Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 003 - Not Good Just Drawn That Way
13 Plays3 years ago
In this episode we turn our attention to the revered films which we don't hold in such high esteem
Sifting through decades’ worth of mass media consumption, my friend and fellow cinemaphile Scrumpy joins me in discussions on film from the low to high brow
CREDITS:
Intro scene from Miloš Forman's "Amadeus" (1984) from The Saul Zaentz Company (distributed by Orion Pictures, Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment)
Opening music: https://pixabay.com/music/id-116199/
Closing music: https://pixabay.com/music/id-11176/
Two Oceans is a creation of Siouxfire & Scrumpy in association with SiouxWIRE
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:05
Speaker
Two oceans. Two oceans will begin. What is this? I don't understand. Is it modern? Majesty.
00:00:31
Speaker
The head director, he has removed one of an actor that would have our current at this place. Why? It is your regulation, sir. No ballet in your opera. Sally Harry. Do you like this?
00:01:02
Speaker
It's not a question of liking, Majesty. Your own law decrees it, I'm afraid. Well, forget them. No, no, no. This is nonsense. Let me see the scene with the music. But, sir, oblige me. Yes, ma'am.
Introduction to 'Tuitions Podcast'
00:01:31
Speaker
Welcome to the Tuitions Podcast, where myself, Sufire, along with my friend and irascible colleague, Scrumpy, discuss film and other media through a decades-long lens of mass media consumption. In this episode, we'll be looking at rotten apples and pedestals, the classics which we feel haven't earned their place at the table of great cinema.
00:01:51
Speaker
This
Overrated Classic Films Discussion
00:01:52
Speaker
is the Two Oceans podcast, and so sit back and enjoy as we employ the five-point palm exploding heart technique and icons of cinema which have catfished us over the years in what is episode three.
00:02:08
Speaker
And we've started recording, you know, those old like silver covers, you know, they're called cloche or something that you'd get in those big banquet scenes, you know, the kind we have on this, like some amazing centerpiece to the feast.
00:02:27
Speaker
Well, the movies on my list are like that, except that when you lift the cover, you don't get a succulent turkey or some amazing dish. You get like an empty peanut shell. It's like using the word like behold in front of something like a dirty candy corn or behold and
00:02:47
Speaker
lifting the lid to the toilet seat to reveal a cigarette and a floater or something. I picked four. So are we ready to beat this pinata and see what's inside? Yes, please. What's your first choice for the chopping block?
Reception of Film Prequels
00:03:08
Speaker
I have five, kind of, but the one is kind of a given that I don't necessarily want to thread too much on. It's the prequels.
00:03:19
Speaker
And I don't even have to say what franchise they're for. I can just say, the prequels. And we know what we're talking about. And the thing I'm bumping into, and I think it's something we started with the genesis of this podcast in particular, is that a lot of the people writing film reviews, articles, in-depth essays, things like that, were raised on the prequels. And so for them, that's their thing. So it's like it's hard to
00:03:46
Speaker
begrudge them that because it's like okay we had the originals you had this we had awesomeness you had garbage. Well I mean Dave Filoni did go some way to you know sprinkling glitter on that turd. Oh my god yes he does I mean he he thinks it's this great story I'm like okay dude you're in charge now you don't have to kiss up to Lucas anymore let's just move on shall we and I think
00:04:14
Speaker
did with the, in the Kenobi series, I think they did a lot to try to fix at least some of the problem, but there's only so much you can do, right? There is only so much glitter in the world. But, you know, by the same token though,
00:04:30
Speaker
There's a whole thing, and we won't get into it too much for what we're doing, I think, but the toxic fan base-ness, that there are certain triggers. And you start kind of- All the time, don't you? The backlash to practically everything. To practically any decision. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just running that risk of
00:04:58
Speaker
Joining that chorus or at least echoing right? I know there was recently In an interview we did Simon Pegg kind of apologize for some of his bits that he did in spaced Right when his character went off on Jar Jar and that and I thought that was a healthy kind of you know
00:05:17
Speaker
Mature way to look at it, but you know also I think you know because he's been involved in the series now You know as an actor I imagine there's a little career You know first aid there a bit perhaps, but but by the same thing I know the people yes exactly Yeah, and you know it's a whole thing It's like okay, you know I'll put that caveat here for all these that will mention that we'll talk about there are a lot of people here
00:05:41
Speaker
that put in a lot of hard work and effort into making a lot of these. And it's basically, it's not their fault. And it's our opinions are subjective. So, you know, absolutely. There's no right or wrong. So I think ideally what we're just trying to, you know, put the stake in the ground and I don't know, invite hate comments or whatever is when we feel like a movie is completely unjustified in its adoration.
