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Excalibur- Disco Medieval
18 Plays7 hours ago
Greetings and welcome to our new season all about FANTASY! We are kicking it off with a film that shows us a world where men are building a new kind of world, and women...are also present.
This movie has all the gorgeous plate armor you could ever want to see and stunning costumes that don't seem to realize they are blending a late 70's aesthetic into a medieval world.
Join us! At this Round Table!!
**please note that there is some discussion of sexual assault in this episode because it's in the movie.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082348/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_exca
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Focus
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Melinda. I'm Ariel. This is Hot Set, the movie podcast about costume design.
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of our Silly Goofery.
Overview of 'Excalibur' (1981)
00:00:25
Speaker
This is um an episode where we cover Excalibur 1981, directed by John Borman. On IMDb, the synopsis, we're going to get right into it, the facts, so that we can then disperse into the madness.
00:00:39
Speaker
um but Synopsis on IMDb. Merlin the Magician helps Arthur Pendragon unite the Britons around the round table of Camelot even as dark forces conspire to tear it apart.
00:00:52
Speaker
Now, my addition here is, and we're seeing a lot of famous actors as teeny tiny wee babies. Oh, such sweet little babies. Such sweet little babies. Little shout out to Helen Mirren.
00:01:03
Speaker
um We've got freaking... Gabriel Byrne, we've got Liam Neeson, we've got Patrick Stewart, Karen Hines, Michael Muldoon, like so many faces that we know later.
00:01:17
Speaker
And like, also insanity.
Personal Connections to King Arthur Legends
00:01:24
Speaker
Melinda, what is your experience of the King Arthur legends? Like, were you a King Arthur kid? um I was not ah especially a King Arthur kid, if I'm being honest. I feel like I have a sort of secondhand smoke relationship with King Arthur. i I had a couple friends when I was a kid that were more into it In terms of like reading different like versions of novels based on this and watching movies.
00:02:01
Speaker
And so I was sort of like peripherally exposed to the King Arthur legend, but it was not like near and dear to my heart personally. What
'Excalibur' as a Horror Movie?
00:02:12
Speaker
about you? i was very much a King Arthur kid. I loved reading like Mary Stewart's Merlin series, which I thought was really fantastic and kind of anything I could get my hands on that was King Arthur. i loved it.
00:02:27
Speaker
um This is the first time that I haven't just, you know, experienced like the story and recognized parts of it as awful because of course the treatment of women like is pretty terrible.
00:02:41
Speaker
yeah um And like women have their power in different tellings of it but like on the whole this version is the first time that I've seen Arthurian legend like a horror movie. Uh-huh.
Significance of Bob Ringwood in Costume Design
00:02:58
Speaker
And so reason we'll get back into that, but the reason why we chose this kind of as the beginning, even though we're jumping through time in this season, welcome to our fantasy season. Oh, by the way, but beat you does um because of Bob Ringwood's costumes.
00:03:18
Speaker
And so, um, um There are many, many movies in this season that are going to be batshit and our experience with them is going to be questionable.
00:03:29
Speaker
But remember, everybody, we are united here for the clothing costumes. That's why we come to this round table.
00:03:39
Speaker
As we both clang, clang, clang our chrome armor. So just a real quick rundown of Bob Pringwood's CV. Excuse me. excuse me We start with Excalibur in 81. Then he goes directly to 84's Dune. then does Batman 89. Phenomenal.
00:03:57
Speaker
Alien 3, 92. Batman 92. Demolition Man, 93. Batman Forever, 95. Batman Robin, 97. Alien Resurrection, 97. ninety two batman returns ninety two demolition man ninety three wow batman forever ninety five batman robin ninety seven alien resurrection ninety seven AI, Artificial Intelligence 2001, Time Machine 2002, Star Trek Nemesis 2002, and then Troy in 2004. Like, wow. And just bangers.
00:04:25
Speaker
Yeah. so It's fascinating to be like, it it makes sense, honestly, watching this movie to see him, like, progress into Batman. Like, weirdly, that makes so much sense to me. It makes a great deal of
Terry English and Armor Design
00:04:40
Speaker
sense. Yeah. And it's very strange, it works. So.
00:04:44
Speaker
I should also note that i i don't think it was necessarily on IMDb, but on Wikipedia, it specifies that the armor was created by Terry English, who was like the guy for armor.
