The Running Man Review, Nouvelle Vague

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Speaker 1: Film Spotting is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. Sign up now in the Regal app or at the link in the show description and use code film Spot twenty five. That's film Spot twenty five to receive your discount. What kind of a show you guys putting on here today?

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Speaker 2: You're not interested in armed now? No, Look, we're going to do this thing.

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Speaker 3: 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 Kempinar and I'm Josh Larson.

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Speaker 4: Rules are simple, survive thirty days, the entire nation hoisingly down.

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Speaker 2: We'll get your family out of slumicide for good.

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Speaker 1: The Running Man Is Back. Director Edgar Wright revives the nineteen eighty seven dystopian action film No Schwarzenegger. This time Glenn Powell, along with Josh Brolin and Coleman Domingo star.

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Speaker 5: Going back even further Richard Linkletter's Nouvelle vaugh It recreates the making of the French New wave landmark. Breathless reviews of both films and more, All Ahead on Film.

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Speaker 1: Spotting, What is happening?

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Speaker 2: Welcome to The running.

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Speaker 1: Man, Welcome to Film Spotting, pop Quiz hot shot Stephen Kings nineteen eighty two novella The Running Man was set in what year? Oh?

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Speaker 5: Okay, so eighty two. I think they'd like to go past two thousand, right?

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Speaker 1: Usually yes.

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Speaker 5: In these scenarios also seem to like the alliteration of twenty twenty something. I'm gonna go twenty twenty six.

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Speaker 1: Not bad, but you know, it would be more poetic if it was twenty twenty five, the year we're in it, and it.

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Speaker 5: Was it was I see, I thought that was two on the nose.

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Speaker 1: Okay, it is on the nose. Nineteen eighty seven is The running Man with Arnold Schwarzenegger set in twenty nineteen. For some reason, Edgar writes The Running Man, Well, that might be an actual show on network tea for all that I know. We will talk about The Running Man also this week on the show. Nineteen fifty nine. That's the year Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague is set. Because it's about the making of Jean Luke Gadar's Breathless. We're going to have a review of that later in the show, it was supposed to be the two of us. I had to go to the bullpen, Josh, do you want to quickly explain the circumstances under which I had to bring Michael Phillips in.

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Speaker 5: I don't know how quick I can be. Let's just say, as listeners know, here in Scotland, for a while studying and when to press play on my Netflix, which has been operating just fine, and I got a message, this is not available for Nouvelle Vague in your region. I thought, okay, well, I've been prepared for this. This is why I have my VPN. Turn that thing on. Got a message we've detected a VPN, please turn off before you use our service. So here's where it's going to get a little long. And bear with me, Adam, and bear with me. Listeners. They don't care. Most listeners are like, we just watch movies. When we watch movies, sometimes we even have to pay for them, and us as critics, you know, we get to usually see them for free or.

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Speaker 2: Get screen or links. Right.

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Speaker 5: Netflix has been very good about this in the past. This is why we thought it wouldn't be a problem. They have actually provided just it'll pop up on your profile on Netflix if you've been approved as a critic, and in past years that's worked beautifully. Things have been a little erratic this year with Netflix. So if we have any friends there who are listeners to the show, we've gotten some preview content they call it films, others we haven't. And I bring it up now because there's a bunch of Netflix titles coming up that we hope to review on the show, and I just hope that I don't get caught in this situation again. So my apologies. Really thought I could watch Nuvelle Vague wanted to very much. I think everyone's in good hands with Michael Phillips.

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Speaker 1: However, I just thought maybe the Scots hated Richard Linklater or the French.

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Speaker 2: I mean, who knows, who knows what's at work over here.

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Speaker 1: A quick reminder, Film Spotting is available as a video podcast. If you're a Spotify listener, you can toggle between video and audio. You can also watch the show on YouTube. You can probably have the best experience there on YouTube for a link to video episodes. Good at Filmspotting, dot ned Slash episodes.

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Speaker 5: First up The Running Man Before.

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Speaker 1: I jump in, I should probably acknowledge that if you're thinking Adam sounds a little funny this week, Yeah, it's November. Time for my annual head cold. At least I can actually talk, Josh. Sometimes I'm so hoarse I can't do an episode and we have to bring in someone like Michael Phillips for an entire show.

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Speaker 5: Especially when the subject is two thousand and one of Space Odyssey.

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Speaker 1: I believe, why did you have to go there? Let's get into The Running Man. It probably shouldn't be much of a surprise that The Running Man feels like such a genre mashup. After all, co writer and director Edgar Wright is the guy who gave us horror comedy Sean of the Dead, which, despite being a horror comedy, still probably has the genuinely saddest moment you'll find in any of his films. Buddy cop action comedy, Hot Fuzz romantic action comedy with clear graphic novel roots, Scott Pilgrim Versus The World, sci fi comedy that also seriously reckons with alcoholism, The World's End heist thriller that occasionally veers into musical territory, Baby Driver, and period horror mystery Last Night in soho, So what is The Running Man besides a remake of the nineteen eighty seven dystopian action thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Well, it's definitely dystopian, with the residents of co Op City clamoring to compete for new dollars on the top rated game show of the title, despite a contestant success rate of z zero percent. They're definitely action thrills, featuring some explosions and shoot him up chase scenes and even a stealth fighter jet. I know you love the stealth fighter jets, Josh, but it's also going for laughs. There's a slew of cartoonish head splats when the show's hunters make their live kills. Glenn Powell's Ben Richards occasionally disguises himself in goofy costumes to avoid being detected. Also note the appearance of Please Don't Destroys Martin Hurlehy and the late introduction of Kooki Michael Sarah along with his senile Fox News. I mean NCG, is it NCG, Josh or NNGC. I can't remember you know the name of the network in this movie. Let's just go with the network, Okay, Well, there's a network, and she's obsessed with it. That's Michael Sarah's mother in this film, and it's a bit of a sentimental love story, with Richard's only being driven to accept the offer from Running Man producer Dan Killion played by Josh, and to earn money for his beloved wife and sick daughter. If this wasn't all enough, Richard's and the movie itself exhort its audiences, their audiences to rise up against our corporate overlords who keep us occupied opposing each other rather than them. The Running Man doesn't have perfidia Beverly Hills, but it does have the apostle to keep everybody woke. Josh, I believe that we are both generally too very positive on almost all of Wright's previous films. Has he done it again? Just arguably on and even bigger? One might say more ambitious, another might say more misguided scale? And if not, did this work best when it was spending most of its time to appropriate a phrase from mister Richards hanging out amongst the people of one of these generic neighborhoods, Well.

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Speaker 5: You've exhausted me with that rundown. Of all the things the Running Man could be and wants to be. I promise listeners who are interested in the movie. I at least did not find it quite that exhausting an experience, though I don't think it's entirely successful either. For me Adam, the wit did win out just enough, and by wit, I am definitely not referring to Glenn Powell's costume changes and disguises. I don't know what's going on with that man there. I hope he gets it out of his system soon, because for me it's just whether here or the hit man. It's not working for me, but the wit that I did appreciate. Some elements of his performance are involved, but I think it's less that or even the you know the kill shot you referenced. It's more about the political elements where I think those are handled with a deafness a perceptiveness that I appreciated, though at the same time it does lean or into this unsupported rise up of the everyman ending that just does not even make sense to me. Along the way to your answer about right along the way when you can feel Right's hand, right sensibility, right sense of humor, the running Man is a reheat worth experiencing, and I felt that just enough to bump it over the edge.

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Speaker 2: We joke.

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Speaker 5: So many listeners are in letterbox as you and I are, and it's a five star system, and you know you could go two and a half stars. What does that mean? It means nothing. It letterbox adds something to this formula. You can choose a heart right now if you do two and a half adam the existential question that keeps people like us up at night, what do you do with the heart?

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Speaker 1: I don't heart it. That's my heart and fast rule.

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Speaker 5: I'm a little more flexible. I like to allow for nuance in these situations, just like The Running Man, which did receive from me two and a half stars on letterboxed and yes.

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Speaker 1: Wow, heart, Okay, I didn't know that. You went heart. That's where you that's where you're at. So you're mashing up genres. You've got the you've got the the anger, the resistance of the two and a half stars, but the sentimentality of the heart.

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Speaker 2: Just trying to make sense of things with the heart.

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Speaker 1: Amazing right juggles dystopian thrills, satire, sentiment, and slapstick, but never nails any of them. The result is this genre mashup that always feels more muddled than masterful. And I use that word because I do think that Right has been masterful at juggling them before, and it doesn't cohere at almost any point when you break them down, and that's what I was going for. Does any one of them work on their own? When it was when it was spending time within one of those genres, did you really feel like the movie was working. It certainly doesn't work as a romance or or any of the time it spends in that relationship, and it's very little, to be fair, so it doesn't work on that level. I agree with you it it doesn't work when it's really devoting energy to the comedic bits. I did like Kitman considerably more than you. I thought Glenn Powell's work there was much better than it is here, including with the costumes, and I think we can get into the big difference. The thing that's holding this back, and it it maybe some fault in Powell and his performance in Powell's persona and his skills as an actor, but it also could be something about this film and how that this character is conceived. But I agree with.

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Speaker 5: Sully the screenplay absolutely, the screenplay more.

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Speaker 1: Than yeah, I think it is, so we will we will get into that, but I'm with you. None of those scenes where he's in disguise, none of those jokes land at all. Nor does it work as a political satire or resistance movie. And I think we can get into that a little little bit more for me. For me, it didn't, it didn't really work. And I think you use the keyword, which is unsupported. Let me go back though, and say, maybe the only performers here that really equit themselves, Josh, are part of that resistance angle. And I think Brolin finds just the right tone for this film. And I actually think Domingo too, as the showman, as the TV star, does everything the screenplay needs him to do. But their parts are also so limited. And I didn't go back and watch the original, and it's been a long time since I've seen it, but I swear in my recollection and I did watch that film quite a bit that we had some scenes of the villain, and I think the villain. I could be wrong, but I think the villain it was. It was the family feud host. It was Richard Richard Dawson, and and he was he was both the the Killian character and the the Domingo character. What's I'm blanking on his name in in this movie and I can't. I can't believe it because the last name is an initial. But he's he's both the the TV host and the TV producer if I remember correctly. And there were scenes of that character where we we saw them, we saw the villain off screen so to speak, not not just when they were interacting with the main character, and that at least helped create this world. It gave that character some dimension, and here it just feels so flimsy, like both of those characters are here purely to serve as storytelling devices. They only show up when they have to propel things forward, to provide another obstacle for the main character, or to you know, do some kind of storytelling exposition. There's no real stakes involving those characters until the movie really needs to introduce those steaks at the very end. And I think there's a stakes issue in the last third of this movie as well that maybe we can get into Josh, but with an exception or two. I don't think most of the action so it's just an action thriller. I don't think most of the action works. I think it's really muddy throughout and not satisfying. I suppose, if I had to pick one and answer my question, enjoyed the movie most. And this just may may be my predilection. I tend to like movies, at least movies that are poorly plotted when the narrative gets too lost in itself. I tend to like movies when they're building the world, and so I probably enjoyed this movie the most when it was just a dystopian or a dystopia movie. But even then, it's not as if this vision was particularly striking or new.

