Brick Q&A with Rian Johnson, Death of a Unicorn, Madness '25 - Round 2

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Speaker 1: What kind of a show you guys putting.

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Speaker 2: On here today?

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Speaker 3: You're not interested in armed now? No, look, we're going to do this thing.

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Speaker 4: We're going to have a.

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Speaker 1: Conversation from Chicago. This is Film Spotting celebrating our twentieth year. I'm Adam Kempenar and I'm Josh Larson.

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Speaker 5: Emily said four words I didn't know.

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Speaker 3: Tell me if they catch.

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Speaker 2: Brick, No our bad brick Nope, tug Tug. Tug might be a drink like milk and vodka or.

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Speaker 1: Something that's from Ryan Johnson's Brick, which came to theaters back in two thousand and six, but it played even more recently Josh as the opening night film at the first ever Film Spotting Fest.

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Speaker 6: That's right and even better. Johnson attended that screening and stuck around for a Q and A, which you'll hear on this.

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Speaker 1: Week's show, plus Round two of Film Spotting Madness Best of the twenty first century so far, it's all ahead.

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Speaker 6: Vodka and milk, the official beverage of Film Spotting Madness.

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Speaker 1: I'll take a tug on film Spotting. Welcome to film Spotting, and welcome back to me. I suppose Josh, I have returned from my trip to Italy. Great show last week with guests Roxanna Hadati, though I should say, if I'm being totally accurate, great half show. I haven't seen Steven Soderberg's Black Bag yet. Didn't want to listen to that review, but I did dig into Film Spotting Madness Round one.

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Speaker 3: Can't wait for you to see it?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, I was jealous of your trip, but consoled myself not only by hanging out with Roxanna, but by getting to talk about an excellent Sodaberg movie. I can't imagine you're gonna have any issues with this, but who knows, Adam, who knows?

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Speaker 1: No, that would be rich and ironic if you finally really embrace a Sodaberg. And I'm not high on.

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Speaker 6: It, I mean, you know, I could see it happening actually, now that we're talking about.

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Speaker 1: It later in the show, Round one results and Round two matchups of Film Spotting Madness. It is the best of the twenty first century so far, Josh, that does mean films between two thousand and twenty twenty four. You and Roxanna, it got off a little wobbly there the start, when you weren't sure if twenty twenty one qualified or not.

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Speaker 6: She threw me for a loop with you know, a very specific question of things of which I don't probably know when it comes to madness. So yeah, I think we figured it out though.

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Speaker 1: Sixty four movies now down to thirty two and if you just can't wait to hear us reveal things later, Round two voting is live right now as we speak film spotting dot Net slash Madness. I am looking forward to matchups like and no, I'm actually not looking forward at all to voting in matchups like before Sunset versus the Grand Budapest Hotel and Spirited Away versus Inglorious Bastards. That is the stuff madness is made of. Again. That's film Spotting dot Net slash Madness Radio listeners, you're hearing an edited version of the show. For the full episode, listen at filmspotting dot net or wherever you get your podcasts. First we return to film Spotting Fest somehow. Oh Josh, this was actually just earlier this month, Is that right?

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Speaker 6: I was just thinking about this this morning. We've got, you know, one of those calendars on the fridge that month by month, and so realizing April's around the corner and I looked up at the beginning of March and there it is on our family calendar Film spotting Fest. It feels much longer ago than.

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Speaker 1: That it does. We were celebrating twenty years of doing this show. It was that first weekend in March. Over three days, we watched six films at two great Chicago venues, the Gene Siskel Film Center and the Music Box. We had a lot of special guests, including Ryan Johnson. He was kind enough to join us for a screening in thirty five millimeter of his great debut film, The High School set Noir Brick from six. He joined us for a Q and A following that film, and as you will soon hear, he is not just one hell of a nice guy, but he's one of our great talkers about movies, especially his own. Before we get to that Q and A, let's set up a little bit as to why Brick was our choice for the opening film of the inaugural Film Spotting Fest.

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Speaker 6: I mean it goes back to the beginning of the show. You and producer Sam reviewed it in six raved about it were champions of Brick. Turns out I was doing the same thing over at my job at the Naperville Sun. As a film critic, it made my top ten list that year, and so yeah, we were all fans of this movie from the beginning.

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Speaker 3: Ryan.

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Speaker 6: This was not the first time Ryan's been on Film Spotting. As a matter of fact, he was on there way at the beginning as well, something called Film Spotting University.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, a top five that we did with Sam early days of the show, sharing essentially the top five movies we thought any film student or aspiring filmmaker needed to see. And then Josh I just discovered this by digging into the archives a little bit. Today. Sam had a note our producer, Sam had a note for us here about him guest hosting a show which I remember he set in for an entire episode. We talked about Lars von Trier's Melancholia. We did a top five. It was a normal Film Spotting episode, But the timing is such that that show was episode three seventy three, the first episode that you ever guest hosted on, essentially your audition for this gig on Film Spotting was just three shows later, three seventy six. So I think I finally have to come out and say it. Ryan was actually thinking about foregoing a life as a filmmaker, giving it all up. He wanted to be the new co host of Film Spotting. I chose you over him.

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Speaker 3: I beat him out.

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Speaker 6: I mean, you know, he's he's done okay for himself, so I think now we can be honest about it.

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Speaker 1: Everybody got what they wanted right exactly. Of course, there's also our Golden Brick Award. That is our annual award that goes to our favorite overlook or underseen film of the year from a new or emerging director. Only appropriate that we named that award after Ryan Film Brick, considering the influence that that film has had and he has had on this show. Knowing that we were going to be talking with Ryan in person at a sold out music box, we did decide to do a little homework. We watched the film again prior to watching it with Ryan and that capacity crowd. What was your takeaway from these watches? Anything that you want to set up for our listeners.

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Speaker 6: I was prompted to do the rewatch before the fast because I didn't want to get up there and be confused about the plot. I remembered Brick, you know, having this somewhat complicated in our mystery to it, and I thought, I've got to have that down before I get up there on stage with Ryan. Turns out it's not as complicated as I remembered. It's fairly straightforward on that still fun. Takes a lot of turns, but yeah, you can follow along pretty easily. So maybe didn't need to do that. Glad I did, though, just to have that under me and then watching it there in the theater, this came up, you know, with listeners who are there, and I think we may have mentioned on this show, but the way the comic beats hit beautifully with a crowd there at the music box, that's something you just don't get when you're watching a movie at home, even if you're watching it with a couple other people, you know, to have that experience of community and communal and just to see them hit for Ryan, I imagined was even more pleasurable. Is this stuff that I scripted and was hoping to get this sort of reaction? Now all these years later, it's still getting that reaction.

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Speaker 1: I will say this, having been seated next to Ryan during the screening. He was having a good time. He was having a good time with his movie. I'm sure he was enjoying some memories of the making of the film. He actually touched on that with us, and hearing that entire crowd react as they did surely was a fun experience for him. It certainly was for us. I had three revelations, and I don't know that we really got into any of them in detail in the Q and A, so i'll say them here. The first one is what you just said. I actually did, Josh even notice, just watching on my iPad the night but before prepping and thinking about some questions, I noticed for the first time. And I don't think I've seen Brick since I saw it twice back in two thousand and six when it came out in theaters and getting ready to review it on the show, I did not remember how quite intentionally funny the movie Brick is. And then, of course, yes, when you see it with the crowd, you see how amplified that is. But watching it even alone, I was struck by all of the comedic beats, as you noted, and the film, in my memory, was just so intense. The stakes are so high, they're literally life and death from the opening frame of the film that I don't think back in six I really caught on too just how funny this film is. And now, of course I see things like Lucas Haas playing the pin and everything about the way he's dressed and his behavior. And I think we touch on the scene you get into the production design when they get in the van. That's all very funny, and again quite by design. The second thing does have to do with the dialogue. It was not quite as dense or highly stylized as that was in my memory. And we were talking about this, I think at the fest or just after the screening, and you mentioned that he does Ryan kind of eases us into that. I think that's true, and I would like to ask him now. I had a chance, and I blew it. But thinking more about it, I'd love to know whether or not he feels that he was easing us into it. Was that an intentional choice on his part, thinking Okay, I just can't come right out of the gate hitting him with all of this hard boiled noir text or is it a matter of or both that as the plot does become more labyrinthine, it makes sense then that the language takes that element on as well and becomes a little more difficult to parse.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, well, and the characters you meet are part of that too, right, That's right, Like the pen is speaking in this way, and so as we meet more and more of these people in this world, we're getting more and more of that language.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the last surprise I had and I felt this at the time, but it was a little bit of a rediscovery just thinking about how good all of the performances are in the film. And to take a film like this, what has to come together for a film with the budget this movie had for a first time filmmaker to work as well as this film does and to resonate twenty years later the way it does. You have to have someone who knows how to construct a story and write a pretty good screenplay. Check. You have to have someone who understands and we get into a lot of the shots and we talk about his influences and how he weaves them. And you have to have someone who knows what they're doing behind a camera, even on that first project, that first feature film. But you also need performances. You hear people say this quite a bit, and I'll go back to my one year as an MFA film student, Josh and say, one of the things that always separated final projects, the really good ones from the not so good ones. Was really just how good the performers were, how good the talent was that you cast. It instantly elevated the work. And he's got including of course the star Joseph Gordon Levitt, he's got a very game cast.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, what is the reference to. I think at one point in the conversation how we were all just kids, and that speaks to your point about the youth, but there was some experience among the cast even though they were so young and just complete buy into this world. You don't get a sense that anyone on screen is unsure of the language, unsure of the plot and holding back and trying to protect themselves. They're all in. And that's what you need as well for a feature that is a bit of a gamble, not only because it's low budget and first time, but just this material is a bit of a gamble, So you need that investment from the cast and you sense that on the screen.

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Speaker 1: I should say it helps. And you have really good collaborators, like the person actually behind the camera, the cinematographer Steve Yedlin, who he's still working with and has done great work with, like Nathan Johnson, his cousin, who composes a wonderful, idiosyncratic and varied score. That was another fun thing to listen to, all the different themes. We talk about that a little bit with Ryan and so much more. Let's get to it. From the opening night of Film Spotting Fest, our post screening Q and A with Brick director and writer Ryan Johnson.

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Speaker 2: Thank you guys, Thank you guys, how much thank you?

00:12:31
Speaker 1: How about that?

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Speaker 2: Thank you guys, guys. That was so much fun watching it with you guys. Thank you for being there, and thank you guys, and also thank you to Dennis.

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Speaker 1: For Dennis Scott everybody ran.

00:12:43
Speaker 5: And also is it Ali our projection? Is Ali up in the booth doing the real changes?

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Speaker 1: Rock man? What are we going to talk about a lot? I think the burning question on everyone's mind is why won't the coach let Brad Brandish play?

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Speaker 5: This is all he wants to know? Doesn't he know he's bread wants to know.

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Speaker 1: I think I don't get it. They could win, but you got a lud Win, so so many places to start, but you know you're talking about seeing this with the crowd here tonight, and that's the magic of the music. Box to you. Every moment's amplified, whether it's comedic or really intense and serious, dramatic, emotional. But I'm watching it last night in preparation for this seeing it here with this crowd. Back in two thousand and six, when I saw this and I watched it twice, I think part of it is you're you're trying to pay so much attention, and you're you're making sure you're following everything and picking up on the language. I didn't pick up on how funny this movie is. And I'm wondering whether that was just your natural impulse, because we certainly know with your subsequent films that comedy is something you're very good at, or was it somewhat strategic in the sense that you know, you've got this film that is playing with the genre of film noir and is very intense and serious at times, and you need to be able to have a sense of humor and deflate that a little bit.

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Speaker 5: I don't think the film is funny at all, and that was quite a little under There were of.

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Speaker 2: Uh no, it's that's actually how like and and And that's why it was so much fun watching with you guys.

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Speaker 5: When you're with an.

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Speaker 2: Audience and they know it's funny and they're laughing. It's just like it makes me so happy. But I also I mean, I to me, it was less about trying to kind of take a little bit of the air out of the film noir conceit. To me, the Maltese falcon is hilarious to me less noirs, And what's funny about them is in jokes. What's funny about them is there There's there's something about these perfectly shaped, kind of little dramatic beats that are heightened to this degree that just I find completely hilarious. And I guess Miller's crossing which is I was especially thinking about that, Yeah, when he's brokering the deal there sort of at the end, he's trying to make everything square between yeah, tug.

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Speaker 5: And which is which is straight from from the glass key.

