than Kimmy, and I liked Kimmy a fair amount, but I do like black Bag more. So then it would be a conversation a contest between Black Bag and the first Magic Mic from twenty twelve for that eleventh spot right there. So we're getting into some good territory. Whensoutely looking at that top eleven, I've got some masterpieces out of Sight Traffic Solaris or masterpiece adjacent Traffic Solaris, Sexualize and Videotape, the Limey Oceans eleven. That's that top five.

00:46:16
Speaker 3: Absolutely, it's not there. It's not about top five. Out of Sight for me is in its own category, and Black Bag is the one right below that. So really really good film.

00:46:24
Speaker 6: I'm not quite willing to go there, but it's certainly hovering right around that top ten. So let's get to the other film that we have in common. We believe it is one of the top five films of the year so far. I said no one would come up with this combo of black bag in this movie, partly because they definitely haven't heard me talk about this movie, and as we're recording this anyway, I haven't even logged it on letterbox. So people who are really paying attention to our comings and goings as far as viewing, would not expect me to have put this movie on the list. But I saw this film and obviously was pretty blown away.

00:47:04
Speaker 3: On becoming a guinea foul. I am so glad it worked for you as well as it did for me. Adam, I've got I've got it write at number three, so behind Universal Language and Grand Theft Hamlet, but right up there as one of the best of the year. What'd you love about it?

00:47:19
Speaker 6: Well, first I did, after the fact, of course, go to my notes from I Am Not a Witch, which was part of a marathon a few years ago, Rangano Nioni's debut film, and it's not a film I remember vividly, I remember quite liking. And then you look at the notes and you see things like the main character named Shula, and you see bodies, dead bodies, and you see police involvement, and I see things in my notes like stuck in the past, progress stunted, wrestling with modernity, wrestling with identity, oppression, blame for your troubles. And then I also see a character described you know, power that comes from her stillness, and I'm like, okay, So there are definitely some connections between these two films. And I know you talked about Susan Chardie, who is the lead in this film, when we were talking about our performances in that bonus content. She went right to the top, Josh, of my best actress list. And it is a performance where she starts the film very detached, disconnected. You don't know why. I could see some people watching the performance and thinking it isn't giving you much. I think what is under the surface is always there. It feels like a very smart and a very emotional performance, even when it doesn't seem to be the case that she is giving you a lot. I think she's always giving you something behind those eyes and that face again, even when she's just being very, very still. And this is an debut, we should note, is it really Oh?

00:49:05
Speaker 3: I didn't know astonishing for that right.

00:49:07
Speaker 6: And I'll throw it back to you here. But the way I thought about this film, the reason why it had to be in my top five is other than maybe Soderberg working in a very different milieu and having so much more practice at this, if you will, I didn't have another film this year where I felt that the director was more assured and more confident in their vision, or I.

00:49:34
Speaker 3: Couldn't see that. I mean, you could say Kogler, except at least to my eyes, it's almost like his ambition was so clearly. He's a director capable of control, but his ambition is almost too went beyond the control. But yeah, I would agree Niona here, like every frame is doing exactly what she wants it to do and serving exactly the ideas that her movie contains.

00:49:59
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, the intentionality of those choices, the motivation behind when she's handheld versus static shots, it's not like it has one consistent esthetic, nor does it need to. There's handheld there's static shots, there's low angles, there's eye level shots. Sometimes very occasionally there's jump cuts and they're very effective. Sometimes there's longer takes. Sometimes she uses the score to raise tensions. Sometimes sometimes even there's terror, legitimate sort of terror in a scene that the score amplifies. And then there are other moments and this is another connection, though it's not as pronounced. Another connection to I am not a witch. There are moments of fantasy and flashback or a sort of dream like reality that push their way into reality. On becoming a guinea fowl is a reckoning and none proves to be a force as a filmmaker.

00:50:57
Speaker 3: Yeah. To add to the praise, I looked up some reviews and want to quote here our friend Robert Daniels, critic here in Chicago, who reviewed the movie out of can actually for rogeriebert dot com. He called it a magically transcendent, cunningly funny, and a resting piece of cultural commentary that pits the inequalities of tradition against the warmth community can still on occasions provide. And I think Robert captures the ambivalence experienced by the main character in those words. So really glad you went for this one as much as I did. It looks like if you have a Max subscription you can watch it there. Otherwise it is available for rent on a variety of other streaming platforms.

00:51:44
Speaker 6: Well, I don't know if we totally pulled off being concise those are I.

00:51:49
Speaker 3: Think we did better than a full standard top five.

00:51:53
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, a little better. Those are our top five films of the year so far. If you would like to see that full list, you can view it at film spotting dot net slash lists. Josh, we have both given a few titles sprinkled throughout that are honorable mentions. Do you want to reiterate those titles and any others that we haven't thrown out?

00:52:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll just give you a countdown here and I'll start at number one with the ones we've already talked about Universal Language in the top spot. Then Grand Theft Hamlet, followed by On Becoming a Guinea Foul black Bag at number four, and One of Them Days at number five. So a couple titles that have come up and some that haven't at number six Mickey seventeen. I am a big fan of the Bong Juneo film from this year, Sorry Baby, which is another Golden Brick nominee we recently discussed. Sinners is at eight, Volcani Zadora is at nine and hanging on there Adam the ten slot. Megan two point zero. I had so much fun with that movie.

00:52:56
Speaker 6: So in my six through ten no ranking, hear the ones that have been mentioned. Grand Theft Hamlet, presence, universal language. The two that haven't been mentioned on a recent show, maybe the twenty eight years later show I sang the praises of Alex Ross Perry's quite ambitious documentary about the band Pavement. It's called Pavements and a film. This is another one that really has grown the more I've thought about it, And after I watched it, I almost couldn't fall asleep because I kept thinking about it. Moments, motivations, just the mysteries of this film. Miseracordia Josh is a fascinating film from the director of Stranger by the Lake, which we might have given a few minutes too, I remember liking. Otherwise, definitely haven't seen all of his work, but a film that I do encourage people to see. So that rounds out my list my honorable mentions of the films of the year so far. Again, you can check out all those picks at filmspotting dot net slash lists.