00:06:10
Speaker
And for me, that's the prequels to an extent. But again, the fact that there were so many, you know, young, impressionable people, you had no other context. So this is what you had. So it's tough for me to say, you know, I'll still say they're unwatchable garbage, which they are, because I've tried to watch them again. But I give it this caveat of like, but I'm not going to crucify anyone or hold them to like, you know, feed to the coal sort of thing. I would say the same thing about everything I've I've chosen as well is
00:06:41
Speaker
Part of it is I don't understand what people find appealing about the choices I have on my list. Right. And there's some some really respected people who who who think they're terrific. And, you know, I have tried. I just haven't been able to sort of understand it. But going back to the prequels, though, you know what the prequels
George Lucas's Prequels Critique
00:07:01
Speaker
feel like to me? It's like after Return of the Jedi, George Lucas sat down, started writing notes and notes and notes about all his ideas.
00:07:11
Speaker
And at no point did he either edit those or decide what's the focus, what is central to the story and focus on that in the movies because they're all over the place. There was no one around him to say no.
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think even before the prequels were released when, well, Phantom Menace, he did a screening at his house and he had, you know, people like Scorsese and Spielberg and various others. And this was before it was released and they were saying, you know, quite positive things about it, which I think, you know, it's a bit like when your friend, you know, asks you, you know, oh, how's the meal? You know, delicious.
00:08:04
Speaker
Which is funny because there's the story that when he screened an early cut of Star Wars for his friends, they all just said, oh, George, I'm so sorry. That's a really good point. Where he's at stature wise and what, you know, the typical Hollywood kind of response, right? Just form over substance.
00:08:24
Speaker
So what's your first proper pick? So first, and again, it's kind of funny, the one thing these films all have in common is that they're all made by what I would consider some very good filmmakers. But the first one up is From Our Childhood, and I rejected it then as I reject it now, E.T.
00:08:43
Speaker
Oh, really? Why? I hate
Flaws in 'E.T.'
00:08:46
Speaker
E.T. for so many reasons. First and foremost being alien invasion movies, alien visitation movies, they are not friendly. That's just a horror of cinematic storytelling. You want to make a happy story, write it down, make it a children's book. That's great. But you want it something an alien visitor comes and
00:09:07
Speaker
And he's got this magical aura about him. It's radioactive. It's going to kill everyone around him. I want a sequel where everyone's dead of cancer now or something. And the fact that- ET2, the cancer turns black.
00:09:26
Speaker
Oh the the fact too when he released it on the he oversaw the home video release later or the anniversary whatever it was and replaced the FBI agents m16s with walkie-talkies
00:09:42
Speaker
digitally too was just I mean wow you're just doubling down on the stupidity and the awfulness of this because then it's like because then it's the thing problem I have addressed part two uh there's no threat the children or the kids are threatened but never in danger or in danger but never really threatened you know that sort of thing you know the kids are always going to be fine versus a del toro movie or something like that oh kids are dead
00:10:06
Speaker
You know, oh yeah, they're all gonna die. You're like, yay! Because at least that's holding on to something that seems a little bit more legit. And again, alien invasion movie, the aliens are not friendly. You can't have that, that's wrong. I'm trying to remember if we actually saw that we went together to the group to go see ET.
00:10:27
Speaker
I think so because I think it may have been you. It was definitely me, it may have been you and I that were yelling at it because basically leaving ET to die at the end. It's like, yes, don't resurrect him. Let him die there. Let that be the point. And then the proper invasion movie will start, right? Oh, they killed one of our own. Yeah. Well, that's an interesting twist. Yeah, that'd be great. Speaking of, was it just on the follow-up on it, was it?
00:10:55
Speaker
Uh, robot chicken or family guy. One of them did the thing where it was like what happens after ET gets on the ship. Yeah. And it turns out he's like the, the idiot, the slow, like the dumb alien. And they're all just making fun of him because he can't talk and, you know, it's just, you know, awful in ableist, uh, terms, but.
00:11:15
Speaker
Also kind of hilarious in fact it's like no there's nothing endearing about it he's just this we got we got stuck with the trash you know kind of idea and that's what it feels like the and you know the kids the glow again good performances the effects are amazing you know et is a practical effect you know go back to our earlier conversation amazing amazing robot work on it you know there's so many things and it's Spielberg for crying out loud but you know he did I mean uh uh
00:11:43
Speaker
at least with Close Encounters, there was menace, right? You don't know what's going to happen. And it could have gone really bad. If it wasn't for Francois Truffaut, it could have gone really bad. Even at the end of the movie, it's not entirely clear what's going on. Yeah, exactly. It's mysterious. We don't know. It's no translator. What does that mean? We're hungry. Exactly. We need women.
00:12:13
Speaker
something. I mean, I don't have a hate for ET, but I think because when I went through my list, I went through the American Film Institute top 100 and British Film Institute top 100, just to find something that is, you know, held on a pedestal. ET is in there and I don't think it should be.
