One Battle After Another Review and Oscar Nominations Reaction | #1050

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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. See any standard two D movie anytime with no blackoutdates or restrictions. Sign up now on the Regal app or at the link in our description and use code film spot twenty six to receive fifteen percent off.

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Speaker 2: What kind of a show you guys putting on here today?

00:00:48
Speaker 1: You're not interested in art?

00:00:49
Speaker 2: Now?

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Speaker 1: No, Look, we're going to do this thing.

00:00:51
Speaker 2: We're going to have a conversation from Chicago. This is film Spotting. I'm Adam Kempinar.

00:00:58
Speaker 1: And I'm Josh Larson. You know you are so unsuitable.

00:01:01
Speaker 2: My Donna Mi Cow comes from a whole line of revolutionaries, and you look so lost. What are you gonna do about this baby?

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Speaker 1: A year ago, it was one of the most anticipated movies of twenty twenty five. Last week it became one of the most Oscar nominated, Paul Thomas Anderson's one Battle after another.

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Speaker 2: Thirteen nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best send Say. This week, we take another look at PTA's revolution minded epic, plus our reactions to the Oscar nominations. That and more ahead on film Spotting. Say It, Say It Baby, you love you two. Welcome to film Spotting. Last week we recorded Josh a couple of days before the Oscar nominations were announced. By the time people here this week showed the nominations will be over a week old. That doesn't mean we don't have some thoughts. I don't know if we have any hot takes, but we have thoughts.

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Speaker 1: Oh, come on, I've been stewing in my takes Adam to just waiting to share them. So yeah, okay, can't wait, you can't wait.

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Speaker 2: This week we will have those not so timely Oscar nomination reactions. We will also play Massacre Theater. A quick reminder, Film Spotting is now 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. For a link to video episodes, go to film spotting dot net slash episodes. But first, it is time for another look at one battle after another. I've gotta bitch you, people say, Then I hit it on foot on fun.

00:02:47
Speaker 1: Here we go. I'm gonna turn a disgastation. I'm gonna slow down and you talk and roll. I'll take it from there. I'll bunk on and get ready talking roll. Yeah, okay, you know what freedom is? What no fear? Just like tell me crud. Since it's released last September, Atum One Battle after Another has only become more timely for reasons good and bad. Believe me, I want to talk about the bad. The way Paul Thomas Anderson's contemporary American epic only further echoes the country's current spiraling democratic crisis. But let's start our sacred cow review the soonest reconsideration of an assumed classic in show history, by the way, with a cheerier, more heartening aspect of the movie. In the wake of One Battle's thirteen OSCAR nominations, including Best Picture and both writing and directing nods for Anderson Best Supporting Actress nominee Teana Taylor hosted Saturday Night Live in the movie, Taylor anchors the opening third as revolutionary per Fidia of Beverly Hills. As part of Taylor's hosting stint, SNL aired a fake commercial for toys based on One Battle after Another, including an action figure for Battle Robe Bob Ferguson with light up joint and little homing device.

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Speaker 2: I don't forget about the Pidia Beverly Hills Well snap on pregnant Billity can machine fullowk out hot on their trail. Is the buff weird colonel lock job with realistic arm veins and mobile paternity testing.

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Speaker 1: Kid, you've got to watch this whole thing. We'll link to it in the show notes. Adam. In a week when I was personally spiraling over the government violence being inflicted on Minneapolis, I desperately needed this bit of dark humor, and watching one battle after another again for this discussion, I realized that one element that makes it so miraculous is that it's so damn funny. So let's start there before we go dark. We're gonna need comedy two. After all, we're gonna survive this period in American history on this rewatch, Adam, was there a new moment, maybe a line, a gag, something that made you laugh particularly hard and in the process maybe offered a bit of momentary emotional relief.

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Speaker 2: Wait a second, that was a fake commercial. That's all I have on my Christmas list. Forget my kids, that's my Christmas list.

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Speaker 1: Oh yours? I was gonna say, I need that lucky company, our children.

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Speaker 2: No, not quite, just for just for me. As is true, Josh, with every great movie, but especially I've found with my two favorite filmmakers, Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coen Brothers, everything about it was richer and sharper on rewatch, including the humor. You're absolutely right, So will you indulge me? Can I give you a few before I get to my clear number one?

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Speaker 1: I'll give you. I'll give you three, four because I have three? Okay, perfect, because that's exactly how many.

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Speaker 2: That's exactly how many.

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Speaker 1: I have a couple quick.

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Speaker 2: I don't know how this wasn't more memorable the first time. And you know, apologies for the harsh language here, but I have to commit to the bit. If I ever feel like here on the show you're being a little nitpicking prick, I'm going to point out how ridiculou the name Comrade Josh is. You can't be a revolutionary with the name Comrad Josh. And if you persist, I'm calling in a Greyhawk ten, which I guess means getting Sam on the phone. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. Consult the codebook. But you know, someone a film spotting family member. I think was on this when the movie first came out, because I believe in our discord I was called out as comrade Josh in It's in September, and now, of all I know to say, I take a little exception to this because of the two of us, Adam, Let's be honest, who would be now I have this instinct. I'm not saying I'm completely completely unlike this, but who would be the nitpick you won between the two of us if it came down to a nitpick battle?

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Speaker 2: I suppose, But just between our names, Josh sounds less revolutionary than even Adam. So I'm going with pta as a s writer. There the entire scene where Bob threatens Will's friend Bludo.

00:07:34
Speaker 1: What's up, guys, Guys cool, guys hanging yep, going to the dance. Yeah, that's cool.

00:07:42
Speaker 2: I tell you somewhere, I'm doing that exact same thing to your entire family. And what I'm just telling you, we're talking about freedom, baby, We're talking about freedom. Freedom is a funny thing, isn't it. When you have it, you don't appreciate it, and when you miss it, it's gone. It's just gone. Love it it's it's very likely that in the twenty plus year history of this show, Jennifer Vendetti is the first casting director to have ever been mentioned by name. That was me by me during our Marty Supreme review. Now she's the first casting director to be mentioned by name twice because she's nominated for the first ever Academy Award for Best Casting. And I can't imagine the Oscar going to anyone else. I don't know what the odds are. I can't imagine the Oscar going to anyone else. But if it had to go to someone else, I'd give it to Cassandra Kula Kundis for casting people like John hugen Acker, who plays Tim Smith, the Christmas Adventurer. And let's just say, this is the second time we've seen and reviewed the movie. It's been out for almost a year. We are going to spoil the movie. If you haven't seen it yet, don't don't listen past this point. Okay, he's the Christmas Adventurer who is sent to clean up the mess that Sean Penn's Colonel Lockjaw has made. And when he's being briefed on that mess, I think I don't know his name's Bob or something the guy do is right, he says. He says, next thing we know, Colonel Lockjaw's mobile his task force into bagdun Cross and conducted a class A raid on the Chicken Licken Frozen Food Farm. And the way the way Huganaker says, Oh no, I love their nuggets, Josh. The degree of difficulty on that line to not overemphasize any syllable to not play it is if Tim Smith, the character believes he's funny. I think it's like a nine point eight after a few small beers. I think it might be the best line delivery in the entire movie. That line this time absolutely slayed me.

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Speaker 1: That entire sequence, and almost every line delivery, and the choice of word usage is it's like I've been adjacent. I mean, I'm a white guy, so I've been adjacent to meetings like that, but I couldn't quite place what meetings they were. Yeah, they're certainly not Christmas Adventurer meetings, but you know, there is this sort of benign, bland business speak that they're adopting there that is strangely familiar. But I don't entirely know the language. And every line hits in a funny way.

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Speaker 2: Because of that, we almost both look like we're dressed for a Christmas Adventurers meeting as we're recording. Actually, I know cozy so here It is though truly the most amusing for me this time, and I liked it the first time too, and its inclusion in the SNL commercial, I think is one indicator of how memorable it really is. When Sense closes the trap door oh okay, and the rug, the rug falls into place over the top of it, it's it's not only ingenius on PTA's part to come up with it, but it's the perfect kicker to that incredible Latino Harriet Tubman sequence. The final touch just reinforces the extent to which he has so calmly accounted for everything. Every rug, the rug even somehow falls laconically like Sense moves and speaks. There's a rhythm to it. There's just an order amidst all the chaos that Sensey and the rug provide. And and in terms of humor, it's the kind of gag actually that feels more appropriate in the jail escape sequence in a film by another Anderson. I was just thinking that for sure, Wes's Grand Budapest hotel. That's how silly it is. I adore it. And to say I adore this movie would be an understatement. It's it's incredible it is.

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Speaker 1: And yeah I thought that too about Wes Anderson and almost one of his stop motion you could see that bit.

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Speaker 2: Bea how I was emotioning it. Gosh, I was.

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Speaker 1: Exactly Yes, yeah, all right, so here's here's my three and you stole my thunder on my actual pick a little bit, but I'm gonna talk about it anyway. First off, you know, I still got such a kick out of it. You know, I love Willi's lyne to lockjaw about the tight shirt. Yes, I loved hearing that again. The other one though, that came that hit me, I think because I saw it coming or knew it was coming, and so it was less shocking and funnier. I like to talk about editing as a crucial tool in comedy filmmaking. How about the smash cut to a pregnant Perfidia huge belly exposed. The SNL video included this too, firing that machine gun, yes, and the shooting range her action figure strap on pregnant belly. I just burst out laughing at that because again. The first time, I was like, what is happening right now? And this time we get a cut from her walking away from the hotel meeting with Lockjaw, and she's walking I think in the parking lot we're hearing soldier Boy. We get a cut to Bob sitting in a camping chair, and then we cut hard to her with the gun, and it's just the precision of that movement towards the and sanity that struck me as so funny this time. But my pick is Blueto. I got to give some more time to Blueto. Here. The kid playing Blueto, Willis's high school friend is Carlos McFarland, and you highlighted DiCaprio, which, yes, he's great in that scene. This kid is a gem. His deadpan non reactions to everything Bob is throwing at him, and I think the way he describes it to Willow when they get in the car, your dad is yeah, yeah, this kid is not ruffled, like it's just just it rolls off him and when he gets in the car, that's all he says about it. Yeah, but this is also picked up Bluto. Carlos McFarlane gets another great scene after they've invaded the dance, the high school dance, lockjaws whatever they are goons, you know. Here Blueto is being interrogated by the military guy, and I forget what leads to the exchange. But the military guy, real real gruff, says, do.