00:05:00
Speaker
You took the words right out of my mouth. So from Terry English armorer.co.uk, let's just name a couple movies that he ah has worked in. Jabberwocky, Excalibur, Sword of the Valiant, Aliens, High Spirits, which is a favorite movie of mine.
00:05:16
Speaker
um First Night, which is a key character movie, which is to watch. Batman and Robin. Oh, there we go Man in the Iron Mask, Joan of Arc, Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven.
00:05:28
Speaker
And so there's some strong armor history going on in this very anachronistic, and fantastical mishmash the wash.
Accents and Performances in Fantasy Films
00:05:40
Speaker
Just to get into the mo the the meat... of this movie being served up to this round table. this is um I feel like half of my reaction to this is a little bit of like a nostalgia for Renaissance fairs ah of Yor and Young. Because the way that we have as a Western society have agreed upon English accents being the voice of fantasy and history is flipping crazy. yeah This movie takes that and makes it
00:06:11
Speaker
a transatlantic ish fantasy accent or a variety of accents that everybody is losing, losing their minds. Now, did you ever, okay. Are you Star Trek person?
00:06:25
Speaker
um not especially. Okay. I hope that someday you watch like the pilot episodes, the first episodes of Star Trek next gen with Patrick Stewart, because Patrick Stewart, his career Very Shakespearean. We know this. Very. Yep.
00:06:41
Speaker
Heavy gravity, gravitas. And what it it seems like when he was on Star Trek Next Gen, don't quote me on this. Don't come for me. But it feels like in the first episodes, he resented it.
00:06:53
Speaker
ah he yes he's like i'm better than this he resented it uh-huh it's giving alec guinness in star wars but like alec guinness at least you watch him and you're like okay this is obi-wan with patrick stewart you're like this man has he's he's drunk some whiskey and he is about to fuck up this dick and like the first time he sees wesley crusher he like he kind of dumbledores it like Harry Potter, did you put your name in the government? Like he does that to Wesley Crusher.
00:07:23
Speaker
Why is there a child my neck? You know what mean? Like he's just so insanely upset. And that is the level that everybody's at. Oh my God. This movie is made for the messy bitches that live for the drama.
Critique of Masculine Themes in 'Excalibur'
00:07:37
Speaker
This is a movie about male hysteria.
00:07:40
Speaker
And yes this is also why it's a horror movie. It's because it's like this whole male... talk the kind of toxic masculine male fantasy of what peace is, where both women and wine are accessible.
00:07:54
Speaker
And it's like, I feel like The message of like Camelot, for instance, the musical version, was different. And different takes on this have been different because King Arthur was supposed to be a different kind of man right saw a different future possible that was beyond just fighting and messing shit up.
00:08:12
Speaker
Fight, fight, fight in the mud. Yeah. And so it wasn't just about shiny, beautiful armor a big-ass round table. It was about what those the true equality that that could represent.
00:08:24
Speaker
And so, of course, depending on the telling and who's writing the telling of the legend, you know, women have different places here.
John Borman's Directorial Style
00:08:30
Speaker
But this one is just such Zardoz take on so many different things.
00:08:35
Speaker
Did you see that the director directed Zardoz? Are you out of your – no, I didn't. ah I was looking through the director's IMDb and I was like, Zardoz! I screamed. You need to be warned that you're about to encounter Zardoz. You're about to encounter that shit.
00:08:57
Speaker
Which makes me go, John Borman, what was wrong with you? like because it's so much like There's so much of this sort of sixty s free love fake idea of liberation like infused into this movie that is so gross like the worst version of what that could have meant yeah like i'm like having it be present in the 80s pretty much a bummer and the fact that yeah a lot which is in the 60s has a kind of little bit of a flip on that it's like oh yeah yeah like and i say a little and might take it back
00:09:34
Speaker
But like I do remember that like one of the themes of King Arthur in that one is that the pen is mightier than the
Costume Design and Medieval Influences
00:09:40
Speaker
sword. and so there's something there about like education and, you know, uplifting your minds.
00:09:47
Speaker
Yeah. And this one, it's very much not that. Okay. So.
00:09:54
Speaker
I feel like was going to see mind. I had to keep looking away from the screen in order to like maintain.