00:12:41
Speaker
I mean, the American Film Institute one is weird and maybe this sounds like it makes sense. It's all American films, but it doesn't say that. It just says like the greatest films ever made. Of course. American. Well, yeah. The British Film Institute is mostly, you know, there are probably more American movies on that list than British. And then the majority of the movies are, you know, foreign language movies on top of that.
00:13:10
Speaker
But yeah, seeing ET in there was, yeah, there were a few things about the AFI list that makes me wonder who's voting on that. Who's really voting, exactly. And this final point, I'll put out, again, to my point about alien invasion, the thing that came out the same year. Right. That is how you do an alien visitation movie. Those came out in the same summer.
00:13:37
Speaker
literally like three months apart. Well, that's something else I looked at. Yeah. And all the movies on my list, I had a look to see what else came out during that year that has kind of got forgotten. And they're all amazing movies, which which really annoys me. Well, what do you got on your list first? Well, the first one on my list is The Graduate
Critique of 'The Graduate'
00:14:01
Speaker
Oh, I just don't think time did this any favors from, you know, like the casting of quotes, teenagers to what I think is a really sort of saccharine ending. It just feels like escapism that hit the right at the right time. You know, there's Vietnam War and all this and the world wanted a distraction at
00:14:27
Speaker
I mean, the first half of the movie works for me, but then it's sort of rebelling and then it sort of concedes and then turns into your usual sort of Disney ending. And I think that's part of the problem that I have with it.
00:14:45
Speaker
On the plus side that year in the Oscars, it lost out to in the heat of the night. So it didn't actually, you know, annoyingly win. I mean, the Oscars seem to have been a better caliber at that time. During the year, the graduate, there was I think up for the running was Bonnie and Clyde.
00:15:10
Speaker
Guess who's coming to dinner in the heat of the night? Which one? The graduate and Dr. Doolittle.
00:15:19
Speaker
Yeah. I had to look at it. And yeah, there were only a couple of reviewers and critics who were really kind of like, hmm, on this. Pauline Kael, who is just terrific. He's terrific. Great quote. Yeah, which she loves something. She really loves it. True.
00:15:47
Speaker
And then there was Richard Schickel from Life magazine at the time said, you know, something that that sort of summed it up for me, which was that it starts out to satirize, you know, this alienated, modern spirit of youth, and then just completely gives it away in the second half.
00:16:07
Speaker
And on top of that, I think Dustin Hoffman's kind of a jerk in the movie. He's kind of playing everyone, which I think was okay at the time. And oh, this is something else to say about the movies on my list. These are movies on the whole that I probably haven't seen for 20 plus years.
00:16:28
Speaker
but have left their scar on me aside from the last the last one which is actually i've i've chosen a whole director's career which is um but um yeah well i just don't get his movies i mean his movies just don't make no sense to me and i've tried and tried and tried um but yeah but keep listening yes yeah who's up next um i'm gonna stick with uh
00:16:55
Speaker
Spielberg on this one because it's one another one that Kind of like it falls in the same bucket in a way that the prequels do and that's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Oh
'Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade' Analysis
00:17:07
Speaker
Do you know what? No, that's an American film Institute's top 100 movies
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And to be fair, it's like the latter end of the list, but I was like, good lord. I don't care what end it's on. Yeah, exactly. I started going through and just making sure at the very least that Raiders was somewhere in there. Raiders is way up there. What about your temple of doomism?
00:17:38
Speaker
uh tembladoom is not yeah the better one i i it it is i will defend tembladoom that's uh that's another that's a whole other podcast episode oh do you know what the ones we will defend right i think when he freed the slave children was kind of one of the best punch in the air movements ever oh just fantastic really the tracking shot of him coming back
00:18:00
Speaker
A piece of hell and the lights behind him and he's just like, the guy that's beating on kids, he's like, no, your ass is mine. That's great. You do not have one second, one frame like that. Well, I take that back. You do in Last Crusade in the beginning. The transition scene from Joaquin Phoenix as young Indy to when he's on the boat.
00:18:22
Speaker
when the guy gives him the hat and he looks up in the sector that you know that's like Spielberg perfection but there's no payoff right you you you've you've had that sort of really exciting you get on the boat and the whole boat scene is just a limp it just it's not Indiana Jones it's young Indiana Jones
00:18:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's so poor. So poor. But the main thing I dislike about it is that it's just cartoony. I found it dull. Well, that's part of it, right? The level had been set so much higher by the previous two. And there were a lot of things that was like, oh, we're just trading this off for comic relief.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah, it felt cheap, like the old Roger Moore James Bond. It just suddenly felt jokey with his father and Sean Connery and all that. And it completely didn't work for me. And it's not because I felt like the series couldn't change tone, but it changed tone to something that works. Like say, for example, if you had something like Fury Road,
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah, if you need a Jones, he doesn't speak in the whole thing. It's just him and you know, something like that. I would I'd completely eat up. But but you know, these quips and things and and and because the first movie had a lot of menace and so did the second one, right?