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Speaker 2: I look like I think his name is he? Do I look like your parent?

00:14:29
Speaker 1: Kind of?

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Speaker 2: Kind of?

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Speaker 1: It's just like, you know, right, you delivered. I mean, talk about the casting coup. From what I can tell on IMDb, McFarland. You know, it's I don't know if he's non professional, but it's least at least it's his first credit. So just perfect, just perfect as Blueta, who I couldn't get enough of on this rewatch. But I'm with you overall, Adam like Richard film, No Surprise, Richer film, And I think you know we talked about I think we focused mainly mainly on the political significance and the timeliness in our first review, and I do want to spend more time on that. But I did wonder in the back of my head, am I over praising it for that quality? And is this one that might seem, you know, maybe that it's its greatest quality and perhaps it is, but I don't think it comes at the expense of all the other things we've come to back from Paul Thomas Anderson film, which is breva filmmaking technique, you know, the editing, the music, all these things, the cinematography, and yeah, just the sense of a sustained maybe, in light of our discussion of Boogie Nights in particular, which was our bonus episode for a film spouting family members recently, the sustained rhythm and pacing and sequencing of specific sections of this film, and maybe we can talk about in this context the entire Latino Harriet Tubman sequence that you were talking about with your comedy pick, because I timed it this time, Adam, out of curiosity. And it's interesting that you mark the pulling the rug over the trap door as the end point, because I agree, essentially that's it, because Sergio is out of the scene at that point. Right, it's six minutes from the shot of Sergio at his desk in the storefront until he pulls the rug over the trap door, and you think of everything that happens in those six minutes. It's nineteen minutes from that shot of Sergio at his desk to Bob being tasted, which feels rhythmically all the of the same piece, but as far as Sergio is concerned, it's less. So Anyways, yes, those were justing interesting time markers. Here's what I want to say about that entire sequence. However, you count it a master work of balancing two narratives in our interest in each narrative equally at the same time, because we have Bob attempting to power up his phone, and the emotional hook to that is because he's trying to get connected to find out where Willa is right. And then we have Sergio setting his underground railroad into action, and that is, you know, we've come to learn going to save the lives of how many people? So we're equally invested in each of these narratives, and Anderson and keeps us that way primarily by using not long single takes, but sustained takes where the camera will drift from Bob to Sergio within a space and always remind us that while this is happening, don't forget that this is happening as well. And the blocking comes in here right where suddenly Sergio will comment on something Bob is trying to do and then he'll step away and just you know how he has managed to sustain it. Not it would be impressive if it was like a two minute sequence, but for it to be at the very least six minutes is just an astonishing feed of filmmaking. That's a mini drama within this, you know what, almost three hour major drama.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you said it. The investment on our part as viewers, the stakes are so high in both cases. Obviously we're more invested as viewers, at least initially in Bob's story because that's the story we're following. And we know that if he doesn't figure this out, if he does and get the location of the rendezvous point, he may not ever find his daughter. That that is what he is trying to figure out here. That's everything. But also we understand the scale of what Sense is doing here, all of those people, all of those people that we see coming through that location that he has been providing sanctuary too, and we also want them to get to safety. And so we are as viewers juggling both of those, As you said, Paul Thomas Anderson, as a filmmaker is juggling both of those those narratives. If you will, and the way the rhythm to go back to that word, the way he manages to go at the pace of Sense is. I think what's so remarkable because the camera moves at that exact pace as harried as Bob is, and he is freaking out the entire time. We feel comfortable because we're moving the way Sense is moving.

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Speaker 1: I think that's a great point to it. And I think the restrained use of editing and cuts is part of that too, right, because because Sense would not he would not do any MTV style cutting, right, he would be more He's more of a single tape guy.

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Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, so there are so many directions we could go, but in terms of what was richer and sharper, I'm gonna go here, Josh, because I wonder if you had a similar reaction or not. It goes for every performance for me, including all the performances that I already loved. And I know we're going to discuss Teyana Taylor and Perfidia Beverly Hills. I should say the character certainly some more. I think it's fair to say that by design there's a thinness to that character. Taana Taylor suffuses her with significant depth that I noticed even more this time, But josh it it did for me also include Sean Penn's performance. Oh okay, like Daniel day Lewis and and there will be blood. Seeing it a second time helped me get a little bit more on the same wavelink with that character. And his acting style isn't the same as everyone else's in the movie. And maybe we should note here, Yeah, there's there's a cartoonish element to Lockjaw, and his name is Lockjaw. And as I said the first time we reviewed it, there's a very clear to me strange lo v in connection between Lockjaw and Jack t Ripper, So we can we can see his character in this more satirical realm. Maybe we could and should forgive I suppose the ex and of the performance then, But I didn't need to work very hard this time to forgive those eccentricities. The nervous little boy and the very insecure little man wearing the two tight shirt. They were fully on display. And what I mean there is the person. The actual person was on display to me this time, and Penn does just as much, expressing with subtle shifts of his face, and does just as much in the quiet moments with that character, as he does in any larger bursts. Take the scene near the end, that great scene near the end with him and Chase Infinity, who is of course also remarkable in this film. When the DNA test results come up, you see him go from with just really a tilt of his head. You see him go from pure age to a switch being flipped, where Charlene is now just something to be disposed of. It's almost now a mechanical sort of look on his face. He's gone into kind of machine mode. And it's not surprising to say that Sean Penn is a pretty good actor, and you see his full talents. I actually do think I see it much more now on display in that Lock Jaw performance. I didn't fully appreciate it the first time around.

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Speaker 1: All right, let's se yeah, let's talk about Lockjaw. And my comments are less about the performance, which I think I felt about the same on this time, and did wonder if we needed quite as much of Lockjaw. I think I'm still there, But I think everything you said about the performance itself is apt. I'm fascinating, Adham that you use the phrase little boy, because here's where my mind went watching this character and you know, this military grade force he brings rolling into a peaceful talent for his own purposes. I couldn't separate it from this cartoonish little bowl. Gregory Bavino, I couldn't. We've been watching and you know, it first came on the scene, I think in La last summer, came to Chicago, and you know now has been in Minneapolis. So their reports he's he's being demoted or something like that. I mean, great, it's you know, we need a lot more than that. But anyway, I'm watching Lockjaw and he's almost a one for one for this guy leading these federal goons attacking our cities. And it's the false bravado that Penn captures. It's the moral hypocrisy. It's kind of shocking that it's this one to one because the movie was well in the can before Bevino came on the scene, right, And I think what that speaks to is that Penn's performance and the envisioning of this character is capturing a type, and by it by a type, I don't want to I don't want to diminish the type's humanity. And maybe I should say it's a it's a mental state, and it triggered thinking this way, and watching the movie triggered for me a memory from childhood that was very revealing about what we're going through, Adam. So bear with me if I can tell you a little story about Josh growing up in Crestwood, South Suburbs, Southwest suburbs of Chicago. But grew up in a neighborhood full of boys. We'd run around in a pack, we'd play Star Wars, we'd play Indiana Jones. This has come up on the show right I think you know you can recall doing something similar with your beloved movies. More applicable here G I Joe. I don't know if G I Joe was part of your childhood, but this was cartoon television series right action figures. Obviously you can guess from the name all military, so all military themed. Loved it, loved it, you know, maybe not as much as Star Wars or India Jones, but just was really into that stuff. So me and my friends we needed guns to play G I Joe. Often we had to make do with stick. At some point. I don't know how this happened, knowing my parents, I must have pestered them enough. They got me a bb gun. Okay, dream for a kid who loved g I jail, Yes, and I think I was the only kid in the neighborhood who had it, so it made me extra cool. Okay, paper targets come with the gun. Sure, that's great. For a while, wasn't too long. We turned to squirrels. We turned to birds. That got boring. We dare each other to shoot at the windows of the nursing home behind my house where I grew up. That led to a broken window, complaints from the nursing home, and lies to our parents that we were involved at all. I couldn't. I was the only kid in the neighborhood the babe gun. But it couldn't have been me, right, just blatant lies about what you did. So these memories are coming back, and this is all sounding so familiar to what we're watching now. Obviously this is a very small scale to what is happening, but it's similar in terms of mental You know, it's overarmed silly goons, wrecking lethal havoc and then running away when things get serious. The thing that enraged me the most about this latest video is as soon as they kill someone, just run like scared little boys. Right, These are boys with BB guns looking for squirrels and birds to shoot, and the federal government has given them free reign to indulge their Gi Joe fantasies. It is no wonder people are dying. I get, I understand the mentality. You just would hope that some sort of maturity would occur at a certain point, but that's not what we're seeing. And I do think the portrayal of Lockjaw in one Battle is related to all of this. You look at him as you described him, Adam, He's indulging his own fantasies. This is part of the relationship with Perfidia, right. The hypocrisy involved there, I mean moral hypocrisy far grander scale in his commitment to his supposed mission. You know, he's he's acting like he has this pure mission and the hypocrisy behind that is just maddening. So yeah, he is Lockjaw is just another this emotionally morally immature boy who's been given an enormous gun. And that's why the other term you used, cartoonish, I think is apt. I think it's also revealing that the SNL Skit Boss quote realistic arm veins. Did you catch that?

00:27:56
Speaker 2: Yes?

00:27:56
Speaker 1: That that I mean, it's just it's all part of this. So Lockjaw is no more cartoonish than Bevino or any of these other terrorizing goons, and it's part of the topicality of one battle after another. But I think it's also, as you were saying, part of what is crucial two pens very good performance.

00:28:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what's interesting to me is that what we're seeing in what you're described is the people who are getting the pain inflicted upon them. That's the point. They're the targets and the pain is the point. And everything you're saying is accurate and applicable. Except what I do find very fascinating about the Lockshaw character is I don't think he cares at all really about what he's doing, especially here. What we see really in the second half of the film is it's all a pretense to his own This is where to me, Josh, it's really the most applicable to our current situation, is it's all just about his own self fulfillment. It's all just self aggrandizing. It's just a means to an end, and the end is getting the position that he desires, and the recognition that he desires, and the feeling what he knows to be true, which is that he's a superior being. That's what it's ultimately all about. So there was there was relevance the first time we saw this movie, of course, when it opens on an immigration detention center, right, And and we still feel that very much now as we see people in cages, and we watch these people walking by them in those cages without batting an eyelash, as if that's somehow normal. That's just that's just the normal order of things. But what struck me Josh this time is a line I didn't remember from the first viewing. Is when he finds out that they're backed and cross, what does he say? He says, make me a reason to deploy in that town. Okay, so we all know, we all know that what's happening in Minneapolis is completely illegitimate, and look, there are reasons.