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Speaker 5: No, except that I think you're correct in that. I think we could look at older movies and perhaps the Original, which I have not seen, and say, yeah, they were just predicting where we're at. What struck me is that we're here essentially. I mean, we don't literally have a game show like this. But the most unrealistic thing in The Running Man for me was the fact that people got to watch The Running Man for free, and as any one of us knows, we're paying through.

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Speaker 2: The nose.

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Speaker 5: How many streaming devices now, right, I mean, that's like, come on, get with the program like these people are being put into debt just to watch your show. That's killing them. That's the world we live in. So that's what's unrealistic here. I think here's what I would defend it in terms of and so much of what you said is spot on, including the last third. This thing goes off the rails the minute Michael Sarah Off.

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Speaker 1: It's a lane.

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Speaker 2: Yes, HiT's a button.

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Speaker 5: Let's just say for those who have seen it, maybe a little bit before when his mother.

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Speaker 2: Takes it makes a choice.

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Speaker 5: But I do think there's a lot of wit a little bit after that, but beforehand. And let me give you just one example that's tied to right, because you're common about the action. I wanted more thrilling, inventively imaginatively staged action that I got. But I do think the scene where Powell only in a towel has to scale from a building has that combination of sharp filmmaking, chops, humor, tension, suspense that we come to expect from right. I think that sequence works.

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Speaker 1: I also think there's the exceptions for.

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Speaker 2: Surekay, Yeah, it's an exception. I agree.

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Speaker 5: There's just a shot where he's on the run his Ben Richards now at this point, and he walks up to the camera. He's at a desk like buying a train ticket or something, and so he's essentially looking right off center to the camera and we see behind him is this video advertisement for the Running Man, and his face appears right because part of this game, and I wanted to ask you about this, though your memories sound fuzzy, of the original part of this game is that the viewers are incentivized to root against the contestants.

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Speaker 1: Don't I remember that aspect at all. Okay, it's a private it's a closed universe as I recall it, where the hunters are just chasing them down.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, if this is new, I do think this is one of the ingenious choices with this movie. So viewers in this world are in devi to root against the contestants. I went into this movie thinking, well, of course the people are rooting for them. No, for a variety of reasons we can get into. The viewers are manipulated. They're bribe. There's prize money, so if they see someone on the street who's a contestant, they call in to report them. And already my brain is firing, like I was just reading this week about AI generated videos on Facebook that are celebrating these supposed ice arrests. Right again to my point, we're living in this world. So anyway, this shot, going back to the shot, Ben Richards is buying a ticket and we're looking right at him, his face and in the screen in the background is his face because they're advertising if you see this man, report him. And the touch, just the touch, not only the repetition, but the touch of like the real Ben Richards turning in profile, just as the Ben Richards in the screen turns in profile. It's just it's a three seconds beautifully done, funny, incisive Edgar Wright stuff. And I think there's other elements like Arnold Schwarzenegger being on the face of these new American dollars.

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Speaker 2: Love that. What does it mean is he the president?

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Speaker 5: We don't know. Great touch, fun twink Cereal got a big laugh out of me and the rest of the audience that I was in. But the wit for me also came through in a lot of the political elements of the movie that I appreciated. And I also agree with you, Adam, this is not an opposition movie.

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Speaker 2: This is not.

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Speaker 5: Mickey seventeen or one battle after another. It may involve spoilers, but we can maybe go into the fact how I see it as a morally at least as a cop out movie at the very end.

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Speaker 2: But I do think.

00:19:44
Speaker 5: It does have value as a incisive satire that is poking fun of the world we are currently living in. And I think of a moment that involves the filmmaking as well. When Ben is trying out for The Running Man, He's forced to go through these trials that are like, what was that show where people would, oh, my gosh, my daughters used to watch this with my grandparents with which I loved, not Knockout. It was something where people would go through these these trials and get knocked into a pool if they couldn't make it across.

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Speaker 1: Like American Ninja Warrior or something like that, right, like Glad American Gladiators.

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Speaker 2: Something like it.

00:20:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was.

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Speaker 2: It was something like that.

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Speaker 5: Anyway, That's how Ben has to try out for The Running Man, and right parallels like there's an intercut sequence going back to his work as a laborer showing that basically, so there'd be a sequence of him like trying to evade fire while trying out, and then they'd cut to show him in his job, as I don't know, a labor of some sort, he had to evade fire just to earn a dollar, And I thought that was not only clever filmmaking, but suggested that in this world, actual work life is just as dangerous and just as exploitative as signing up for The Running Man. So very smart done through filmmaking, and also witty. Last thing I'll say, because I've been talking for a while, but there's a trivia show at the beginning a different show, and the person being essentially tortured, and to get out of their torture, they have to answer the question correctly. They have to answer how many bathrooms are on an EXEC which stands in for the elite in this movie, an exec private jet, and the choices are like two, four or six and again funny, horrible, true to what we're living today. I bet Air Force one right now is being outfitted for twelve bathrooms. So that's the sort of stuff I appreciated, even though I also admit a lot of it around it that you've detailed and hinted at is quite the mess.

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Speaker 1: And that joke has a callback later in the film. Very nice, right, that works with the bathrooms. Yeah, I don't want to suggest that there isn't cleverness, that there aren't some witticisms that pay off. You would expect that from Edgar Wright. In this movie. They are overshadowed, I think by a lot of things that we've talked about, but especially overshadowed by the bigger attempts at humor, including gigantic set pieces that just waylay this film and the narrative like the one involving Michael Sarah, which not only not only does it not work in terms of humor or, I was gonna say, not only does it not work from a narrative standpoint, but it's there primarily it seems to be funny, and there isn't a single part of it, at least from my perspective, and based on the way you're nodding your head, Josh, yeah, it sounds like for you as well. It doesn't work on a joke level either, And it's a significant sequence in the film. It undoes so much of the goodwill that the movie he might have engentered at that point, it just and it throws the It throws the entire story into chaos, and the movie never really recovers at that point unfortunately, But you're right that shot for example that you reference, that is what the shot where he's standing in front of the sign where the moving image of him and people could see it and potentially detect him and turn him in. That's what we expect from Edgar Wright because it's synchronicity. It's the sink nature of him not even being aware of it, him being in sync with his self, the image of himself. But then also he doesn't know it. It's the fact that the audience is in on something that he's not aware of, and that is clever. Right, So it all works or that scene definitely works. You know who actually is also good in this film and you haven't seen the movie yet, but he's almost unrecognizable in it. I'm just saying, I think he's having a good year, even if he only has like one scene in this movie and it's not a big part of this film. That's William H. Macy. I think he's pretty good in the one scene he has in this movie, and that's part of the dystopian world building as well. That worked for me. Let's talk about Powell and see if we can unpack this and if we see it the same way we are told the movie needs us to believe based on what it tells us and what the movie shows us, that he is really angry. He's incredible Hulk level angry, except he can't hulk out to actually show it. There's a scene when he's going through the testing for The Running Man where he has to meet with a network psychiatrist and I don't remember exactly what she says, but I don't think she says You're the angriest man in the world or I've ever seen. I think she says something like, you're the angriest man I've ever tested, or who's ever gone through this test? Yeah, okay, whatever it is. He's super mad, right, and throughout the film it always felt to me like a character Powell had to put on, like he constantly has to shift himself back into angry mode. And he might, as an actor, be capable of doing it, and it could. It really could be a consequence of the tonal Molotov cocktail that this movie is. But I think the anger part that seems to be so crucial to this movie undercuts some of the potential comedic elements and the natural inclination towards cockiness and comic chops that he has as an actor doesn't necessarily serve all of the action and some of that activist element, the resistance part of the movie. And when I think about, what if you're gonna sell me on this anger, you're just gonna hammer the anger, And I think that could work for this character, and it could be really compelling, and I think you could still have comedy come out of that, Josh, I do I think about the intensity. I'll use a comparison that Glenn Powell would probably appreciate, knowing how much he loves Tom Cruise and revers Tom Cruise. You need an actor who is basically doing giving you the intensity. Think about Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible. I think it's the first one when he says, remember it's like that high angle shot looking down on him and he's looking up and he says, you have never seen me very upset, Katrid, You've never seen me very upset. You need basically someone to be doing that Tom Cruise level of intensity. It has to be manifested for an entire movie, or you know who would have been get mad at me? If you want for recasting a movie someone like him, or at least bringing that level of broodys but still could have sold some moments of comedy. Actually, I think they would have been heightened because of the broodiness. You need someone like Tom Hardy. You need someone who every moment you see him on screen, all you think about is pain and anger. And you understand you're nervous english anguish and you're nervous too, but like you understand the anguish that is driving that anger. And I don't know that the movie ever captures who this guy is or what we're supposed to think about him, And that's potentially another flaw compared to the original. Again, haven't seen it in a long time. I appreciate that this movie is trying to do something different, but they're trying to portray him like he's this everyman. He's not like Schwarzenegger is in the first movie. But part of the fun of the first movie, of the original movie was us knowing that he is Schwarzenegger and not only bringing that baggage of of what we expect of that movie star, but the way they established that character is we know he's this military figure and that he's going to be stiff competition for these hunters. We know that that's going to be the fun of this is that he very well could and probably will beat these guys, that he's going to disrupt this whole thing. And Powel's this everyman who maybe can do some damage because he's sure built, really good, but also and he seems to do heroic things, but also sometimes seems like he's totally incompetent. I don't know. I never got a handle on what they were trying to do with Ben Richards, did you well.