00:19:54
Speaker
You thought, how is it going to get out of this? They raised the bar and it just didn't work. Tonally, it didn't feel right. I think the womanizing in Venice as well, which was weird. I don't even want to
00:20:15
Speaker
It's just bizarre. Oh my gosh. There's one thing about having supernatural elements, which I think were crafted into the story in the first two movies, and it wasn't
00:20:32
Speaker
super in your face. You know when they're tied up at the end of the first movie? They could be hallucinating. You don't know what came out of it. There's some gas coming out of it. You know what's going on. You can almost explain it away. And in the second one, it wasn't as goofy as having a bridge that you looked at from one particular angle. And then actually coming across the supernatural night
00:21:01
Speaker
that just all of it, all of it. Those good guys, the Knights Templar. Right. Champions of the British Empire. I mean, yeah, there's so many things that are problematic, but yeah, most of it is just kind of numb. It's just like, oh, and of course it's the most popular, but people love it.
00:21:23
Speaker
And I just like and I can't like I've had tried to have conversations and it's just like no It's it's like it's selling out something. You know, they just write any argument. I have office like what's entertaining? You know If you told me there's a movie with Indiana Jones where he goes behind enemy lines, he goes Nazi Germany That you know, those are the ingredients you need right there, you know it it
00:21:52
Speaker
Yeah, it didn't. I mean, I tell you what's a better Indiana Jones movie than that. Force 10 from Navarone with Harrison Ford. That's more of an Indiana Jones movie than Yeah, Last Crusade. There's a reason they didn't make another sequel after that for a long time. You know,
00:22:12
Speaker
uh yeah and even you know and i'll like even of course i saw it i i have never i've never watched the whatever it was crystal skull or whatever uh i've never watched it sober you you were oh yeah i was gonna say you're so lucky you haven't seen that one uh so i had a good time with it but i was also pretty trashed so right oh i i mean i had a better time with it than um last crew side
00:22:39
Speaker
Yeah. But the CG really got under my skin. You know, didn't quite work. Yeah. So how about you? What's next? Okay. This is a big one.
Forrest Gump's Story Arc Issues
00:22:58
Speaker
Forrest Gump.
00:22:59
Speaker
Yeah. Just can, you know, there's there's no story arc in that movie aside from watching an idiot win the lottery again and again. Zero character development. The most bigoted representations of race, gender and politics. You know, anyone who's left wing is an absolute scumbag. The Black Panthers just are
00:23:29
Speaker
just such a caricature in that movie. And then it won Best Picture in 1995 with Oscars against Four Weddings and a Funeral, Quiz Show, The Shawshank Redemption, and Pulp Fiction. Jesus. It's just mind-blowing. And to me, it would fall to the bottom of that list entirely.
00:23:55
Speaker
I wouldn't say it's not entertaining. It's entertaining. But it goes nowhere. It's a complete circle, right? And when you start looking at it more, it's got these weird undertones that I don't think you can get away with nowadays.
00:24:20
Speaker
Yeah, I, I, I, I, I, I, I mean, Hanks is great in it for, you know, what he's given, but, you know, he, he, he's exactly where he is. I mean, literally, at the start of the movie and at the end of the movie.
00:24:37
Speaker
It's weird. And if you look at Samekas' career as well, that was a point when I would say divides the early part of his career where he was doing some terrific stuff, romancing the stone back to the future. He had all these movies coming out that are good, solid entertainment. I wouldn't say they're much more than that.
00:25:01
Speaker
And then after Forrest Gump, it takes a dip. He has one movie after that point, Castaway, which kind of gets close to what he had before, but the rest are all just rubbish. I mean, this week, actually, to make it up to date.
00:25:21
Speaker
the new Pinocchio's come out. Now I've not seen it, but I watched the review from Mark Kermode and it was one of the more entertaining reviews I've seen in a while. You know, it's one of these Disney cations where they remake the animated version, but
00:25:40
Speaker
they it's it's it's almost like one for one kind of like the psycho remake yeah and and and which is so close that it makes you think well what's the point and you can't say it's Pinocchio in live action because it's not it's not still it's still animated it's 3d but it's still animated yeah
00:26:01
Speaker
And then you got Guillermo Dottoro's version coming up, which is stop motion, which looks terrific. And Mark Kermode actually asked him, you know, what makes your Pinocchio different? What's the point of yours? And his answer was, it's about death. Sold, I'm there. Exactly.
00:26:28
Speaker
What do you got next? Well, speaking to the one very similar to what your list of grievances against Forrest Gump and the one that I can't stand out of his career, Jackie Brown.