00:54:02
Speaker 3: Listening is the number one thing you can do to support an independently produced show like ours. A couple more things you can do. Take a minute to give us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can do this even if you're brand new to the show, share your first impressions, or if you've been around for twenty years, why haven't you done this yet? Every new review does help us reach new listeners. So this is usually the spot where we feature a member of the film Spotting family. But this week we're going to share a couple of voice messages that listeners submitted ahead of film Spotting fests. That was back in March, and we want to highlight a few of these. Over the course of our twentieth anniversary year, we did offer a few potential prompts relationship with the show, Favorite episode, Favorite Memory. Here are a couple of longtime listeners and their messages.

00:54:52
Speaker 9: I have think Spotting congratulation for twenty years of word podcasting. This is awful. Liber Gal from tele listening since twenty sixteen. You know around there, life can sometime be like a film Spotting pool. Deeply flawed, call impassable, and the vote goes the wrong way. But even if I feel isolated from the situation and the people around me, I know I will feel it home when I would listen to your podcast. For me, film Spotting is not just great film criticism. It's also values because to its conversation you bring kindness, respect and trying to understand the other point of view even if you disagree, even if you don't like the movies. Thank you for that and for everything you do.

00:55:47
Speaker 10: Hello, Film Spotting twentieth This is Ben Kohler coming to you from a parking lot in New Jersey. And even though I'm from New Jersey, i am perhaps more notorious as a member of the New York Trivius Spotting Mafia. And I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. For eighteen years, I've been listening to you guys since two thousand and seven. The Across the Universe episode was my first episode when I was thirteen years old, and I am now soon to be thirty one years old. You guys are one of the more consistent relationships in my life over that time period, and I want to thank you, of course for all the unbelievable insightful film content in the last eighteen years, but maybe most importantly, my favorite film spotting memory thing whatever is that you guys, through Trivia Spotting specifically, were the catalyst for me meeting some of my best friends in the entire world. Talking about the CFFS in New York, as well as people from Chicago, people from New England, people out in La you guys as well. Getting to meet you guys a few times has been amazing.

00:56:53
Speaker 7: I feel so.

00:56:54
Speaker 10: Lucky to count you guys as people that I'm knowing in my life as post just listening to. I want to thank you for all that, as well as a great film content. In the last eighteen years, you have taught me to see other people's points, which I've been always uh usually wicked as good at him. Thank you guys so much. Here's the twenty more years. The world may crumble, but film Spotting will live.

00:57:20
Speaker 6: Ben Kohler a listener we know very well from Trivia Spotting, and also I've had many in person meetings. Not only is he mentioned at some different festivals or some different live shows and meetups over the years, but also from Trivia Spotting. And then oh for Josh is someone we feel like we know very well from all those virtual events like Trivia Spotting.

00:57:42
Speaker 3: Which for him I believe is taking place in the middle of the night or close to the end.

00:57:46
Speaker 6: Yeah, in the early hours of the morning.

00:57:47
Speaker 3: It's crease there quite often.

00:57:51
Speaker 6: Yeah, and how about the phrasing they're talking about you know where he's living, and it can feel deeply flawed, like a Film Spotting poll. The talking about what he values about the show, just wonderful stuff. Thank you so much for taking the time over and for valuing the show the way you do. It does mean a lot to us. Ben of course a member of the Trivia Spotting Mafia. Ben of course a member of the Trivia Spotting New York Mafia, as he noted. And the cff's there. That's a reference to the Kohler family friends as they refer to themselves. That's an inside joke there, and Ben had some kind words as well. We'll feature a few more of those over the coming weeks. In addition to keeping us doing what we're doing, your support comes with perks. You get to listen early in ad free, you get our weekly newsletter, you get exclusive opportunities, including being part of the Film Spotting Family discord such a great group over there, and you get our monthly bonus shows. In June we referenced it a ton during the top five Right performances of the year so far, some extra content, and in July we are going to do another installment of We Were Wrong Once some Cone Brothers action, a movie I have referenced multiple times over the past five or ten years. Movie I have said I badly need to revisit and reappraise because I was not a big fan of it, and it is Josh one of only two Cone Brothers films. Now I do have one Cone Brother's blind Spot. I still have not seen The Lady Killers. I'm not a completist, but otherwise there are only two Cone Brothers films I have not given at least three stars to not given the Little Heart to on letterboxed and they are intolerable Cruelty and Burn after reading, much to the chagrin of many film spotting listeners.

00:59:45
Speaker 3: That makes sense because both are in the farce vein. I would say, yeah, I am a fan of Burn after reading, but the last time I saw it it still stayed in that lower tier. As we've been talking about Tears of Cohen Brothers, so positive but maybe not appreciative enough. I don't know. We'll have to see if this revisit bumps it up on that ranking or not.

01:00:10
Speaker 7: I do know.

01:00:10
Speaker 3: I'm just looking forward to Gigglane a lot, so that'll be worth.

01:00:14
Speaker 6: It, hopefully it will be. If you would like to hear that show. And you're not already a Film Spotting Family member, please join us. You can learn everything you need to know at Filmspottingfamily dot com.

01:00:30
Speaker 10: Are you being serious right now?

01:00:33
Speaker 3: Yeah?

01:00:35
Speaker 6: You'd let me interview you as Superman?

01:00:37
Speaker 9: Sure?

01:00:43
Speaker 3: Ready, let's do it. Cronkite Superman, Miss Lane.

01:00:50
Speaker 6: Clark, Lois Lex. They're all back in James Gunn's Superman, which hits theaters this weekend. I'm told there's also a dog.

01:00:59
Speaker 3: Josh is a dog which I don't think is a spoiler, featured.

01:01:03
Speaker 6: Prominently the trailer, in one of.

01:01:05
Speaker 3: The trailers, and yeah, I saw this last night. If you'tra firm there's a.

01:01:11
Speaker 6: Dog, you've you've filed your review already. I may have been on your site earlier today, Larson on film dot com to look something up and senior review and you are just not these days a James gun guy.

01:01:29
Speaker 3: We'll discuss next week.

01:01:31
Speaker 6: Okay, we will discuss next week. We'll have a review of Superman. And so far anyway, we're sticking to this top five. We're gonna try to show Superman some love, even Josh. We're gonna share our top five Superman moments. Josh may go back to George Reeves for his top five.

01:01:46
Speaker 3: We'll see come on, Christopher Reeve is great.

01:01:49
Speaker 6: Okay For a schedule of future shows subject to change, but you can view it film spotting dot Net click on episodes.

01:01:58
Speaker 7: Are you gonna bark all day, Little Doggie? Or are you gonna bite?

01:02:05
Speaker 5: What was that?

01:02:09
Speaker 7: I'm sorry I didn't catch it. Would you repeat it? Are you gonna bark all day? Little Doggies?