00:28:42
Speaker 5: I laughed when you said super Mad, because I do feel like poor Glenn Powell is at the end of I don't know four different scripts that were written for this reheat and they all got piled on top of each other, and in one of them, his character's name was super Mad, And so that's that is part of this, because he's required to do so many different things in this role. I think, you know, we haven't touched on this, and I don't. I can't recall one immediately, but there are a lot of Arnold style one liners that are really clunky that he's asked, right. So, so at one hand, he's supposed to somehow conjure the memory of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Right, that's one task he's been given. I think he's also you mentioned it, the super mad element. I don't remember if that's a spin. My guess is you're correct, like that that was embedded in Schwarzenegger, right, he was capable. We didn't have to wait for him to get mad because just looking at him, you know, this guy is a formidable physical force. Right, But here we're told Ben Richards, don't push him because he could he you know, if he loses his temper, So that seems another element that's the super mad element. Then you know this is to your Tom Cruise. I do think I'm a little less enamored with Powell overall. Admit he is incredibly talented, charismatic, has comic timing, but I think he needs to set aside the cruise path and model because one thing Cruz did and this came up when we did our cruise draft recently for film spotting family members as a bonus show. We talked about just cruise like grabbing stardom by the throat and you know, and just like insisting I'm going to be a star. And it worked because he's Tom Cruise. I feel I felt some of that insistence in Powell's other performances, and I feel it's at play here as well. This comes into the moments you are hinting at where he's required Ben Richards is required to videotape himself regularly to prove that he's alive, still participating, and those sequences you can see Powell's inherent charm, his sense of humor, his cruisiness. But it's almost as if he understands, this is the only element in this performance. I'm going to get to do what I really want to do, and so I'm going to amp and up to amp and up to one hundred, and it's out of sync with every other element of the character. So it's almost like when he turns those those camera on to record himself, he becomes Glenn Cruz and it's not in service of I don't know what would be in service of this character as envisioned, but it certainly isn't. So we're getting here less to Powell's fault than the construction of the film a multiple personality performance.

00:31:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's very well said, and the only thing I would I would maybe correct a little bit or clarify about about Schwarzenacer because I was thinking about this, Was he angry? Was the Ben Richards that I remember in the first film? Was he really angry? And then my thought was, was Schwarzenegger ever really capable in any of his roles expressing anger? Like on some level, you're right, you're right, you're right in what you said to a point I think I can define it in a second. But there's also that side of Schwarzenegger where I think there was some natural comedy to him, Like I don't We always took him seriously physically, but I also think we always regarded him a bit comedically, and I think there's a difference between or at least there's a difference in his Ben Richards where we didn't see anger, but he was always aggressive. There's a difference between anger and aggression, and he always embodied aggression, right, and that's what that character certainly needed and had in The Running Man. The four different scripts thing, I don't know anything about the history of this film, but that doesn't surprise me on any level to hear. Because of the mishmash that this film is and all the different.

00:33:00
Speaker 5: I'm not sure that's actually been the production process.

00:33:03
Speaker 1: It just feels it does feel like it, especially I mentioned the lack of the lack of stakes. There's a point in the movie we'll just say where Richards has a realization about the process of the game show that allows that character then to start making some different decisions, and unfortunately it lets the character off the hook a little bit, but it also lets the movie off the hook, and everything kind of none of it sort of makes any sense in terms of the stakes of being chased and potentially being killed and so so, then as a viewer you can kind of tune out as far as caring about what happens really next in terms of the satire. And then I'm going to get to another way the script I think doesn't work here or the different versions that might be at play the satire element, Josh, I think for it for me to really have potency. Another thing that this film misses is that Everyman Angle would have a lot more potency if any of the quote unquote real people we see in the film actually appeared to be real people like it treated them like real people, it gave them an actual name. Now it does it does in terms of that one sidebar with the family, we meet the character played by Daniel Ezra. His name is Bradley. In the movie, we get a little detour with that family. Other than that, every other character that's supposedly malleable first by the corporation, by the network, and then is coming around to the resistance, they feel just like insert generic hick hick version of American in a movie. You know, it doesn't feel like the movie actually has any regard for any of those people that supposedly the movie wants wants to inspire.

00:35:09
Speaker 5: Well, another problem with that whole plotline is he becomes a folk hero, but we have no idea how because all we've been told is that the audience is manipulated again not only through bribing them to report, but also and this had potential, right there were also told that everyone on this show is brought in, encouraged to audition and be part of it as a chance to win some money, and their story is going to be told. And then what happens when they come out on stage. I think Domingo is it Bobby t right? Bobby suddenly suddenly he presents them as quote, thieves, fraudsters and freeloaders. Right, and so that gets the audience against them, because well, again our current environment, we're told that everyone who is not born here is a thief, a fraudster.

00:36:12
Speaker 2: Or a free loader.

00:36:13
Speaker 1: Us versus them.

00:36:14
Speaker 5: Yep, us versus them, So it's the same dynamic. Then all of a sudden, somehow there's this underground swelling movement in support of Ben Richards that has never been proven how that happened except for the fact that the movie needed it to happen. And so that's to support your earlier point of how many things in this screenplay make sense or just they make movie sense.

00:36:38
Speaker 2: Yes, there's a lot of movie sense doesn't make sense.

00:36:41
Speaker 1: I think there's a falseness to it, and that's what I'm getting. Yes too, Yes, that doesn't quite work. And near the end, when we're saying the movie goes off the highway, I use that phrase. If you've seen the film, you'll know why I say that. It introduces a new character who is played by Amelia Jones. She's named Amelia in the movie. We do eventually Lee Pace is a character plays a character Macone throughout the whole film. We really don't know it's lee Pace until later. It's not a spoiler because you can see it in the cast, but we don't really know it's him until late in the movie, and it feels almost like here right himself decided or someone in the screenplay writing process said, we got to make sure we give these really good actors something to do. We got to make sure. We got to make sure all of a sudden there's some kind of major scene or scenes involving them. It doesn't really matter whether or not they fit narratively or it all works in terms of what we're trying to accomplish here, but does it give them something significant to do? Almost as if you're showcasing them. That's how it felt to me watching it.

00:37:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it is sort of a reveal. I don't think anyone could get mad at us for saying that, but it was they build it up to be more of a reveal than it actually is. Can I say as a counter that I do think the Apostle videos you referenced sure are quite good. This is part of the This is a character that Ben encounters and he's a resistance figure who disguises himself in a get up to make these YouTube style explainer videos about the Running Man game. Show that essentially deconstruct all the audience manipulation, and I thought that was also, you know, timely inappropriate in a way, and some clever filmmaking going on there when we watch the style of the videos themselves that the Apostle is making. But to your point, Adam, you know this that all happens well before that fatal final third.

00:38:45
Speaker 1: Also two weeks in a row with conspiracy theory videos. We won't say anything more about it. Don't want to spoil anything about Begonia if you haven't seen it, but there's an element that's true. The Running Man is currently out in wide release. If you've seen it and agree or disagree with our thoughts, you can email us. I'd love to hear genuinely a Running Man Apostle. Are there any out there for this film? Email us feedback at filmspotting dot net. We may share some of that feedback on a future show. Movies you might be able to check out for free right now as a regal Unlimited member. Marty Supreme number nine on Alison Wilmore's list an eleven through twenty. Pick for me incredible performance from Timothy Shallomey that is playing right now at Regal, and we've talked a little bit about some of these picks. We've highlighted some of these repertory movies, the limited engagements, Josh that Regal has been showing at some of their theaters, and I'm looking at rgmovies dot com and they have a limited engagement right now for It's what is it? It's fortieth anniversary? Thirtieth okay, only thirty years. Shouldn't age it like that thirtieth anniversary of a movie. I somehow I can't believe I've admitting this. I have somehow never seen this film, despite the fact that it stars two incredible actresses, including one who I've always claimed to be a huge, huge fan of. And I may have to rectify this now by seeing it on the big screen. Getting a chance to see it on the big screen at a Regal cinema. Sense and Sensibility.

00:40:32
Speaker 2: Angling way to do it.

00:40:34
Speaker 1: Great director too, Kate Winslett, the actress I'm referring to, the great Emma Thompson. Never seen Sense and Sensibility. And if you're like me, maybe you're embarrassed about it, like me, you can check that out now at Regal Cinemas and maybe see it for free with that Regal Unlimited membership. Regal Unlimited is the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits, and Regal is offering film Spotting listeners endless movies for less. All you have to do is sign up using the code film Spot twenty five. That's film Spot twenty five, and you'll get ten percent off a three month subscription. It is the only truly limitless movie subscription pass, and you don't just save money on tickets, you also save on snacks. You get ten percent off all non alcoholic concessions. You can see any standard two D movie anytime, no blockout, dates or restrictions. We encourage you to sign up now in the Regal app or just click the link in this show description and use that code film Spot twenty five to receive your discount.

00:41:43
Speaker 5: Adam I mentioned that Film Spotting Family bonus episode we did on Toime Cruise, a Time Cruise draft with a film Spotting family member. It's just one of the fun things we get to do with film Spotting family members. And another thing is to take a chance to thank them for porting the show, which we want to do right now. And thank Family Plus member Chris Lane. Chris is in Brooklyn, New York, and the letterbox handle I looked Chris up at him because Wanda to follow, and there are two Sea Lanes on letterbox. I think this Chris Lane is capital C, capital L, A and E if I'm understanding that correctly, So thank you Chris for listening. Chris says for years. Also writes that when I see something I really like, I know I'm going to get a comprehensive.

00:42:34
Speaker 2: Review of it.

00:42:36
Speaker 5: That's us now a random, a random film or filmmaker. Chris loves Jennifer Kent. Chris, I love that. Kent, of course made twenty fourteen's The Baba Duck. Did not get a review on the show at the time. Did make my top ten list of twenty fourteen. Has also made some top five lists Top five horror debuts. Did that in twenty seventeen, and then Top five Moms going through it in twenty twenty four I think that was you, Mariah E.

00:43:00
Speaker 2: Gates.

00:43:01
Speaker 5: That's right, Adam, but I do love that pick.

00:43:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it made Mariah's list, but if she didn't put it on her list, it would have made my list.

00:43:10
Speaker 2: Love it.

00:43:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, Kent also made The Nightingale and I think we did review that one.

00:43:14
Speaker 2: We did on episode seven.

00:43:16
Speaker 1: That is correct. Chris has a favorite book about movies or movie making, and it's a good one. I remember reading it when it came out. Got a lot of pub easy writers raging bulls. Chris says, whether all the stories are true, I find that New Hollywood seventies era to be fascinating. Indeed it is. We thank Chris for being a family member. It seems that my voice is getting worse as I talk, doesn't it. Josh Oh, thank you Chris for all your years of support. In addition to keeping us doing what we're doing. Family membership does come with perks. You get to listen early in ad free, you get Sam's weekly newsletter, You get exclusive opportunities like being part of the Film Spotting Family discord and Josh mentioned the bonus show the Tom Cruise Draft, which was a lot of fun with the Film Spotting listener, but also a lot of fun. We just taped our November bonus show, ask us anything, what a blast just chatting, just chatting it up with Josh. Well, I was chatting it up with Josh and Sam and we were just answering questions, just responding to great questions from family members. We joked about this at the end, but we could do it every month.