00:26:44
Speaker
Ooh,
Critique of 'Jackie Brown'
00:26:45
Speaker
really? Oh, really? I detest this movie because of the praise it gets. Now, is it a good movie? Yes. But is it as great as people say? And there was an article this week in the frickin' Guardian of all this, like, oh, it's underrated. It's time to revisit. I'm like, no, it's not. Because, again, there is zero story. Every character you meet except one, and that is the magnificent Robert Forrester,
00:27:10
Speaker
uh is the same from beginning to end they they do not change at all none of them are impacted by anything that happens they don't change anything that happens the titular character is again again i love you know i love pam grew here in that movie yeah uh and i you know i loved her black exploitation stuff as well this is always that she was great but her character is there's no there's nothing to it
00:27:35
Speaker
There's absolutely no, the only one that like learn something and kind of changes and adapts and becomes something better, you know, is different from the Michael Caine thing, where he would read the first bit of a script, he was handed and then the last, and if the character's the same, he wouldn't bother with it, because there's no point in it. And that's every character in that movie except Robert Forrest, whose bail bonds went there, who's obviously a key character, one of the mains.
00:28:03
Speaker
key to the action but the rest of it is just like point to me it's pointless it's just like there's nothing going on there's no dynamism anything seems pretty much you know even you know samuel jackson's great as he is it's just like oh he's supposed to be like this.
00:28:20
Speaker
and Robert De Niro is supposed to be like this. And so, you know, they're, they're hoods and they're not going to change, right? So, but it's like, well, why focus so much on them? And, you know, it's this great story because again, the main character doesn't change. She sets out to like, hey, I need to get this, I've got this thing to get this money and do that. And she does. And that's it. Which is fine for like a, I don't know, you know, sort of a heist movie that wants to be, I guess, or something, but it's not really.
00:28:49
Speaker
It just rings so hollow for me. I'll tell you the way that I see that movie is, I like it. I like it. And for all the things around Pam Grier, Robert Forrester, who both of which I was really looking forward to them being in other good movies and no one picked them up, which is foolish, you know? Both together. Right. Yeah. Well, yeah. Forrester ended up doing a bunch of great stuff, but anyway.
00:29:19
Speaker
He did, but I think in terms of having that sort of central role and getting that sort of widespread release, yeah, you could find things that he'd been in. But again, that's another episode around underrated classics.
00:29:38
Speaker
De Niro, I thought, was quite an interesting character for De Niro, especially looking at where he's gone recently. I thought that was quite a good performance. But I'll tell you what it is. Thinking about Wes Anderson, right?
00:29:59
Speaker
We were talking about how sometimes he's at his best when he's less Wes Anderson-y. For me, Jackie Brown is the movie where Quentin Tarantino isn't being overly Tarantino. Tarantino, yeah. I guess that's something that appeals to me about that particular movie. I think you can't
00:30:29
Speaker
think about that movie without hearing the music as well. Which is one of the better soundtracks I think, or certainly up to a par with his starting soundtracks.
00:30:45
Speaker
But yeah, that was interesting. Yeah, that's a different way of looking at things. Yeah. That's what we're here for. Same thing, the character arc thing. I don't know. I wonder why it got under my skin with Forrest Gump more than others.
00:31:04
Speaker
I'm just going to make a point and I've just lost my train of thought. What did you just say? Who knows? I don't even know anymore. We can't rewind. There's only fast forwarding. There's no rewinding. What year is it? Who's the president? Yeah. What year? Unlike Michael Bean and the Terminator.
00:31:23
Speaker
Yeah. All right, so in the interest of time, though, I do want to get on to... Would it go on
Criticism of 'Titanic'
00:31:31
Speaker
to yours? I'll go on to my next to last one, which is Titanic, which... Oh, totally there with you. Again, same thing like I would say, like with Forrest Gump. Technically, Marvel.
00:31:44
Speaker
amazing. The production of it, everything like that. Despite what you think of James Cameron or anything like that, he is very obsessed, very driven, very focused. However... That's a big however. This, oh my God, this movie, I just...
00:32:02
Speaker
Like I remember seeing in the theater and like I'm 20 minutes in, I'm like yelling out, sink the fucking boat. Come on, get to the good stuff. I don't care about you're trying to make these points about, you know, these like, you know, like it's like an eighth grader writing a master's thesis on a class warfare.
00:32:22
Speaker
It's like, oh, these guys bad, these guys good. A night to forget. Yeah, exactly. Much better. Oh, yeah, a night to remember? Yeah, yeah, that's terrific. Yeah, a night to remember much better. Yeah, but a night to forget. I mean, once the action starts and that boat finally starts going down, that's great.
00:32:42
Speaker
But everything else is entertaining. Getting up to that point, I mean, you know, I mean, again, I could, I could spend, you know, two or three hours watching Kate Winslet reading newspaper at that time, and be entertained. But even then, it's just like, come on, the whole I mean, it's preposterous. It's just,
00:33:02
Speaker
It's supposed to be this thing. I think at its core, there's something about America and possibilities and living your own self or something like that, you know, sort of thing. But it's just so sloppily and distantly handled. I don't don't really know. But they treat it as if it's all the same movie. And it's like, no, the core of that movie is this thing going down, the sinking of it, the breaking in half and, you know, all that with the rest of it.