01:02:18
Speaker 6: Or are you gonna bite? Who else? Mister Blonde? The late Michael Madson with Harvey Kaitel and Reservoir Dogs. The Chicago born Madison died last weekend. He was sixty seven years old. We wanted to pay a little tribute. He has credits going back to the early eighties. I do remember him very vividly. War Games is a movie I was obsessed with as a kid. Watched it a hundred times, and he's in the prologue at the beginning. I don't even think his character has a name, but there's a prologue where there's a nuclear launch sequence and the other guy in the sequence is actually Leo McGarry. John Spencer from the West wing and Michael Maddene and John Spencer's character doesn't want to do his job and press the button, and Michael Madsen's character gets his gun out to try to force him to press the button. And that's that's the end of the sequence.

01:03:14
Speaker 3: Sir, we are at launch.

01:03:15
Speaker 6: Turn your keys are produces, Turn your key, sir. It's intense.

01:03:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, you were locked in.

01:03:22
Speaker 6: I was. He's bumped Bailey in the Natural, another movie I was obsessed with in the eighties. Then we got to the nineties where he was in the Doors and Thelma and Louis. Of course, it's the Tarantino stuff in addition to Donnie Brasco. It's the Tarantino stuff like Kill Bill Volume one and two and The Hateful Eight and Once upon a Time in Hollywood, where I think he did some of his best work.

01:03:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know the thing about Madson that comes to mind for me, And maybe this isn't evidenced in war Games, but curiously I think it is in Reservoir Dogs. Despite the brutality of that famous sequence, somehow Madson had a softness to his presence, and while it was also intimidating and could be brooding and violent, there. There was just a little tinge of that he brought that made him distinct, and I think, does you know lodge some of these performances in our memory?

01:04:16
Speaker 6: Yeah, Rip Michael Madison, Josh, would you like to say a few more words about your upcoming event August eleventh through fourteen at the Cisco Film Center in Chicago.

01:04:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to keep banging the drum for this. Tickets are still available, they are available now, but it is Cinema interrupt Us The Player, And I did read the book Adham. I know you tease me for this, wanting to read the book version. I actually it actually when you're approved way this time. When I read Michael Tolkien's novel this summer, and some fascinating differences. Even though Tolkien wrote the screenplay for The Player, you got a wonder and so my research maybe I'll dig some of this up. Whether it was Altman's hand moving that in another direction. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but very interesting and it's probably one of the things we'll touch on, you know, not spend a ton of time on, but we'll touch on with interrupt Us. We've got four days to do it, as I've described this is four days of communal film criticism. So we're going to watch the player and It's entirety on August eleven, and then return the next day and spend three days going through it seen by scene. Anyone can shout stop and ask a question, make a comment. Maybe there will be some other folks who have read the novel and want to weigh in on that. So if you can't make it for all four days, you can still drop in for one day and buy a single day ticket. Of course, there are four day packages available to Ciscofilmcenter dot org slash interruptus if you want to pick some of those up.

01:05:55
Speaker 6: Let's call a hope of some lucky brace.

01:05:58
Speaker 7: Hope.

01:05:59
Speaker 11: It is not a strategy anything else, Professor try Fast.

01:06:04
Speaker 3: This week on our sister podcast, The Next Picture Show, looking at Cinema's present via its past, they have a new pairing F one, the movie. I think we both still need to catch up with this.

01:06:14
Speaker 6: Oh no, Josh, oh, come on.

01:06:16
Speaker 8: Oh.

01:06:16
Speaker 6: I said I had Top five Films of Year homework to do, and I did a lot of it. I made it to F one.

01:06:22
Speaker 3: The only thing I want to know about it?

01:06:24
Speaker 6: Uh huh?

01:06:25
Speaker 3: Is it better than the film The Next Picture Show. Folks are pairing it with Adam McCay's Talladega Knights, one of the shining moments in John c Riley's career, obviously Will Ferrell's career. Who else am I? Who else am I? Forgetting? Who's Who's so great in that?

01:06:44
Speaker 7: Is it?

01:06:44
Speaker 3: Leslie bib Borat? Of course? Oh my gosh, yes.

01:06:49
Speaker 7: Of course?

01:06:49
Speaker 3: And his dad? Who's Who's Who's his dad?

01:06:52
Speaker 7: Again?

01:06:53
Speaker 6: I am blanking at the moment, Josh, I'm sorry.

01:06:56
Speaker 3: Cole Cole last name is Cole? Anyways? Which is better at them? Talladega Knights or F one.

01:07:03
Speaker 6: I'm gonna go Talladega Knights, though I like F one. I like F one. It delivered exactly what I expected it too. So no, didn't make my top five, didn't make my top ten. I'm not sure it's in my top fifteen, Josh. But it delivered exactly what I thought it would. It's, you know, Maverick and top Gun in a Formula One car, even though we already got Maverick or top Gun anyway in a NASCAR vehicle that was called Days of Thunder. So this is just with a bigger budget in a faster car in or on more exotic tracks.

01:07:39
Speaker 3: All right, there you go, Gary Cole play Bob. So some of these synepsi's are still are still firing. New episodes of the Next Picture Show drop every Tuesday. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Listen, man, call me you everybody else? Does you okay?

01:08:02
Speaker 8: You?

01:08:03
Speaker 3: Yes, sir?

01:08:04
Speaker 6: I always used to have trouble with my name too, but Dusky always wanted to call me badass.

01:08:15
Speaker 11: Badass.

01:08:17
Speaker 6: Time for another deeply flawed film spotting poll question, and this one might be because the answer apparently is too obvious. Jack Nicholson there with Otis Young in nineteen seventy Three's the last detail. In a couple of weeks, we are planning to share our top five Jack Nicholson scenes. The last detail I think was some homework for you, Josh. I know you checked it out recently.

01:08:41
Speaker 3: It was homework, and I am so glad that it was. I really went for the last detail. I'll save any further comments about Nicholson and at four that's top five list when we get to it.

01:08:53
Speaker 6: I haven't seen the last detail since I was an undergrad in college watching it on a VHS tape they need to rectify.

01:09:01
Speaker 3: Do for a revisit?

01:09:03
Speaker 6: Yeah, along with that top five, we'll have a Pantheon Project review of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. That is a VHS tape we almost wore out, believe it or not. In college. For some reason, my roommates and I loved to watch One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.

01:09:18
Speaker 3: Right, you guys were just bumping against the system. Were taken up with any of that crap?