00:44:22
Speaker 5: It was really good stuff. Yeah, enjoyed that. Always love to ask us anything. You never know what you're going to get and kind of kind of puts us on alert, Adam and makes us think about things maybe we wouldn't otherwise. So that was a great bonus show. That will be again the bonus show in November for family members. If you are not part of the film Spotting Family and thinking you might want to take the leap and join, you can find out everything you need to know at film Spottingfamily dot com. Now, maybe for some reason you're not in a position to be able to do that, and you'd still like to support the show. There are some easy ways you can do so, and one of them are just reviews. Take a minute to give us a rating or review. You can do this on Apple Podcasts if you listen there. You can do this on Spotify as well, and you don't have to have a fully formed opinion of all twenty years of the show.

00:45:18
Speaker 1: And it doesn't feel like comprehensive.

00:45:20
Speaker 5: Yeah, like I finally thought what I want to say about film spotting after twenty years. I mean, if you want to do that, please go ahead. But if this is your first show you've ever listened to and you thought, you know what, I kind of enjoyed that, feel free to drop in a review. Every review that we get really does help us reach new listeners.

00:45:43
Speaker 3: So full a segre.

00:45:56
Speaker 1: Joining me now is Michael Phillips. I put up a bat signal. There's no cowl, but you are well kaifed. Thank you Michael for joining us.

00:46:07
Speaker 3: You know I take an honorary shower. Yeah.

00:46:11
Speaker 1: The month we're gonna record, you know, so wonderful. Josh and I just reviewed Richard Linklater's Blue Moon a few weeks ago. You know, I thought I was sounding better here as I spoke to you. No, it's it's still there. Link Later is back with Nouvelle. Vague said in Paris nineteen fifty nine, the French new wave is in bloom, but Jean Luke Gadar all of twenty nine at the time, he still hasn't made a film. Link Later's film Made in French is about the landmark movie Gadar. We'll go on to make nineteen sixties. Breathless playing goodar is French photographer Guillome Marbeck making his film acting debut. Zoey Deutsch and newcomer Aubrey de Linn are Breathless stars Geene Sieberg and John Paul Belmundo. Sieberg mentions in the film that she's from Iowa a couple times, Marshalltown, Iowa. I used to drive about forty minutes north from my hometown. As a kid, my mom would take us to the shopping mall because Marshalltown had a shopping mall. Michael, I think I got my driver's license when I was sixteen in Marshalltown.

00:47:11
Speaker 3: Wow. How about that connect, Hi, Primager, if you had auditioned for Prime Manager for you could have played Joan of Arc Sure, sure, exactly, and it'll be a right in a different time, Yeah.

00:47:23
Speaker 1: Different generation. It is interesting. Michael link Later's two films this year are very different, but they share their inciting action. They involve watching a peer take an artistic leap, follow me here without them and Earn Raves In Blue Moon Ethan Hawks, Laurence Hart watches as former musical partner Richard Rodgers has the biggest hit of his career Oklahoma exclamation point with Oscar Hammerstein in Nouvelle Vade. We see Goodar in the audience at the nineteen fifty nine can Film Festival supporting his Kaye Du Cinema compatriot Francois Truffo at the triumphant premiere of The Four Hundred Blows and unlike Heart, Goodar truly is supportive, but as he laments to Suzanne Schiffman at a party early on in the film, face facts, I'm the last one in Kaye d Cinema to direct vet Yes Romaire, yes Chabrol two times, Yes, Trufau, Yes Romeri even wrote a novel. Truffau is a year younger than me. But Goodar, no, Michael, and I love. The best part of that is that he referred to himself in the third person. But Godar, no, Michael did didn't link later make a great film about the making of a great film. And I would also love to hear if you have any real personal connection to Breathless, it was it deformative film for you at all.

00:48:46
Speaker 3: I was late later to it. I don't think I saw it until mid twenties. Let's say, partly because there was a coworker I really liked at the Weekly in Minneapolis, my first full time job, who had a pick sure of Seaberg and Belmondo on the Champ Deller, the Sieberg characters hawking the New York Herald Tribune. And that was reason enough for me to want to finally catch up with Breathless. And at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, they had a revival screening.

00:49:18
Speaker 2: That's it.

00:49:18
Speaker 3: I had never seen anything like it, and I still haven't seen anything like it. And we'll talk about more reasons in a bit, but you know, the words I wrote down watching Neville vague about even just twenty minutes in, and then I kind of checked them again about an hour later, where we're charming as hell, and this movie is charming as hell, and it is a great it's charming as hell. It's you know, I think it's it's not great in the way Breathless is great. And I think Breathless's greatness is mischaracterized constantly as serious, important, revolutionary. Yeah, but it's it is the work as Richard Brody, you know, who's who's the king of guitar scholarship. And I think criticism frankly in the US, the New Yorker critic said, it is the work of an adolescent and a twenty nine year old adolescents and everything that implies. It's brazen, it's you know, it's a it's a miracle he pulled it off and again reasons in a minute. But I do find that that's a beautiful way to put the Blue Moon connection with Breathless. Actually, just that it's it's exactly the same kind of jumping off with something about this must compel link ladder. And he's had this idea cooking for more than a decade. He offered Zoey Deutsch the part of Gene Seinberg a decade ago, really, and you know, it takes a while to get these things going, and every but every decision I think essentially was right at the beginning. Shoot it in French, mimic the feeling, yeah, the local of the film without getting into the territory that is much more elusive and would be kind of, I think, almost fatal to try to replicate, which is a shooter like a guitar film, like guitar which shoot his own film or so yeah, charming as hell? Is that a good start form with you?

00:51:17
Speaker 1: I think that's a great, a great description of it. Yeah, my relationship to Breathless is probably like a lot of people, it wasn't about impressing a girl, though, I think that is appropriate for a lot of people. I'm sure you're not alone in that, Michael. For me, it was film school, right. It was being a film studies student taking intro to film analysis, and you have to first learn about the classical Hollywood system. You have to learn about continuity editing, and then eventually you have to learn about discontinuity. You have to learn about how to break all those rules, and what other film is going to teach you how to break all those rules. Then Breathless it's kind of the go to film. And you see why when you watch Nouvelle Vague, you hear him, you hear Godar here as the director explaining his philosophy and why he wants to break all those rules and how he's going to go about it. Then I remember when I was actually an MFA student, when I was trying to make films and I was in Chicago as a film student, I remember hearing stories about how goodar and this is the lore right that film students young filmmakers talk to each other about You would hear stories about how Gadar would work with Raoul Kutard on movies like Breathless where they didn't have any budget. Of course, they don't have dollies. You know, they can't lay down tracks, but they want to mimic tracking shots. So what do they do? And of course you see this in the movie. There's one scene where they're inside and what do they do to pull off a tracking shot? They put Qatar in a wheelchair and Goodar pushes him. So on our second project, where we were actually shooting on video at this point, but it was just me and one of my fellow classmates as the DP, and we're on location in one of my friend's apartments and we're shooting this project. And I said, I'm going to get I'm going to get it a little wacky with this, you know, I'm going to try to be Godar meet Scorsese. And I can't explain why. I have no idea why my two friends had a wheelchair in their apartment, but they did. And so of course I pulled off the closest to elaborate tracking shot I could get Michael with me pushing pushing my friend James holding the camera along in the wheelchair. And you know, so watching that on the screen, the thing you had heard about all those years that I was trying to mimic, actually seeing it there on the screen. Of course, that's part of the fun for me watching a movie like Nouvelle vaugh So you know whether or not this and Blue Moon Too are great and I lean that way. I don't know, yes, charming as hell. I think they're both pretty charming. I know that watching them did give me as much pleasure as any movies this year, because I think what Link Later pulls off. He channels this French New wave, the French New Wave's restless energy, revealing how Goodar's authenticity and his artistic uncertainty spark, which I didn't expect, really spark a collision of cinema's past, present, and future. I was wondering, besides his love for Gadar and cinema, what was going to be the Link Later connection to this material. And it didn't fully click for me until the end. And I've seen interviews with him over the years where he said, of course I love this French New wave stuff. Breathless was an influence. You don't have to hear that to assume it. Most filmmakers of his generation probably were influenced by Godar and this film. But at the end of this movie, he walks into the room after all the shooting's done, and there's the two editors there, Leela and Selene, I think, and he walks into the room and you could kind of see the look on their face when he says this is like, oh great, I can't wait for this, you know, I can't wait for what the director has to say about. You know, they're looking at the footage and it's going to be a fun project because he has all these big ideas. But he comes into the room with his two editors and he says, hope you are ready because I love editing. It's where we hold the past, the present, and the future in our hands. And I think, you know, that's such a I don't know what the right word is. That's such a link litarian view of filmmaking right and editing specifically, But it's true. I had never really thought of it that way. But that celluloid holds images of the past that you're manipulating in the present in service of a future. Unknown vision and Goodard. There could be Jesse or Selene from Before Sunrise, or any number of characters from Slacker or Waking Life and on down the line. I think the entire time you're right, exactly, You're right. You know that, except though of time is at the core of this movie, because it's at the core of the experiment of the French New Wave. What was Kaye do Cinema all about? It was rejecting tasteful French cinema, the cinema that was rooted in a literary tradition, these grand adaptation. They were rejecting, as they called it, the cinema do Papa. And that's all captured in the first few minutes of the movie when Gadar tells George de Beauregard, who went on to produce the movie. They have a friendship and he produces Breathless, but he tells him his movie is shit. Those are his words, and he's talking about how you know, I'll let you adapt. Why haven't you finished adapting this work I gave you? And it's like, because it's an adaptation, he doesn't want to do that. And it's all the microcosm is when as they're talking, very nicely dressed, very stuffy. Older French couple walks up and they praise Bobo for the movie he just made. Right, civil civilized French couple. Your film is a wonder and what do they say about it? You're the landscapes are spectacular, and you know, Goodar just looks away and faces the bar. That's the exact audience that Goodar completely wants to alienate. And you know, so these filmmakers, they weren't just in the present. They were working in a present that was so intertwined with the past, and they were determined to break with it with this hope of creating a new future type of cinema. So it just feels so perfect for it to be link later material.

00:57:28
Speaker 3: It is, and that spirit, of course, is completely adolescent. I mean it is the adolescent inters to reject, you know, what you've been raised around and in the whole context of your life, you off to that point, but to jump ahead, just like Gadar likes to edit, to jump ahead to the kind of that key scene you're talking about, where the editing changes the entire personality of the final result. And that I think Breathless was a film really made in that room, the editing room. I mean it was shot very quickly, as you know, look that you know respect.

00:58:04
Speaker 2: I mean it's.