00:33:31
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, at the time I remember thinking, uh, we, we know, cause I had heard that, you know, you have to use quite a ways through the movie before it actually sinks. And yes, you know, we know that's coming.
00:33:47
Speaker
We know it's going to happen. It's not a surprise. Actually, just out of interest since I've got it on the screen. So the year that it won the Oscar for Best Movie of the Year, it was against, as good as it gets, The Full Monty, Good Will Hunting, and LA Confidential. Yeah. Any of which of those I would watch more than once.
00:34:12
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No thanks. Well, if I'm flipping the channels and it's, it's, it's, it's out of, you know, the bit where it's sinking, I might, might hang out for a little bit. Yeah. Because again, technically it's amazing, right?
00:34:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, for sure. For sure. I get that. And again, we grew up with James Cameron and he just kept impressing and impressing. And this was not what I wanted to see next from him.
00:34:52
Speaker
And again like Forrest Gump with Robert Zemeckis, I think this was a turning point in his career and not a positive one. It suddenly became this all about spectacle. We're in an age now where you could
00:35:12
Speaker
you know, eventually individuals will be able to create spectacles in their own home, you know, with with with artificial intelligence and all this stuff. So so really get a you're going to be banking on your story to keep your movie relevant going forward. And I don't think and I think at that time as well as that that I hadn't really taken a shine to to Leonardo DiCaprio.
00:35:38
Speaker
especially in a leading role. I did like him in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. I thought that was terrific, you know, as a kid. But I didn't think that this... Well, he's not Irish to begin with. And again, it's one of those casting decisions where I think they could have done better. But yeah, what do we know? What do we know? Yeah. All right, what's next for you then?
00:36:06
Speaker
Cool. OK, so this is the afraid I'm staying French. And it's
Jacques Tati's Films Discussion
00:36:10
Speaker
not because I've got any. I mean, it's because I've seen a lot of French movies, I suppose. But but this is someone, again, who ends up being on the top of a lot of lists. David Lynch has cited him as being one of his favorite, but sort of similar to Gump.
00:36:33
Speaker
It's Jack Tati, his movies and his stories. Oh, dear. That well, well, bear with me. That's kind of the response I'm hoping to provoke his his stories. Again, they have the flat character arc. OK, if you can even call it an arc is a flat line in arc. I don't know. Maybe the arc of Mr. Bean.
00:37:01
Speaker
Right. And I like slapstick. Exactly. And I think the cinematography is is really good. And the weird kind of almost proto Wes Anderson hyper fiction world.
00:37:16
Speaker
that it's set in. The poster art is great for his movies. I don't know who the artist is, but they're terrific. But for me, the single joke doesn't hit for me and it keeps repeating and it just doesn't work again and again and again. Yeah, if you don't buy into that one beginning point, you're not going to buy into any of it and they're not going to let you forget that.
00:37:43
Speaker
Exactly. Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. And David Lynch-Mensard mentioned Monsieur Hulu's holiday as one of his all-time favorites. And I can't remember, he mentioned Sunset Boulevard and various other movies, The Apartment.
00:38:06
Speaker
And all movies- Other stuff you were on board with. I'm completely on board with. And David Lynch's work as well. I'm completely on board with his work. But this loses me. And in a similar vein, there's a French cartoonist. I don't know if you've heard of him called Sempe.
00:38:29
Speaker
who I think is terrific. He does these single frames, usually quite big, that in a single panel of his work just says so much more to me than a Jacques Tati film. But I think they're saying the same thing. You know, they are quite slapstick. They're kind of like a weird take on the modern world, you know? And I find I can cope with that
00:38:58
Speaker
over the course of a single panel on a page. Not for two hours. Going back to the introduction, it's like watching a ballet without music. It just bugs me. I just can't cope with it. I might try more of his movies, but I just don't understand it. The holiday is supposed to be like the peak, right?
00:39:27
Speaker
So it's like, okay, well fire that one up. And then I'm with you though. And like, I felt like I was obligated to enjoy it.
00:39:36
Speaker
Like, it's like, oh, everybody names this guy in these movies as this master craftsman. And it's like, I don't get it. I must be dumb. I must be missing something because I don't get it. Yeah, I'm exactly the same way. And I know that there's something in it that I do like, but it's so buried underneath this banal flat jokes.
00:40:02
Speaker
that I just can't get past it. But like, who is it that did City Lost Children, Amelie and all that? It was Junet and Carol. Junet, yeah. They've mentioned him before, but I think they've kind of, and I see a similarity there. So they've extracted something out of there and made something I like, right? Yes, they've agreed. They've moved on. You can see the inspiration. Right.