01:09:22
Speaker 6: Yeah? Yeah, maybe. So that movie turns fifty this year. So our poll question asks you to choose one and only one Nicholson performance Josh give them the options.

01:09:35
Speaker 3: Billy Badass, s Badski that's from the last detail, Jake Gettis from Chinatown, the Joker in Batman, Randall, Patrick McMurphy in Cuckoo's Nest, and Jack Torrance the Shining You can write in with another choice and vote other because there are many many.

01:09:52
Speaker 6: Others having peaked at the results so far, and admittedly the pole just went up this show. People are just now hearing it, so a lot of votes still to come in, but it does seem like we probably should have said pick just one. Jack Nicholson performance. That isn't r P. McMurphy and one flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. That would have been a more interesting poll question because he is running away with it.

01:10:23
Speaker 3: Wow, And see I would have thought get us in Chinatown might have been another likely options. So yeah, Cuckoo's Nest still sticking around and being fans of the film and his performance.

01:10:35
Speaker 6: You can vote in that poll and leave the comment at filmspotting dot net.

01:10:40
Speaker 5: Uh, look at I put in a good word for you with Sheldrek and personnel, mister Sheldreck. That's right. We were discussing our department, man pow Wise promotion wise. I told him, what a bright boy yard. They're always on the lookout for young executives. Thank you. You're on your way up, buddy boy.

01:10:53
Speaker 7: You're also out of liquor.

01:10:55
Speaker 6: Oh I know. Mister Eichelberger mortgage a lone department.

01:10:57
Speaker 5: Last night he had a little Halloween party.

01:10:59
Speaker 6: All right, buddy boy, let's get to the apartment. That's Jack Lemmon with David Lewis's Mister Kirkabee in Billy Wilder's The Apartment. The movie turned sixty five this year. That film has been in the film spotting Pantheon since twenty ten when we concluded a Billy Wilder Marathon by naming it the best picture, which doesn't necessarily mean it's the best Billy Wilder movie. A lot of strong contenders there. We should say, you weren't my co host yet when we did that Wilder Marathon, Josh, which is why we are talking about The Apartment this week. We are calling it our Pantheon project been going on for roughly a year or so and is going to go on. I think it's scheduled until around twenty twenty eight, where we're picking these anniversaries or different milestones for these films, taking every movie that's in the pantheon, and we're trying to make sure that we have an in depth discussion on the books between me and you. So even though the Apartment has been talked about before in the show's history, this is now the two of us partaking in a conversation about this classic film.

01:12:10
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty eight also when I finally get access to my own draft picks back, so that's going to be a big year, Adam. The Apartment came to theaters in the summer of nineteen sixty Jack Lemon had already appeared, and while there's some like it hot, I think maybe for me. While there's Best Picture, I don't know. That was just the year before, and he was OSCAR nominated in it. Here Lemon plays C. C. Baxter, corporate drone who hopes to increase his odds of climbing the ladder career wise at the Consolidated Life insurance company by letting company executives use his upper west side apartment for their extramarital affairs. Surely McLean's fran Kubalik is an elevator operator at Consolidated Life who has a bad habit of dating lousey men, some married men, including one of those Consolidated execs. The Apartment won the Best Picture Oscar in nineteen sixty one. Wilder won his second Best Director Oscar. It was his eighth and final directing nomination. Lemon and McLain both nominated for Oscars, as was Wilder's screenplay, which he wrote with longtime writing partner i Al Diamond. Adam, you love the apartment. I love the apartment. Everybody loves the apartment. Why do we love it still? Sixty five years later?

01:13:29
Speaker 6: Because great filmmaking is timeless. Direction, sure, writing performances. The core ideas and themes of this movie, though, I think, are also timeless, which we'll start digging into here in a moment. But play along with me for a second. I was thinking about this earlier today, Josh, and I was thinking, sure, that can be true everything I just said, But of course you still would have to acknowledge that the movie feels like a product of its time. And maybe this will backfire on me, but eliminating thing like, no, nobody's using a computer or is texting. Can you think of something glaring, just off the top of your head, Can you think of something glaring that positions this movie as a relic of the mid twentieth century? What comes to mind?

01:14:17
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, yeah, relic. No, that's why we're talking about it now, because it's not I don't think, aside from any cultural or sets or props or costume design or those things that are period specific, I don't think so. And sure I can say more about that in terms of its endurance, but yeah, I think to your basic answer to your question is no, it doesn't feel like a relic at all.

01:14:43
Speaker 6: Well, that's where I'm going though even in terms of props or those other material aspects, the only clear one for me was thinking about watching the operators connect the phone lines in those couple scenes that consolidated life. Okay, that's a different American epic, clearly. And my point here isn't that there's nothing dated in the movie, of course there is. The point is the Apartment is remarkably modern in both its construction and its sensibility, and I want to talk about that sensibility that Wilder brings to it, and just thinking about the concept of the movie. One of the University of Chicago gram School classes that Maddie and I taught was the Films of Billy Wilder. So I had done a little bit of research on the film to prep for that class on The Apartment. And I don't know if you know this story or not, Josh, but one of the seeds for this story for Wilder was planted when he saw Brief Encounter, a film that we love with David Lane film and viewers like us see Brief Encounter and we're all fawning over how in love Alec and Laura are and how tragic it is that they just can't be together and you know what Billy Wilder is thinking about while he's watching Brief Encounter the dope, or, in the parlance of the apartment the schnook who makes sure that he's out of his flat so his friend can bring a woman to have sex with in his bed. What type of guy is that? What's his story? I think Wilder even phrased it like the guy whose bed is still warm from the couple that was in it. That's what he's thinking about. And I don't want to call it cynicism, but I think you see it here in in other Wilder films. There's just a frankness, a candidness that compels him to just cut right to the core the basic humanness of something. And I think that's what makes any sentimentality that does come through in his films, and it does that much stronger, is that it's always earned. And I also think his outsider perspective matters. That he's someone born in Austria, Hungary. He begins as a screenwriter in Berlin. He eventually emigrates to Hollywood the Rise of Hitler, and he focuses that sharp outsider's eye again and again on what it means to be an American in the American experience and the realities in the illusion of the American dream, the illusions of that dream. And he turns that guy from brief encounter, he imagines him or reimagines him as C. C. Baxter, and he tells us that the sea is for Calvin, the sees are for Calvin and Clifford. But I don't know. I like to think of it more like corporate climber, or maybe even constant compromiser, you know. And the way then throughout the film that Wilder surgically shreds the hypocrisy of American capitalism and gluttony and avarice. And there's so many examples, but I'll give you just a few. And this is a minor thing. But I think this is the thing about Wilder, right that makes him so special as a screenwriter collaborating with il Diamond, but also as a director. Every detail matters. In the Narration, early on he mentions that Baxter mentions that his rent got raised because the landlord put in an air conditioning unit. But it's a second hand air conditioning unit, of course, cutting whatever corner they could how about in that first I think exchange the first encounter that we see where Kirkabee is leaving with Sylvia and he says something that suggests he does this regularly with other women. He lets it slip and she says, hey, wait a second, are you doing this with just anybody? And what does he say? Certainly not, I'm a happily married man, right, And it's like he's not even aware of his own hypocrisy. And later when Baxter gets the promotion, finally gets his name on the door, gets exactly what he's been bucking for the entire time. He boasts to Fran that he's the second youngest executive and who's the youngest. The youngest is the grand son of the owner of the company. So neither the youngest nor the second youngest deserve it. This is how you get ahead. It is an a meritocracy. It's not about hard work or the time that you put in. What does the guy next to him say when Baxter is getting called upstairs, I've been here twice as long as you have doesn't matter. That's the world that Wilder explores in this movie.