00:58:05
Speaker 3: Actually fairly on point the whole way. So this is not a film full of like composite characters and a lot of nonsense. It's actually pretty on the record. You know, research material. There's a ton of research about the exact you know, the precise making of the film, that the conditions, all of it, and novelle Vague. Lookleater's film has a great blueprint for that. And I think the dialogue you quote where you get that kind of aphorism or or or philosophical insight or or intellectual bluff half the time, you know, coming out of Goodar's mouth. I mean that's it's part of the charm and occasionally a little bit of a little bit of part of the uh, I mean the rhetorical excess in the script of Novelle Vagen, that everything coming out of Goodar's mouth not under underline with a yellow highlighter, but just like everything is an aphorism that mostly comes from largely, let's say, comes out of the historical record. He set all this stuff in different interviews, and you know, amusings over the years, and it's like, well, it's just you know, this will just imagine that this is how you know, he was verbally an incredibly nimble bs artist, you know, frankly, you know, and and also he put he somehow found a way to put a lot of these a lot of these philosophical precepts that he you know, was always arguing for in the K to Cinema work with all his fellow critics turned director. I mean that, fel that's a great thing about K to Cinema. It turned into the French National Film School.

00:59:40
Speaker 2: It's sort of in retrospect.

00:59:41
Speaker 3: I mean, the film had a two and a half hour cut when they ended, producer says, true enough, give me an hour and a half. It's got to be an hour and a half. And if there's one thing that I kind of wish link later had spent maybe another five minutes on, it's how that film was utterly transformed in the room in that And this was the real revelation when I realized this, when I started reading up on it after seeing it a couple of times, where one of Gadar's filmmaking champions, Jean Pierre Melville, shows up in Breathless playing Jean Pierre Melville and in life, in real life, Melville, you know, gave advice after Guitar asked for about how to how to cut it down. And this is the quote from Melville, not in the film, but just an actual life, right. He says, I told him to cut everything they didn't keep the action moving, and to remove all unnecessary scenes mine included. He did not listen to me, and instead of cutting whole scenes right as was the practice center. This is still Melville talking, he had the brilliant idea of cutting more or less at random within scenes. The result was excellent end quote. And that's the whole thing, right, I mean, guitar and the editor just did it, did this amazing internal cutting within shots. Sometimes that just that that destroyed the continuity visually about who's like the eye lines and you know, like what's happening in the scene. But it gave the film this crazy unstable energy. And that's what to me is eternally new about the film, and it's it's astounding.

01:01:21
Speaker 2: It's also.

01:01:23
Speaker 3: Breathless is a very sad film. And this is what other people say. I mean, it's a wonderful kind of essay on all the movies and guitars had at that point in his life. The whole film is dedicated to Monogram Pictures, which was a poverty row studio beck in the you know, thirties, forties and fifties in Hollywood. I mean, they were famous for things like the Bowery Boys series, Bomba, the Jungle Boy, these series like that, and a lot of kind of grubby little crime pictures, some of them pretty good.

01:01:53
Speaker 2: But you know, that's all that.

01:01:54
Speaker 3: Those are all his influences, and half of those influences and half of the directors that Gudar really revered, Sam Fuller, uh, you know, Brasol, all all kinds of things ended up in Breathless sort of in this sort of like bent and adapted form. That's the spirit of the film. It's also very sad because it's kind of a neolistic little crime picture, just like the best of film noir.

01:02:20
Speaker 2: And yet because of.

01:02:22
Speaker 3: Belmondo and Seaberg having this unlikely chemistry, the film's romantic impulse, which is which is definitely there, is what really what sold it. And also it had a brilliant marketing campaign, which which I think link Letter was very smart to kind of heighten the fact that there was always a photographer on set that they were you know, selling, you know, there was a there was a publicity man constantly. Yeah, yeah, I love it.

01:02:50
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:02:51
Speaker 3: So it's all that's in the film, and you know the fact that link Letter got that all in. You know, Again with my quibbles, certainly, I don't think the after playing Belmondo is up to Zoe Deutsch's Seaburg at all. I think he's a little he just seems a little less of a kind of like a charismatic presence and sort of a real presence as Belmondo was. But you know, you can't win them, all, right, And I just think what it really has is that spirit of of of this sort of like serene chaos just tumbling forward, and that you see that in the link Letters films all the time. You see it a little bit in Blue Moona that's like overtly a much sadder, more kind of like the outsider looking in you know, reflection, because the whole thing is based on Ethan Hawk's Lorentz Hearts, you know, kind of being left out of this whole phase of musical theater, and like you know, he's basically done, almost done with you know, Richard Rogers as a partner. Very different sphere. This is more like a collaborative collective kind of just like ye wouldn't this have been fun to be there? And thanks to this film we're there.

01:04:03
Speaker 1: We get to be Yeah, it's a really good point and about I want to go back to Melville and what you were saying there, because going back to my point about time and link later, I love how these sort of giants of French and European cinema haunt the production a bit like they Revere Rossalini and we see him speaking at the Kye offices and he's friends with Jean Pierre Melville, and we do see the scene in the movie that they shoot and he goes to his set and they have a little nod to Trufau's Day for Night in the movie, don't they with Melville because he does something about the car, he gives an instruction to someone on the set. But also randomly, during the making of Breathless, Robert Brossan is shooting pickpocket in a metro station just around the corner from where they're shooting Breathless, and they they these filmmakers don't represent Cinema du Papa, but they do represent the old guard. And as if Goodard doesn't have enough to deal with Michael and his cast and crew aren't already questioning him and his approach enough, they walk onto a Robert Brasson set. You know, it's just this reminder of like what proper filmmaking is, like what a real artist is, what a real director is. He's having to contend with that. Well, while he's trying in the present to make this future type of filmmaking. It's like, well, here's the past, and guess what, in the present, it still works pretty well. You know, Roissan's making a masterpiece himself in this moment as he makes pickpockets, So I think that's interesting.

01:05:40
Speaker 3: You also get to see like Regine Seinberg is teaching Belmondo and you know, basically just like because there's a lot of downtime on that set that was driving her crazy. I mean truly crazy because it was many days. As we see in the film, we're two hours in the morning of shooting and then Goudar saying I'm done or just showing up and he just wanted to pinball or you know, figure out when we wanted because that thing it really was written as it was shot, meaning written the morning of or the night before, and then wing the film does not. That's what is astoundingly fresh, I think and unexpected for every every person of any age who sees that film for the first time today, because you just think party will think, really, this little scruffy, little brash, little sort of you know, Sardik weird sine essay is was groundbreaking and then he sort of if you fall into it, you think, yeah, I get it, I get why, and because it really was just a rebuke to everything, but it also had its own thing, you know. I mean, I'd like I'd see it again just for the score. But it's a beautiful jazz score. But the that scene where Seabrig's doing the dance sequence, you know, just kind of teaching me. That's just like Band of Outsiders a little later, you know, where you see you know, they take the break to do the Madison, which is of course one of Gudar's most famous and loved scene because it's so easy to like, you know, and it makes it makes a lot of the heavier lifting in some of Guitar's films. He knew that he needed to have, you know, rhythmic change ups, I think, to sustain his experiments in cinema and why he what he does was sound in some of his films. That's what caught my uh, I mean this is a mixed metaphor. That's what caught my eye first, because they caught my ear first, you know, just the fact that sound comes and goes, just like the continuity in the in the pictures, and you just have to learn the new language he's working on. And then at the end of his career, of course here he makes a film called Goodbye to Language. So you know, it's uh, yeah, he's it's a fascinating and I love the link Later he doesn't, you know, his spirit is not like Adar's. He's not He's not really that kind of neolistic sensibility at heart is he really is Guditar and Nelis it's ability, but he's close in this one. He's much more romantic, and you know, Richard Brody is like a big you know, like the good Ar guy. You know, also really loves Linklater. He says, the film is you know, it's it's a it's an amiable kind of like what if this here's how I would like to believe. It all felt on the set, backed by a lot of meticulous research and you know, a very good casting in general. And I don't know. To me, it really is one of the link leaders, probably his top one of his top five.

01:08:32
Speaker 1: So I'll give that's a good thought.

01:08:34
Speaker 3: That's a good that's a good place to be.

01:08:36
Speaker 1: I love so many of his films. But your editing comment is interesting as well when I think about the strengths of this movie, because you're right it would, it would add a lot of time to this film. But the movie does underplay the extent to which the editing surely shaped how great this movie is and the influence of this film. We we literally go from the scene I described where he walks in makes a grand pronouncement about how he wants to edit the film. It basically alludes to how they're going to edit the film, and then the next scene is like they're screening it and it's a gigantic success, right, And that's kind of it. But when I think about what works about this film and the making of if it got and here again, it is a movie it's about the making of so of course that's why they did it this way. But I think for me, Michael, the strength of the movie is that what are the stakes of this movie going to be? Right? To whatever extent there can be stakes when we know they're going to complete the movie breathless and look, every movie you have to suspend some disbelief when you have a reasonable sense of what the outcome is. But what are the stakes going to be when we know they're going to finish the film. We know Gadar is going to go on to be Gudar, we know the movie is going to be this influential work that it is, And if they had spent a lot of time in that editing room, that then becomes really just about the filmmaking. It becomes about decisions about film, right. And what I think link Later does really well is even when they're on the set, even when they are making the movie, he balances it out just enough in making it about the people, and making it about the characters, and making about the interpersonal dynamics, the relationships between Seaburg and bel Mundo, between Seeburg and Godar, between Godar and Bobo, just those those character little conflicts, the questioning of of Godar as a director, the inner conflict that he doesn't He doesn't let out from behind those sunglasses very much, but we do see within him about whether or not, you know, is this really going to work? That uncertainty that does come through, that doubt, I think is enough to carry us through to see, Okay, it's not so much about whether or not the film's gonna end up being good, but along the way, what damage sort of might be done right in these relationships. I think that's interesting enough to see. He does keep it enough about the people. And I think that mar Beck here as Gadar, And you know, I've of core seen some interviews with Gadar, and I know what, if you showed me a picture of him, I would say that that's Jean Luke Gaddar. But I think he he. I don't otherwise have a bunch of preconceived notions about what I expect him to be on screen. I think he captures you talked about him in terms of that adolescence. I think he captures that insousscience really well. Like you, you partly want to sit before him and just listen to him spout wisdom, those aphorisms, even if he's mostly quoting other geniuses the whole time, and then you the other part of the time you want to strangle him. And I feel like that's you know that he's he's almost antagonizing you, and that that is what you have to get right about Gadar here and and he does.