00:30:10
Speaker 1: Part of hypocrisy exactly.

00:30:12
Speaker 2: I mean, we actually do need immigration control and immigration policy, so it's not like that that's all folly, right, But what's happening in many Apolis we all know is illegitimate. We all know it's completely personally and politically motivated, right, and and that's exactly what Lockjaw is doing. Give me a reason, give me any pretense to deploy in that town. And that's that's what he gets. And so then that that dovetails with the other part here with the Christmas Adventures that I thought was so interesting, is you want to talk about the line that actually is maybe truly the funniest line in the film. What really should be the biggest howler in the movie is I think it is during that first that first meeting with Lockjaw when they're recruiting him, and it's it's Tony Goldwyn and he says completely with a straight face, he says that being part of this club, he says, it doesn't mean that you are the best, the most intelligent, the most sophisticated, or the wisest. It just means you're superior. So who does that feel like? That describes Josh, Like, think about that, You're not the best at anything. Actually you're You're not the smartest, you're not the most sophisticated. There's nothing about you or anything you do that makes you superior to anyone or gives you any advantage over anyone else. Yet you know, you know, in your heart, that you're better than everyone else, that you are superior to everyone else, and everything that you do is justified because it's an extension of that belief and you believe it fully and emphatically. Sounds like to me everybody in authority who's making decisions right now. And let's also be clear, right, what is the driving factor behind the Christmas Adventurers. Is what is driving that feeling of superiority? It is skin color. And yeah, that also applies to what we are talking about with what we're seeing in our country. And there is a connection here to another funny moment that is something I didn't catch the first time I saw this movie. Did you notice when Lockjaw gets rewarded with an award for taking down the French seventy five? Did you catch, Josh, what the name of the award is? No? This time I caught it. I said, wait a second, and I rewound it just to make sure. And sure enough he's awarded the Bedford Forest Medal of Honor Bedford Forest, as in Nathan Bedford Forest, the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux klan Ah.

00:33:18
Speaker 1: An accident, not an ot Okay, Yeah, and you're coming the Superior conversation is it's so funny. Tony Goldwyn is just pitch perfect there. But also the point about Superior is that all he wants to know is that someone is beneath him. It to your point, it doesn't matter that he's the best. The important thing is that there's someone under him. And so this relates to the subjugation idea, and it's less about your excellence than someone else's being dominated.

00:33:50
Speaker 2: Oppression.

00:33:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, someone else's oppression.

00:33:55
Speaker 2: As I spy what's out now or coming soon to a regal cinema, Josh, I know you're gonna mention this. Arco the animated film is one I'm very curious about. Also, really would like to see the new Sam Raimi film if we could, it'd be good to make some time for it here on the show. Don't know that that's going to happen, but Rachel McAdams starring in that one Send Help Wuthering Heights didn't come up, Josh on our twenty twenty six preview, But I know we're both very curious about that. Emerald Fanelle film starring Jacob Alordi, Oscar nominated Jacob Alordi and Margo Robbie that is coming soon to Regal Cinemas, Marty Supreme is still in theaters, and The Bone Temple, josh Am, I correct in saying that you still need to see the Bone Temple.

00:34:46
Speaker 1: That is true. Hopefully I will rectify that within the next week.

00:34:51
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't want to predispose you. I'm worried. I'm a little worried about your saying it.

00:34:57
Speaker 1: Don't I've got my I won't fingers in my ales.

00:35:01
Speaker 2: That's it.

00:35:02
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:35:02
Speaker 2: I want to hear what you have to say about it, that's all. So see it, see it soon so I can finally hear what you what you think about Nia da Costa's latest which is available now at Regal Cinemas and with Regal Unlimited, you could see The Bone Temple for free. Regal Unlimited is the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. Regal is offering film spotting listeners endless movies for less. Our code is the same. Using code film spot two five, you can get ten percent off a three month subscription. Regal Unlimited is the only truly limitless movie subscription pass. You can see any standard two D movie anytime with no blockout dates or restrictions, and you also save on snacks, getting ten percent off all non alcoholic concessions. Sign up now in the legal app or at the link in the description and use the code film spot twenty five to receive your discount.

00:36:05
Speaker 1: Let me jump just quickly back to because you touched on it, and I want to add to what you said about how good Tayana Taylor is here and I had forgotten. You know, I really do think the first third of this movie, I don't know. I understand the cres of the character and think that some of them are spot on and well worth considering. I don't know that I would say she's thinly conceived or easily brushed aside, though watching it a second time, I feel like the first third of the movie, which is maybe twenty twenty five minutes, is almost perfidious story, and Bob is essentially a side character. The first shot we get is I think, a medium shot of Perfidia walking down the street, and I think, to your point, in the performance, Taylor finds ways to bring shades that perhaps aren't there in the writing. The screen time is there, maybe it's not in all the writing, but she has this line that I think has spoken in voice over at one point after Willa has been born, am I weird for being jealous of my baby? And there's just, you know, the introspection she gives to that is a different shade to the character than what we've seen before. Who is this, you know, dominant, proud in control woman. And I noticed as well, there's a look she gives. It's along this the same moment or in the same sort of timeframe. Bob's holding the baby and Perfidia is looking at her and just Taylor's face just blank, you know, and sometimes not showing any emotion is very effective acting. At the same time, there's a little as as soon as like a little bit of recognition of the how momentous this is starts to come into her eyes, she turns away. So yeah, just reaffirming you know, what you said about Taylor's performance being so good. I also thought, you know, I found appreciated Regina Hall's performance as Deandra, one of the other revolutionaries. Not a ton of scenes, but always there is the movie's conscience. I think worried about Perfidia early on and where she might take this there's a shot of her later of Willa shooting a machine gun, and we see Regina Hall's face with the same expression of concern. And Anderson frames Willa the same way he framed Perfidy, a pregnant shooting the gun. So it's a parallel sequence and Regina Hall, you know, again, there is the movie's conscience now expressing that concern for where is this going to take Willa? Yeah, so yeah, very small, but I think crucial role and performance there from Regina Hall.

00:38:41
Speaker 2: I agree. I did want to dig into Perfidia a little bit more because back when we reviewed it originally, this is kind of where we left off. Or I intended to dig into this a little bit more. But if you recall, I woke up that morning that we were going to review it and saw, oh, there's discourse about this that I didn't necessarily anticipate. Maybe that was naive of me. I just hadn't really thought about it, but it makes sense of course, and I realized, oh, this is going to be a bigger thing, and we'd already talked about it for like forty minutes, so maybe we should go ahead and wait. And now we have this opportunity to talk about it a little bit more, but there were things I wanted to say then, and there are things, you know, I feel like we might as well go ahead and say now, especially now after we have both talked about the layers to Taylor's performance that are definitely there. I do think in that opening that what we see with Perfidia is that she is She is clearly a catalyst for the action, but she's not the main character of this film, or even the secondary or tertiary character. She is the driver of the action. Her part of the story is almost a prologue, and I think for better or worse, Pta does move briskly through that section. When I said early on there's a thinness to that section, what I mean is is, if you go back and look at it, Josh, she does go from I didn't count the exact amount of time, but she goes from having a baby to wanting to leave that baby to I think leaving that baby in maybe two or three minutes. You know, that's not a mistake, it's it's the way that that section moves because we have to get to the actual story proper. I know that that thinness does leave some of her psychology left to be filled in or leaves it on the table, and we wouldn't We wouldn't allow that thinness or that lack of psychology with Bob or Willa as the main characters of this film. But I think we understand it as as it's a character who disappears after the first twenty minutes of the film. But you talked about that part where she says being jealous of her baby. I think it's really important that look you mentioned is really important. The fact that she says I'm She actually says at one point I'm not okay, and I think we see in her someone who, it feels to me, is struggling from some postpartum depression as well. This isn't just a character who one day wakes up and decides, I'm actually jealous of my child because my man seems to love my baby daughter more than me. There are some very complex emotions that she is experiencing. But more than that, based on what we know about the rest of the movie and the action that's going to unfold and what Lockjaw is going to be motivated by, don't we have to also understand that part of these complex feelings may be motivated by her understanding that perhaps the baby isn't Pats.

00:41:50
Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely so.

00:41:53
Speaker 2: I think that's also a very crucial factor. Again, a very complicating factor. I'm not saying every criticism of how the characters, Yeah, go ahead.

00:42:02
Speaker 1: I was just going to add, which you do have to retrofit. I don't think this is a fun us, but you have to retrofit that onto what you saw on the first third, after you've learned that's right. So it is it's a complicated process to go through to to get to the recognition that there may be a level of there that wasn't a parent until you have that further information exactly. Okay.

00:42:28
Speaker 2: The biggest, the biggest complaint seems to be the hyper sexualized nature of the character. And look, when you're introduced to her, the first four or five scenes that you meet her, they're all sexually charged. There's no denying that she's wielding her sexuality. And I do think, Josh, that that's a crucial distinction. Though she's wielding it, she sees and she describes this in a scene too, she sees her sexuality as power. And the thing is it is power because it's the thing that she's using with Lockjaw. That's actually allowing her the freedom. It's affording her the freedom to carry out her revolution. And with that in mind, you also have to watch those scenes and realize that there's never a time when she's wielding that sexuality where she's not completely in control. And I think that that I think that is significant. But I also think what's significant is the one time where her character is sexualized, where her character is clearly objectified. It's one scene. And if you want to talk male gaze, the male gaze isn't Paul Thomas Anderson's male gaze, right, And this was something apparent the first time I saw the film. The male gaze is Lockjaws. It's Lockjaws male gaze through the binoculars right as he's watching her. It's not the cameras. It's lock Jaws. And that that distinction matters. I agree.

00:44:01
Speaker 1: I do think it's a tricky moment. This struck me the first time, and I still feel this way. It's it's always tricky when you're doing that, and there are obviously those levels at play, But how much time are you giving to lockjaws gaze, I think is crucial.