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Speaker 2: The reality is that the Miller's Crossing got me into Dashl Hammett, and I binged Dashle Hammett, and that was really kind of what led to this thing. So but is another completely hilarious movie. I think there's a lot of humor in Hamit's writing also, So that makes me really happy that yeah, that you guys found it funny, intentional.

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Speaker 1: Very Yeah.

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Speaker 6: I want to share a quick personal anecdote so I can ask you a personal question about this film.

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Speaker 5: That's terrifying set up on every word you just said is leading to nothing good. All right, here we go, go ahead.

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Speaker 6: So I was the guy as a freshman in high school. Came in with a girlfriend who I promptly lost before homecoming because she connected with the upperclassmen basketball player. Right, couldn't even make it to homecoming, really embarrassed.

00:15:43
Speaker 1: All the sticks love Brad Brandish.

00:15:45
Speaker 6: Yeah I lost Brad, Brad did it. But no, there is an emotional experience to this movie beneath the humor, beneath the film noir tropes that taps into something universal about that time of life. So I would love to hear whether it's a you know, personal story or just your general recollection of what it was like to be in high school, maybe even as an observer looking at these the social strata and how that plays out, how personal was.

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Speaker 3: Brick for it?

00:16:16
Speaker 1: And just add to that, did you have classes with teachers? Did you what did it schools?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:16:26
Speaker 2: This was the notion that this is a little bit like Peanuts in that way and that you never really see Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, that's really well observed. I think when I wrote this movie kind of in my early twenties, when I was right out of college, and I think the way that you kind of in life, although it happens less, I feel I find as you get older and older, probably just because you get lazier mentally, but for a big part of life, I feel like you're constantly mythologizing the period of life you just got out of. And so I was in my early twenties, I was thinking a lot about high school and that was when I read then Hammett. What really led to this is is there was You're exactly right. There was some weird connection that happened in my brain with the experience of reading The Hammet and reading about this kind of terrifying, stratified Hedens world. It had these social locks to them and sort of the true high school fantasy of just with the Continental op which were the first things that I read of Hammet, actually before I read The Maltese Falcon, the short stories with the Continental Op which the amount of abuse that the bread that Brendan takes in this movie very much comes from the Continental op is not like a handsome Sam Spade. He is kind of like a thick set brick of a guy who his main He's not a genius, he's not an investigator. His main thing is that he just keeps taking punches and keeps moving forward in this dogged way. And so the notion of the detective entering this world and just kind of pushing through it like a like a fist, which is everything that being able to break all those scary things.

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Speaker 5: I don't know.

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Speaker 2: There there was something about it just very much about kind of nothing in terms of the real experience of high school, thankfully, but very much the emotional.

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Speaker 5: Mythology of high school. I guess, you know, yeah, absolutely.

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Speaker 1: Watching it tonight, I was really struck by how I was thinking about what it would be like to try to make And it's silly hypothetical, because you know, the movie is a product of the time in which you wrote it, as you just spoke to the period in which it was written in this case, but I just think about how much would be lost or how difficult it would be to try to make this movie today when you think about just the texture of all the notes that are being passed, and you know, a cell phone playing a role in the movie, but but a very you know, small role ultimately, and the symbols that we get it just adds to this kind of enigmatic nature.

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Speaker 5: I mean because although cell phones because today everything about.

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Speaker 1: How everything would change in this environment if if we were envisioning this this going down today.

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Speaker 2: I'm just imagining though, like thirty years from now, the Q and A like this, somebody watching something made today that's full of cell phones three years from now and saying, God, we really lost the texture of tapping into an actual screen and rating as opposed to seeing in the ether brain chip that we all have.

00:19:18
Speaker 1: But yeah, and you've made sci fi. I think this is a this is a project, right, So this is this This might be the dynamic for the Q and A might be the dynamic for our show. Josh is going to ask the really you know, deep insightful, emotional personal questions, and I just want to geek out about that. I'm on the well, what's the technical stuff.

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Speaker 6: Let's play a little more time travel though, because I am curious we're twenty years on about from the film and when you're sitting here watching it again, thinking about mythologizing maybe that period in your life. Perhaps, what would the Ryan Johnson, who's made so many more films, very different projects that we can trace, that's a this and all of them, what would you say that first day of shooting when you were getting together?

00:20:06
Speaker 3: What would you say to.

00:20:06
Speaker 5: Yourself you mean back in the day, or what would I go back?

00:20:09
Speaker 3: Get on when you're there? Like what what have you picked up? What have you done?

00:20:15
Speaker 6: What if people told you that I don't know it might be helpful? Or or would you just let that Ryan go and do his thing?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? I would.

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Speaker 2: I would be afraid I would. I would, Yeah, I would probably just just fuck him up at this point. I think I'd probably like give him very bad advice probably and like no, but it's it is. I mean, there's there's like it. That was the other element though, of watching it was you never really watched stuff that you've done. Like I wasn't really watching the movie.

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Speaker 3: I was.

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Speaker 2: I felt like flipping through a photo album and I was just experiencing it through just memories of working with a cast that we were all young and we were all just putting our hearts into it, and every single scene that came up I was just remembering the day that we shot that in the actual experience, and I think that's what I'm mean. So I'm sure there are people who are filmmakers or who want to be filmmakers, and I feel like that's I don't know, it sounds like just kind of like a Pollyanna cliche to say that make sure that you treat the people that you're making stuff with well and that you have a good experience. But the reality is that's not just to be nice, so that you should also be nice, But the reality is that the experience of making that move, what you create in that movie, you work hard, you make it the best thing it can be, but that's not what you're going to have twenty years later. What you're going to have is the memory of what the experience was, and that's really the only thing that actually you stick with and the fact that the actual experience of this was so special and that I'm still incredibly good friends with so many of the people that I made this with. I'm still working with most of the people I made this with. I mean that to me is kind of, you know, the real payoff. So yeah, I wouldn't I would stay in the time machine. I wouldn't want to fuck that up.

00:21:57
Speaker 1: And let's talk about one of those clients.

00:22:00
Speaker 2: I would tell him to mix the dialogue a little louder. That little louder to say juice that I was saying, there you go.

00:22:05
Speaker 3: I knew there would be something.

00:22:07
Speaker 5: You can't help it.

00:22:08
Speaker 1: He can't help the wisdom your your cousin Nathan Johnson, who composed the music, and I loved revisiting all these scenes. Yeah, revisiting all these scenes and the the themes that were developed for each one of the characters that we keep coming back to. What was that process, like, what what did he bring to you? How did you work with him on finding the right because they're very different for each character as they they should be the reflective of kind of their roles and how they perceive themselves and the image they want to project too.

00:22:39
Speaker 2: It was yeah, there was a yeah, we took the Peter and the Wolf approach it. It was really just I think we are thinking at the time, was this is so fucking complex. Let's let's have really distinct themes. I don't know if it helps, but it's nice to have these things you tell yourself when you're making some. He It was fun though, because you know, this was the first score that Nathan had ever.

00:22:59
Speaker 5: Done, and we had no money. He was living in England and.

00:23:02
Speaker 2: I was in LA So we had like the very first like Apple camera, I Cite camera and the very rudimentary like three frames a second like video chat that they had or whatever FaceTime, and so that's how we would do our sessions. And he mostly created the score recording with one microphone, mostly with like he used like kitchen whisks and stuff.

00:23:25
Speaker 5: It was very low fi and so yeah, he was but but I think he did. That was the other thing. Listening to it while watching, it's just wow, I'm I think Nathan.

00:23:34
Speaker 2: Did such great work. And we've done every movie except for Star Wars. He we've done every movie together since.

00:23:40
Speaker 6: And yeah, an even more granular question, let's get Yeah. I love the detail and it played well here because it's going to bring us back to the humor.

00:23:52
Speaker 3: When we're in the back of the minivan.

00:23:55
Speaker 6: With the pin the lamb, you knew where I was going, not just the lamp directions, the fact that the shade is not screwed on tight. When you're paging through the memory book, do you have any recollection of how that came up.

00:24:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do remember our so our production designer for this, Jody Tillin, was this was she was just trying to transition into the production design. She had been a costume designer. She was the costume designer on the original Miami Vice series. So she ass and I do remember Jody just saying, what the fuck are you talking about? But yeah, and I don't know whether that was whether I can fully take credit for that, or whether we just had a shitty lamp.

00:24:38
Speaker 5: I think she let's take credit for you. Let's take credit. Boy that that that a tourist choice I made with that shitty lamp.

00:24:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is film spotting. That means there has to be a quick top five. I have my top five brick lines that I want to share with Ryan and I want to share with the crowd. I've not shared this with Josh because he would try to talk me out of it, and I knew that, So I'm doing it.

00:25:04
Speaker 5: You got to performed them. If you're gonna do them. We knew a full performance.

00:25:07
Speaker 1: There's no master for theater tonight. Oh I'm gonna let everyone down. Yeah, exactly, Let's bring Sam up. He could he could do great renditions of these lines. So I especially think that one of these needed to be in the mix after hearing how it went over. So this is bad by me. I'll see you at the parent teacher conference is great, right, So, honorable mention, My number five is a bit of an outlier, But that's fine. These lists are supposed to be aiosyncratic. Josh, when Brendan says to Brain on the phone, but I don't know, and I don't know.

00:25:39
Speaker 3: I love that, you love that.

00:25:40
Speaker 1: I love that book. It's the line reading exactly. It's giving the repetition, the emphasis on, and.

00:25:47
Speaker 2: You're right being all in all of the top five lines from bricklists for over the years, I have I never seen that one mention a total outlier.

00:25:54
Speaker 1: I looked number four, this or this one got a good, good response tonight. Actually my number three, so I said this had got a good response. Here's number three. I gave you Jare to see him eating, not to see you fed Brendan to Truman. Go back to number four because this is a bit of an outlier. Again, When Laura says to Brendan eating lunch behind the portables, loving some girl like She's all, there is anywhere to you.

00:26:16
Speaker 5: It's high school.

00:26:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's high school. It's exactly it.

00:26:20
Speaker 3: Number two.

00:26:20
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll just sit here and bleed at you. Brendan to the pin and then this is my number one, Brendan to Laura. With you behind me, I have to tie one eye up watching both of your hands. I can't spare it. So here's here's the question. So tough but fair, tough affair is good too.

00:26:39
Speaker 2: Missus Castsvik who was my yeah, apame well he was tough, but affair she was the best. She's the reason that I ended up writing and and and taking. She was the first person who who And this is like, yeah, she passed away a few years ago, and she she.

00:26:56
Speaker 5: I don't know teachers matter so much.

00:26:58
Speaker 1: And she was the first she was. What did she think about you memorializing her like this?

00:27:06
Speaker 2: She yeah, I don't know if she would if she ever saw the movie or if she yeah, but she yeah, she really she was tough man, She was a tard ass, but she was fair. She was fair, and she really loved writing and loved her students and took them seriously as writers and had a huge impact on a lot of them and me included.

00:27:25
Speaker 1: So do you have a favorite? Is there one as you were writing it or as you sit in the crowd and watch it now almost twenty years later you say, Okay, damn, that's that's pretty good, you know, pat myself on the back. And are there any that you remember being greatly improved by the performances by actors like Joseph Gordon Levitt?

00:27:44
Speaker 5: Every single one? I don't, Yeah, I don't.

00:27:48
Speaker 3: I don't know.

00:27:48
Speaker 2: It would feel it would feel untoured, So that would feel weird saying, but I mean in terms of the dialogue, though I do remember like it. We we had the luxury of doing a ton of rehearsal for the movie, and we really did have to kind of figure out how to do this dialogue. And because the first thing that we tried was a naturalistic approach which didn't work at all.

00:28:11
Speaker 5: It just fell flat.

00:28:12
Speaker 2: And we realized, the actors realized, and Joe kind of really led the charge with it, that we had to just drill it. It was unlike kind of though, we'll find it in the space type thing that No, we just had to drill it over and over and over until the words. It's almost like a pianist, practicing, practicing, practicing until it's muscle memory, and once the words were at that point, because the words are so weird, at that point they could start to actually put something behind them. But it was counter to the instincts a lot of them kind of thought in terms of acting acting, But it ended up being the way I sell it. Did I get out of naming atlant?

00:28:48
Speaker 1: That's what you were supposed to do? So slick, but real quick, just a follow up is rehearsal something you still have the luxury of doing much of them.

00:28:57
Speaker 5: No, it gets really really hard.

00:28:59
Speaker 2: The reason we had the luxury of it is because we were all kids and we uh yeah, none of us were that busy, and and so I would I would have them over to my apartment and I would cook them lunch and we would just like And we spent months just hanging out and practicing, practicing, And that gets really really hard to book out that amount of time.

00:29:20
Speaker 1: Mac and cheese, orange juice.