01:12:11
Speaker 3: You know what he really wants to protect And and this is what, luckily I think a response to is is this the freedom to to just find find his way as a filmmaker on his tiny budget, even even with the producer on set breathing down his neck, questioning every single use of every hour of every You know, there's a great scene where where they for the climactic car crash that leads to the you know, the downfall of the Belmano character and the heartless gesture of love that Seabrick fought the whole way at the very end of the film. You know, it involves like a stunt, so okay, we had a higher stumb man, so you know, you see the stunt, you know, bouncing off a guy has to bounce off of spring a springboard platform over the hood and then it's pretending to be having been hit by the car, and it's like, okay, it looks pretty impressive, and then Gaddar says, man, it's a cliched I don't want it. And then you hear Bobo kind of like, we just you know, this guy's expensive, we got to use them. And he says, no, no, we won't do it. And when you that's what That's what really struck me. The first time I saw Breathless, I remember was was shots like that and scenes like that where all you see is a sort of half hearted acknowledgment of a car crash. You know, Gudar just not interested in trying to replicate a straightforward Hollywood recreation of that kind of thing, or it just not I mean, he's already his head's already elsewhere. And that's what's amazing about his film. And what I think is very fond and sincere and kind of beautiful about link Ladders is that he so appreciates that kind of artistic impulse of just following it, following it, see where. And the one thing link Letder really really I think relates to in that is like just taking the time to find it. I mean, nobody would make Boyhood the way link Lader made it if he didn't believe in you know, your issue of time, right of taking it and finding it and how do you do that in twenty days on a twenty day filming schedule. This is what we find out. And I love it that that link Letter feels a little bit drawn to almost everybody on screen, you know, I mean, I mean, like we'll find and the very amusing kind of way of setting up just all the new players where they just they simply have this moment two seconds on camera still where they're identified staring right at the camera. And that's dozens of them. It's a comical number of introductions and we you know a lot of these people don't have many lines even, but it's somehow, it's it's an easy conceit to fall into, very simple, and it's it's just kind of a mark of Linkletter's sort of like generous impulse, which is not like Adar's if he had one, but but he certainly had, as it's pointed out in the Velvagen, he certainly had the impulse to keep every close up of Seaberg and Belmondo, because those two faces are why that film, along with every sort of technical and visual and rhythmic impulse in the filmmaking itself, why that film still is worth making a movie about the making of it.

01:15:27
Speaker 1: M h yeah, in terms of Linklater's impulses here, Look, it's a loving portrait of Gadar in the French New Wave and the making of this film. But I think what I'm sort of trying to express about how he makes it and gives it some imbuse it with some stakes is that he doesn't overly glorify Gadar here or romanticize it too much, like I'm thinking about in terms of a biopic, And isn't this a sort of biopick? There are biopicks that take this approach where they just document a certain portion of a great artist's life, and the problem with so many of them for me is that the people who are the focus of these biopics and whenever they're making that great piece of art that defines them, is it always seems as if the filmmaker who's making the film about them they know they know the momentousness of the work that they're creating, and they make it seem too significant in the moment. They make it seem almost like the artist in the moment understands the magnitude of what they're making. And here I think link Later understands the tenuousness of this entire project from start to finish, and that's a really you know, that's a really smart approach and another smart approach, and you alluded to this earlier, Michael is he doesn't do a thing that I think many other filmmakers might have done, which is he doesn't try to make Nouvelle Vague look exactly like Breathless. He doesn't try to get too cutesy trying to mimic Goodar's style. Well in showing us how Gadar helped establish the visual language of the French new wave. We're we're watching Breathless, but it doesn't feel exactly like we're watching it. Yet it still does have some of the unconventionality in the immediacy of it. The black and white, of course you mentioned it. I love the approach of the introducing of all the key players, and you're right several dozen with those static shots, breaking the fourth wall, titling all of them. The camera does have a slight veritae feel to it, but it also at times has very composed shots. It's not going for exactly what Gudar right it was back in.

01:17:34
Speaker 3: Nineteen fifty Breakfast was like Verite that really felt like they were shooting a documentary. You know, the natural light mostly, I think entirely actually, and our existing light. Let's say, you know, like if they're shooting in an apartment, you just know you mess around with the apartment lights, you know at all that.

01:17:48
Speaker 2: But uh yeah, yeah.

01:17:50
Speaker 3: Tell me this. Do you think that the film gets behind Jean Luke Gadar's eyes or persona at all?

01:17:59
Speaker 1: I mean, I do feel I guess that's what I was trying to get at when I said I latched onto just enough doubt in him that it carried me through the film that behind those glasses, I felt like I understood his ambition, I understood his fear. I understood that he was I think he was self aware enough. At least, this character seemed self aware enough that he could fail. And that combination of bravado well subtle bravado, right, because this as a Frenchman here, he never never really raises his voice very often. Right, He's subtle, but he has an arrogance to him and a confidence to him. But I think it always there's always still this sense that, like I quoted that part of the beginning, he is really shook by the fact that he's quote unquote as old as he is and hasn't accomplished anything yet, and he doesn't know for sure that this is going to work. I don't know if that's exactly what you were getting at YEA. That is something I didn't expect from this characterization.

01:19:09
Speaker 3: I didn't get the same I'm not trying to get it like a more obvious underlying of the idea, but I didn't quite get the same feeling from that very scene where he's sort of acknowledging it. I mean, he's looking at Trufau having come back from the can premiere of The four hundred Blows, and like envy if he's seeing with envy quietly, I think, you know, where's my movie? And then he you know, he uses this screenplay, this treatment, this outline that Truffaux provides him for Breathless and then but basically using none of it, but like except the bare premise. I never thought I'd mentioned Oppenheimer in this conversation. But in movies as as I let's say, as disparate as novellag and Oppenheimer, you have you have a film about a real life person who also had a persona cultivated.

01:20:03
Speaker 1: Yes, and he and it cultivates it.

01:20:06
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:20:06
Speaker 3: And and what little I know I read about about Oppenheimer and Guitar is that these these were these were in fact somewhat odder, stranger, wormier in a way, and and and more it'shier personalities than we see there are a little bit you know, movies tend to the camera tends to turn it all into like a charismatic kind of cool. And I think what I've read and what I've sensed about again, no, nothing had common between these two.

01:20:38
Speaker 2: But but I.

01:20:40
Speaker 3: Would say it's a little it's a limitation on both films. And but to this, to this point on Novelle Vagas, it's it's a little something that it would have been his greatest challenge with letters to find find a little more of that in this film, Like who is this guy really? You know, I think he sees in Truffau a guy who's much a much easier kind of man in the world, you know, I mean it's truefo Is, you know, getting out of one marriage, he's already got you know, there's you know.

01:21:10
Speaker 2: He's seeing somebody on the side.

01:21:12
Speaker 3: Guard's relationships tend to be a little more tortuous. I think, and and and and just simply kind of awkward and uncertain and you know, never nobody could really track and what was going on in his life. But it might be the thing that's missing, even even in the film that's basically only meant to be a certain weight and has kind of a comic uh, kind of a lovely comic air. I wouldn't really, I wouldn't. I wouldn't want it any other way with a link later film, because that's what he is as a filmmaker. He just finds a warmer, more kind of human conventionally a humane sort of approach to everything. But it does make everybody, everybody matter a little bit at least a little bit and sometimes a lot in this in this film, And I mean, I am eager to see it a second time. So I don't my my limitations, you know, as I always say with a lot of things like this, I have reservations about my reservations.

01:22:06
Speaker 1: No, I think it's a really fascinating point when I want to consider when I do revisit the film. But I was just thinking about because of something else, I was thinking about biopics and great artists and musicians just last night, and let's go ahead and use the word genius, which does apply to Oppenheimer and probably does apply as an artist. I think we can say to goodar as well. And part of the problem with biopics is that they always try to explain the genius. They always try to get under the hood and find some way to let us understand what what really makes them tick. And I don't know that. The problem. The thing is we can't, right and so to what extent, to what extent can we ever understand someone as as slippery I as good word.

01:22:57
Speaker 3: Uh, that's it. I mean, I don't think you would.

01:23:00
Speaker 2: Guitar. Yeah, I love it.

01:23:03
Speaker 3: The one the one piece of film I have in my life. Uh, that was shooting on the camera at at whatever Can Festival. It was where Goodbye to Language, I believe was premiered and he was supposed to do a press conference and there was a tremendous interest among all the press, Like you're kidding, Well, we were all there, like hundreds, you know, waiting for an hour and a half and then this footage, you know, if I can find it, you know, it's just kind of like me talking to Jim Hoberman or whatever is he going to and all this, and and then and then you know, then you hear this, and then the word goes of Monsieur guitar will not be attending today. You know, it's like you know it, you know, we want I mean, and Varda found out the same thing that he just simply would not show when she was making her film Faces Places.

01:23:56
Speaker 1: That's part you're right, that's the part of the plot of that film, right, show up is you.

01:24:01
Speaker 3: Know the world is destined to be to be a flum mixed and uh and and and surprised and essentially disappointed by the man. But maybe not the films, certainly not the films.

01:24:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it. Well, this was a fun conversation as always, Michael, thank you so much for jumping in last minute and allowing us to have this dialogue about Nouvel Vague. I hope people do seek it out on Netflix, which is where it is currently playing.

01:24:30
Speaker 3: Charming as hell?

01:24:31
Speaker 1: Can we agree that I hope we were charming as heck.

01:24:38
Speaker 3: I was just going for charming as all get out there yourself. But yeah, but yeah, we'll take next for having me on it.

01:24:44
Speaker 6: This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Break through the busiest time of year with the brand new Peloton Cross Training tread Plus powered by Peloton Iq. With real time guidance and endless ways to move, you can personalize your workouts and train with confidence, helping you reach your goals in less time. Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training tread Plus at one Peloton dot.

01:25:08
Speaker 3: Com Altho withrab I know you're out here.

01:25:17
Speaker 1: Just come in before the monkeys bought you. Josh, you're back from the Riverside Purgatory. You look great.

01:25:26
Speaker 2: Good to see you.

01:25:27
Speaker 1: Yes, well there, oh yeah good Next week on the show Wicked for Good. Yes, we do plan to talk about the Wicked sequel. Are the people of Scotland excited for the continuing saga of Alphaba and Glinda and the Flying Monkeys? What's your sense?

01:25:46
Speaker 5: I mean the theaters of Scotland are. It is playing everywhere? So yeah, and I'm having been a fan of the first installment, I'm looking forward to this one myself.

01:25:58
Speaker 1: Okay, well, what are we to do if your Netflix isn't working properly and we can't talk about train dreams? Who am I going to get to fill in to talk about that film? I am. I'm excited to talk about that one too. I saw it as the opening night film of the Refocused Film Festival in Iowa City at the Englert Theater. Great Will Patton does the narration and was a longtime friend of the writer of the novella. The movie was based on Dennis Johnson, who was a student and a professor at the writer's workshop in Iowa City. Dennis Johnson's wife was there, had a Q and A afterwards. It was lovely. I think that was October twelfth, so we're over a month since that viewing. I will need to watch it again. Joel Edgerton stars as a logger in early twentieth century America. Director Clint Bentley is the one who made this film. He wrote Sing Sing, a movie we both liked quite a bit. Last year. Greg Queedar directed that.

01:26:56
Speaker 2: Here.

01:26:57
Speaker 1: Clint Bentley is the director, and it is coming to Netflix. We hope it's coming to your Netflix.