01:19:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, the cynicism is absolutely there, but I think the reason whyl there's movies for me never curdle towards bitterness or nihilism, which could be further steps after cynicism. Is because of the comedy. It's because of those golden nuggets that you know, Diamond and he put in the screenplay. It's because to go back to the brief Encounter story, when he sees that minor character in that film, part of him must think that's kind of a funny situation. Absolutely, it's sad, it's gross, it's you know, it's all those things you described, but it's also kind of funny. And so if you push that and push the comedy and get people to come along with the comedy, then you're going to allow the cynicism to have space within the story as well without overwhelming it. I think that's the magic trick of Wilder and why for me, I've never understood why people find his cynicism as a negative or find his comedy as a way to write him off. You know, it's the blend. It's the perfect blend that he manages that makes him so special as a filmmaker. And along with these collaborators he worked with so often, I think this movie does you know, still stand the test of time, partly because it speaks so directly to loneliness, so achingly to loneliness. And this is another element that you know, the discussion of comedy and cynicism plays a part in right, because to just focus on the loneliness could lead to despair, a close relation of cynicism and just pushing on the comedy. I don't think you'd get this, this loneliness that the movie carries. But there's so much talk about these days these days about an epidemic of loneliness that were undergoing. You know, some people say it's technology, you know that's degrading human contact. Maybe it's the breakdown of the you know, traditional family structure. Maybe it's that people move for employment, you know, people compared to like the sixties or whatever, people will go across the country for a job. All these things and those causes weren't around when The Apartment came out, but the same sort of sadness was. And I think it's because this is also a holiday movie, which seems obvious when it is set the Christmas party at the office, immaculately sustained comic cynic sequence, the way they handle all those elements in that sequence. But yeah, there's a Christmas Party. This is a holiday movie, and the holidays, of course, you know, wonderful times for those who have people to celebrate them with, horrible times for those who don't. I think that's why this movie is set during the holidays, and it's directly related to this idea of loneliness. These are two lonely characters, deeply, deeply lonely characters who have not found a way in this big city to meet that. And Baxter has perhaps tried through his corporate striving and Fran clearly through the romantic striving, and they've both met dead ends. And you know, this brings me to the one thing I want to talk about is these characters and the performances, because it's the one thing. No matter how many times I watch The Apartment, I am continually dazzled by both of them. But just to start with Lemon as Baxter. The sequence Adam this time that made me just giggle throughout but also recognize the genius of Lemon as a physical performer is the extended bit. It's a single take, there's no edit. Wilder doesn't let him off the hook at all. But this is when Baxter has the cold, cold and a fever. They add both, and he's trying to call all of his bosses to reschedule right. And the way Lemon just sustains the sequence with performance. He is such a fuss budget and yet pulls it off, and you're rooting for him. I mean, you shouldn't be rooting for any of this, but because it's Baxter, because it's Lemon, you are. And it is a tight rope, high wire act. That was maybe the thing I enjoyed the most on this rewatch.

01:23:57
Speaker 5: Look, I've got your dad here for tonight, but I'm going to be using the place myself, so I'll have to cancel. Cancel, but it's your birthday.

01:24:04
Speaker 3: I already ordered the.

01:24:05
Speaker 7: Cake, but I am sick.

01:24:07
Speaker 6: I got a terrible cold and a fever.

01:24:09
Speaker 3: And I got to go to bed right after work.

01:24:11
Speaker 5: If you got a cold, you go to a Turkish bath, spend the night there, sweat it out.

01:24:15
Speaker 6: That's the way you get the emodia. And if I got the emojia, i'd be.

01:24:18
Speaker 3: A bit for a month. Okay, you made your point.

01:24:20
Speaker 6: Yeah, the performances are undeniable, and I have a scene like that too this time. But I want to go back and just say it's a great comedic performance that never devolves into pure silliness, and there's no slapstick. There are great small physical moments, like in the opening scene where he starts nodding his head in sync with the machine, which is also in sync with the score, and there are great verbal and physical moments. And this is the scene right where for me, the scene this time that I really loved, where he is talking to shell Drake the first time and he's a little slow figure out where shell Drake is going. And the line that Fred McMurray says is it also says here that you are alert, astute and quite imaginative. And he says oh, and then the camera just holds on him as he realizes, Oh, that that's a prompt, you dummy. You need to figure out you need to read between the lines, and the oh then turns into oh. And the way you see Lemon, the way he changes the inflection of the reading of oh, and the process of that realization that plays out, that that goes from his brain to his face is just so much fun. I think two with Lemon, there's just there is a fundamental decency to him, even as he does questionable things or you wish he'd grow more of a backbone. You just always understand his predicament. There's a part of you that's always rooting for him throughout this film.

01:25:58
Speaker 3: And this is what McLean has too, is that bedrock decency that doesn't make her the performance doesn't make Fran seem naive or innocent. Both of those would have been boring and unreal. But McClain manages to communicate this bedrock decency that she shares in common with Baxter, while also making her a real woman who is you know, striving for that connection as I discussed, making mistakes in doing it, making choices that you know, we would say, oh, don't do that, yeah, yet also making us understand in the way she operates, just the way she operates the elevator, you know, and negotiates every interaction she has in that elevator is a negotiation that Fran balances by not you know, maybe she should call out the bosses who are making sexist remarks, but the she has to tiptoe around that without.