00:10:05
Speaker
There's like a wild... To the costumes, everybody. Let's get there. So in IMDb, there are four crew members listed. Two of them listed as uncredited. um There are four armorers, one of them being Terry English, who designed all of these armor pieces, which there's armor the Lazu there. These men don't own clothes. They wear armor They do everything, including some really bad things. Okay.
00:10:34
Speaker
So screw going through this on the timeline. Let's just straight into the armor, even though one of the first things we see. Okay.
00:10:44
Speaker
ah Let me get this one out of the way. Admittedly, I didn't expect Merlin to be that emo that quick. but Oh, my God. But the we see him, he's got his little chrome dome headpiece that we don't know is a full headpiece yet, I think. Yeah, just it's just little forehead. I was so happy. Which seems to bite into his skin. It is so flushed.
00:11:07
Speaker
He looks like a cyborg. Like it is. There's no. I don't know how they did that. I know it is. There's. And it's like, I don't know how much give is in there because he's very expressive. This man.
00:11:19
Speaker
Yeah. You can the like folds of his skin fighting with this. Oh, ah movable for But all we see is this like little peak. And so it looks kind of like this like circlet. But then find out later that it's a full on. But he is in this like tight black cape.
00:11:38
Speaker
co If you will. That is like why do have to be so tight? And why also does he have to have this little like. gown underneath that is very wide necked and could honestly do a little slippy off the shoulder, you know, a little shoulder reveal, little flesh. And I'm just like, he's wandering around like ah This is emo-ass wizard.
00:11:59
Speaker
not just He was really giving me like Maleficent vibes because got the sleeves. He's got like the rag. Going down the stairs vibes. Everywhere he went. Every time he's like extending his arms and we're getting to like see the full volume of this cape, I was like, he just needs to like tip that hand up into like a pose. His hip just needs to be a little off center.
00:12:23
Speaker
yes so but Okay. So let's hop to the armor of Gabriel Byrne, who plays Uther Pendragon, little POS that this man is. So Uther Pendragon is this horse. Merlin is next to him.
00:12:38
Speaker
And he's holding Excalibur aloft. And he's got his armor on. Okay? He's this man. He's holding this sword up with the teeniest, tiniest. You can see me on camera. The listener can't see me. A little shh.
00:12:51
Speaker
shaking to your ex arm holding this sword up because his arms are so tired and i'm just like it's i do kind of miss this era of filmmaking when fight sequences are like clumsy and bad exhausting because that means that they're closer to reality where you're actually seeing someone be exhausted Yes. And like the like is highly choreographed, like ballet-esque fight scenes that we see now in movies, honestly, don't really do it for me because it's so, ah so far from reality. Yeah. and It's like, it does it for me when I think of it as a dance.
00:13:29
Speaker
I'm like, this is so cool. Look at these people's command over their bodies and what they can do. The choreography here. Beautiful. Yeah. But like, I'm never looking at it as reality or even close to reality because like,
00:13:42
Speaker
John Wick is like, you know, somebody who who is a fighter who I'm like, look at that man wither as he survives all this stuff. He's fighting. He's doing all this stuff. But you're seeing it take a toll.
00:13:54
Speaker
Yeah. Which is not a thing that you normally see anymore. Endless energy. And so – This one immediately. They're just like – The person's been holding up a sword for two seconds and he's like – They're like stumbling around. They're like just pushing each other. Like their arm – They don't have – They're just – there's so much stumbling. Speaking of Batman, the range of motion in these men's armor is very much like when you think of early Batman cowl neck issues where like the mobility is not there and you're being told this person is a massive warrior and it's like, okay, but he has no peripheral. Yeah.
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah. anything And like truly, we barely, barely ever see them not wearing this armor, which like I understand. It's beautiful. Let's get it on camera. But let's also talk about the differences in this armor because you would think, right, that like armor, okay, whatever, maybe. Like if you're just like – thinking, oh, it's just like armor that's cobbled together. Maybe you're thinking it's all the same kind of shine, the same texture, the same metals.
00:14:51
Speaker
No, there's actually a wide variety, which is what makes this armor really stand out. yeah There's really dull black armor that's like matte and... um Many, many different styles of armor. And, like, the dull armor kind of represents, like, before Arthur comes in. Right. and The Dark Ages, if you Dark Ages.