00:29:22
Speaker 3: I did.

00:29:23
Speaker 2: My fancy go to was a cheesy risotto stuffed pepper. Wow, sounds very fancy early.

00:29:31
Speaker 5: So we're pulling that out Ryan, So easy to make.

00:29:35
Speaker 1: We'll share the recipe later. Film spotting Instagram.

00:29:40
Speaker 6: Can you talk a little bit about the camera work. I think we might see Brendan's feet more or equally as much as his face pops and yeah, great shoes, and I'm just wondering about It's not just him though, I feel like there are frequent shots kind of from below where we're seeing characters knees down approaching. Is that a reference pulled from other film noirs?

00:30:03
Speaker 3: Was it a choice just for those characters?

00:30:06
Speaker 6: How you wanted the audience to be brought into the story. Can you just that choice in general?

00:30:10
Speaker 1: Can you talk about here my theory.

00:30:11
Speaker 5: No Adams here first, Adam is gonna take.

00:30:18
Speaker 3: What's happening.

00:30:19
Speaker 5: He might he might be impressed Adam go ahead.

00:30:23
Speaker 1: Well, I love that that motif of him constantly crouching down. You know, he he's going to get on their level. He thinks we hear from Emily. He thinks he's above everyone else. He thinks he exists in a little bit of a different universe. And he is constantly having to get down at eye level, and he has to get dirty. He has to get really dirty to get to the bottom of this.

00:30:47
Speaker 3: How did I do?

00:30:48
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's that's interesting. That's a theory.

00:30:51
Speaker 1: At least I went for it.

00:30:53
Speaker 5: That's good.

00:30:53
Speaker 3: I like that. I mean I couldn't have scripted that.

00:30:57
Speaker 1: Role playing.

00:30:59
Speaker 5: Yeah that and I love shoes.

00:31:02
Speaker 2: Shoes, but there is I I did get very much on this kick of these characters that are you just going to be defined kind of by their shoes? And I think one of my favorite openings in it's not really like a reference to this, but you think about the opening of Strangers on a Train and with the two feet just following into a pair of feet and then the toes just there's something about Yeah, I don't know. I was very much and I remember it's one of the first things Joe and I talked about was like shoes and those are his grandfather's shoes actually, and by the end of it, they were falling apart and both of us.

00:31:34
Speaker 5: This is how like wrapped up we were in our heads. We were all like, he's losing his soul's perfect.

00:31:40
Speaker 1: It works on so many Now you're talking Adams like that. Yeah, that's that's deep.

00:31:44
Speaker 6: No, Like, I do like what you said, and I think it'll lead into a good question about Brendan, because yeah, you're totally right, he's he's not this altruistic hero. I mean, he's he is a nor figure in that in that he's corrupt. It's just not as corrupt as the people he's going after in a way. And I think what you were talking about in terms of how we see him as vantage point, his station, his status, is all part of that.

00:32:11
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:32:11
Speaker 6: So I do wonder how you thought about Brendan and maybe with Joseph Gordon Lennon, like kind of coming up with this character who is very much in that tradition, but also I think carries that high school psychology so much that you were able to bring those two things together, the striving for status and the one line that I love, which is not next necessarily a punchline, is I don't like to be told who side I'm on. That's high school as I remember it. So can you, yeah, talk a little bit about Brendan as a character.

00:32:44
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's that's as a good summation.

00:32:46
Speaker 2: I mean the end that for me was kind of that self righteousness and when they talk about him just either the spot in back of the school, the concrete wall that's where me and my friends ate life. We shot this at my high school at San Clement in high school and at by the end of whatever our eight days of shooting there, they were so ready to kick us out, they were so sick of us. But so that concrete walling back is where we called it the pit of despair in high school. That's where me and my friends ate lunch and we would just hide from the world wall that while all the other kids were like out.

00:33:14
Speaker 5: In the parking lot at their cars and everything.

00:33:17
Speaker 3: Are the stories I was trying to get up before.

00:33:20
Speaker 2: And so I think that kind of self righteous sort of which to me is such a big part of and in is Brandan's fatal flaw. I think it's that he has this self righteous, holier than thow thing where he also he sets his moral compass, plows a forward like a pit fist, and doesn't change it based on new information, which I think is not a great rate.

00:33:45
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:33:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's an anti hero element to him that's appropriate for the material. But I'll say that's another thing. Back in two thousand and six, I was so caught up in seeing him as this kind of white knight who's trying to get to the bottom of the truth. And now you realize, especially those conversations with Emily are really really potent, like he pushed her away.

00:34:03
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and that I I that was very kind of like yeah, very very conscious of that and very but that. But that also that goes back to the hammet. I mean they you know the detectives, and you know whether it's whether it's Spade, whether it's a continental op is. These are not good, great guys, and there are all guys who are, Yeah, you don't wanna you don't wanna base your life on I guess yeah.

00:34:28
Speaker 1: You mentioned the lampshade, Josh, And it makes me think one of my favorite kind of di I Y feeling moments in the movie, which is when twice Tug has to cover Brendan's eyes and and there's no there's no sack or bag or there's no blindfold. He just like almost puts him in a choke hold and covers his eyes with his forearm, And I just I have to know how you thought of that. I think so much sense for Tug's character because he's such a brute.

00:34:57
Speaker 2: Anyway, Noah Flices, who played him, one of my favorite things was when he like brings him in the pins room and.

00:35:03
Speaker 1: He does this flourish reveal.

00:35:06
Speaker 2: While that made me very happy, no I is so good in this movie, so really I really enjoyed. That was the other fun thing for me is just watching these actors and watching a lot of them who I know as adults, but a lot of them who have kind of lost touch with over the years. And just I mean, they were so young. It was a really young cast, but they were all super seasons. Like all of them have been acting since they were kids. So I was the least experienced person on that side.

00:35:32
Speaker 1: They're all making choices, and I might watch an entire movie of Tug just walking towards the damp.

00:35:37
Speaker 5: Honestly, he was supposed to have.

00:35:40
Speaker 2: A shaved head and Noah's age, Noah place, his agent begged me not to make him shave his head, and so we came up with the beanie thing, which I guess works.

00:35:51
Speaker 3: But yeah, that's great.

00:35:53
Speaker 5: CG we go special edition.

00:35:55
Speaker 1: CG.

00:35:55
Speaker 5: Get him on the shaved head.

00:35:58
Speaker 6: So not to take us away from Brick, we can return to it. But I know, I guess one reason you connected with film spotting so early on is you're a filmmaker but also a cinephile. You love movies, you love thinking about them similarly to the way critics do you like talking about them with others. So I felt like I had to ask if you could share any thoughts on the rest of our programming. We have five films to go, and tomorrow's Tangerine, and then we are going to Pother Panchalie Take Shelter Columbus, and then we're back here for Before Sunrise. So any of those titles jump out to you, ones that you know you have special relationships with, or.

00:36:42
Speaker 1: What he admits he's never seen him.

00:36:45
Speaker 3: Then he's sticking around for a couple more days.

00:36:48
Speaker 6: Now.

00:36:48
Speaker 2: I was talking to because Alison Wilmore, who's doing the Pother Panchelli screening. I was talking to her about how that was something that trilogy that I watched fairly recently, like after Criterion kind of yeah, brought back into the world.

00:37:01
Speaker 5: It's so I don't know, I guess I hope it is already sold out. Can I say go go?

00:37:06
Speaker 1: Yeah? Bother is Dana Stevens.

00:37:08
Speaker 5: I was standing and Allison's doing I was talking to Alison about it.

00:37:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like to talk about that ray here on film. Yeah, tomorrow Pather PONCHOLLI is sold out.

00:37:18
Speaker 2: Sorry, Dana, Dana Stevens Is that's an It's an absolutely incredible film. But also, I mean all of them, you guys have just the programmed Tangerine and also Clumbed. It's just just a full list of bangers man. Yeah, and also it's it I wish that I I have to go back to work. I wish I could just stick around and watch them with you guys, because seeing all of these movies with a with a film spoiling crowd is going to be pretty amazing.

00:37:44
Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's let's get into the centophile stuff. Then let's let's get a little geeky. I'm I'm watching this last night, and there's a moment that I had never noticed before where Brendan is in the school parking lot. He enters the frame and as he's exiting, he seems to notice something turns out its tugs vehicle. He stops, and in that moment, the camera starts to pull back away from him, but it seems like the background is getting much much closer. And I'm going, is this is Ryan Johnson in Brick with a four hundred and fifty thousand dollars budget, pulling out a Dolly zoom vertigo shot? Or are my eyes deceiving me? So I did what everyone does in this moment. I paused it and I went to Google and I asked the machine whether or not Ryan Johnson does a vertigo shot?

00:38:31
Speaker 5: You asked AI?

00:38:31
Speaker 1: I asked Ai, my God, and no oscar for you? Now an AI? It's true? Well, and this will support that because the AI told me that although Ryan Johnson has done vertigo shots before, there are none in Brick. So I'm taking a bit of a chance.

00:38:51
Speaker 3: But am I? Am I right?

00:38:53
Speaker 1: Or is the machine right? Ryan? And if I'm right?

00:38:57
Speaker 3: What what?

00:39:00
Speaker 1: Here's the this is? I don't I actually don't care about whether or not I'm right. I want to know about that ingenuity, that confidence as a young filmmaker or is it just naivete actually to take chances like that and pull out shots like that, to go for moments like that?

00:39:15
Speaker 5: Score is Adam one? AI zero? Take that?

00:39:19
Speaker 1: Josh?

00:39:21
Speaker 2: That was I'm really happy that you not said, because that was something that like. And by the way, I like. So I wrote Brick when I was like twenty two. I didn't get made until I was trending thirty. I basically spent my twenties failing to get Brick made. So I had all that time, and the movie is in terms of the shot design, is so probably overbaked because I had all that time to story for it, to make my little storyboards and think about each shot, and that shot specifically, it was kind of this sense of I don't know, I grew up kind of you know, I went to high school in San Clemente, and the landscape of the movie, of those kind of vast vistas of track homes and the you know, streets that are incredibly too wide, and just kind of this sense of space is something I grew up with and kind of the ominous feeling of that, And so I wanted to do a Dolly counter zoom in a landscape shot which I didn't feel like I had really seen before. Usually it's something with a distinct foreground and background to take advantage of, yeah, to smartly use it, and I decided to not smartly use it and do it with a which it creates a really subtle effect.

00:40:28
Speaker 5: So kudos to you, and fuck you, AI, we win. We're gonna be okay.

00:40:34
Speaker 1: Well, kudos to you for the great shot. Let's keep this theme going. I not only came to the top five list. I want to play a little game. This game is called homage, influence or coincidence. So Joseph Gordon Levit at one point, after getting punched repeatedly, has the tissue sticking out of his nose that cuts on his nose A lah ja gettis in Chinatown.

00:40:56
Speaker 5: Yes, whether the two choices there or not, homage influence or con isn't a homage just a influence. Yeah, that's a little French or a little more French. Homage is an influence in the beret.

00:41:07
Speaker 3: That's all right?

00:41:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, it it rates your intentionality, I suppose, right, Okay, So the the moment when we get the standoff at the tunnel with Doad, started noticing, especially tonight, how good, the bad and the ugly that felt, including with the the the grass or the weeds. That that that great effect that adds the tension, builds up the tension of tug pull into that. And then we see it just before the violence explodes. We see the grass float in the water almost like sagebrush, just going between the cowboys. So what about Leone's influence, Yeah, that's that's there.

00:41:47
Speaker 5: These are yeah, oh my I, guys are fucking spelm nerds.

00:41:51
Speaker 1: Here It's okay, So here these get a little bit more out there. When Tug is talking after that, in the aftermath of of that, and he's talking about Emily's death, and he's talking about Doade's death, and he says to Brendan, it's a hell of a thing, which made me think of the Schofield kid talking to William Money and unforgiven about it's a hell of a thing to kill a.

00:42:17
Speaker 2: Man, probably subconsciously stolen. Okay, so maybe it has a great line or could be coincidence.

00:42:23
Speaker 3: Okay.

00:42:24
Speaker 1: So when when Brendan is meeting the Pin for the first time and Tug gets very angry with him, stomps on him a bit, and then he wakes up in the other room and he's coming to and he's very disoriented. He's in and out of consciousness. And then all of a sudden, we start to hear the Pin, I think before we even see him, and his head in close up starts to emerge in front of the bewildered Brendan, and he's got that sort of glow, but he's silhouetted in black, and I thought this really feels like Captain Willard in front of Colonel Kurtz late in Apocalypse Now. And you know what, you even have the pin called Brendan Soldier twice in that sequence.