00:44:17
Speaker 2: Not that much.

00:44:19
Speaker 1: It's not that much, but it's more than we need to understand what he's doing. And I just wonder if that's maybe like that's what's being called doing question for some viewers too, is like Okay, we get what he's looking at and the camera returns to it, and and again, I you know, I agree with you over all the strategy employed. It's just when you're doing that, when you're saying, this isn't the movie showing us this, this is the movie showing us this character's attempt to see this, then how you dole out that character's point of view? Yeah, is a very tricky is a very tricky business. And I wonder if for some viewers this is like we got more of Lockjaw's view than maybe we need it.

00:45:00
Speaker 2: Okay, I mean that would be a fair complaint obviously, if you felt like the filmmaker truly was returning to that as their as their crutch or their way around it. But in this case, it truly is one scene and I didn't have a stopwatch out, but it's it is. It is relatively short, and all the other scenes I'm talking about where we see her again and she's always in complete control, and that camera to me is never otherwise objectifying her. So I think I think all that other screen time does matter. And you know what's interesting, you said this, I notice this time. It is a brief moment, I mean maybe two seconds, but it's there, and I think it matters. And I think the cut after it has to matter too. Otherwise, why is it in the order that it's in?

00:45:47
Speaker 1: Josh?

00:45:48
Speaker 2: These choices matter that filmmakers make. The fact that we get that moment where we see her walking home or walking somewhere in the morning light, that even though she's the one, it seems in control what had to still be ultimately a completely degrading night where she's doing what she's doing because she has to do it. She has to do it in order to keep to keep the revolution going that night with Lockjaw in the motel. The fact that we get at that moment where we see her it seems very contemplative walking home. And then what is the next shot. The next shot is, as you said, it's her shooting the machine gun, and we.

00:46:31
Speaker 1: Might say between and then it's making them a triangle, right.

00:46:35
Speaker 2: And it and it feels exactly and it feels like when you when you when the the editing choices add up. I remember feeling in that moment, feeling not just intellectually, but feeling like that machine gun fire is an expression of her anger and disgust. Right, it's not. It's not just a moment where it's this is a scene showing Perfidia enjoying shooting a machine gun. No, yeah, she's letting out something raw. Right, So this is this is here again, This is where we are getting psychology, This is where we are getting inside her head that that maybe maybe some critics aren't aren't completely giving Pta some of that credit for I think I think those again, those choices matter too. But here's what I want to say. The last thing I say about the character real quick, real.

00:47:22
Speaker 1: Quick, let me ask you a question about that that scene, and I think you're right. My first experience of the her pregnant shooting the gun was very similar to what you're talking about. And then this time again because I knew it was coming, it the absurdness of it just maybe laugh so hard. But the motel room scene, so your understanding is that she has agreed to meet him in a way to hold off some sort of.

00:47:51
Speaker 2: Well that's what he says to her. And that she really and I think she she understands that if she doesn't play the game with him, that that he will he will root to her somehow or Yeah, he knows, he knows, he knows where she is. Obviously, that's what he's shown. He can, he can catch them anytime, and he's he's said to her, he's made it clear that he'll let them continue to do whatever she wants to do and whatever they want to do as long as she does what he wants her to, right, He'll let her do He'll let her do whatever she wants to do as long as she does whatever she wants to do in the motel room with him, eat sexually with him. So I see it as a quid pro quo.

00:48:36
Speaker 1: In that way. Yeah, sense, that makes sense.

00:48:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the overarching part of this, I guess, in terms of the part of the criticism and my response to her, the feeling I had watching the film, especially the second time, it kind of goes back to what I was saying a little bit about Marty Supreme and that character and some of the reaction to it. I do think we're I do feel like we're in this world still, Josh, where every movie character has to be approached through this Manichean lens where they're either good or bad, and so the director's point of view must be that they're good or bad. And all I think we can say for certain is that the movie, one battle after another, believes Perfidia Beverly Hills is and I'm going to quote Rachelle from The Sisters of the Brave be Verse later in the film, she is a problem that keeps on giving. She did leave her daughter without a mom, and she left her husband without a co parent, and she did rat out her revolutionary friends. These things are These things are facts. It's okay for her to be a problem for the other characters in the movie, and for that, in my mind, to not reflect a problematic depiction of black women by Paul Thomas Anderson. If it was, if it was the only kind of depiction of any person of color in the movie, that might be different. But she's a flawed She's a flawed human being who makes bad, regrettable decisions. And as you pointed out, and I certainly caught it this time too, or paid real close attention to it, the movie opens on her face and also ends ends or the penultimate moment. It's certainly a huge moment in the film ends with that letter too. Yeah, let's talk about the letter Charlene, which I think you can see as as something of a redemptive moment for her. It gives significant weight to Perfidia as that flawed character, as a flawed but sympathetic character. It gives weight to her as a character and her struggle and her spirit. And so for for Pta to bookend the movie that way there, I have a hard time reading reading it, or reading that character as someone that that PTA sees in a in a problematic way or in a disposable sort of way. I see it as a much stronger character than that. And now that I've gotten that all out, and as I got it all out in my notes earlier today, I did read finally the Angelica Jade Bastia and take on this movie. And I won't read any of it here, but I will link to it in our show notes. I think you already linked to it, maybe at some point when you brought it up recently on the show, but I'll link to it again. Let's just say I'm much more in line with Angelica's take on the character than some of the critics.

00:51:32
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and Angelica's you know piece, and she has some pushback on the movie there, which I think is well worth considering as well. I think is fairer than some of the other complaints I've seen. Also, So the letter. It's interesting though. I felt like something was off with the letter this time around, and I honestly didn't give it a ton of thought the first time, So it's not necessarily that my position changed. I was just it was such an emotional experience that first watch. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing, and I especially loved where the movie ended ended, and so the letter kind of got forgotten for me in that and this time I had a little more space to think about it. And I don't know what it is, Adam, I don't know. I think the intent is exactly as you say to bookend, to expand the character, to show some growth, even if it's off screen, and potentially hint at redemption. But based on the perfidia we've come to know, it's just it felt like it wasn't that that character couldn't have gotten to that point, but there was something jarring about suddenly having her be to that point, and that's the next time we see her. It even occurred to me, did Bob fake this letter? And I know that's not really what was intended, but it popped in my head in a way to try to offer his daughter closure of a sort on this particular emotionally wrenching part of her life that doesn't really I don't think I'm arguing for that reading because he would not include the line something about how I hope to see you again someday, because then that's just prolonging the pain, right that eloquent I guess what I'm trying to yeah, exactly. I guess what I'm trying to express is maybe for me, it wasn't an entirely successful attempt by Paul Thomas Anderson to do what you're saying for me, just because it felt a little bit off what I do love about the letter, and maybe this is primarily why it's there, and I think it works wonderfully for this is the one line in it where she says something about give your dad a kiss for me, because that made space for the father and daughter's long embrace, and we've seen them embrace almost like immediate post trauma. When he finally finds her on the desert road. But that's a different that's like a we're alive embrace, and you almost wonder if maybe this is the first time they've been able to just give a like we're alive and we're going to live together embrace. And I loved that touch. And the letter is the impetus for that happening. It's almost like maybe there was something still between them, but Perfidia's encouragement to make that physical move broke that down, and now they've been able to do that, and Yeah, I just thought that was a beautiful touch for the ending.

00:54:41
Speaker 2: Well, I'll take it a step further. I don't think. I don't think Perfidia had to say it in her letter. I don't think that even matters, though I think it's her letter that does encourage it. And this is also where I'm for the first time, but not the last time, over the course of our future doing shows together that I'm gonna call you, Comrade Josh. I think you're being nitpicky because I think the letter's great as written, and the reason I like it is because I think it's redemptive, but without going too far to be redemptive to me, It reads exactly how I might imagine a woman like Perfidia with some distance and some maturity and some regret to process what she's done and to process those regrets. It it didn't seem any more certainly sentimental or any wiser than it needed to be. I thought it was. I thought it was where it exactly needed to be. And the reason why it works is because of the moment that follows You're exactly right. What I love about it is whether she said it or not, and I almost wish she hadn't said it. It doesn't matter to me, though, because what I love is the fact that then she goes, she goes and hugs and gives that embrace to Bob, because I think, without rejecting, without it being needing to be an outright rejection of her mother in any way, it's still recognition on the part of Charlene. I think part of the movie, Josh and here I want to get into the emotional resonance of the film, and it resonated with me the first time, But like everything else we've done talked about, this part of it was so much stronger for me the second time. This this part of it where she recognizes that I think she's she's still been clinging to this idealized version of her mother and in some ways not moving forward as a daughter and not moving forward as a person, but also not moving forward as a daughter, and maybe not not that her not that her father totally deserves it, as I'm going to argue, but but also not not necessarily moving or interacting with him the way maybe she should, because she's still she's still clinging to this idea of of this mom and this image of a mom that that that maybe she wants to be. And the dad Bob has even said she he always thought that she would come back, that someday she might come back and and be the mom she's supposed to be. And the letter provides the closure that now she can set that aside, and now she can go and she can show the love to Bob that he deserves and that she should show him. And it feels like that that cathartic moment that she can say, you were the one that was here with me this entire time, and we're together, We've always been together, and we're going to be together moving forward. And there there isn't any kind of shadow hanging over us anymore. That's a really powerful thing in that moment that I think that letter provides, regardless of honestly in a way anything it says, you know, or any of the specific words that are written, it provides that closure. And I think that's what really moved me about that moment.

00:58:03
Speaker 1: And there's a double power to the ending for me because there's that cathartic emotional element for the characters and it carried over to me and how this is on both viewings and how we've been living and how we're going to have to live. I think your point of her vision of her mom and no longer is this idealized revolutionary. She now has a more realistic, practical understanding of what quote unquote revolutionary, dissident, resist, whatever degree you want to talk about. Everyone's going to have to be something in this movie and in real life now. And that's why I love this ending as a parallel scene, another parallel scene. He does this a number of times in one battle after another to what we've discussed. When she gets picked up by her friends for the dance, right, this is another instance of the two of them at home together and she suddenly is going to leave this time, she's not going to a dance, She's going to a protest. The world has changed. They have to face that reality. We have to face that reality now in our lives. Notice Bob's emotional state though, in both instances paranoia and she's going to the dance right, absolute paranoia. Panic. Here he's realistic about the dangers, but he's calm. And I appreciate one for one battle after another now twice within eight months, for being a rooting experience. Whereas yes, things are as bad as you think, deep breaths, ocean waves. There is a way forward. It may not be what you have in mind based on other movies you've seen, your imagination, your desires, but there is a way forward, and it might look something like this. The way it looks for these two characters and Catharsis is maybe one way to describe that. Hope is another way to describe it. Just to know you're not crazy and you're not alone. This is how I feel after watching one battle after another. A big part of that is this final scene.