01:27:03
Speaker 6: Or being actually manhandled at times, exactly negotiating it, right, Yeah, that's exactly it, Adam.

01:27:09
Speaker 3: Like we recognize she also has a backbone, maybe more of a backbone than Baxter actually has in pushing back here and there. So that's an incredible performance as well.

01:27:20
Speaker 8: Nineteen watch your step man, wash your hands, mister Kirkfy.

01:27:27
Speaker 5: One of these days, I'm going to shut these doors on you.

01:27:30
Speaker 7: And twenty next.

01:27:32
Speaker 3: When I first wrote about The Apartment, I don't know how long ago it was, but I described them both as good people who would make a great match if only they could extricate themselves from the sleaziness they'd come and meshed in. And I think that's the appeal of these characters. And I was reading this morning. I don't know if you if you had a chance to see this, but our friends Scott Tobias and Keith Fink.

01:27:52
Speaker 6: I didn't never chance to read it, but I saw it appear.

01:27:56
Speaker 3: I had to this morning. They're doing a series on great films and today was The Apartment, and I thought, Okay, Normally, you know, I don't want to have other critics in my head if I'm about to have a discussion, but I couldn't resist. I've written Aman so many times and we've talked about it on occasion. So but it's interesting in regard to this description of Baxter and Fran making a great match. Here's Scott Tobias how he described them a heartbreakingly decent and accommodating man. That was earlier in the conversation. This is Scott and Keith going back and forth. Then later Scott purposefully describes Fran as a heartbreakingly decent and accommodating woman. So I totally agree with that obviously, But it's also the variations of that character that both Lemon and McLain provide. They are heartbreakingly decent and accommodating in very different ways, which goes back to my notion of watching it again. You know, Fran maybe the one, even though she finds herself in the more dire position, who might have the stronger backbone.

01:29:00
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think she definitely does. And I don't know if it was an influence on her or Wilder or not, but Felini's Nights of Kabiria had come out a few years before nineteen fifty seven, and that's one of my favorite performances, and there is a gamean like quality to Fran, especially with the haircut that we find out that she got hurt, right, she got in response to her relationship and how it ended with Sheldrake, and there is that sadness, certainly brought on by that loneliness, but there's that spunkiness. All those things you're describing, and Wilder is so smart to often just point the camera at McLean in close up and you talk about the sleaziness, the moment when Sheldrake says, I got you a gift and offers her the one hundred dollars bill. Josh, I've seen this movie multiple times. I still I still groaned out loud. And you know, I'll add this as well. It's partly the performance, but it's also the writing. And this is going to go back to the modern sensibility. It might be easy for some people, male or female to watch this film and say, I don't know if I totally buy her infatuation with shell Drake. She seems too smart for him. He's so clearly a snake. Could she really be that in love? Yes, she could. Unfortunately, it's a tale as old as time, and I think it is brought on by that overwhelming loneliness. And this gets back this sensibility, right, gets back to the other aspect of the film. One of the other aspects of the film that I so love, which is the subtle subversiveness of it. And this is what made it progressive for its time, so it's still modern today. Wilder love to puncture moral codes and play around with prevailing social conventions. And when I say it's subtly subversive, it's subtle in the sense that Wilder and Diamond don't really ask the audience to could front the tawdriness of this story. You just have to accept it. The entire plot is predicated on infidelity. This is nineteen sixty. There isn't an explicit condemnation of that behavior.

01:31:13
Speaker 3: It's in the air. It's in the corporate air, it's.

01:31:15
Speaker 6: In the Even our hero, good old buddy boy Baxter, he's never disapproving of what these executives are doing, how they're exploiting these women or using these women. He's only mad why because they're inconveniencing him. He can't get into his place, he can't get a decent night's sleep, he has a cold. Other than the peripheral characters in Baxter's apartment building, everyone in the story is complicit in some way, using or allowing themselves to be used, and he's essentially running a brothel. Really, he isn't taking a direct front, but he's getting paid on the back end at work.

01:31:51
Speaker 3: He's the I mean, they're they're kind of cheaping out on the booze exactly.

01:31:56
Speaker 6: That's what made me think of a Josh. He's providing the venue, the booze, then acts the music all the accouterma. So you know, Wilder just he isn't wide eyed about how the world works in nineteen sixty or in twenty twenty five. I think that's why it still feels relevant today. And that's that screenplay, and I'll throw it back to you here, But that's screenplay, this Oscar winning script by Wilder and Diamond. It's tapping in to this progressive for its time, perspective and sensibility and what it gets so right about these lonely characters. But when it also is getting right structure and character and dialogue. Well, it's also about when not to use dialogue, what you can show us instead of telling us, and sometimes what you show us while telling us, What does it say about Baxter as a character who is constantly getting disappointed and in a way kind of reinforcing the idea of him not really having a backbone even, but also reinforcing this notion of American commercialism that he gets. And I'm using these words very deliberately here, right, he gets turned on to watch Grand Hotel, only to be sent to the cold shower of a message from the sponsors twice forget, you know, delayed gratification.

01:33:16
Speaker 11: It's such a good scene he just gives up, right, And maybe my favorite bit that I had somehow never really paid attention to before, the symmetry of the simple repeated gesture that does more to connect Fran and Baxter than any romantic dialogue ever could.

01:33:34
Speaker 6: How great is it that we get the moment at the Christmas party when Baxter has had too much to drink, She asks him how many drinks he's had, and he says only three, but he holds up four fingers. I'd love it later later in the film, when she is now recovering and she's in a delirious state from the drugs that she ingested and is trying to cover and I don't remember exactly what the question is, but she holds up her fingers and she says three, but holds up four fingers. Right, that's the kind of genius those kind of moments that you get those little bits that you get with Diamond and with Wilder, and I'll just give you one more at the end, near the end, we see how much savvier Baxter has become, I think anyway, how better he seems to understand the system and how to navigate it. When Fran asks him in the lobby if he's heading to the subway, is he going home? And he says, to tell you the truth, I have this heavy date for tonight. And when Fran leaves, he walks toward that woman the gestured to right, and then she of course goes the other way. He's just sort of playing the game, playing the system. He has this confidence now about him that he can exploit when he needs to, again showing us that through action, through behavior.