00:43:05
Speaker 5: You're in too deep, Kevin, You're in too deep.

00:43:10
Speaker 2: Here is though, well that is yeah, I completely see how that's similar. That is a coincidence. The big thing that is actually a reference it with all the stuff of the brick kind. And there's this thing where he goes into the darkness and she and Laura comes out a little too soon, like he melts. There's a shot in Blue Velvet where Laura Durn comes out of the shadows underneath these trees. That's just one of my faces.

00:43:33
Speaker 1: It's like it's like we plan this, Brian because and then my last one, Emily's body, the blonde hair lying near the water dark forces nefarious goings on of high school. Josh, you know what we're talking about, because you finally caught up with ten peaks Coffee and pie. Oh my, the weirdos out back behind the restaurant occasional cut. Next on my list, the shot I'll just try to interrupt the shots of Emily's not so ruby slippers even the opening score, which to me sounds not at all like noir but sort of Leone by way of Battle Lamente. Yeah, I'm thinking Twin Peaks. I'm thinking Blue Velvet, Mulholland Dry, Wild at Heart, and especially with David Lynch recently passing away, I had the great pleasure of coming to a Q and a here at the Music Box with David Lynch once for Inland Empire and have great memories of that. How big of an influence was Lynch.

00:44:27
Speaker 2: There's probably more Lynch, Yeah, in this influence in this movie then there is film noir influences. The reality I was in high school, Twin Peaks was a massive, massive, massive thing for man in high school, and all the stuff that you mentioned was drawn straight from steal from the best, That's what I said.

00:44:46
Speaker 6: So talking about technology a little bit, going back to that shot, and I think one of the things that's been a marker of your film's movie for in your career is the thoughtful embrace of technology as it has developed, whether it's been different types of cameras or special effects, how to incorporate such things. Is there any sort of tool that you wish you could have brought to bear on brick. Now, obviously the right answer is no, this is a time capsule. You don't touch it. As we started with, right, you want this to be a movie pre mobile phone age and exist in that space. But as a filmmaker, it does make me curious if there's any sort of tool that you think you might have been able to bring to bear on this particular story.

00:45:32
Speaker 5: I don't know.

00:45:33
Speaker 2: I don't think so, but I mean that opens up the question are there things that you would do? Like are there things that when watching it, I'm like, oh, I wish I could change that, And that inevitably is like a thing that I would never I would never do that. I think I'm not going to ever go back into anything and change anything. But in terms of tools, I don't know, not really, but tools are I don't know. Maybe tools for me are never limiting factors really, And the reality is that's another thing in my memory of making as it was just in that world where like the shot looking up at the fan with its spinning in the room, spinning, that that's something where there could have been sophisticated to it. We probably would have just done that using CG at this using you know, cut it out and day and after effects. But back then we didn't have that, And so we stuck the dolly on a lazy Susan, wrapped the chord around it thirty times, and I'll watched the monitor together to get the speed exactly right of matching the fan and started cheering when we got it, and started like and so it and so No. I wouldn't give that up to throw it to an after effects guys a million years.

00:46:34
Speaker 6: Yeah, because that's an example where and you know, I think CGI has its place today, but still there's an eeriness to the technique you use that probably would have been lost if you'd applied CGI there.

00:46:47
Speaker 5: I don't know about.

00:46:48
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe there would be, it would be I wouldn't have that great memory, I guess.

00:46:52
Speaker 5: But I also I'm with you.

00:46:54
Speaker 2: I I tend to instinctively push back against the notion of you know, whether it's anal versus digital, whether it's practical versus cGy, everything, everything's a tool, everything can be used to its own thing, but also going back to the original thing. It's also so much about the experience of making a thing, and that's why it's never wrong to go back to the old analog stuff. If that's what makes you excited about the thing that you're created.

00:47:18
Speaker 1: How about the sequence where Tug finds Brendan snooping around at the fantast with the mirror and the lighting and that disorienting effect of the whole time he's confronting him and has him up against the wall, the mirror is tilting and it offers a sort of kaleidoscopic effect, and then it stops at the exact moment where the conversation dissipates, where the tension finally kind of resolves a little bit. How difficult was it to shoot that scene? And also just tell us where I mean, is that something you have in mind when you're writing the script?

00:47:54
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was script.

00:47:55
Speaker 2: That was storyboard. That was like all really intentional. The things stopping exactly then though, was just that's that's just luck.

00:48:01
Speaker 5: That's movie magic.

00:48:03
Speaker 3: You just get that.

00:48:04
Speaker 2: But my main memory of that scene is we had no money, and so we only had enough money to build one room of a set, and so that's actually the same room as the Pin's office, and Jody had like one night to paint it all black and cut a window in the wall and stuff, and the paint fumes. We were all super high by the end, and so the thing's spinning and the whole thing and like and also that it's kind of crazy that he's holding him up by his neck and he says, like a paragraph of dialogue, well he was like yeah, like, ah, I should have grabbed the lapels.

00:48:39
Speaker 3: I don't know.

00:48:39
Speaker 6: So this this has been great stuff about the making of it. I wonder if we can move a little bit towards the release of Brick as this low budget, as you say, kids making it debut, and we've described it in the context of being critics and being excited about it and trying to get behind movies like this and championing them. Do you remember at the time just what that was like, not knowing what will happen. I imagine with this movie you're putting out in the world, and how you experienced all those channels, whether it was your interaction with critics like film spotting and realized this is like a galvanizing force we can be alongside, or maybe marketing or you know, studio how that all worked. But if you can go back and talk about what it was like to have a small film like this become a real thing, yeah, I.

00:49:33
Speaker 2: Mean it is. It is really and I mean to talk about like what you guys do a little bit. I mean, first of all, just the fact that you guys were championing the movie and the fact that you guys were behind it it, especially with like a small movie, and it's exactly right. I mean, it's you know, I edited this movie in my bedroom. I just maybe we just like I said, Nathan was making the score with whisks. Like any movie this size, it doesn't feel real to the feel. It feels like this dinky little thing you're putting together on your own and then you put it on the world, and it almost feels like you're pulling a trick that suddenly people think it's a real movie or something. And so getting people who actually see it and see the intention and to champion it and discover it. And this movie took some discovering, and you know, that's what you guys do, and and the other elements I think of what I just why I've I've been a listener for all these years with you guys, is you guys are also just great critics in that it's not about and and in that little montage before it was put really really well that you guys analyzed the movie that was intended.

00:50:43
Speaker 5: I would put it even a little bit differently.

00:50:45
Speaker 2: I would say, you guys bring a personal perspective to your analysis, which is what great film criticism. It was why I love film criticism, it's why I love reading it. It's because it's a documentary of the person's experience in the theater, or of that personal experience that the person had watching it. And in that way, it's not even like a it's as much about the critic as it is about not in the derisive and it's just about you, but in a way that actually makes it and that's what makes it good writing or interesting conversation. And you guys bring that personal perspective to everything that you analyze in a way that I don't know, especially if it's your movie, it means a lot, but even just any movie that I want to hear your guys' take of, it's because I want to hear your guys's experience of it.

00:51:30
Speaker 5: So I know that was a lot of words that was worth But we are you guys, rock, is what I'm saying, right.

00:51:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you you have talked a little bit about the origins and how long you know, how much time you spent making this movie and how personal it was. But I don't know if we've really gotten to the the crux of it. Do you remember the exact moment where you you knew this is a film I have to make, like you the idea crystallized for you? And what what was it? Was it? Concept? Was it character? With a dialogue scene?

00:52:03
Speaker 2: I think, I mean, we talked earlier about the thing of expressing the high school thing through the film, right. The reality is, though, it's like I wrote the script and I kind of I kind of just didn't write anything else that was that good for the rest of it, I do, so I'm like, let's keep trying to get brick made.

00:52:19
Speaker 5: Let's try. I think this is good.

00:52:21
Speaker 2: And the reality is, it's not like I don't know, I wouldn't have stopped until I got the thing made, but not necessarily because it's the only thing that I had to make, just because it's the only thing I wanted to do was make stuff, and this was the thing that kind of was was present in my heart for that whole time. So so yeah, no, I don't know that there's like one one moment or something like that. I wish there was, I would be I should make something up.

00:52:43
Speaker 1: But I mean, has that has that changed at all for you? Have you've gotten better at if something isn't working you you can set it aside or does or do you stay determined to see it through?

00:52:58
Speaker 2: Well, it's I mean, I guess the answer is it's kind of the same. I mean it's different because this took me eight years to get made, and so in a way that does kind of like it's a little bit like, you know, the Crucible a little bit, and it does make it into kind of maybe arguably a more refined thing or something. But the reality is also I've been really lucky that anything that I've made has been just the thing I want to make the most next. I've been able to just kind of follow follow my heart with each new movie, and so in that way, it's similar to this, where it's just like, Yeah, this is the thing I'm genuinely most excited about, this thing to make.

00:53:32
Speaker 3: So I have a bit of a broader question for you.

00:53:35
Speaker 6: I think of your movies as having and really all of them they're very realistic about the state of things. Whatever the state of things happen to be in that particular story, but there's a hopefulness underneath that as well. Interesting now, after just watching Brick, what the ratio is there? But I think those two elements are in all of them. So projecting outside of your own filmography, this is a dark time in a lot of ways. It's also an uns time for cinema in particular. What's exciting and hopeful for you? What do you see about what's going on in cinema right now that gets you excited, that makes you feel hopeful, whether it's a type of filmmaker or a region of films, a technology that's open doors, You're excited about collaborators you've met recently. Something I'm not listening here. I'm giving you time because because I'm really I'm really interested in your thoughts on this.

00:54:29
Speaker 2: I mean, there's I think there's a lot of exciting young filmmakers working today. The thing, honestly though, that gives me the most kind of like just hope and thrill and excitement I feel like. I mean, first of all, I do feel a little bit like we're the conditions feel right right now for some kind of new wave in terms of cinema, for something new genuinely new to come along and.

00:54:52
Speaker 5: We're you we'll probably hate it world, We'll probably not understand it and hate it.

00:54:57
Speaker 2: But something that there's a genuine new wave to crest and break and there's a lot of great work being done right now.

00:55:03
Speaker 5: There's a lot of that.

00:55:04
Speaker 2: I feel like there's it just feels a little bit like it's you know, the studios are putting out you know, like Doctor Doolittle, and it's time for time for us to find our easy rider a little bit.

00:55:14
Speaker 5: It feels like maybe, but beyond.

00:55:16
Speaker 2: That, whatever that ends up being, or whether that ends up being the place where at or whatever, what's genuinely exciting to me. My wife Karana and I we go do a lot of old Ukraine A long worth.

00:55:27
Speaker 5: Now you must remember this, you must remember this.

00:55:30
Speaker 2: One of the great podcasts, another one of the pre serial podcasts.

00:55:34
Speaker 5: Along with you guys. It's a small club.

00:55:37
Speaker 2: We go to a lot of revival cinema in LA and suddenly it's a great time in La to go to revival cinema. And what's most encouraging to me and most thrilling is to go to these screenings of We went to the Paul Schrader Mischima movie the other day going to see a Claire Denis film, or going to see in one of her earlier movies and seeing it. I'm a Thursday and the theater is packed, and it's packed with young people and we are the old people there. And to see that with young filmgoers there is a thirst for stuff that genuinely surprises them and turns them on in that way that that to me is the most hopeful thing I can possibly see. And you can feel a little band are right and now I mean you get you guys coming out for this festival and coming out to these screening and I mean this is to me, if the love of cinema there and is there, and the love of like genuinely good stuff, that that to me is like a you know, you can just hold your finger up to the wind and see there's probably some good stuff coming.

00:56:36
Speaker 3: And that's happening here.

00:56:37
Speaker 6: Music Box has a matine a series of older films and they're packed with younger audiences.

00:56:42
Speaker 5: So yeah, and that to me is the most hopeful thing in the world.

00:56:44
Speaker 1: Man. Yeah, So producer Sam, this may annoy him, but he's such an integral part of the show. Obviously, and with such a huge champion for this movie, an advocate at the time enthusiastic, as he said, he had the premonition he knew twenty years later we'd be sitting here talking to how great it is. Sam. I'm going to give you a chance to produce the show now instead of telling me later what I screwed up. So what do we need to ask Ryan that we haven't gotten to so for recording? If I heard Sam correctly talking about how you give yourself, it seems a challenge a puzzle with your films. The films are often puzzles themselves, but the process is that part of the pleasure for you is solving that puzzle.

00:57:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, there, there always is, but it always to me, the real puzzle element of it is not even though I've written, I have written movies that have kind of puzzle like plots. To me, the actual thing that's exciting to me is going to sound very, very kind of basic and dumb.