01:00:23
Speaker 2: I want to talk a little bit more about what connected with me emotionally here, but I also want to talk about those final moments A little bit, and I think I want to talk about how it inspired me, or maybe motivated me, or maybe felt left me with a feeling of wanting to engage with the world. Josh, but it's going to come. I guess maybe the best way I can frame it is I'm going to come at it through the back door a little bit, maybe with a little bit of cynicism actually in terms of the way I'm viewing the end of the movie. And we'll see, will see how you take to my read of it. It's funny when we reviewed this movie. Originally it didn't dwell on it, but I tried to find a parallel to PTA's other films in that he often has characters in his films who are con men or hustlers, and I saw a little bit of that, just a little bit of it in Pat in that he seemed like someone who's a little bit of a fish out of water, who is trying to always portray himself. He wasn't the true revolutionary that maybe Perfidia or some of the other people in the group were, and he always seemed like a little bit of a fraud. Watching it a second time, I realized that that doesn't really seem to be the case. He's actually he is, actually a bit of a screw up maybe, but he's the true revolutionary. He's the real deal. He may be a stump, as Perfidia's mother calls him, compared to her, but I think we can believe that he's the real deal. Of course, the real theme that's the connector here to Paul Thomas Anderson's other work is the father and son theme, except in this case it's fathers and daughters that drives everything. And the moment or one of the filmmaking highlights for me here that established the emotional weight or set it up. And this this is subtle, Josh, this isn't. This isn't like some of the other sequences in the movie, like we talked about the the underground railroad or the even the end right on the on the roads on the hills. But what a little montage that signals the end, the end of the Perfidia sequence into the modern day, the way, the way that is marked with editing. We go from basically close ups or medium close ups, a shot of Perfidia as she goes into Mexico to Lockjaw reading the letter that he's left for her. So here it is Perfidia being the problem that keeps on giving. She leaves, that leaves a problem emotionally for lockjaw right to pat the problem that she's left for him to baby Will we see her face the problem she's left for baby Willa to then grown Willa. And the dirty work, the great use of Steely Dan's dirty work there in the dojo right with Sensey, That's how we transition. It's just those shots. It just cuts on faces it and it's just the marking of Perfidia to the people that have been left in her wake. Basically, it's really incredible. But something that I thought was interesting this time was when he is explaining, when Bob is explaining to Sense the pagers, right, he says the old tracking device and he says it goes off when it's within one hundred yards. If it works, he says, and it never works. Sometimes it does, but mostly it doesn't. That's his line, And I'm going to propose that those tracking devices are a metaphor for parenting or this father daughter relationship. You could say that pager, that tracking device in particular that he's describing to Sense, is a symbol for Bob it's an old tracking device. It tracks the kids. It's supposed to protect, right, it's supposed to be on alert, and sometimes it does protect, but mostly it doesn't. You know, sometimes it does its job, but mostly it doesn't. Mostly it's drunken high and it's just kind of there. That's that's Bob, right, And we see that because that first scene where Will and Bob are at the table, Will is the parent to Bob. The lines she has are the parent confronting the kid. Where were you? Even the line I don't want to worry if you wrapped your car around a telephone pole. That's like one of the gold the golden oldies, right, going into the greatest hits of parents to their kids. You know, he has effectively relinquished his role as parent to her, and that's part of why she's so angry with him. We understand that he he has relinquished's role except in conventional authority situations like being overprotective about what she's wearing to the dance and who she's with and you know, harassing her friends. Right, Like that's when he turns in two dad, and he also says later he's talking about Josh. He's talking about the role of protecting her in terms of lockjaw and their roles as revolutionaries old revolutionaries. But I think it applies across the board, he says to someone, I got lazy. I think it's sense. Again, he says, I got lazy. I wasn't paying attention. I think that describes what he was doing as parent. And another key line that tells you everything you need to know about him as dad and about their relationship and why she is so angry with him, is he says, I don't get mad about anything anymore. That's the thing, Like, that's part of our job as parents is to get mad about things, is to keep our kids honest path and to be paying attention, and to get angry about not just the superficial things, right, is to get mad about the really important, serious stuff. And he doesn't take anything really seriously. That's the problem. She actually wants him in her life, she wants him to care about things, but he's too tuned out. He's tuned out. And so this is why Josh it's so important and why it's so it's so powerful, like legitimately powerful. At the end, when when he comes around that corner of that rock, right, And she doesn't just put the gun down when she sees she sees that it's her dad. There's no confusion about whether or not it's her dad. That's not the point. But what does she yell at him? Who are you? She yells at him, who are you? She knows it's her dad. The point is that she's demanding of him that he finally assert his identity as her father, that he prove it right, that he needs to step up and in this moment he needs to say it. And when he says, it's your dad, she makes him do the do the lines right, do the old revolutionary spiel. She makes him say it rather than just go, oh daddy and fall into his arms. She makes him do it. She asserts herself, asserts her identity, and she makes him have to come to terms with his failings as a father. That's incredible. That's what's so incredible to me about the ending there, and that those moments before they do actually finally embrace on.

01:08:03
Speaker 1: The road, there is a detail in that little sequence, that little moment that you're just describing on the road that I didn't notice until this time. And it involves the tracking devices. Actually they're basically these censor chimes, so they start to make this chiming sound when they're near each other. The Johnny green Wood Score try to pay more attention to it this time around, because it's subbler than a lot of his other work for Paul Thomas Anderson. And one part that I did notice comes earlier. It's during that incredible care chase over the Rolling Hills where the score just goes into percussion mode and you don't get anything else for a while. Very effective. But in this moment when she's demanding who are you, and even before that a little bit, I think as they're approaching each other, the score picks up the note of those chimes and incorporates a variation on it into the actual composition. I mean, it's just.

01:09:05
Speaker 2: He's holding gorgeous.

01:09:08
Speaker 1: It's not just amplify. I don't think I'm wrong here. I don't think it's amplifying the chimes of the censors. No, I think it's actually taken. I don't think she has hers on her at that point. You might be right, So I think it's taking those notes and imbedding them into a larger, so still subtle peace. Yeah, that is, yeah, audibly bringing them.

01:09:32
Speaker 2: Yeah together, right, So everything about that I just love. Now. At the end in the letter, Perfidious says we failed, maybe you will not, and consistent with Bob's now you articulated this, consistent with Bob's now acceptance of their relationship, his new understanding of his role of father and better acceptance of that role, their dynamic as father daughter, and acceptance of her activism rather than trying to overprotect her, rather than trying to keep her from engaging with the world. I suggested when we talked about this the first time, Josh, that it was very hopeful and very promising, and that I read the ending as if it was saying that maybe it's time for this generation, this generation that failed to get out of the way, to clear the path and to be accepting and to be encouraging, but to get out of the way and let this new generation go. But I've been since then, I've been wrestling with something and I and this was before revisiting it. What I can't shake is how do you justify and this is now where it overlaps with back to back to our real world situation. How do you justify Bob's apathy because allowing or even if you say encouraging his daughter's participation in changing the world, that's all fine and good. But isn't he in his early forties? Isn't that what we hear? Has he fought all of his battles? Were those battles enough? Does he not need to fight any more battles? How old is sense? Seems about the same age to me. He's sure fighting a lot of battles. How old is Deandra, She's fighting a lot of battles. How old is Howard Somerville? He sure committed to the cause before he got taken to the detention center?

01:11:45
Speaker 1: Right?

01:11:45
Speaker 2: What about what about Tally the Grayhawk ten or whatever? Who gets on the phone? He's still doing it even loser, Comrade Josh with his rebellion text. At least he's in the game, Josh. At the end of the movie, Bob's still just laying on the couch, still getting high, still drinking wine, just laying on the couch taking a selfie. How are we supposed to feel about that?

01:12:12
Speaker 1: I didn't read it that way at all.

01:12:14
Speaker 2: I believe it is what it is. It's not a read it is what it is. He's laying on the couch when when things are going on need to be fixed in the way.

01:12:22
Speaker 1: Okay, how do you feel about that? I admit he's laying on the couch. I felt fine with it, because, again, it goes back to me, it's more about an emotional state and an understanding of what again, revolution, resistance, dissidence might look like. I think, and here is where those who are criticizing the film for being something a work of art that is calling for political violence, I think are completely misreading the movie. We see Bob willing to go that far in the opening section, and I think what we see at the end, for me, is someone who has realized that there may be a different path between political violence, the quote unquote revolution he was a part of at the beginning and completely checked out because that approach failed in his mind. So we see him in the middle section completely checked out, not engaged at all. That's part of his daughter's anger towards him. As you described at the end, I had a sense that he had come closer to where Sense is actually during that wonderful sequence. There's a little a side where Sense gives so many lessons to Bob in those six minutes, but one of them is sometimes you play offense. Sometimes you play defense. He says, we gotta go defense. We got to go defense, Bob, And I guess for me, I found it again like personally assuring is that I don't necessarily have to be kicking down an immigration concentration camp that my government has set up on my behalf right now. Maybe there is something else that you know that I can do that will help. That is more along the lines of how sense approaches things, and that may involve steps forward and steps back. It may involve taking losses. It may involve terrible days. It may involve good days of finding ways where you've been able to help. Sometimes you're at the top of the hill, and sometimes you're at the bottom of the hill, and you're going to go up again, and you're going to go down again. It's in the title of the movie. I think in terms of a political film, this movie is more about the long haul, And to me, I read the ending as Bob has recommitted to the long haul, which isn't necessarily twenty four to seven Perfidia burning out in a blaze. It might look like something where there are days you know what you do, hang out on the ca and you scroll through your phone because that's the only thing you're going to keep yourself sane. But you're doing it for a couple of days later, when you're gonna get back in there and help out in whatever way you can. So that was how I read it and why I found it kind of personally encouraging is it was like both both invigorating to like, yep, you know there's work to be done, and also freeing in that you don't have to do it all right now in this moment. And I kind of thought maybe that's where Bob was.