01:27:03
Speaker 5: I mean this, stop getting me more excited about it. I've only heard great things and yeah, the Netflix situation is real. Of course, this year they seem to have four or five titles coming out in the last month and a half the year that I'm excited for, So I do hope. I expect I'll be able to get my hands on Train Dreams at least for sure in time for next week's show.

01:27:26
Speaker 1: Okay, we will also announce it's that time of year. Every Thanksgiving week we announced the Golden Brick short list. So this is not the list of finalists, not the films we will be voting on, but it is the list of titles that will be in contention for the final nominees. And you can see how that list stands currently if you go to filmspotting dot net slash bricks. So, Josh and I need to do some final viewing. We had a film Spotting Advisory Board call last week and got so many great suggestions. I have a lot of viewing to do Josh, to get some final additions onto that list, and I'm excited about that. We have some good titles there, but I know that there are many others out there that we both need to see.

01:28:13
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:28:13
Speaker 5: I took a look at that list as well, and at least two, possibly three titles were among those. I have my own list going of before our voting deadlines for the Chicago Film Critics Association. I want to see, and there was definitely some crossover between what the Film Spotting Advisory Board members suggested for the Golden Brick and what I've wanted to see yet this year, So look forward to digging into those.

01:28:37
Speaker 1: We both have plugs upcoming events that we want to promote where film spotting listeners can both be in attendance with us. Yours, well, mine's going to be really exciting, but yours will probably be more traditional fun. Why don't you promote yours first?

01:28:55
Speaker 5: All right, we're going back to London. The film spotting meetup I did in London a number of years ago was such fun.

01:29:01
Speaker 2: Just had to do it again.

01:29:02
Speaker 5: Of course, it's just down the road now for me. So we're doing this in December, December eleven. That's a Thursday night. It's going to be at seven pm at the Cafe at Cinema two and three at the Barbican, so this is the Barbican Center there right in London. Already have about nine folks signed up, so.

01:29:21
Speaker 2: A good group.

01:29:22
Speaker 5: More are always welcome. If you do want to come on December eleven and join us, we will put in the show notes a link to the RSVP form just to give me a heads up of how many people might show up. Can't wait to see you.

01:29:37
Speaker 1: All there, And keep in mind, I don't know if this will cause just to stampede or not, but at least the first drink is on the Film Spotting credit card.

01:29:47
Speaker 5: You're better off, Adam, based on my experience of meetup saying only.

01:29:53
Speaker 1: Only the first drink. I have heard about the last London meetup and how that went. I might be using the Film Spotting credit card for bail money.

01:30:03
Speaker 2: Well that's the case.

01:30:04
Speaker 5: Yes, but you know London had nothing on Seattle in terms of the drink spot So yeah, it's been my practice I would say since Seattle to say first.

01:30:14
Speaker 2: Round is on the show.

01:30:16
Speaker 1: Yes, we did have to institute that rule because of you. Congratulations.

01:30:21
Speaker 2: Yeah. Have we paid off? Have we paid off Seattle yet?

01:30:24
Speaker 1: I think I think we officially have. Yeah, it's like my student loans took a little while, but we got it. We got it done. You also have a book to promote. You don't need to take out a student loan to get your book.

01:30:36
Speaker 5: Oh gosh, no, it'll never be cheaper. Yeah, I'm going to keep mentioning this through the end of November because my publisher, for fear Not, this is my Christian appreciation of horror movies. They have a deal going on, so fifty percent off the book and free shipping. You can get both of that through November thirty. And I'll just mention now the code conf ship. But there are more details to get the free shipping as well. I'll share those in the show notes. But yeah, fear Not as cheap as you're ever going to find it through November thirty.

01:31:12
Speaker 1: Okay, my event, if you are in the Chicago area or can make a little trip there Tuesday, this is the last time I can promote it Tuesday, November twenty fifth, as part of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs celebration of fifty years of Siskel and Ebert. It is such a thrill to have been asked the show, to have been asked to be part of this. We are going to screen and I say we because here I had to go. I had to go to Michael Phillips again. Josh, you're in Scotland. Michael Phillips and I are going to watch John sALS Lone Star. I picked that as part of the celebration. Because of Siskel and Ebert urging me to see that film, I've always associated it with that show.

01:31:57
Speaker 7: Lone Star is one of the most ambitious movies I've seen this year. In fact, it's one of the best movies I've seen this year period. John Sales has made a lot of good movies in the past two decades, for example, just recently The Secret of rown Inish, but this is his best.

01:32:12
Speaker 4: I think it's a terrific piece of work Roger and John Sales needs to be praised that I want to devote my time to praising him as a writer. I don't know how John Sales came up with this idea.

01:32:22
Speaker 1: We're going to be watching it with an audience. Last time I checked RSVPs, it's free, and the RSVPs it was very high. I think there's a very good chance we could sell out the Claudia Cassidy Theater, and this plug hopefully will put us over the top into that sellout range. But as of right now, there are tickets available. Again, it's free, you can RSVP at the Cultural Affairs site. It is first come, first seeded, and as Josh said with his event, we will put a link in the notes for this show. You can also just go to film spotting dot net slash events. We should put yours over there as well, Josh, we can. We can add it to the page at film spotting dot net slash events.

01:33:07
Speaker 2: Is there any concern we're working Michael too hard?

01:33:11
Speaker 1: There is no concern of that. Okay, he's ready, able bodied, He's he's ready. And you know what, I'm I'm so ready to not be out outfunded by you. I'm gonna say that if you come to this event, and if you're a film Spotting listener, oh there's there's a chance that there's at least a good chance that afterward will buy you a beer. Now, oh gosh, Now, now what there's like two hundred and fifty seats.

01:33:40
Speaker 5: Uh huh, yeah, you know, and you're gonna get people. Yeah, only this, I know what's gonna happen. You're going to tell them two drinks on the show. At my right, I'm gonna be limited to one.

01:33:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, only if you come up to me and use the code Barbican, Well, I buy you a drink. Okay, all right, We'll you have to use the code.

01:34:01
Speaker 5: Where the real listeners are it to continue the celebrations. Let's celebrate with our sister podcast, The Next Picture Show Looking at Cinemas Present via It's Past. Episode five hundred is out right now. I saw it just pop up in my feed, Adam. This is a special one off review of the show's namesake, The Last Picture Show.

01:34:24
Speaker 2: So they've been doing this.

01:34:25
Speaker 5: I didn't realize it until I saw it, Adam, when it came in my feed and read the show notes the show description ten years. Yeah, how is that possible that it's been ten years?

01:34:35
Speaker 6: Yeah?

01:34:35
Speaker 1: And the math does check out write five hundred episodes because they they've basically been doing fifty episodes right over over ten years, doesn't that math they've been doing They've been doing it that long. It's really crazy that they've been able to turn out that they started. There was a different rotation as they started with the number of shows. But yeah, here we are ten years later. I would not have guessed it, though, Josh either. It feels like it was maybe five years ago that that show began. And yet and you know, I'll say this too, when that show began when and I touched a little bit on this last week when it began as just an idea that was being kicked around, and they fortunately really bought into it in the wake of the Dissolve shutting down. I didn't know if it would only be like a two year or three year thing, and I honestly would have been okay with that. I didn't know if this would have that kind of longevity. Remember Matt Allison did how many years did they do Film Spotting SVU. I'm sure there are some listeners who know the answer to that. I don't have it off the top of my head. It was one hundred and sixty episodes, so obviously it was at least a few years. But at some point they had to go on and do other things with their lives. I kind of had a feeling The Next Picture Show would end up doing that as well. But here we are ten years later, and obviously they enjoyed doing the show. The audience and enjoys that they're doing the show and has built up a routine around it. So let's hope for ten more.

01:36:06
Speaker 5: Yeah, So congrats to Scott, Tasha, Genevieve and Keith. For some reason, you have not checked out The Next Picture Show yet. New episodes drop every Tuesday. You can find him wherever you get your podcasts.

01:36:19
Speaker 2: All right, if.

01:36:20
Speaker 5: Adam's voice holds out, we're going to try to do massacre theater. Maybe it'll help.

01:36:25
Speaker 2: I don't know.

01:36:26
Speaker 5: This is where Adam and I perform a scene and you get a chance to win a film spotting prize. Last time we massacred this scene?

01:36:33
Speaker 3: Did I do something wrong?

01:36:38
Speaker 7: No?

01:36:41
Speaker 1: Then why did you just go colde on me?

01:36:45
Speaker 2: I don't know what you mean?

01:36:48
Speaker 6: What did you see?

01:36:50
Speaker 2: I didn't see anything.

01:36:54
Speaker 1: Your line O, I'm not. Yes you are? I know because I feel things very deeply.

01:37:04
Speaker 5: Look, I gotta get back to work, all right, I'll.

01:37:06
Speaker 2: See you later.

01:37:07
Speaker 6: When what?

01:37:09
Speaker 7: When will I see you?

01:37:10
Speaker 1: I don't know.

01:37:10
Speaker 2: Pearl is just an express.

01:37:11
Speaker 1: You're not going to take me to Europe art. You tell me the truth? What did I do wrong?

01:37:17
Speaker 2: Nothing?

01:37:18
Speaker 4: Come?

01:37:19
Speaker 5: Why are you leaving? Mane?

01:37:20
Speaker 1: If I didn't do anything wrong, I don't understand. I do you lie? Right?

01:37:23
Speaker 7: I do? Like you?

01:37:24
Speaker 1: I just tell me the truth.

01:37:27
Speaker 2: Why what did you see?

01:37:28
Speaker 1: Why did you try?

01:37:29
Speaker 2: You're scaring me?

01:37:30
Speaker 5: Pearl? That's David Corn, Sweat and Mia Goth In twenty twenty two's Pearl, written by Tye West and Miagoth and directed by West. That massacre was part of our Germo del Toro's Frankenstein show a couple of weeks back. The episode also featured reviews of how to Christy and Peter Who Are's Day? There's always a tie in? So why that scene from Pearl before we jump in at him? I'm thinking, could this be the source of your vocal channel?

01:38:01
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, thank god we aren't doing this scene this week. I never killed gotten. I could have gotten to the levels that I needed to to pull off that performance. And you know, often there's multiple tie ins, and I think the listeners got all of them, including, as usual, some that we didn't fully anticipate. Here is Jeremy Laffery in Iowa City Go Hawks. Indeed, the most obvious connection to the episode is that me, a Goth, stars in both Frankenstein and Pearl, with the pseudonym Ruby that you used in your massacre. Doubling is both a clever Gemstone name swap and is a reference to the very very red costuming for Frankenstein's mother Claire. A fun bonus is that Goth plays double role roles in both Frankenstein and Wes X. Yes, a less obvious connection slash spoiler, We're fine. Shortly after the massacred segment of this scene, Pearl kills the projectionists played by David corn Sweat. The selection of this scene must have been strongly motivated by producer Sam's hatred of James guns Superman. What a catharsis it must have been to get some cinematic justice against a man that helped to quote, steal, dismember, and torture his most beloved childhood superhero. I joke, but for the record, I share sam sensibility that James gun just isn't for me. Thanks as always for the great work, and kudos to Adam for turning in his best massacre theater performance.