00:57:42
Speaker 5: But the reality is just.

00:57:45
Speaker 2: Of having an emotional impact on an audience by the end of it, the totally of it, and that I feel like is the real thing that I keep trying to get better at. I keep trying to learn by watching. I keep trying to because the reality is that's also an element of puzzle create. I guess you know, you're creating something that is going to guide the audience through it, but it becomes less and less interesting. The notion of kind of aha moments and surprises, it becomes more and more interesting, the notion of how do you emotionally draw the audience in deeper and have a surprise in the sense of an emotional turn that makes them feel something huge at the end of it.

00:58:20
Speaker 5: So to me that I file that under kind.

00:58:23
Speaker 2: Of puzzle creation also in terms of the puzzle of screenwriting, and that's actually the hardest.

00:58:27
Speaker 3: Thing to do.

00:58:28
Speaker 6: You know, one quick one for me before we get to the end here. This relates to the repertory aspect. What should this audience go home and tomorrow or the next day, what detective film?

00:58:39
Speaker 3: What noir film?

00:58:40
Speaker 1: What?

00:58:41
Speaker 6: What should they make a priority of seeing maybe in the next week or so?

00:58:45
Speaker 2: Oh boy, I mean, there's so much good stuff, and the the uh and the catalog of noir is so vast. I would I would say, I'm sure most people here have seen Miller's Crossing. If you haven't it's it's an all it's an all time. I would also say, well, it's on my mind. It's not really a it's not strictly speaking a film noir, but it has some elements of it. And because we just lost Gene Hackman, the conversation has been on my mind recently, which it sounds like everyone here, you guys are too good of cinephiles. You're gonna see anything I throw out, You've probably seen it all. So but the reality is what what What's also fun about the genre of noir is it's virtually bottomless and if you go, if you just order one of those like five DVD box sets of like The North City, So it is just an endless pool to draw from, and there's an endless array of things that will look up. Any Ida Lapino noir and I pulled off the shelf and you're gonna you guys have seen.

00:59:49
Speaker 6: Anyway a marathon we've long considered.

00:59:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we watched one of hers.

00:59:54
Speaker 5: I'm kind of obsessed with Ida Lapino.

00:59:57
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, Anyway, it might be the push for us to finally do that. So you know, I was looking back Ryan at some of our exchanges over the years, You've been so gracious being part of the show and contributing voicemails to end of year shows and of course being a big part of not only a celebration a milestone like this twenty years and hitting one thousand episodes, but also episode five hundred. And you would plan we did that at the music Box. You would planned to be here at the music Box for it. A new job came up, took you out of town, took you away, but you still made the time and joined us virtually. We had you, as we alluded to earlier on the big screen via Skype. Had a great conversation with you then and afterwards you sent me a note and you said, head a blast. Hope I didn't say anything dumb. Thanks again for having me. I promised to be there in person for one thousand and leadies and gentlemen, here he is right, made good on his promise. That a wonderful a wonderful guy, a wonderful filmmaker.

01:00:54
Speaker 5: Thank you, guys for doing what you do. And here's to another twenty years. Guys, Thanks so.

01:00:59
Speaker 3: Much, Ryan, Thank you, Thank you Ryan Johnson.

01:01:01
Speaker 5: I think ask for Van here.

01:01:06
Speaker 1: Okay, so maybe I got a little into deep as Ryan suggested with the Apocalypse now stuff, but I'm gonna stand by it.

01:01:13
Speaker 3: That was classic. That was I'm so glad we have that recorded.

01:01:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, from the first ever Film spotting Fest our Q and A with director Ryan Johnson after a thirty five millimeter screening of his six debut film Brick. We will have more audio from Film spotting Fest and some video coming sometime. We don't exactly have a plan as of yet, but we know Coganata, for example, another guest at Film Spotting Fest, has a big film coming out sometime this year, currently scheduled for May. We'll see if the schedule holds, but we're expecting a big, bold, beautiful journey. I believe that's what it's called. Sounds right, Yep, we're expecting that this year. We'll probably pair our Columbus Q and A with that review of his new film, and then we've got Hoost screening Q and a's with some of our favorite critic friends. Danas Stevens talking with you about pother Panchali, Matt Singer talking with me about Take Shelter. Alison Wilmore, that was a great conversation about Sean Baker's Tangerine, and then we closed out Film Spotting Fest with Scott Tobias and Sam van Holgren talking about before Sunrise. So we will, we promise share all of that audio and as I said, some video as well as we get a little deeper into twenty twenty five and Josh one more note. I know I mentioned it a couple weeks ago, but we do still have and the orders have been coming in. I promise I'll be hitting the post office soon, everybody. We do have some more of those Sam's myth custom designed, numbered limited edition Film spotting Fest posters. You can find more about those and how to order at film spotting dot net slash shop, or you could also go to the home page of film spotting Fest film spottingfest dot com, see some pictures from the festival, read about screenings and some of the background and context for our choices, and again click that order form if you would like to get one of those posters.

01:03:07
Speaker 6: Listening is the number one thing you can do to support an independently produced show like Film Spotting Here are a couple more things you can do. Take a minute to give us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

01:03:18
Speaker 3: You can do this.

01:03:19
Speaker 6: If you're a first time listener, you can do this. If you've been listening for twenty years. Heck, you can do this if you reviewed us I don't know, ten years ago, and it's time to share some fresh thoughts. Every one of these reviews does help us reach new listeners. We want to thank Ryan Droddy for his recent review at Apple Podcasts. Ryan wrote in I've listened to Film Spotting off and on for the last few years, but I always return because it's such a comfort show for cinophiles. The top five lists appeal to my innate love for countdowns, and the end of year roundtables are a fantastic overview of each year in film. With that episode alone, you can ensure most of your annual blind spots will be taken care of. And outside of that show, the marathons and madness brackets give listeners continue rooting interests. I always feel inspired to keep watching and discovering new movies after I listen. Thank you very much for that. It's you, Ryan. There's another way to support us. You could join the Film Spotting Family over at film Spottingfamily dot com. We want to welcome Family Plus member Jonathan B. From South Atlanta, Georgia. Jonathan is on letterboxed. If you want to follow him there, look for Parma Jonathan one word.

01:04:28
Speaker 1: Kind of like parmjan paar n maybe, but that's what I'm going with, okay, josh He writes, I think I found you in twenty nineteen. Maybe I just graduated college and was into year two of teaching theater. I needed someone to discuss Midsummer. I think it was Joshua's pronunciation. I'll never forget when I hear that title. You did like to lean into the midsummar. Yeah, I loved.

01:04:50
Speaker 3: Hearing you to honor the authentics.

01:04:53
Speaker 1: Of course, I loved hearing you two bounce back and forth like my friends and I used to do. I listen almost every morning on my forty five minute dr to work. Taken a break on teaching to pursue a career in film, and I cannot thank you both enough for keeping film alive for me. I like theater, but I love film. A favorite review or segment well. Jonathan also loves the madnesses and marathons. Anything to make my fomo so bad that I finally watch all of those old classics Sitting on my shelves, nice letterbox, Top four, Black Swan, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Shining, and Psycho. So there's a little bit bit of a theme. A favorite movie he revisited recently The Master, Oh Moment of Silence for the Master being out of film Spotting Madness. A random filmmaker he loves Ingmar Bergmann, a movie he credits with becoming a cinophile. There is Psycho, and finally a book about movies or movie making, Save the Cat. Basic but a good base for understanding and teaching structure. I am intrigued, Jonathan. Thank you for joining the family, and thank you for all the years of listening. 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 the weekly newsletter, You get to join exclusive forums like the Film Spotting Family Discord, You get monthly bonus shows, and you get to participate in events we have a couple times a year, like the March bonus, which is Trivia Spotting. As we're taping this, Josh, we are primed for our next round of Trivia Spotting just one night away. Got I think ninety family members who have signed up fantastic to play, and we always do have fun, even if we inevitably end up proving that we know almost no movie trivia.

01:06:35
Speaker 6: I mean, that's a secret that only Film Spotting Family members get to discover. You shouldn't say it on the show, That's right.

01:06:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, Film Spottingfamily dot com is where you can learn more.

01:06:44
Speaker 6: We bid goodbye to some of the best films of the century when we come back with Round one results of Film Spotted Madness and Round two matchups stay with us.

01:06:57
Speaker 3: Unicorns used to be seen at these divine monsters because people fully believe that they could heald it early anything.

01:07:05
Speaker 6: It's an opportunity, but immortality, we have a moral imperative to harvest every last one.

01:07:13
Speaker 1: You're listening to Film Spotting. That's Will Poulter, Richard Grant, and Jenny Ortega in the trailer for Death of a Unicorn. It's new in theaters this weekend. Paul Rudd also starts in the feature debut of writer director Alex Scharfman For what It's Worth, Josh, this is an a twenty four film, usually a good sign. The trailer doesn't make it entirely clear what the tone here is comedy, comedy, thriller, comedy, fantasy. Can you enlighten me what's going on with Death of a Unicorn? And does it work?

01:07:41
Speaker 6: Yeah, you've gotten to the main issue with Death of a Unicorn, At least for me. I'll be curious to see if others respond to that tone balance, that tone management that this movie attempts. But I think it's just too much, probably for a debut feature filmmaker taking on too much. It's all those things you mentioned, but none of them consistently or as evocatively as you would hope. You do have to admire the ambition, though, of this movie, and you have to admire the Bonker's vision. Basically Rudd plays this He's like the lawyer to this pharmaceutical empire, this family that runs a pharmaceutical empire. He's called to their mountain estate because the father played by Richard Grant, he wants to basically you get his estate in order. He's sick and so so Rudd's character goes with his daughter played by Ortega because he wants to present himself as this family man and hopefully get into a higher position with the company. So it's a little bit about you know, the daughter. Ortega's character is suspicious not only of her dad, but also of this entire empire. Everything is very clearly set out, and then the movie throws in a magical unicorn, a magical healing unicorn. That's kind of where I was in in terms of I got to check this out, especially being you know, a new filmmaker as well, and I got to say, I haven't seen a performance this humorless from Paul Rudd in a long time. That sort of shocked me. I think it's not entirely his fault. This character is from the get go not only boring but clearly greedy and kind of spineless. So there's no tension there between you know, him and the daughter or Tega does what she can to kind of humanize and bring nuance to the relationship. She's working really hard. I don't know that the movie entirely knows what to do with her authenticity. I will say that Taylioni and Will Polter have a lot of funny moment moments. They seem to be on the right wavelength of farce almost and their timing is good. But then after a while they two you get the joke like the one joke they each are. It's the spoiled son and the sort of you know, performatively philanthropic wife. They don't progress much beyond that. And I have to say the creature stuff without spoiling too much, it never clicked for me. It goes for schlock and Gore in a way that I suppose the budget should match with. But you see a lot of these unicorns in this movie, and the effects aren't up to the amount of screen time they're given. And I don't blame that on the effects artists. It's almost like the vision is ahead of what the budget could handle, and so that felt off to me as well. Now, all that being said, this is unique kind of crazy going out on a limb, and I never want to hold that against a filmmaker too much. So, as I said at the top, it might work for some people. The tones might all meld perfectly and they could have a good time with it. So maybe give it a try. If any of this sounds intriguing to you, it was just one of those clunkers in terms of tone for me.

01:10:52
Speaker 1: Death of a Unicorn is currently playing in wide release. If you see it in agree or disagree with Josh, you can email us feedback at filmspotting dot net. Next week on the show, the top five we promised you last week are Gene Hackman scenes. We gave ourselves an extra week, and you seem to be taking advantage of that, Josh, judging by your letterboxed diary, I've only fit in one Gene Hackman blind spot. I would say it's fruitful. And it turns out you've also watched this film and given it a very high rating. That's Scarecrow.

01:11:25
Speaker 3: Oh man.

01:11:26
Speaker 6: We're going to have such a good time talking about Scarecrow, I think, and particularly if a scene I know, a scene from there is going to make it for my list. If it does for you as well, that'd be awesome. But just to get to talk about this movie, which I'd heard of with Pacino being in it and was mildly aware of, but it never rose to the level of discussion when it came to seventies movies where I had to rush and make sure I saw it. So grateful for the excuse to have caught this, And yeah, I did a couple revisits as well. Wanted something like the French connection to be fresh in my mind. Moves as well, those two i'd seen before, finally knocked out Mississippi Burning, which I had somehow never seen. So this has been a good couple of weeks of spending time reacquainting myself with Hackman and getting a better handle on what made him so special.