01:15:53
Speaker 2: Ultimately, this is a movie about a father and a daughter, and it is about their rejoining. It is about their reunion in a sense, their emotional So because of that, that's why Bob and whether or not he becomes an activist again, that part of it, Josh, doesn't affect ultimately how I feel about the film, okay, because it livers on what the film, what the narrative needs to deliver on. What What I'm getting at though, is what you're describing that when you talked about Sense, like you couldn't be more involved than sense. Sense. The only thing that Sense isn't doing is being politically violent, right, so there's a whole there's a whole spectrum here of activism that we're talking about. And I guess, yeah, way I read the end of the film, or at least the way I'm I'm seeing it, And obviously here again, like with Marty's Supreme, I don't know what's going to happen after this. I wish I believed, though, I wish I believe that Bob wasn't going to continue to be a burnout and mostly just lay on his couch and be be encouraging of his daughter. Now, it's great that he's going to be encouraging of his daughter. That is great, and that is a huge step forward, certainly from where he was earlier in the film. But there is a part of me that still think Bob, that still thinks Bob is a bit of a loser for for not realizing, for not realizing that he he could also be more like Sense and he also could be right there with his daughter, and that's actually what the world needs, is not just another burnout laying on his couch.

01:17:34
Speaker 1: You know what I think? Sense The first time we see him, well, the second time we see him with with Willa in that first jump to sixteen years ahead. But I think Sensey the second time we see him, I think he's just paying his bills, man, like he's.

01:17:45
Speaker 2: This is what I'm saying, it through your life too.

01:17:50
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly exactly. So I think Bob has learned that from sense you have to live your life. And I also do think one clue we can take as to how Bob is still engaged to some degree, more engaged than he was before and is not just being apathetic, is how will is relating to him. As you said when you were describing their relationship, a key friction point for her was that he did give up, he had checked out, and I think if he was falling back into that pattern, she would not have been on those terms she is with him when they depart, which are you know, as you say, they're they're aligned, they're they're they're together and and yes, maybe he could go with her to the protest, but you know, maybe that's how she's doing it and and he's gonna do it a different way. I think if he had been, if he had slipped back to where he was before, Willow would not have been relating to him in that scene as she did as she was.

01:18:55
Speaker 2: But again, of course I'm not. I'm not suggesting that that's what he's doing, is slipping back to where he was before. I'm saying he is a very different person at the end of the film. There's just a step he still hasn't hasn't completely taken, just just a few final final things. There is a moment in the car with sense I think it's when the lights come on, when the when they see the cop where he says, here we go. Rewind it and watch the line when del Toro says here we go. He delivers it just like Fenster in The Usual Suspects. It's the only line where he sounds just like that character and The Usual Suspects. You mentioned the score. I love, I do love the Johnny Greenwood score. Appreciated that, of course even more the second time Josh go back and listen to it. There is a part I rewound it to make sure I wasn't nuts. It starts right around the time when they have the shootout at the Nunnery and leading up to the chase, and through part of that chase. The score Greenwood it has to be intentional. It's just too clear to me. The score just steals directly from the Wizard of Oz. There the great Wizard of Oz sequence where where the witch, you know, but in the in the Kansas sequence, the witch is riding our bike, the dent dent that part Johnny green which just takes that. And but more than that, it's not just that little that little melody. He takes other parts of it, and you can lay them over the top of each other. And and I thought, well, is that just Greenwood? And it probably is? Is that just Greenwood sort of paying homage to a classic score. Why why would they take the Wizard of Oz? You know, what does it have to do with this movie? I don't know that has anything to do with this movie. But I did also notice that right during the part where you're hearing that is is the sequence where where Lockjaw has has Willa in the car and he he tells her that her mother was was the best witch he ever met. Oh yeah, you know. And so I almost wonder if maybe something in the script about a witch triggered triggered that that that whole roller coaster sequence. Of course, a lot of them made of it, and we've talked about how good it is. But I was just trying to pay attention to why is it so good? Like what's so effective about it? And it's the pace of it, and it's it seems to be Josh just the way the camera the camera is at a level where I don't know, it's not so much at the road level, but it's at like dash level or something right, so it feels like it feels like we're just going up right like over just over the top of it and undulating with it. It almost lows you again, the rhythm of it. It almost lulls you into a sense of a sense of complacency that then that undermines the intensity of the sequence.

01:21:57
Speaker 1: There are a couple shots where it almost feels as if the camera was not on a car necessarily, but was actually on a helicopter flying extremely low and doing those moments because there's a a levitating quality that a car doesn't give you. That's so yeah, it's it's surreal.

01:22:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it really is. And then I meant to go back and really check this to see if this is what he was doing. But in the sequence when he's watching Battle of Algiers and then they they come and invade the house and he escapes, I do love that technique, and you see this in other movies too, where time is alighted where they go from he hasn't gotten off the couch yet, right, But then they cut to the door being blown yea, and he is gone. He is in the tunnel, but it doesn't feel like enough time has passed yet, and so it's just a neat technique to kind of rush time in that way. But the way through that whole part where they're going through the house, I feel like it's the The diegetic sound is the TV music from the Battle of Algiers. I think that's the sound that's playing in the sequence. Actually is from the television. Of course it would be the Battle of Algiers. So yeah, one of our longer conversations, maybe our longest conversation. And I quite frankly am not that shocked that it's about one battle.

01:23:20
Speaker 1: If you have this Sacred Cow review and our original review together, have we matched the running time of the film. We may be.

01:23:27
Speaker 2: We're close. We are certainly close. We are so one battle after another. It is currently available to stream on HBO Max and also available vod.

01:23:40
Speaker 1: We won't spend quite as much time on this, but we do want to take a minute to thank a couple of family plus members. These are Film Spotting family members who support us and allow us to keep doing what we do. So thanks to Clayton Shank in Los Angeles and Tib Winterfield in Shropshire, Shropshire, England. Want to make sure I got that right. Tib Tib is in Shropshire, England. We want to thank them both for their support. You can follow them both on Letterboxed. Clayton is at R. L. Song Lean. Now that's actually familiar because Clayton is a regular and very kind commenter on my Letterboxed reviews. Tib I just followed today, had not been following Tib previously. You can follow Tib at TIB Winterfield all right. They both shared some thoughts about the show with us. Clayton Wrights I landed on Film Spotting in the Maddi era with episode number two sixty nine after aching for thoughtful discussion on Neil Blomcamp's District nine as interlocutors, and this has only increased in richness with Josh's arrival. Your shrewd balancing act between academic insight and giddy brimming reverence over this magic medium we call movies is a joy to behold. So that's how Clayton found us. Thanks for those kind words. Tib found us about ten years ago. I think just via Google. The twenty fifteen actor Madness was what solidified me as a devote of the show. They both have favorite segments. Clayton said, anytime Midnight Run is given airtime, it's a masterpiece. I guess we got to give Midnight Run its own segment at this point for Clayton, Tim said, it's still the Madness. I look forward to it every year. That are Golden Brick, which has brought so many good films to me.

01:25:28
Speaker 2: Hey, Josh, just real quick, do you do not remember that we did give Midnight Run its own segment. I'm pretty sure we gave it a sacred cow.

01:25:35
Speaker 1: We gave it a sacred cow. I meant Clayton would like a recurring segment. Okay, I think you would like just a bit of appreciation every episode.

01:25:46
Speaker 2: Maybe, Okay, I see what you're saying.

01:25:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, we asked if there were any reviews we got wrong. Clayton said, well, you know, Clayton's doesn't want to offend anybody, so he says that Adam got wrong. Woof of Wall Street and I got wrong Interstellar Okay, okay. As for Tib, none that leap out at me. But Adam is very clearly wrong about a lifeless ordinary.

01:26:08
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:26:08
Speaker 1: Wow, you're strong, some strong feelings about a lifeless ordinary, Adam.

01:26:12
Speaker 2: Sometimes I see these and if they take a shot at me, it does hurt me. It wounds me, you know, for at least an hour or so. Josh, I'm gonna I'm not gonna lose any sleep over this life doesn't ordinary, No, not at all.

01:26:26
Speaker 1: Great, great Danny Boyle film, all right, the movies they credit with becoming centophiles. For Clayton, American psycho Bail is tapping into something here that I think is eternal. Tib shared Clerks Murder is eternal. Favorite books about movies or movie making. Film directing, shot by shot, visualizing from concept to screen by Steve D.

01:26:47
Speaker 2: Katz.

01:26:47
Speaker 1: That one comes from Clayton. TIB suggested how I made a hundred movies in Hollywood had never lost a dime? That one by Roger Corman.

01:26:55
Speaker 2: Who else could it be by? We thank Clayton and TIB for being family members and for all of those years of listening. In addition to keeping us doing what we're doing. Membership does come with perks. You get to listen early in ad free, you get our weekly newsletter. You get exclusive opportunities like being part of our Film Spotting Family discord. You also get monthly bonus shows like you could hear Sam this week talk about another Paul Thomas Anderson film. Well, we talked about it too, but only he really tried to argue very intensely, semi intensely that it's a bad movie. That was his take. So you can hear that if you're a film Spotting family.

01:27:31
Speaker 1: Did he so far as to say bad?

01:27:32
Speaker 2: I defended it? Yeah, he's he. I'm pretty sure he used that word, Josh, did he?

01:27:37
Speaker 1: Man?

01:27:38
Speaker 2: Yeah? Okay, Yeah, So that's that's out now, and I'm not sure. I think February is blind Spotting time. So we'll pick a movie. I could be I could be wrong, but I think it's where we pick a movie that all three of us haven't seen. Usually all three of us haven't seen, and we try to watch that. We'll probably try to pick something that connects to film spotting madness best to the forties and March we'll have a trivia Spotting edition coming up, so all sorts of fun that you could have as a Film Spotting Family member, and you can learn more about joining the family at Filmspottingfamily dot com. You can also help the show by rating or reviewing us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really does help us reach new listeners. The ten films nominated for Best.