01:34:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, the whole thing is like clockwork. And yet despite that, despite you know the knowledge that every scene is connected to a scene not only that follows, but one that's going to come to your point about the fingers, the four fingers that might come like twenty thirty minutes later. This is a movie that allows for discoursions that work. And how about the sequence where Baxter a disillusion Baxter at this point is drinking at a bar, drinking himself silly, and there's a woman across the bar doing the same. Hope Holiday plays this character and they're mini romance, if you want to call it a romance. They're many Dallians.

01:35:39
Speaker 5: It was the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring.

01:35:46
Speaker 9: Nothing, no action.

01:35:49
Speaker 5: Dullsville, you married, Nope, family yep.

01:35:56
Speaker 8: Night like this is sort of spoop should walk into an empty apart?

01:36:00
Speaker 5: I said I had no family. I didn't say I had an empty apartment.

01:36:07
Speaker 3: That's a whole movie in its own, Adam, that is a Billy Wilder movie. We never got right this woman where they end up kind of like anger flirting, resentment flirting against other people with each other. There's no sense that they're really attracted to each other, but they're both pissed at someone else.

01:36:28
Speaker 6: That's it.

01:36:29
Speaker 3: And this moment this person allows them to express that. And yet it segues into this yeah, romantic dancing to the point that they closed the bar down. They have to be kicked out, and so that's just you know, what does that say? Why is that there? Why does that not stick out as a sore thumb. In this movie, I'm going to go back to loneliness. It's finding it's finding Baxter, who's we know is lonely, and then it's finding this whole holiday character who is deeply She's not just a joke here, because we've known at this point the depth of loneliness that the characters were rooting for our experiencing. We transfer that to her as well. And she's funny. It's a great performance. It's a great bit, but it's also deeply moving. And I do just want to quickly go back to another plug for the reveal and quote Scott here Tobias one more time. He's talking about loneliness, but he's talking about it after the reveal two Baxter of Fran and shell Drake's relationship. Okay, so when we have come to know that and so has Baxter, Scott wrote, this is no longer just a screwball romantic comedy about Baxter frantically arranging his life around his boss's extracurricular activities and maybe finding some companionship for himself on the side. It now becomes a film about two characters in the depths of loneliness and despair having to deal with the abundantly clear reality that they're on the lowest rung of the social ladder and they have been humiliated and exploited for it. So great stuff there from Scott in the reveal, and Yeah, captures all the levels we've been talking about how this works as an emotional character study but also a societal critique that never feels too heavy or like that's been forced upon the narrative at hand.

01:38:17
Speaker 6: Yeah, and you get those little touches that are also humorous but at the same time add to that sense of despair if you will, how hard she has to work to even get Baxter's attention, blowing the straws at him right exactly, you know you're talking about when he discovers that she's with Sheldrake. The economy of the broken mirror from a screenplay standpoint, from a plot perspective, but also how it informs the sadness of Fran's character when she says, I like it. It makes me look how I feel, which gathering for supporting the idea that, you know what, she might do something really drastic later in the film. And you were talking about connections establishing the motif of the Keys to the apartment into the washroom, so that we're pleasantly surprised or pleasantly reassured, depending on how you read it. At the end, when we discover that Baxter tosses Sheldrake the washroom key and not his apartment key. Now, Wilder and Diamond, this is maybe the only thing I can come by in terms of a criticism. They might overdo it a little bit, as we heard in the clip at the top of the show, but adding wise to the end of so many things that he says, it works though in that it does show it reveals that he is taking on this pattern of thinking through his manner of speaking. He is becoming executive material, this type of executive material because exactly he's equivocating when he talks and wise to the end of everything he does, and the other thing that Wilder does. It's so great. And I've surely talked about this before because when Wilder comes up, this usually comes up, and it's something he took from Lubitch, and I think this is usually what he referred to as the Lubitch touch. But Wilder liked to create opportunities for the audience to feel like they were one step ahead of the characters. So he always talked about it in terms of two plus two equals four. You give the audience two plus two, but you don't add it up for them. You let them figure out that it's four before the characters do. And it's hard, obviously to put myself in the shoes of a first time viewer. But I think an example of that is when Sheldrake gives him the music Man tickets because he's meeting a woman, and then he asks Fran out and Fran can't go because she's meeting a man. Surely most audience members suspect that, oh no, what if Sheldrake is meeting Fran or at least it's a great possibility. We're putting that together before Baxter puts it together, and it's again brilliant touches like that in the screenplay. And then the last well, I've got one more favorite line I have to mention, but if we're going to talk about lines, it might not be on the level of your beloved Some like it hot with nobody's perfect, but shut up and Deal is about as perfect a final note as you can get. But in terms of perfect lines, here's my moment, Like if I'm going to point to, just from a dialogue standpoint, how great Diamond and Wilder could be. And it's funny. I went to IMDb to look up the quote, and the quote'es there. But what makes the quote so great, what makes the dialogue great, isn't there. They've detached, basically the punchline from the setup, and without the setup, the punchline's meaningless. The punchline is when Fran says to Shell Drake they're in the apartment, it's Christmas Eve, and she says, when you're in love with a married man, you shouldn't wear a mass scara. Now, I'm gonna let Sam insert the scene here so everybody can hear it. How could I'd be so stupid?

01:42:19
Speaker 5: I think I would have learned by now, when you're in love with a married man, you shouldn't wear a mass scara.

01:42:25
Speaker 6: The brilliance of that writing is the dramatic build up friend confronting the horrible truth about who Shell Drake is, who she is, how she has been duped, And you're sure that when she says when you're in love with a married man, that the end of the phrase is going to be right, that you're gonna get your heart broken, or you should never get your hopes up. But no, she deflates it. That's the humor, the blending right of that humor. She deflates it by saying she's stupid for wearing mascara because dating a married man will always leave you crying and you look like a mess, which is really funny because it's unacted. It's a reversal of the expectation, but also it does express essentially the same thing. Saying that you'll ruin your mascara from sharing is the same thing as saying you'll get your heart broken.

01:43:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, they give fran so many great lines, and McLain handles them like the gems that they are. She knows just how to deliver them. Another one which stands out to me, it's it's another exchange to your point about you need the whole response. But she's describing shell Drake as a taker, right, and Baxter is this is where the male perspective comes in. Baxter is like, you know, he doesn't quite understand what she means, so I think he questions her on that, like what what does a taker? And she says, some people take, some people get took, but here's the killer, and they know they're getting took and there's nothing they can do about it. That's Frank kublik is It's not that it goes back to my point about her not being naive, not being you know, so in that she doesn't know what's happening. This is the tragedy of her. This is what leads her to take as extreme steps as she does, is her deep intelligence and awareness and yet to her mind, helplessness in the face of it.