01:12:17
Speaker 1: Okay, well I'm not there quite yet, have a lot of work still to do. Scarecrow, like I said, the only bit of homework I've done so far in terms of seeing something new, and I probably should be rewatching some of these films. That would actually probably be more productive, because you know, he's got one hundred and twenty something credits over on Letterbox. There's certainly films of his I need to see, but in doing a little bit of research, Scarecrow was the biggest one I felt like I needed to cross off. There are a few others I'd like to see, but the chances realistically that any of those scenes from these movies and those characters are going to compete with the already seven to twelve. I'm struggling to choose between. I can't say for sure. My instinct is to always watch stuff I haven't seen versus rewatching something. But I know rewatching something is where the real fertile ground is gonna be Well, the hard.

01:13:10
Speaker 6: Thing is I'm discovering he doesn't really have a bad scene. So yeah, even when you're revisiting something, it's like, well, I thought it was going to be this one from this movie because it's what I remembered, But what about this other one, which is again maybe not the highlight reel, but does it get This is what's interesting about these sorts of top five lists. If it doesn't make the highlight reel, is there something about that moment that captures Hackman? And those are the ones that are fun to either discover or rediscover on a revisit.

01:13:40
Speaker 1: Also, next week we will be down to the sweet sixteen in Film Spotting Madness best of the two thousand and so far, we will have much more madness in a moment. For future show plans, you can check out our itinerary for at least the next few weeks Film Spotting dot Net slash episodes.

01:13:57
Speaker 6: Adam, I want to remind listeners about Ebert Into, which is just around the corner, and plans are getting finalized coming together. We're up there on the schedule now at the Conference on World Affairs in Boulder, Colorado. And yeah, as I mentioned, we will be doing the Wizard of Oz. So we've secured that first uninterrupted showing for Monday, April seven, and we're doing this just ahead of Cynthia Arrivo giving the keynote for the conference. So in the afternoon we'll watch the Wizard of Oz. Then in the evening Arrivo is going to be giving that presentation. Then we get back together on Monday, April eight. That'll be around five o'clock at the conference and we're going to go through the Wizard of Oz starting with Seene one, spend the next three days breaking it down, interrupting it whenever people want.

01:14:45
Speaker 3: This is free.

01:14:46
Speaker 6: I don't know if I've mentioned that before. It's free. It's open to anyone. Takes place on the campus of University of Colorado, Boulder, so we'd love to see film spotting listeners there. We always get a good representation about five, sometimes even ten folks ten listeners who are there. Whether or not you can make interrupt us. I do want to mention the annual film spotting meetup we always have in Boulder. This has been nailed down as well. It's going to be Thursday, April ten that evening new location for those of you who have come for all the years, We're moving on to a new place called Boulder Social. So all the details about that we will link to in the show notes. There's an RSVP you can fill out there, and if you're a film Spotting family member, jump on over to the discord and look at the meetups channel and you'll find all the details there. So yeah, eager to go to interrupt us. Always fun to see film Spotting listeners. Hope to do that and catch up with some of you in a couple of weeks. This week, on our sister podcast, The Next Picture Show, we want to mention they're doing part two of their Kill Them All pairing, so they're following up an earlier discussion of Starship Troopers with Mickey seventeen makes a lot of sense. New episodes drop every Tuesday, and you can find The Next Picture Show wherever you get your podcasts.

01:16:05
Speaker 3: This episode is.

01:16:06
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01:16:30
Speaker 3: This is blessoming.

01:16:32
Speaker 1: This is madness.

01:16:33
Speaker 3: This is absolute madness.

01:16:35
Speaker 1: This is madness.

01:16:36
Speaker 3: Madness, but this.

01:16:39
Speaker 6: Is absolute madness, Ambassador, Why should you build such a thing?

01:16:44
Speaker 3: Bad news.

01:16:47
Speaker 1: Us smart off. I was a little worried, Josh, but no, you did not break madness. I think both you and Roxanna ended up being good Steward.

01:17:00
Speaker 3: We may have this tournament, we may have broken rock Sanna maybe so. I don't know how much she enjoyed it, but she was a very good sport.

01:17:07
Speaker 6: You know.

01:17:08
Speaker 1: I am always happy to have Roxanna on the show. But after listening to your madness segment, come on, talk about a critic after my own heart. Lots of love for Cameron Crow's almost famous, even though she ultimately did vote against it, going with leading Leo Once upon a time in Hollywood. How about all that Love for the Departed, a movie I've mentioned multiple times is comfort food for me? So much comfort food that on the way back flying from Rome to Chicago just a few days ago, here I didn't want to dive into a full movie, and so I do what I often do. The Departed is available on the screen right in front of me. I'm going to fire it up and watch the first thirty to forty minutes. I sure I can just always do it. It is pure cinema and pure fun for me. And I also, I have to say, because I did just watch this part, I love that. She mentioned the line in the Office with Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg where DiCaprio quotes Hawthorne and says, well, families are always rising and falling in America? Am I right? And Martin Sheen said, who said that? And he goes Hawthorne and Wallberg in a movie filled with great Wallberg comedic moments, he makes a fart noise and says something like, what's wrong, smart ass? Don't know any Ethan Shakespeare? It's so good. I love the Department. So I just had to get that out there. Thank you, Roxanda for confirming, for validating my love for that film, even though you voted against it. And now it may be the case where we don't have any Martin Scorsese I know left in this tournament.

01:18:44
Speaker 3: We will I have to get to might beyond the table.

01:18:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is our annual bracket style movie elimination tournament. Sixty four films, only one will survive. We are doing the best films of the twenty first century so far. So it's always hard to get this list down to sixty four or to ninety six or wherever we start with all the play ins, but especially when you're considering not just a decade, as we have been for the past five years or so, you're considering twenty five years really really hard. We do have your round one results and those Round two matchups, which are live right now at filmspotting dot net slash Madness. So thirty two matchups Josh in Round one, sixty four films. As we note it, we are not going to dig into all of them, but I did want to mention some of the closer matchups, the tight ones, some of the bigger upsets, and then yeah, we had a few surprises maybe along the way in terms of the biggest margins, though the favorites that won easily. I don't know that any of these are probably big surprises. The number one seed there will be blood took down. There was blood all Right took down four Months, three weeks, and two days ninety one percent to nine. We had only one other matchup, Josh, that was in the ninety ten range, and that was Parasite over twelve years of Slave, and that was exactly the final ninety percent to ten percent. We had three more in the eighties. Mulholland Drive defeated Talk to Her eighty eight percent to twelve percent, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sorry, Coganata took down Columbus eighty six percent to fourteen fight. Good fight, Yeah, good fight. And then finally No Country for Old Men defeating Anatomy of a Fall eighty three percent to seventeen percent. We have there will be blood. The number one seed mulhalland Drive, I think the number three seed e Turtal Sunshine, the four seed, I think Parasites to do. It's basically the top five seeds that took down those other films. They didn't really have much of a chance.

01:20:46
Speaker 6: These are the titles too, you'll look on in the prediction bracket like, yeah, people have mostly picked one of those five titles to win the entire tournament.

01:20:54
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:20:54
Speaker 1: So in terms of biggest upsets, I'll set this one up and then you can reveal the results. I knew this was going to be a tough one. It was a tough one for me to vote in. I think it might have been the first one I mentioned as far as toughest to pick for me. Alex Scarland's x Macana up against the sort of like minded Spike Jones's her Sam will now make me remind you and listeners, and that's fine, I'll eat it that. I didn't think X Makina would get out of its play and matchup against Steven Spielberg's AI artificial intelligence. So then we seated X Makina at forty one up against her at twenty four, And in fairness, we knew we did know X Machana definitely had a shot, especially writing high off that AI victory and what happens Josh.

01:21:44
Speaker 6: Pretty decisive win for X Makana here fifty nine percent to forty one percent.

01:21:50
Speaker 1: Yeah. Two movies in X Macana and HERD that we've revisited recently, just over the past couple of years for anniversaries. Ex Macana at almost ten last year, episode nine sixty two, Her at ten in May twenty twenty three, that was actually a bonus show for Film Spotting family members, and that means that the Spike Jones is now out of the tournament, Josh, no more Spike No all Right.

01:22:11
Speaker 6: Our next one Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street that was seated at twenty five versus Christopher Nolan's Memento seated at forty. How do you feel now, Adam about those seedings looking at the things are playing out?

01:22:24
Speaker 1: This was another tough one. Sam and I both picked Memento to advance on our brackets, so we thought it would win. We thought it would win. We thought it would be an upset, even though that defies all the logic whatever logic there is ever in a Film Spotting Madness tournament and going through that whole selection process, because in theory, we've seated them based on the fact that we think the movies with the higher seeds are going to win. This was one we knew always had a shot at being an upset, just because of the love for nolan breakout film and the Wolf of Wall Street being a film as we very well know, Josh, they can be a little divisive.

01:23:06
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, maybe not this divisive, though I would have thought there would have been more Wolf of Wall Street fans, but it ended up losing thirty four percent for Wolf of Wall Street sixty six percent for Memento. Now this does mean by losing Wolf of Wall Street, no more Scarcese either, No more Spike Jones, no more Scarcese.

01:23:25
Speaker 3: That's right. This was his only film because the.

01:23:27
Speaker 6: Departed lost in the play and lost you once upon a time in Hollywood.

01:23:31
Speaker 1: So in terms of our Cinderellas, if you will, so far, even though Cinderella's often are big surprises, not so much here, but the forty one seed advancing in ex Makana, the forty seed advancing in Memento. We also had the number thirty seven seed advance pans Labyrinth taking down Yrgo's Lanthymos and the Lobster the number twenty eight seed, and it wasn't that close sixty percent to forty percent. That means Lanthemos is also Lanthemos, which which seems crazy for best of the centuries so far, I mean, yeah, I think maybe we're doing something wrong here. Yeah, well, guess who else is out? Someone we honored by watching Tangerine and having a discussion about it at Film spotting fests. Our current reigning Best Director and Best Picture winner at the Oscar Sean Baker, The Florida Project. This one we always knew could be just switched either way. The thirty two seed versus the thirty three seed, it should be one of the toughest, if not the toughest matchup. We have the Florida Project at thirty two, dnni Villeneuve's Arrival at thirty three the only film in the tournament for each filmmaker, and it was pretty close. It was pretty close at fifty six percent to forty four percent, but ultimately Arrival Josh is moving on in the tournament.

01:24:51
Speaker 6: People do absolutely love Arrival, and I'm sure it's been seen more than the Florida Project. Still feels wrong not to have a Baker film with us. He'll just have to be happy with his oscars.

01:25:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I suppose he can live with that. Okay, those were some of the bigger upsets, and we got to the widest margins. How about the ones that were the closest, the ones that myself and Sam just had to click refresh on over the past week or so because it just kept fluctuating back and forth, really neck and neck here, Josh. We had Interstellar, one of three Christopher Nolan films in the bracket, going up against another multi dimensional tour, Spider Man into the spider Verse, Interstellar at number twenty two in terms of seeding, forty three seeds spider Man and Josh. I'm going to tell you all week long, spider Man was just barely beating Interstellar, but consistently in the lead. We thought for sure Spider Man was pulling off the upset, and about two hours before the polls closed, Interstellar just nudged ahead and it hung on and it won. Interstellar ended up winning by eight votes. If you look at the bracket, it says fifty to fifty Interstellar one, But it says fifty to fifty because that's how close it was.

01:26:15
Speaker 6: And that's that's insane, because that's out of how many votes. I mean, yeah, thousands, Yes, exactly. And I never would have guessed that it would be this close. I just I would have thought people would pause that long over this one.

01:26:28
Speaker 3: Apparently they did.

01:26:29
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know how Sam and I both feel about Interstellar. We think it's his best film, it's technically his most popular on letterbox, but another one that can be divisive. Some people like you, Josh, have it more in that middle to lower Nolan tiers. Some people actively really disliked the movie. I assume that's what's happening here. I also know how much people adore the New Spider Man film, So maybe also it was the Nolan fatigue, considering he had three films in the tournament, and at this point he does have all three films still in the tournament Interstellar, Memento, and Oppenheimer, which knocked out Spike Lee's twenty fifth Hour.

01:27:09
Speaker 6: And see, this is the logic that's always bit me in my prediction bracket. I usually are in the past think yeah, but people will vote against this one because they know there are other films still in there. And I had to learn by mistakes over the years that it doesn't always work that way. And I don't know, maybe maybe that was the case here too. They didn't really care that Memento and Oppenheimer were likely going to move ahead. They wanted at least these these eight final voters that srouded their Interstellar.