01:28:23
Speaker 1: Picture Area and Ghanny and Andrew Lowe, Yourgos Lanthemos, Emma Stone and Lars.

01:28:31
Speaker 2: Knutes and producers F One, Chad Owmen, Brad Pitt. I definitely was not up watching the Oscar nominations broadcast live. I suppose, Josh, you could have, or it would have been more reasonable for you with the time zone shift. What were you thinking when you heard the Best Picture nominees announce any swift thoughts on Bogonia? And I suppose F one being Best Picture nominees. I don't think you've even seen F one yet, have you?

01:29:05
Speaker 1: Oh? Oh, Adam, are we gonna have the F one conversation? Because sure no, I didn't. I didn't watch the nominations. You know, despite the time zone being helpful here in Scotland, I have watched F one. It wasn't out of due de gence. But Debbie, who you know we know from our Fast and Furious Marathon, is the true Fast and Furious fan in our gear kind of the gearhead. Let's just go with the gearhead has been nudging me to watch F one on and off for a while now, so I thought, okay, oh, I wish I had. You know what, it'll make it easy when we do our Oscar prediction show, and we like to we like to knock you know, when we choose who would we nominate in categories, and then we always have to knock someone out. At least I've got at least I've got a clear knockout for all the categories. For me, it was a rough watch.

01:29:57
Speaker 2: Well, I I didn't think F one was as rough a watch as you. I wouldn't even call it a rough watch. But was I shocked? Well, shock isn't even the right word, because I know some people, some pundits, had predicted that it might get a nomination. Was I still surprised? Yes, I was surprised. Do I think it should have gotten the Best Picture nomination? No, of course I don't think it should have received a Best Picture nomination.

01:30:21
Speaker 1: It's cause we ask what was what's the because I haven't looked into this the pundits like what was the thinking, Like, basically, how did this happen? Is it just because it was a big hit? Is it because yeah?

01:30:33
Speaker 2: There's ore there does seem to be recently at least one big you know, populous action, all sorts of screen below the line folks, you know, or awards for you know, the editing and some of those more technical achievements. It's driven by that as well. That seems to usually be in the Best Picture mix. So here, I'm not a shock that F one was one of those nominees, but I was still surprised ultimately to see it in there. Now there are at least six films of those nominees that I was very excited to see. And we are going to talk more about the Oscars back, or I should say later when we do our Oscars special March sixth, I think is when we have that scheduled for That is the show that we do with Michael Phillips every year. We do plan to have him back on who will win, who should win, and who should have been nominated. The Oscars are on Sunday, March fifteenth, but any other thoughts. Did you have any other immediate reactions, Josh, anything you think is worth sharing as you perused the list of nominees.

01:31:48
Speaker 1: I mean mostly there's just a couple categories I want to touch on quickly here, But yeah, in general, I'm kind of sad overall encouraged by the nominations and sad I won't be able to watch it live. I know it's not always a priority for you, Adam, but this will be the first time in years with being here in Scotland, so I'm going to have to catch up with all the news afterwards and the other thing that, you know. It's a little bit maybe more of a complaint even though I was, you know, mildly positive on the film, but clearly the Academy not as worn out by the ongoing your go slanty most Amastone collaboration, as I think a lot of critics at least or moviegoers are that I know and speak to, just given the nominations for her and Pogonia. Again, I like the film, but guys, there's other movies out there, there's other filmmakers.

01:32:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I liked it a little bit less than you, and so it was a little bit disappointing. I suppose to see it get the love that it did. Though I do like Emma Stone's performance, and I'm always fond of her as an actress. I hate it when our producer Sam puts out our newsletter and sometimes he just says all the things I was probably going to say. Anyway, I don't have any hot take reactions, like I thought, for the most part, the Academy did pretty well with these nominations, and he did single out one in particular. You know, he mentioned Kate Hudson for song Sung Blue. You know, I've seen the movie. I like the movie, and I like her in it. So there are other Best Actress performances that I I liked and that I had above her this year. But I don't hate the nomination at all. And it's much easier to say take her out, maybe if you haven't seen the movie, or if you have certain thoughts about the movie. But the performance I think is really good. So I'm not mad at that nomination at all. I'm not mad about a lot of the nominations, Josh, Like I said, I think it's weird. I suppose that no other choice. One of my top five films of the Year from Park Chanook didn't get anything. I'm a little bit surprised, I suppose, and here I'm just all in the International Feature category, a little surprised that my number one film of the year, It Was Just an Accident, didn't get a Best Picture nomination because it actually was getting predicted in that category by a lot of the experts. It did get two nominations for Best International Feature and for Best Original Screenplay. Some think it might win that category the Best International Feature, even though Sentimental Value is nominated and The Secret Agent is nominated, but they're in the Best Picture category. So in theory that shouldn't make any sense. But that is exactly why it might make sense. That's why It Was Just An Accident might get the award in that category, because those got those got their award by getting the Best Picture nomination. Depends how you look at it, so we'll see. Overall, cent Amount of Value was one of my favorite films of the year. So for it to get I think eight was it eight nominations for that film, Maybe I need to fact check that, but it was one of the top top nominees our family, certainly to see one battle after another to get thirteen and Sinners was my number seven film of the year, but for that movie to be the one that set the record with sixteen is a great story and deserve it.

01:35:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think again no surprise that Sinners and One Battle after Another are the headliners. But still, you know, exciting to have two lead Oscar candidates that are that good. I don't know that I feel that way every year, So that's hugely encouraging. Glad you called out Sam's newsletter because he did do a great job of giving some an Oscar nom recap. Again, that comes to film spotting family members, so if you're not getting those, join the family. And you mentioned sentimental value, and that was one I wanted to bring up in relation to the Supporting Actress category. As listeners know by now from hearing us talk about One Battle after Another, we're both very thrilled that Tiana Taylor is there. I was afraid she might might still get overlooked for One Battle. But also really encouraging because this is a film I have had a chance to catch up with since our year end show. Sentimental value is that among its many awards is a Supporting Actress nom for ips daughter Lilios, who plays the younger daughter of Stellan Skarsgard's filmmaker. And not only did I think she was so crucial to the narrative the overall familial portrait that Treer is giving us there, but man, Lilios delivers a just a piercing, quiet performance that you could easily go through that film and not necessarily notice the amount of restraint she shows, even though her function in the narrative is so crucial. Is a beautifully delicate balancing act that she pulls off. So really glad to see that. The Academy, I mean, that's you know, like we like to be cynical about who Academy voters are and what they're looking for, but this is an instance of like, oh, they're paying really close attention if they nominate someone like this.

01:37:03
Speaker 2: This is the problem. Is that the show that we do later, when we talk about who should win, and especially when we talk about who should have been nominated, it was a lot more fun when they used to make worse choices. But they're making better choices now, Like the Academy the membership, they're getting savvier and they're getting better at it. And I suppose that's a good thing, Josh, but it's it's bad for content.

01:37:28
Speaker 1: So you're telling me F one didn't get a Best Supporting Actress nomination.

01:37:33
Speaker 2: No, though you know, Carrie Conton's in it and she's pretty good.

01:37:37
Speaker 1: She's okay.

01:37:38
Speaker 2: You thought it was a rough watch, though, so I suppose you didn't think that. I wouldn't have nominated her for it either though. Nine Academy Award nominations is what Google's AI overview is telling me anyway for sentimental value, so trust that.

01:37:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, at your parent that means it's probably negative eight. I don't know.

01:37:55
Speaker 2: Again, you can look for that Oscar special coming up on March sixth.

01:38:00
Speaker 1: One more note I want to make about the nominations at on just because this is a film for Chicago area listeners that's opening up the music box this weekend, and it is Arco in the Animated Feature Film category, a French feature definitely worth a look. I did catch up with this in the year end rush, and essentially it's a story that involves too far off futures I'll say they collide. Basically, a boy runs away from home and into the past via time travel. He ends up in this ecologically fraught society. Now, both of these timeframes are ahead of ours. Okay. One of the animators here also worked on nineteen seventy three's Fantastic Planet, so if you have seen that film, you will have a good sense of what the design is here in Arco. But there is also a touch of me az Aki in its balance of cynicism and hopefulness when it comes to the environment. So yeah, if the Arco's playing in your town or near you, as it is in Chicago at the Music Paks this weekend, I would encourage oscar interested or animation interested folks to check it out.

01:39:07
Speaker 2: It was one we didn't get to in time, but I know some of our listeners specifically, I think some members of our Film Spotting Advisory Board had recommended that Josh for the film spotting Golden Brick. Sounds like maybe since I've been a nominee for you, had you seen it in time?

01:39:22
Speaker 1: Possibly? Okay.

01:39:24
Speaker 2: Next week on the show, we will pay tribute to Diane Keaton with our top five Diane Keaton scenes, and also on that show, we will share the results from our current Film Spotting poll, which asks you to choose one and only one Diane Keaton character and Josh, this will be bad radio. But what am I doing right now?

01:39:48
Speaker 1: You're shaking your head.

01:39:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not just it's not just smh like the kids say. I'm actually shaking my head at our listeners for how this poll is currently coming out despite my protestations. Last week, I explained that I really thought going with Kay Adams from The Godfather is the best Diane Keaton character. Sam backs me, I mean Sam and I, I mean, we just feel really strongly about this thought it was a mistake. Wow, Kay Adams is kind of running away with this, So look forward to the feedback next week on the show explaining why Kay is in fact the best Diane Keaton character.

01:40:30
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, Comrade Adam, you.

01:40:32
Speaker 2: Can vote in that pole and leave a comment that has a really nice ring to it. Actually, that sounds sound sounds strong. I think you can vote in that poll and leave a comment at filmspotting dot net.

01:40:44
Speaker 1: Speaking of still looking back on twenty twenty five with the Oscars, that is what they're doing at the Next Picture Show. Our sister podcast right now out is their best of twenty twenty five episodes, so you get to hear the top ten lists of Keith, Tasha and Scott. Check that out. New episodes of the Next Picture Show drop every Tuesday and you can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, it's time now for Mascer Theater, where Adam and I perform a scene and you get a chance to win a film spotting prize. Last time we mascred this scene. Ah, you're drinking man, Reverend. It doesn't help. I suppose not.

01:41:26
Speaker 2: Can God forgive us for what we've done to this world?