01:39:26
Speaker 2: Yet.

01:39:26
Speaker 1: Well, it's not a very high bar.

01:39:28
Speaker 2: Oh it's top five. It's top five for you. I gotta okay, I'll take it. And I love that.

01:39:33
Speaker 5: I love that the both of us really disliked James Gunn Superman.

01:39:38
Speaker 1: But it's Sam.

01:39:39
Speaker 5: Sam came in from the top rope on the leather top row after the show and was like, listen, they went easy on this.

01:39:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's even worse.

01:39:48
Speaker 2: It's even worse.

01:39:50
Speaker 5: Right, here's Mike Bell from Dallas, Texas. The scene is from Pearl. In the obvious tie end is the fabulous Mi a Goth who was robbed of an OSCAR nomination and to win for her performance in the film. Parallels between the Pearl and Frankenstein include not only Mia Goth's casting, but also the presence of one a controlling and cruel parent Pearl's mom and Pearl Victor's father and Frankenstein, and two a sick parent Pearl's dad and Pearl Victor's mom temporarily, I guess in Frankenstein. Also, Mia Goth plays two roles in Frankenstein and plays two roles in the ex franchise.

01:40:25
Speaker 1: Yeah you got them. And again some that we were definitely not thinking of. Mike. Here's Rachel Madden in Chicago. I'm a big fan of the pod and this is my first time submitting feedback for Massacre Theater or for Masacre Theater. Had to send in a note for this one because it's one of my favorite movies released in the past few years. Pearl. I love the entire ex trilogy and the biggest reason why is Mia Goth's performances in each film. Her work in Pearl is mesmerizing. I'll never forget the first time I saw her incredible monologue and that final shot of her unhinged smile at the end. Love that this got a shout out on Masacre Theater and may I say, and was absolutely carrying this one great voice work. The connection is obvious since Mia Gotha just starred in Frankenstein, the main subject of this week's episode. Both Pearl and del Toros Frankenstein do have interesting themes around parenthood and a monstrous creation turning on its creator but also still holding love for them. Is that a reach? Let me know again? Love the show and love this episode. The Frankenstein discussion really added to my interpretation, and I agreed with both Josh and Adam even though they didn't agree with each other. I mean, what more can you ask for? Thanks for all the work you do. Hoping to attend a film spotting event in Chicago soon. Hey, Rachel, maybe I'll see you at lone Star.

01:41:38
Speaker 5: Yeah, three beers on Adam for you, Rachel.

01:41:40
Speaker 2: There you go.

01:41:42
Speaker 5: Lastly, here's Melissa Kochekol from Englewood, Colorado. Melissa, I've had a chance to hang out with her at a couple of Ebert interruptis meetups as well only paid for one beer. Sorry, Melissa, She says, I was listening to the show secretly while working, as I always do. Massacre Theater started. Normally, I can stifle my laughter and no one is the wiser. But when Adams started doing a woman's voice with a Southern twang, I knew my cover was blown. My only souls was immediately clocking that he was giving me a goth A run for her money as Pearl when he shouted, I feel like I need to leave this to you, Adam.

01:42:20
Speaker 1: I can't do it, though you know I can't. Why I can't even got close?

01:42:24
Speaker 5: Okay, well we'll just have to go back and listen to that episode. Melissa says, Please please keep us posted on when we can start leaving reviews on letterboxed for Massacre Theater.

01:42:36
Speaker 1: They'll get right on that.

01:42:37
Speaker 2: What a great idea.

01:42:38
Speaker 5: I think we know we did a couple of people and Mitchell and might need to flow with us.

01:42:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. I both love and feel terrible about the fact that Melissa has to listen to film spotting clandestinely at work. What's trying? Yeah, how do they ever chained up at her desk. What's what's going on? Yeah, maybe they just banned podcasts. Who knows. Okay, we we had a pretty brimming film Spotting hat. I guess the performance was was good enough. So Josh reach in and pick out this week's winner.

01:43:16
Speaker 5: Our winner is Nathan McKinney from Kansas City, Missouri.

01:43:20
Speaker 1: All right, Nathan, congratulations, email feedback filmspotting dot net, and we will set you up with your very own film spotting t shirt, tote or trial to the film Spotting family.

01:43:31
Speaker 2: With the simple.

01:43:35
Speaker 3: Would the wimple?

01:43:38
Speaker 1: Would the dew was a sign?

01:43:40
Speaker 2: Why do you say that? Why do you say?

01:43:43
Speaker 6: Will?

01:43:43
Speaker 1: You said? Say it?

01:43:44
Speaker 2: Like I said.

01:43:46
Speaker 1: We move on to this week's edition of Massacre Theater, and we are going to give Josh an opportunity to shine because there is a there is a performer, there's a perform mns. This week, I should say in this scene that certainly could rival or I think even far exceed anything I was doing with Pearl last week. Is that too much pressure, Josh?

01:44:12
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, you set me up to fail, But I was just trying to find, with your vocal condition, one of these parts that would be more manageable.

01:44:20
Speaker 1: But the truth is, there's just a lot of shouting. That's the case, right. I do think I think I've got the one that's a little bit more monotone, and that's what I need. So I appreciate you looking out for me. But I also I think we're giving you the chance to be the funny voice guy, and you need it. You need it this week, it's your turn, Adam.

01:44:44
Speaker 5: This movie is very serious. There's nothing funny about it.

01:44:48
Speaker 1: That's a great hint. That is a great hint for our audience too. Here we go have in their mind as they listen to this very very serious scene, and we need to get into very serious mode. Okay you started off, I'm gonna give you the action and action you set us hop it all bullshit, all of it, the cabinet, minister, the whole business.

01:45:14
Speaker 2: You got us in here to do your dodgy work.

01:45:17
Speaker 1: Look, we just stopped a major invasion and in three days they'd have been across the border with this stuff. Why us, because nobody else could have pulled it off. You're pissed about the cover story. I knew I couldn't have got you in here without it.

01:45:30
Speaker 2: So what story did you hand to Hoppa?

01:45:32
Speaker 1: Look, we've been looking for this place for months. My men were in that chopper when it got hit. Hopper's orders were to go in and get my men, and he disappeared.

01:45:43
Speaker 2: He didn't disappear. He was skinned alive.

01:45:47
Speaker 1: And my orders were to get somebody who would crack these bastards.

01:45:51
Speaker 2: So you cooked up a story and dropped the six of us in a meat grinder. What happened to you, Apollo? You used to be someone I could trust.

01:46:00
Speaker 1: I woke up. Why don't you.

01:46:04
Speaker 6: And me?

01:46:08
Speaker 1: I tried to do your line.

01:46:10
Speaker 2: Apologies to this actor. I did not mean to apply. He was a Nazi. I don't know what was happening. It just got a little out of control.

01:46:19
Speaker 1: You after last week's performance, you made me crack. You made me crack. What was the line? He didn't disappear, He didn't disappear, Josh, you didn't even need to go to that next level with he was skinned alive. You had me and he didn't disappear. That was your best line delivery, and then you just you just took it up a notch with he was skinned alive. I'm glad, I mean I broke I broke character in this in this very in this very serious scene sin of acting.

01:46:50
Speaker 2: I know it really happens with you.

01:46:53
Speaker 1: Jeez, I feel awful. I feel really terrible about it. Okay, if you know what film we just met, that's a email of the movies title and your name and location defeedbacketfilmspotting dot net. The deadline is Monday, November thirty first, and we will select the winner randomly from all the correct entries and announce it in a couple of weeks. Mercifully, we are at the end of the show.

01:47:19
Speaker 5: Yeah, take a little rest there, Adam, while I let listeners know that they can find you and the show on social media. You're on Instagram, Facebook, letterbox, YouTube, as film Spotting. I'm also 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. That way you can listen early. You can also listen ad free. Plus you'll get a weekly newsletter, monthly bonus episodes, and access to the entire show archive. For show t shirts and other merch you could go to film spotting dot net slash shop.

01:47:59
Speaker 1: In that arca, you can find in addition to a ton of Richard Linklater stuff. Of course, Josh, we have reviews of five Edgar Wright films from two thousand and seven's Hot Fuzz to twenty twenty one's Last Night in Soho and somewhere in that archive. Producer Sam missed this in our notes, but I'm pretty sure it was Hot Fuzz where I interviewed Edgar. I think I interviewed. This is how long ago it was. I interviewed Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

01:48:31
Speaker 2: Wow for that there, Okay, that be fun.

01:48:34
Speaker 1: So that's in the archive somewhere as well, out streaming or vod. This weekend is Train Dreams with Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Clifton Collins Junior, and Carrie Conton. It's on Netflix everywhere except Josh's Flat in limited release Noah boundbacks Jake Kelly with George Clooney and Adam Sandler. That's coming to Netflix on December fifth.

01:49:00
Speaker 2: You maybe see what I'm saying.

01:49:01
Speaker 1: Maybe Joshua'll get it. We'll see Rebuilding with Man of the Hour Josh O'Connor. I am very curious. I got a note. I got a note Josh that this was available. This isn't a Netflix one though, I think. But but we do have a link to all right, Yes, and I am very eager to see it because Josh O'Connor is playing a cowboy. Weren't you just saying something about Josh O'Connor and Cumberbatch and Campion like Power the Dog. Weren't you just saying you were trying to pair Josh O'Connor with Campion.

01:49:32
Speaker 2: I think I think that was a conversation we had.

01:49:35
Speaker 1: So maybe this is as close you got manifesting Josh O'Connor as a cowboy. So you can see it in rebuilding out wide rental family with Brendan Fraser as an American actor who takes on some unusual work in Tokyo. We have a feeling most people are going to see Wicked for Good. We plan to see that. We hope we'll see both of us train dreams and we'll get up to some other stuff on next week's episode.

01:50:00
Speaker 5: Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Deso and Sam van Holgren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempinar Special thanks to everyone at wbeazy Chicago. More information is available at wbeaz dot org. For film spotting, I'm Josh Larson and I'm Adam Kempinar.

01:50:21
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore, but fine film spotting is listeners supported. Join the film Spotting Family at film spottingfamily dot com and get access to ad free episodes, monthly bonus shows, our weekly newsletter, and, for the first time, all in one place, the entire film spotting archive going back to two thousand and five. That's a film Spotting Family dot com pro pantibly