01:27:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we have another one that was in near upset, but the favorite does move on. Talk about a tough one to pick. Sean of the Dead, the number thirty seed going up against Angley Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the thirty five seed. Well, we had an eight vote decider, have about twelve votes. Twelve votes, Sean of the Dead moves on, And this.

01:28:01
Speaker 6: Is one of those nonsensical pairings that just exposes the stupidity of.

01:28:05
Speaker 1: All this exactly. I'll go along with that word choice. Here we also have Celine Siama's Portrait of a Lady on Fire. This is our thirty four seed going up against Quentin Tarantino Once upon a Time in Hollywood. The thirty first seed very close, not quite fifty to fifty, in fact, fifty one to forty nine. And yes, technically an upset, even though this is another case where we knew that the absolute justified adoration for Portrait of a Lady on Fire could carry it over even a heavyweight like Quentin Tarantino. That's what happened. Portrait of a Lady on Fire moves on fifty one percent.

01:28:44
Speaker 6: I kind of love this, and I say that as someone who thinks Once upon a Time in Hollywood is one of Tarantino's best films. It's not, because you know, if it had been Portrait over in Glorious Bastards, I would have been cheeriated on right more loudly, but still a movie that's just so delicate and beautiful.

01:29:02
Speaker 3: Taking on Tarantino he can have.

01:29:05
Speaker 6: I guess he can have those sorts of things in his movies occasionally, but not often.

01:29:09
Speaker 3: I kind of like that this happened. Well.

01:29:11
Speaker 1: I can't wait to reveal to you the film Portrait of a Lady on Fire has to go up against Oh next, Tarantino does still have a dog in the fight, because, even though Josh doesn't like it much, in Glorious Bastard's handily beat the Safty Brothers uncut Gem, so we do still have a Quentin Tarantino offering. Finally, Wally, the sole Pixar film in the bracket was our thirty eight seed, and it went down. Josh in upset lost to the twenty seven seed Phantom Thread, one of two PTA films in the bracket. Very close, this one decided by I think two percent. I think this is another fifty one to forty nine. Ultimately, Wally goes down and mister Woodcock himself will advance.

01:29:57
Speaker 6: Another nonsensical pairing obviously, but man, i'd like to. I love seeing this much affection for Phantom Thread because I feel like around the time it came out, people liked it, and you know, the years after kind of thought of it as lesser Pta. I absolutely do not think it's lesser Pta. So yeah, kind of encouraging that it got this much.

01:30:17
Speaker 1: Support and just speaking more to the madness that is film spotting madness. Phantom Thread wasn't even supposed to be in the tournament, honestly, not that I wasn't considering it, And don't think it is justified being among the final sixty four or those ninety six that were part of the play ins one hundred, whatever it was. But we have there will be Blood as the number one seed. I tend to give a little bit more credence to The Master as a greater achievement than Phantom Thread, and I thought, well, those two films just need to be in SAM. Ultimately, the last minute said why don't we make The Master a play in versus Phantom Thread, just in case there's actually that much love for that film, what if it takes it down? And I went along with it, and here we are Phantom Threat advancing to round two.

01:31:04
Speaker 3: Something of a cinder Alla them.

01:31:06
Speaker 1: There you go. Complete Round one results are available at filmspotting dot net slash madness. That's the hub for all things madness. Click on the bracket. It will take you to those first round results. You can see all of the scores, all the ones that we covered and all of the ones we didn't cover. That means we are on to Round two sixteen matchups now, And as we did the last time we spoke about madness, Josh, we'll break it down this way. We'll give you some of the matchups we think are the easiest, We'll give you some of the matchups we think are the toughest in terms of choosing ourselves, and then maybe the toughest to predict. And that's actually where I want to start, because of the sixteen, I have two in that toughest to predict category, and I wonder if they align with you my two that I really just have no clue how they're going to come out. Children of Men versus The Dark Night. I know how people feel about that Christopher Nolan film, and actually it only just now occurs to me. Christopher Nolan doesn't have three films in the tournament. He has fourth, right, yeah, in the tournament with the Dark Knight, doesn't he I know how people feel about that film, maybe the greatest comic book movie ever made. But Children of Men is also a revered Alfonso Qoran film that feels really since it came out like a relevant, a constantly relevant film, sadly, and I do think Children of Men, which I'm pretty sure is the higher seed, slightly higher seed, I think it's going to advance. I think it's going to win, but I think it's going to be very close.

01:32:47
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was a difficult one to predict for me as well. I think you're right when you bring up the relevancy of Children of Men carrying a lot of weight especially. Yes, it's not that it just became relevant in the last six months or whatever. It was relevant here and there for years since it came out. It was relevant then, but this month when people are voting, Yeah, I think that's going to be in voters' minds. That's where i'd lean, but not confidently because Nolan Man. Don't count Nolan out as we've seen, So this one is a bit of a toss up.

01:33:22
Speaker 1: The aforementioned Portrait of a Lady on Fire is one part of my second toughest to predict matchup. And I wish I could say that Sam and I had the foresight to imagine in round two that two movies about lesbian relationships, one with the brunette and one with the blonde, would face off against each other and should face off against each other, But we didn't really plan it that way. Here we are, nevertheless, Portrait of a Lady on Fire going up against one of the top four seeds, Mulholland Drive. And yes it's a top four seed, and yes, I actually and I'm feeling a little foolish about this now. I think Mulholland Drive, or I predicted Holland Drive could win the entire tournament. But Josh, I think Portrait of Lady on Fire, especially with how recent that film is compared to the twenty plus year old Mulholland Drive, I think Portrait of Lady on Fire has a shot. I certainly think it's going to be closer than one might think it would be going up against what is the number three seed in the whole thing.

01:34:21
Speaker 6: I would love to see that happen. I mean, I hold nothing against Mulholland Drive. It's a movie I absolutely need to revisit. And yeah, I just spoke earlier about my love for Portrait of a Lady on Fire. I find it hard to believe that it could happen. I just wonder, you know the thing about a movie that here's what moholland Drive has not only its revered status in Lynch's filmography, but it has the time where more people have had the chance to be able to see it, and with Lynch's passing, they're re seeing it. So in a way it has you know, your strategy makes a lot of sense because it has longevity and timeliness. It has recency and longevity. I'm not saying that's going to carry it all the way to the top. I didn't predict that, but I do think it will carry it past Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

01:35:04
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll throw it over to you. Do you want to go with easiest toughest or do you have some toughest to predict that I didn't mention?

01:35:11
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'll give you one more toughest to predict, and this is, you know, we're trying to read the minds of listeners and when it comes to this, and I'm really torn over Get Out versus Ladybird.

01:35:24
Speaker 3: To a bit.

01:35:24
Speaker 6: It's that like timeliness thing, you know, and relevancy thing that Get Out absolutely has. It's a movie that represents this era we're considering, so particularly Ladybird is a little more timeless and universal. We know it's beloved. I wonder if you go by chatter, like the feedback we get or things we see from listeners on social you would guess Ladybird, I think, But I sometimes wonder is it the same people constantly talking about Ladybird? But there's more people who might vote for Get Out if that makes any sense? Sure, And there's no way to predict that, right, there's this.

01:36:07
Speaker 1: Curvil majority is that you're going with.

01:36:10
Speaker 6: There are both great films in such different ways, and I know they're both beloved by our listeners. So yeah, I have no real sense of what's going to happen there.

01:36:20
Speaker 1: I like it all right. So what about for you as far as either easy to choose or really difficult to choose?

01:36:28
Speaker 6: Well, I've been talking about this idea of timely versus timeless, So let's go to a hardest it's parasite versus phantom threat scene where this is and I'm especially flummoxed because I thought Wally would take out Phantom Threat, and now I've got this new factor to deal with in my predicting. This Cinderella, this, this you know has more love than I thought it did. Now Parasite, you know, is that would be a strong predictor to win the whole thing. So I guess in that sense for predicting, it's maybe not so difficult for me for voting, though for my personal vote is really difficult because Parasite has the timeliness. Phantom Thread has the timelessness. It's this unique love story set in an earlier era. It really doesn't say anything specific about this century so far. Parasite is all about that right in so many ways, and so normally my temptation if I were making like my list of the top ten films of this era, I'd want to go with one that represents the era better. But man, personally, recency bias is going to come into play here. I just spent four days with Phantom Thread for Cinema Interruptis here in Chicago last December. I can't give it up. After that, I'd watch it again right now, And so that's where I would go not easy.

01:37:52
Speaker 1: Though not easy. That one is a tough one for me. I've got it among my list of the toughest, Josh, but it does not compete with my number one most difficult in the mood for love, Wankar Wise in the mood for love. I know this one won't be as hard for you, but as someone who has us okay, as someone who has Inside Lewyn Davis as his first or second all time favorite Coen Brothers film, going up against Wan car Wise masterpiece. You had it in your top ten of all time on your site and sound the last time we did it.

01:38:30
Speaker 3: That's why this is easy.

01:38:31
Speaker 1: And I didn't quite have it in that top ten, but I begrudge no one putting it that high. It would certainly be in my conversation of films that I think deserve to be considered among the top, let's say twenty five greatest of all time. But Josh, if there's one between the two of those that I'm gonna put on my TV right now and just get lost in again, it's gonna be Inside Lewyn Davis. That is just my preference. I love that film so much and that's why I I'm actually voting for it. I voted for it over in the mood for love, but I did not feel good about it. For a second, vote your heart, Adam vot I did, I voted my heart. I also had a tough time with Spirited Away going up against in Glorious Bastards. I do love that Tarantino film, and I would generally say between the two filmmakers, I am more of a Tarantino guy. This is my heart, this is my taste. I'm more of a Tarantino guy than I am an anime Miyazaki guy. But thinking about the incinerator from that standpoint, thinking about losing a film like Spirited Away or losing in Glorious Bastards, I found myself today, Josh ultimately hovering over and clicking on the Miyazaki over Tarantino again. Good for you, feel didn't feel good about it, Though you.

01:39:50
Speaker 6: Should feel good, you should feel very good about that. I had a different hard one. It was lost in translation versus royal Ton of Bombs.

01:39:57
Speaker 1: And one of my easiest.

01:39:59
Speaker 6: Yeah no, but it's like when you're using the rankings to help guide you my favorite Sofia Coppola versus you know, maybe not my favorite Wes Anderson, but still among the very top of his I was tempted to go Copola here, honestly, because here's where I look at the bracket and the other titles. Grand Budapest still there, and I would vote. I know it's paired against matched up against Before Sunset, which is brilliant, and that'll be very difficult for a lot of folks, but for me, I would I would go with Grand Budapest. So so maybe I vote Lost in Translation here and then throw my throw my West Wait behind Grand Budapest. But you know what, no, no, I just rewatched Ten of Bombs for that Gene Hackman scenes. Yeah, project we're doing. It's brilliant, it's got it, it's got to stick around. I gotta have both it and Budapest. So I am so sorry. I'll just pretend Bill Murray in tenebaums is, you know, also playing his part in Lost in Translation, and try to find some consolation there.

01:41:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, relatively easy for me, just because ten and Bomb's I'm pretty sure I do have. Ranked is my favorite Wes Anderson, and it is probably one of my top ten favorite films in this entire tournament. So it's going to beat a lot of movies that it could go up against. We'll see, of course, as we get through the bracket. If ten and Baum's advances, it's only going to get tougher. But ten and Bomb's a pretty easy pick for me. You mentioned Sunset Before Sunset, the Link Later film, and of course five years ago, pre twenty twenty, when I went back through Wes Anderson's films with my older children, I think that was during COVID, and I discovered I had that epiphany finally that so many other people had with the Grand Budapest Hotel, and I realized that it truly is one of Wes Anderson's great films, one of his masterpieces. Picking Before Sunset prior to that would have just been a no brainer. It would have been one of my easiest choices in this entire tournament. As much as I love that film, and I am, let me be clear, I am voting for Before Sunset, but another one I don't feel good about because I love the Grand Budapest Hotel.

01:42:02
Speaker 6: That much, and good I'm glad you struggled there.

01:42:05
Speaker 1: I I do you expect it to be close? Hell, I think Grand Budapest could take the upset.

01:42:11
Speaker 3: Josh, I think it's got a shot. It has a shot.

01:42:14
Speaker 1: Any other matchups that you would like to single out?

01:42:17
Speaker 2: You know.