00:40:28
Speaker
Yeah see the inspiration and and it's it's so superior in my mind that inspired them far more than it ever inspired me. Right and good on them yeah. What do you have next. So mine this is my last one for the list and it's my always my most controversial.
00:40:49
Speaker
And it's just a movie, I just, I do not understand why people, well, I do understand why people love it, but I can't stand it for what it, for all the praise it gets.
'Heat' Critique
00:40:58
Speaker
And that's Michael Mann's heat.
00:41:01
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Heat is a boring movie. The characters are two dimensional at best, and they're trying to be three dimensional. And it's just, it's terribly written. It's just, I think people see the set pieces, which are great. Yeah, the set pieces are. And the cast, which is fantastic.
00:41:25
Speaker
the fact that he hired a lot of people that normally played movie villains to be the good guys. Wasn't it the first movie with De Niro and Pacino together? Yes. Like properly in the same scene? Yeah, actually in scenes together, yes. And so everybody's like, oh, they did the same thing with The Irishman. Oh, look at the cast. It's great. No, it's not. It's garbage. I'll tell you why, because it's boring. Nothing happens.
00:41:47
Speaker
and he's from Irishman he however that's a whole other criteria in addition my ass I know the heat I mean it gets all this love is like oh it's so good I'm like no it's not
00:42:04
Speaker
it's supposed to be a heist movie or a, you know, cops and robbers heist movie and which, you know, you want to go French, they did that perfectly. There are so many good French heist movies where it's about cops and robbers too, not just the thieves, but both. And again, could be a whole other person. But this is just so like, oh, it's just so like bad comic book, you know, TV pilot.
00:42:31
Speaker
writing and characters that you do not care about. The only thing you care about is getting them in the same room together like, oh, but they have the scene together and it's so awesome. I'm like, no, you're only giving them that credit because you like those two actors and you want them together and therefore they can do it all wrong.
00:42:47
Speaker
get past that and there's nothing there. I mean again the heist scene is one of my favorites. That bit is so well done and again because I adore heist movies as well and I'm like okay but you know and that's usually the core of a good heist movie but the thing is usually of characters you care about or want to see lose or fail or you see where they're going to get screwed up or tripped up or something like that and then this will fall out of that.
00:43:14
Speaker
versus this, it's just like, okay, it's like porn. It's like, okay, I'm fast forward to the one good scene and I'm done. And I'm gonna move on. It's like, come on. We know where Michael Mann came from, so we had Miami Vice in the 80s. And has that held up? No. No. It hasn't held up. Actually, that's another interesting thing about that weird transition period for the late 80s through the 90s.
00:43:44
Speaker
where television started trying to be cinematic. And to be fair, I think Miami Vice tried to do it in a very clunky way on a very low budget because television just didn't have the budget. You know, it was like, oh my God, this show's got a helicopter.
00:44:02
Speaker
And then the X-Files did something similar as well, where they started doing things that you used to only see in movies. And now we're to the point where you almost can tell them apart. So a movie is a couple of hours. What you see on television is going to be over the course of like eight hours. But visually, they're pretty much on a par now.
00:44:30
Speaker
Um, but yeah, Michael Mann heat, I, I'm in complete agreement. And again, it was something in where, yeah, you wanted to see De Niro and Pacino together, uh, because of their acting chops, you know, and you want to, you w you're, you're looking for a good story. You're looking for some good dialogue between the two of them. And it kind of, it gets wasted and heat, you know, um, they're talking about a sequel now, you know, that's the thing that's gotten me going like, come on.
00:45:06
Speaker
Yeah, I did. There's a yeah, I'm trying to think of a few others that I bring up in our dishonorable mentions at the end of this episode. You mentioned previously Dances with Wolves, another Oscar winner, you know, trying to think of some horror movies that got a lot of positivity that I thought
00:45:20
Speaker
Thanks for watching!
00:45:33
Speaker
No Well anything by Rob Zombie and I have a whole special tirade queued up on that Any of those are abominations. He should be tried for war crimes at the Hague. Oh Yeah, yeah, someone needs to stop him. Yeah
Horror Films and Remakes Discussion
00:45:49
Speaker
but Yeah, this well for and for me like for horror films jello films
00:45:58
Speaker
i mean i'll watch a lot of them and i keep trying to find the italian jello or if i'm saying oh right yeah yeah uh it's just that style it's just a hyper stylized uh argento uh bava first our gentle later uh thing where it just and it becomes kind of a parody of itself and
00:46:17
Speaker
It's really just form over substance, and they're, of course, brutally misogynistic and such as well. But those, and then like, I'll go on, like, Cannibal Holocaust. I cannot stand Cannibal Holocaust for a lot of reasons, but I think it gets far more credit and eyes on it than it deserves.
00:46:38
Speaker
There's a certain part of the horror fandom that thinks gore is horror. I've seen plenty of gory movies that were not scary and plenty of movies with zero gore that were terrifying.