01:41:35
Speaker 1: Who can know the mind of God? But we can choose.

01:41:43
Speaker 2: A righteous life. Believe forgiveness, grace covers us all.

01:41:56
Speaker 1: I believe that. That was Ethan Hawk with Philip Ettinger in twenty seventeen's First Reformed, written and directed by Paul Schrader. That massacre was part of our twenty twenty five Rap Party show when we shared our scenes of the year. We also announced the winner of the twenty twenty five Golden Brick Award. There is always a tie into mascar Theater. So why that scene from First Reformed? We had a few in mind, Adam, I think this was.

01:42:23
Speaker 2: The Yeah, okay, yeah, we had we had our reasons. Here's Cyrus Zomanian as a fellow Ethan Hawk fan. I suspected the scene would include him based on the first hint, but as soon as the word reverend was mentioned, I knew without a doubt this was First Reformed, one of the first movies I can recall blowing my mind in its specific way. This is a favorite movie of mine and a favorite performance. I'll leave the identification of tenuous connections to fellow listeners. Unfortunately, we do have fellow listeners to make those tenuous or not so tenuous connections, like Tim and Denver.

01:42:55
Speaker 1: Tim says you, masacred. First Reformed connection is to Josh's scene from Wake Up Dead Man. I can't say for sure, but I really don't think i'd have gotten it without Josh's hint not only about a favorite actor of Adams, but also about how he started the final scene sounding like how we usually think of this actor. I rewound and I have to say that, yeah, Adam kind of channeled his boy Ethan pretty well there.

01:43:16
Speaker 2: Well done, Okay, I got I got one line or a couple words, and I will take it because otherwise I heard from some listeners who called it appropriately uninspired. Here's Ed Savoy hin in Philadelphia. While a tangential connection may be that Amanda Seyfred and Yes we were thinking of that a co star and First Reform made it onto one of your honorable mentions for music Moment of the Year for the Testament of Anilely. A more direct connection is probably the justified warm mentions of Wake Up Dead Man, a knives out mystery featuring a priest which happens to be Hawk's stock in trade in First Reform, and Hawk has been in a previous movie in the franchise, a quick cameo in Glass Onion. How about that? May God forgive me if I have not gleaned the correct connection. Thank you, Ed Josh. We actually had the most entries from Ascar theater we have received in quite a while.

01:44:10
Speaker 1: So it warms your heart.

01:44:11
Speaker 2: I think it was. It was The Reverend, it was the Ethan Hawk giveaway, it was all the hints, I'm sure, Or maybe it was the fact that it was a recent movie of recent vintage to twenty seventeen. I don't know all of the above, but you can. You can reach into the brimming film spotting hat and pick out this week's winner.

01:44:29
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, thank you everyone for entering it's the.

01:44:32
Speaker 2: Same Masker Theater for another Masaker theater doing what it's doing.

01:44:38
Speaker 1: Believe me, our winner, Tim Bauer.

01:44:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, Tim Bauer is from parts unknown though, I'm going to throw out I did a little searching and there there was a Tim Bauer who entered Massacre Theater some like way back in two thousand and six, and he was from Rancho Cucamonga. So he's been If it's the same Tim Bauer, he's been listening for a long time. And also I just really love saying Rancho Cucamonga, California.

01:45:01
Speaker 1: So I mean, if you live in Rancho Kuka manga, you're signing off with that every chance you get.

01:45:07
Speaker 2: That's a good point. Well, congratulations Tim. Wherever you're from, email feedback at filmspotting dot net, we will set you up with your very own film Spotting tote, t shirt or trial membership to the film Spotting Family. The sound goes through the cable to the box.

01:45:24
Speaker 1: A man records it on a big record in wax, but.

01:45:28
Speaker 2: You have to talk into the mic first. In the bush, Josh, I don't know that we can pull this off.

01:45:37
Speaker 1: Of course we can't. That's why he picked it all right, let's go, let's just start.

01:45:43
Speaker 2: Oh my god, oh my god. Okay, this sucks. Everything about this sucks. I guess I should have chimed in.

01:45:52
Speaker 1: It's perfect.

01:45:53
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay, fine, So this is truly the end of Massacre theater, right, this is the end. This is the massacre that's going to end it.

01:46:04
Speaker 1: I will say, if we were declaring that it was over, this would be a great way to go out.

01:46:11
Speaker 2: This is going to end. Like, think about how strained international relations currently are between the US and France.

01:46:18
Speaker 1: Oh already, well I didn't even I didn't even consay.

01:46:21
Speaker 2: And now what you're going to do to it? Yes, this is a disaster.

01:46:25
Speaker 1: At least you do no French? You know French? Right, you could speak French.

01:46:29
Speaker 2: I certainly did not take any French in high school. As will be as will be evidenced by this performance. This is what happens. So this is everyone. This is what happens when Sam and Josh decide on the mascre theater scene in the slack and I don't respond.

01:46:48
Speaker 1: M I mean, I think it's brilliant. I think I was born of like absolute fools. There's no way we can pull this off. No, and Sam has chosen a scene that requires from a filmmaker known for the precision of their dial.

01:47:06
Speaker 2: That's a hint. That's a hint.

01:47:07
Speaker 1: The delivery, the precision of the delivery. And this scene, even hot, has us precisely talking over each other.

01:47:16
Speaker 2: Okay, why don't you just we have that quirky while you're at.

01:47:18
Speaker 1: It, which we have not rehearsed at all.

01:47:21
Speaker 2: Of course, No, of course we haven't rehearsed. That would defeat the entire right.

01:47:24
Speaker 1: Now, we're just trying to like kill time before.

01:47:27
Speaker 2: I have never I have never actually been more nervous about a basket. I don't know how we're going to get through the scene.

01:47:34
Speaker 1: Okay, give me the action. We got to just do it then.

01:47:36
Speaker 2: I don't know if we're physically capable.

01:47:38
Speaker 1: Let's go, okay.

01:47:41
Speaker 2: And action.

01:47:44
Speaker 1: I want to say it as simple as I can, to try to shape it into words, the feelings in my heart.

01:47:52
Speaker 2: I love you, I don't love you?

01:47:54
Speaker 1: What I don't love you already?

01:47:58
Speaker 2: Already?

01:47:59
Speaker 1: What already? How do you know that? How can you be sure so quick?

01:48:04
Speaker 2: I'm sure? Ouch?

01:48:08
Speaker 1: That hurts me, the cruelty of it, the cold bloodedness.

01:48:14
Speaker 2: You said, what you wanted to say. I tried to stop it. I tried to stop you.

01:48:18
Speaker 1: That's it. I said part of what I wanted to say. Hey, I was in the middle of it. There's more.

01:48:23
Speaker 2: No, No, what will you know?

01:48:27
Speaker 1: Will you marry? Will you marry me?

01:48:30
Speaker 2: No? Does you to metri tuch comiso de force to inform me?

01:48:38
Speaker 1: And I don't.

01:48:42
Speaker 2: I don't think I said any of those words.

01:48:44
Speaker 1: I've heard of people who can speak for languages. I've never seen someone speak four languages at once, Adam.

01:48:50
Speaker 2: I think I think that was cling on. That might have been cling on at the end.

01:48:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you should he taken French instead.

01:48:59
Speaker 2: Here's the hardest part. Sam even spelled that out phonetically, and it made it harder.

01:49:05
Speaker 1: Such a good producer.

01:49:06
Speaker 2: I I have no idea. I have no idea what occur. We we did the We did the timing part even a little bit better than I thought. I mean, I thought we actually would just stop. I thought like the train would come do a holt.

01:49:16
Speaker 1: No, you never stop. We have we have never stopped in Masks theater. That is the if we stop in Massacre theaterever and then we do have to shut it down.

01:49:26
Speaker 2: Okay, if you know what film we just massacred, email the movies title, your name and location to feedback at filmspotting dot net. The deadline is Monday, February ninth. We will select the winner randomly from all the correct entries. I'm guessing there won't be a ton and we'll announce it in a couple of weeks. And what better point to end the show on than that?

01:49:49
Speaker 1: Josh agreed. If you want to connect with us on social media, you can find Adam and the show on Instagram, Facebook, letterboxed, YouTube. He's at film spotting. You can find me at those places as Larsen on film. We are independently produced and listener supported. You can support the show by joining the film Spotting Family at filmspottingfamily dot com. You can listen early and add free. That way, you also get Sam's weekly newsletter, monthly bonus episodes, and access to the entire show archive. For show t shirts and other merch go to spotting dot net slash shop.

01:50:23
Speaker 2: As an aside, this is how clever producer Sam is. I told him via Slack, how long we spent talking about one battle after another that I thought it was around like eighty minutes. Yeah, he guessed fifty two. I laughed at him and then I told him it was eighty and he said, well, you didn't go ninety, which would have been an obscenity. This, this is merely unhinged.

01:50:49
Speaker 1: He's not wrong.

01:50:51
Speaker 2: In the archive, we do have one Battle Round one that's episode ten thirty four. We also have lots more Paul Thomas Anderson Liquorice Pizza eight fifty three, Phantom Threads six sixty four, and Hern Weiss five seventeen, The Master five fourteen. There will be Blood Wow episode one ninety three, and a tenth anniversary review on six fifty eight Magnolia. That was episode seven fifty two. We talked about that film was part of our nine from ninety nine series. And yes, we did talk about Boogie Nights just recently as part of our January Bonus content for film Spotting Family members. Our Film Spotting Family members do have access to the Film Spotting Archive in all of those episodes at their fingertips whenever they want it streaming or available VOD. This weekend, I suppose it's streaming. You can watch Sundance Film Festival movies, Josh. Those are available the twenty ninth through February first in limited release. It's expanding. You mentioned it earlier, the French animated film Arco. Check that out if you have a chance in wide release. I am curious about Sam Raimi's new one, his Survival of the Fittest Thriller Send help with Rachel McAdams and Dylan O'Brien, and a reminder. Next week on the show, we're going to talk about our favorite Diane Keaton scenes.

01:52:08
Speaker 1: Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Disso and Sam Van Hoggren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show would it go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kampenar and special thanks to everyone at wbeazy Chicago. More information is of available at wbez dot org for Film Spotting.

01:52:24
Speaker 2: I'm Josh Larson and I medam Kempinar. Thanks for listening. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore, but Burne