01:42:17
Speaker 6: The other tough one for me was No Country for Old Men versus Pans Labyrinth, And you know, logic math rankings, I should go with Pans Labyrinth here. It's my favorite Del Toro. No Country is my second favorite Cohen, so it has a little bit edge there, but screw it, screw all that. It's got to be a Cohens. I can't get get rid of No Country for Old Men quite this soon, but definitely one I struggled over and you referenced, you know, Adam where our top ten of all time lists, those faux Citan sound lists we make every ten years coming to play, And for me it led to an easy one, Zodiac versus The Tree of Life. You know, I'm I'm just going to keep having the Tree of Life in my easy category because it wasn't in my top ten of all time, but it was in my eleventh through twenty back when we did that what three years ago now, And so yeah, if that's the case, I've got to keep voting for it sure as best of the century here.

01:43:10
Speaker 1: So I'll just run through a few more easy ones for me, Interstellar over Fellowship of the Ring. I know you're going the opposite way. No Country not a tough choice for me over Pans Labyrinth, even though that film I'm pretty sure was in my top ten of that year. I mentioned ten of Bombs over Lost in translation, there will be Blood over Arrival relatively easy, as much as I do appreciate Arrival, Fury Road taking down Oppenheimer. Yeah, Ladybird over get Out for me, Ladybird over get Out is a relatively easy choice. And finally, I love Shanna the Dead again. I love pretty much every film in this entire tournament, but not hard to pick Eternal Sunshine just a little bit ahead of it.

01:43:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, i'd agree.

01:43:52
Speaker 1: Okay, Madness Round two polls. They are open. They close on Tuesday April first, Tuesday April first, at five pm Central time. Everything you need to know about Film Spotting Madness is available at filmspotting dot net, slash Madness and now Josh. For those of you who submitted a bracket in our prediction bracket challenge, you can go there. You can see how you're doing, and we're going to give a quick update here. First of all love seeing this. In the five or six years that we have done Madness where we opened up the bracket challenge, we finished this year with eight hundred and twenty five brackets, our biggest total defeat.

01:44:35
Speaker 3: That's awesome.

01:44:36
Speaker 1: And of those eight hundred and twenty five through round one, we have three listeners who have perfect brackets. Okay, tied for first place. Thirty two out of thirty two called correctly in some familiar names here, so tied for first. We have longtime listener who we just saw in person at Film Spotting Fest, Carl b Orkman.

01:45:01
Speaker 3: That's right.

01:45:02
Speaker 1: Congratulations Carl, congratulations. Also go to how about this Josh? Do you remember Ricky Kendall in the UK? Because last year he won the whole Shebang and ended up recording a bonus episode with Me, You and Sam as part of his prize.

01:45:19
Speaker 6: What are these dark arts these people are playing?

01:45:22
Speaker 4: I know?

01:45:22
Speaker 1: And remember when we asked him about it, He's like, yeah, I didn't really have a system or anything. I just kind of picked. Well, he's doing something right, because here he is again tied for first. And then I thought this name seemed familiar, the last name amongst this triumvirate Oscary Vaneo. He is from Finland and sure enough, back in twenty twenty two, Sam reached out to him and said, hey, you're a top the Madness bracket. Can you give some information about yourself? We want to highlight you on the show. So that was the best of the nineteen seventies. And at some point during that tournament, early on he was in first place, riding high. You're thinking Oscary is gonna take it. Well, things can happen quickly in film spotting Madness. You can have reversals of fortune. Oscary finished one hundred and sixty.

01:46:19
Speaker 6: Fourth that year, but he learned, he learned from his experience, maybe, and he came back stronger.

01:46:25
Speaker 3: Maybe.

01:46:26
Speaker 1: So congratulations to Carl, to Ricky, all three perfect brackets so far. We will see how those hold up as we get into round two. That brings us to and I don't know if you've looked at this, and if you haven't, don't I want to get your reaction in real time, Josh, have you looked at your bracket? Do you know how you're doing?

01:46:46
Speaker 3: I don't.

01:46:47
Speaker 1: Okay, then then allow me to elucidate. I can always do yes, I mean, based on if you can We always do this internal bracket challenge me, you, Sam, and the godfather of film spotting Madness Indover New Hampshire, Mike Marrigan. We really play for bragging rights, and we're not so much worried about who's gonna win. We're worried about who loses, because there is usually some kind of punishment. You have lost a few times. I think I've lost once. Mike has done pretty well in these tournaments to date. Sam is definitely lost. In fact, Sam lost last year and we need to figure out what his penance would be. We also need to decide what the penance will be for this year's loser, and that loser probably will be me in fourth place. Well, I'm the only one who went against the grain with my winner overall, picking Mullhall and Drive. That will either be what sends me. It could be what sends me to victory, or it could be the thing that really is my downfall. I'm in fourth place right now because I only called twenty eight out of thirty two correctly. I am tied for one hundred and forty fifth. It was all upsets that threw me. Josh Memento beating the Wolf of Wall Street. I didn't pick x Makina beating her. I didn't pick Pan's Labyrinth defeating the Lobster. I also did not choose Portrait of Lady on Fire defeating Tarantinos Once upon a Time in Hollywood. So there, I am way down there, Josh in one hundred and forty fifth place. Sam, he's doing a little better. He's in third. He got thirty of thirty two. Correct, He's tied for fifty seventh. He was thrown by two of the same ones that got me two of the upsets. He thought her would beat x Macina. He also thought Hollywood would beat portrait. So where does that leave you, Josh? Where does that leave Mike Marrigan? Well, in our bracket challenge, our internal bracket challenge, you're both tied for first. Hey, and how about this, you are, Josh, enjoy it while it lasts. You and Mike are both tied for fourth overall out twenty five. No, come on, that's not you are you both picked? You both picked thirty one out of thirty two. Correct?

01:49:15
Speaker 5: Wow?

01:49:16
Speaker 1: I think the best you've ever done in round one.

01:49:18
Speaker 3: I mean it has to be.

01:49:19
Speaker 6: I don't remember ever being up that high. I've had good Round one showings, but it doesn't always last. So I will enjoy this for now. I and I got to say, you know, not to sound like oscary, but I didn't put a ton of I put less research into this right than previous years. But I did have a different strategy. I dropped the like hanging out in letterbox forever and looking at views and all that like that I did last year and it didn't help me.

01:49:46
Speaker 1: I need to learn that lesson.

01:49:47
Speaker 6: I just went really basic and looked at how these titles fared in previous Madness tournaments, because a lot of them have come up, and you know, also when we've done just general polls about these topics, because it is recent, we've covered this territory before, so I kind of used that as my guide and then maybe threw in a few you know, wrinkles here or there, hoping it might differentiate the bracket. So that may be where it comes back to bite me down the road, but hey, I'll take it. I'll take where I am for now.

01:50:20
Speaker 1: Mm hm. As you said earlier, Phantom Thread beating Wally was the only one you got in correct, and there was that pesky portrait of Lady on fire beating once upon a time in Hollywood. That was Mike's only misstep. Worth noting that you and Mike both have the exact same final four and the exact same champion. Oh, there will be blood, parasite, no country for old men, Mulholland Drive, there will be blood as the winner. What's interesting, I did a little bit of digging arm rustle you might, you might, I don't think so. I don't think so. And here's why. And maybe I needed to be clearer with my notes here because I can't remember which one of you I think I'm correct that Mike has in the mood for love advancing to the Elite eight. But Josh, not only do you not have it advancing to the Elite eight where you have get out moving on, instead, you have inside Lewin Davis upsetting in the mood for love.

01:51:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, in this round.

01:51:26
Speaker 1: So this matchup here in round two, the seventh seed in the mood for love against number twenty six inside Lewin Davis. That really is going to make or break your bracket.

01:51:36
Speaker 6: Yeah, and differentiate me from Mike, which I'm already regretting because you know my logic.

01:51:43
Speaker 3: There was just the Adam influence.

01:51:45
Speaker 6: You know, you've already tried to sway people by talking about Lewin Davis, right, you know, saying the same things you've said a million times before about it, and and I usually give that a lot of weight when I predict things. But that's burnt me. That's particularly sure. It has previous years, So that might that might be the weak spot.

01:52:04
Speaker 1: Okay, So of course, as we've been talking about toughest to predict and which ones are easy and toughest, I've I've been clicking on the polls to get a sense of where some of them stand, and I haven't wanted to mention anything because I don't want to sway voting one way or another. I don't have to worry about swaying voting one way or another. When it comes to this matchup, I will simply say this. The voting is still very new. We're only about four hours in at this point as we're talking, Josh. But right now inside lew and Davis and in the Mood for Love are tied with the exact same number of votes. This one could come down to the wire. I can't believe it. I sign in the Mood for Love would take this one. At least sixty forty. Honestly, I would have guessed seventy thirty.

01:52:46
Speaker 3: I mean, I from the sake of my prediction bracket. I hope that's how it goes. I'll just say that.

01:52:53
Speaker 1: Our final reminder that everything Film Spotting Madness, including all of these Round two poles, is available at filmspotting dot net slash Madness. We will be back next week with more insanity and we will reveal the Sweet sixteen. That's our show, Josh.

01:53:07
Speaker 6: If you want to connect with us on social media, you can find Adam and the show on Instagram and Facebook. He's at film Spotting. You can find me at those places as Larsen on film We are independently produced and listeners supported. You can support the show by joining the film Spotting Family at filmspottingfamily dot com. You can listen early and ad free. You'll also get a weekly newsletter, monthly bonus episodes, and access to the entire show archive. For show t shirts or other merch go to film spotting dot net slash shop.

01:53:37
Speaker 1: In that film Spotting archive, you can find lots of Ryan Johnson. We reviewed Brick in the early days. The Brothers Bloom episode two fifty nine. Interviewed Ryan for The Brothers Bloom. We reviewed Looper episode four sixteen, The Last Jedi six sixty Knives Out seven fifty five, The Second Knives Out on episode eight ninety eight out in limited release this weekend. You can see Misserracordia. This is one that's getting a lot of praise. It's the latest from the director of Stranger by the Lake. Bob Trevino likes it as a movie Josh that some film spotting family members in the discord have been praising and singling out as a potential Golden Brick candidate. Barbie Ferrara becomes a strange from her father, only to befriend a childless man online with the same name as her father. It co stars John Leguizamo and was the Grand Jury Award and Audience Award winner at last year's South By Southwest. Also out, Julie Keeps Quiet. A coach comes under investigation at an elite tennis academy. Our friend Isaac Feldberg says it's a silent scream that keeps building in its intensity and restraint. That is playing at the Gene Sisco Film Center in Chicago and one of my favorites. Steve Coogan plays a world weary English teacher. The movie is called The Penguin Lessons. He's a world weary English teacher who regains his compassion for others thanks to spoilers A Penguin that co stars Jonathan Price in wide release Death of a Unicorn. Josh wanted to recommend it couldn't quite get there.

01:55:05
Speaker 3: I mean, give it a shot, give it a shot if you're intrigued.

01:55:09
Speaker 1: Should we give the Woman in the Yard a shot?

01:55:12
Speaker 6: I was hoping that there was going to be a press screening for this and looked intriguing. I have appreciated some of the director's work, jaw Ma Colett Sarah, I'm not sure if I'm getting that correctly, but he's done some interesting genre stuff, but not a peep, not a peep in terms of press screenings.

01:55:30
Speaker 1: That film, starring Danielle Deadwiler, is out wide and finally a workingman. Jason Statham leaves behind a decorated military career in Black Ops, only to be drawn back in when his boss's daughter is taken by human traffickers. It's directed by David Air and Josh, I know you can't wait for this co written by Slice Stallone.

01:55:50
Speaker 6: I just think it's amazing how they find new ways to invigorate this sort of idea. It's not his daughter, did you catch at him?

01:55:58
Speaker 1: His boss's daughter's right right?

01:56:01
Speaker 3: What's that going to be like?

01:56:02
Speaker 1: You gotta find variations, variations on a theme, Josh and I don't think we will be dissecting those themes sadly next week on the show. We've got too much other work to do. Not only do we have that sweet sixteen of film Spotting madness, but we're going to finally do our best to pay tribute to one of the all time great screen actors, the legend Gene Hackman. We will share our top five Gene Hackman scenes.

01:56:26
Speaker 6: Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Desso and Sam Van Hogren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Veronica Phillips. Special thanks to everyone at wb easy Chicago. More information is available at wbez dot org for Film Spotting, I'm Josh Larson and.

01:56:43
Speaker 1: I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening.

01:56:45
Speaker 3: This conversation can serve no purpose anymore.

01:56:49
Speaker 6: The burn.

01:57:12
Speaker 1: Film Spotting is listeners supported Join the film Spotting Family at film spottingfamily dot com and get access to ad free episodes, monthly bonus shows, our weekly newsletter, and, for the first time, all in one place, the entire film spotting archive going back to two thousand and five. That's a film spotting Family dot com.

01:57:32
Speaker 2: Panicicly