00:46:52
Speaker
You know, it's kind of similar to employing special effects. You've got to sort of think about, you know, the story and building the atmosphere. And, you know, you go back to Rob Zombie. He doesn't build atmosphere. He assumes that that atmosphere is built by which is the look and feel on the screen, which I think he does pretty well, but he should probably be a production designer, not a director, you know.
00:47:19
Speaker
I think that's where the problem lies. Yeah, he's got no narrative sense whatsoever. Those are a few in terms of horror that I just don't get. Well, I suppose the other category that I'd bring up on this one are remakes that get lauded. What I mean by that is not remakes from maybe 50 years ago where it's actually modernized and changed.
00:47:49
Speaker
It's these from foreign language to English direct, you know, when the original was amazing and there was no need for it. But then all the credit goes to the person who made the new version.
00:48:08
Speaker
Oh, I'll add another one since you'd mentioned the Spielberg stuff. I feel like I'm obliged to throw one in there. And it surprised me over the years because at the time, it wasn't very controversial because I remember coming out of the film and everyone I had gone with, I don't know if you were with me, was like, meh, meh. And that's the Goonies.
00:48:35
Speaker
Yeah, which has got this weird cult following now. Um, I think it's a nostalgia thing, I think more than anything, but it's not a good movie. It's simply not a good movie. Um, you know, yeah, end of story. I mean, yeah, it's fine. You know, for a Saturday afternoon, it's raining outside and yeah, it's something you need something to watch. There's nothing else on.
00:49:03
Speaker
desperate, can't read. Yeah, go ahead, watch it. Yeah, go nuts. Well, you know, being here in Oregon, you know, that's the core of the historical film center there out at the, I don't know, story out on the coast. It's that movie. Oh, you know, how did everything to go for it? Because as we're watching it, we're going like, oh, that looks like where we play and what we do and we ride our bicycles like that.
00:49:29
Speaker
And, uh, still didn't work. No, no. And I wanted it to. Yeah, I wanted it to. But I don't think there's any problem with the actors. Like, like, I would say the first 10 minutes promise so much. And I thought, I like all these characters. Yeah. Okay. What's going to happen with them?
00:49:44
Speaker
And it just, yeah, yeah. And then you had, I forget her name, the woman from Throw Mama from the Train, which is another great movie. But yeah, just really wasted, really wasted, just bizarre. And that bizarre sort of Cyndi Lauper tie-in at the time. Yeah, yeah, nope, nope.
00:50:07
Speaker
Another one that I think is a fine movie from that same time that has over time got cult status is The Lost Boys as well, which I think was fine. It's all right. I revisited that one last year and I liked it a lot more.
00:50:26
Speaker
Now, age and I think because at the time I was just more like, oh, it's the pretty boys and all that, but there's a lot more going for it that it, you know, it has that like in terms of especially vampire stories that have risen to prominence since. Yeah.
00:50:44
Speaker
And how much basically you know i realize that how much i identified with the frog brothers i'm like oh yeah that was us that would have totally met us hundred percent you know and going into fight you know it's like. Give it a give it another spin.
00:51:03
Speaker
It holds up really well, despite the pretty boy thing. And, you know, that has been a long time. I mean, I remember walking out and thinking, Yeah, yeah. Yep. Didn't say nothing. Nothing. Nothing bothered me. Nothing otherwise. But yeah, I might. I give that another crack.
00:51:25
Speaker
I mean, I remember, um, uh, about the same time though, uh, Catherine Bigelow released near dark and that just came out of nowhere and surprised me. And I really enjoyed that. Um, it's such a complete, but, but it never got traction until I think she, she, um, she did the hurt locker and won her Oscar and all that. And people are like, Oh, she didn't have empire movie. Really? Ooh, it's got bill pax one in it.
00:51:50
Speaker
Um, I think it hit with, uh, with more with home video kind of. Yeah. Yeah. That's how I saw it. Anyhow. Yeah. That's how I got to see it as well. Cool. Cool. Well, we're coming up to the end of another hour. All right. So what did we learn? What did we learn this time? Uh, that we have reasons for hating things that are completely justified and you should totally listen to us and, uh,
00:52:17
Speaker
Our fan fiction features ET fighting Forrest Gump to the death. The two of them just getting speared by like an alien or predator respectively. That growl with the three red laser dots. Yeah. Or it's Forrest Gump but set in that world so he keeps, again, the dumb luck thing. He keeps winning and surviving even if he shouldn't.
00:52:41
Speaker
and like the entire crew is dead except for Forrest Gump who's on this plane you know this spaceship like still alive but the alien's dead somehow he managed to kill it i think that would be hilarious you know that's what would happen oh totally you can't you can't hurt Tom Hanks i love Tom Hanks it's american sweetheart and with that we come to the end and what happens next week only the shadow knows
00:53:34
Speaker
What is this? I don't understand.