01:44:13
Speaker 6: Yeah, helpless.

01:44:14
Speaker 3: So you're right. Yeah, it's another just great exchange that McLain handles beautifully.

01:44:19
Speaker 2: He's a taker.

01:44:21
Speaker 8: What some people take, some people get took, and I know they're getting took and there's nothing good about it.

01:44:28
Speaker 6: Yeah. I do have to make sure we talk about the visual style of the office.

01:44:35
Speaker 3: You know, the.

01:44:36
Speaker 6: Previous thought, gosh, it's brilliant. Her Ben Hurd come out. And I know that Wilder had joked that creating the set for Consolidated Life and staging the scenes there was his chariot race because he had to use like up to three hundred and fifty extras or something. But especially in the opening, the script is key with the narration. This is all in harmony each other, right, all the numbers Baxter is reciting, the thirty two and fifty nine employees, all those other than the small handful we meet, They're nameless, faceless cogs in the machine, and they will be defined or their value will only be defined by the service they provide to the company. And so then how does Wilder visually represent that that incredible nineteenth floor set, which is this feat of force perspective? The farther back the shot goes the desks, The desks are actually smaller and smaller. That's what creates the illusion. The people are smaller and smaller, like I think they cast. Some of them are actual children to help create that sense. And it just gives you this overwhelming sense that this floor might actually not be contained by walls, that it stretches on for desks and people endlessly, and it gives you a feeling of total anonymity, of imp personality, of disconnection. And not only that I was looking at this again today, Josh, the ceiling, the vertical lines on all those lights, right, and the lights that add to that feeling of it's stretching on forever, and how the camera is positioned in every shot the ceiling is in every shot, and the way the set is constructed, and I'm sure the lens they're using as well. It all adds to this sense that the ceiling is almost pressing down on them. It's like there's no distance between their heads. Yeah, so it feels compressed, it feels like they are being oppressed by their surrounding. And it's so effective.

01:46:41
Speaker 3: Those shots are something almost like a weird amalgamation of Kubrick and you know Jacques Tati with the use of with the oppressiveness and the use of the entire frame a large scale, architecturally distinct sense of space. Yeah, and you know the other parts of the film too. It's not all those sequences, but the nighttime shots outside of Baxter's apartment and anywhere in the street really have them very much. Here's where you know, Double Indemnity comes into play a film noir feel to them. There's subterfuge, there's betrayal, there's deception, and you can sense that in the nighttime street compositions you get here as well. So yeah, I think this is one of those, you know that people probably think of as a wordy classic, but it's also a visual classic.

01:47:30
Speaker 6: I would say, I want to close by at least highlighting If people don't remember this, longtime listeners maybe might recall that on episode four hundred when we did the live show and we did the top five things we learned from the movies, my number one was be a mensh from the Apartment. I don't know that I learned it. I don't know if you can ever fully learn it. You can try to the best of your ability. I'm trying every day, but the Apartment did have an impact on me that lesson from Doctor Dreyfus, And I do think there is a fundamental question that Wilder is posing to us here. You know, can you exist And this is still a very relevant question Josh today. Can you exist in this America and retain your decency? Can you be a mensh? Can you treat others and yourself with the respect that they deserve? Can you be a decent person? And not only is that just part and parcel of being a mensh obviously being a human being, as he says, but there are sort of echoes of it throughout the script.

01:48:45
Speaker 3: Right.

01:48:45
Speaker 6: She mentions to Bud that when he thinks he's getting a promotion, that it couldn't happen to a nicer guy, that he's the only one who takes his hat off in the elevator. But you know, we learned some things about Bud. We realize that maybe he isn't as decent guys he likes to think that he is. And Fran. When Fran stands him up, he says, I forgive you, and she says you shouldn't, but he says, you know, when you're having a drink with one man, you can't just suddenly walk out on him because you have a date with another man. You did the only decent thing. So this is I think this is the movie's preoccupation, this notion of decency and it's possibilities, it's possibilities in this very difficult world we inhabit.

01:49:28
Speaker 3: Well, that's why it's a comedy. That's that's the comedy, is that the movie sees the decency in Fran and Baxter knows it's there and is hoping against hope that they'll find and embrace it and live into it. And then you know, Wilder and Diamond behind the scenes arraging things so that they fall in place, that they can step into that into that decency that we as viewers are hoping for as well.

01:49:55
Speaker 6: The Apartment is currently streaming on Prime Video and available via vod We expect most of you have seen it, so if you agree or disagree with our takes, we would love to hear your thoughts. Email us feedback at filmspotting dot net. That's where you can share any other comments about the show, because that is our show.

01:50:14
Speaker 3: You can find Adam and film Spotting on Instagram and Facebook letterboxed as well. He's at film Spotting, I'm at all those places. As Larsen on film we are independently produced and listener supported. You can support the show by joining the film Spotting Family at film spottingfamily dot com. You can listen early and ad free. You'll also get a weekly newsletter, monthly bonus episodes like our top five performances of the year so far, and of course, access to the entire show archive. If you're looking for show t shirts or other merch go to film spotting dot net slash shop.

01:50:49
Speaker 6: The all new Film Spotting Shop thanks to everyone who has checked it out. In that film Spotting archive, we have our Billy Wilder Marathon from twenty ten. We have a review of Double Indemnity from our Summer of Stanwick Marathon. That's episode eight eighty nine out on digital this weekend. A movie I'm sure both of us would like to check out Jaws at fifty, the definitive inside story that's on Hulu and Disney Plus in limited release. The new one from Jia Jhanka, the filmmaker behind Ashes, purest White and a Touch of Sin. It's called Caught by the Tides in wide release. James Guns Superman. I know what Josh thinks of it. I'm going to have to find out what I think of it and see it for myself. We'll talk about it next week and we'll share our top five Superman moments.

01:51:39
Speaker 3: Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Desso and Sam Van hoggrend. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show would it go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempinar. Special thanks to everyone at wb Eazy Chicago. More information is available at wbeaz dot org for film Spotted.

01:51:56
Speaker 6: I'm Josh Larst and I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening.

01:51:59
Speaker 2: This con sation can serve no purpose anymore.

01:52:03
Speaker 3: Good Bye.

01:52:20
Speaker 6: Film Spotting is listeners supported. Join the film Spotting Family at film spotting family 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

01:52:39
Speaker 5: Panomly