00:15:11
Speaker
And then um ah there's, like, Uther Pendragon has, like, a shinier metal. But it's still a kind of, like, a little bit tarnished. Like, yeah, the you edges and yeah around the rivets. it's worn. And there are a lot of helmets that are very, very fantastical because they have an
Evolution and Symbolism of Armor
00:15:30
Speaker
animal armor.
00:15:31
Speaker
Yes. Shaping to them. And I think that Uther's is a rhinoceros. Okay. I was trying to figure out. I was like, is it a boar? Is it? Yeah, it might be a boar. It's either a boar or rhinoceros. Yeah, it's got that. Yeah. Yeah, it's got tusks and like this long nose.
00:15:45
Speaker
And it's just like very unique. And then there's just a ah couple of those like thrown in, which really heightens the fantasy aspect of this. Yeah. And then- Didn't somebody have like a wolf- Yeah, I think so.
00:15:58
Speaker
And like later we have dragon-inspired gil fin situations. Those were pretty cool. Those were great. And then okay then like the final growth of the armor throughout the movie is the Arthur...
00:16:13
Speaker
golden age where it's all this very, very shiny like aluminum or, you know, chrome-ish inspired by that it's aluminum. Right. But like compared to the other stuff, it's like almost white because it's so bright and so like pure, if you will. It's shiny. Yeah. And so there there is a scene that is like kind of the main scene that made watching this worth it for me. And I'm very curious to see if you have a situation like that.
00:16:41
Speaker
But There just some some shout outs. Like we see the Lady of the Lake because there's a very quick um throwback to like, how did we get Excalibur? And it was like, just we only ever see the hand of the Lady in the Lake, which is a very traditional image.
00:16:56
Speaker
And she's got that like scaled gauntlet, like gauntleted sleeve happening. But it's like literally sequins. It's sequin scales. And it's like very, very lovely because it kind of goes with her skin tone. So it just like kind of rises up and doesn't, it's just, it's a really lovely little thing. And it was really well done to achieve the like magical effect of that um but let's see um okay little t-bix arms talk about that so we go to um the part of the story that leads towards arthur's conception which is when uther yeah just assaults a grain and like kills her husband and the same night her husband's dying he shows up and merlin has like
00:17:41
Speaker
cast his face to look like the husband's face and yeah it was so gross in all caps i put in the same room as morgana i know and he didn't take his armor off yeah which i'm like the image of imagery of that was really disturbing it was really i'm kind of like i hate that it's a part of the story and i'm sure that they did not do this for the reason that i think at all but it's like I'm glad that they didn't try to romanticize it or anything because that's a horrific part of the story. Yeah. And it's really tough because you're like, this is leading to the conception of like the savior man. Yeah. This is a terrible way to...
00:18:24
Speaker
This is horrible. And Merlin sucks for partaking in that. And like him in his little skullcap of of lies. and so But also like that the that character of um what what is her name? Igraine.
00:18:39
Speaker
When she comes out at that okay feast and she starts dancing. lost it. Pure Stevie Nicks pure stevie nis nineteen seventy s It was insane look at. Spinning around in circles like little girl who's high off of cotton candy, you know, just spinning and spinning and all the men are losing their minds. And I'm like, this is a choreography-less moment where it's just a woman spinning around going, whee!
00:19:09
Speaker
And like her clothing had had nothing to do with anyone else. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. This like crochet or knit like overlay that I loved. But she like lifts it up and is using it like this like cape that she's like what?
00:19:27
Speaker
<unk> Oh, my God. And I was like, this is an LSD moment. The like the bare arms, the bare like collarbone. Like yeah she was in like basically like a spaghetti strap dress. Like it was insane. And later she's kind of like in this like Greek statue draped inspired that thing. And so it's like everybody in that castle This is a very 70s feeling.
00:19:54
Speaker
70s. Early 80s, obviously makes sense, but it like it feels very 70s with a lot of the um textiles because later on we see both Lancelot and Arthur have these cloaks that are like sit on the shoulder, tie at the neck style. And they have these woven borders of like strips and strips of fabric that are like two inches wide each or something they're like braided and there's like these rough spun fabrics that I feel like were very popular around this time but they feel very theatrical yes very theatrical because like on in theater you want like really big textures so that you can see it all the way through the theater yep and like
00:20:40
Speaker
You don't necessarily always need to communicate it the same way on film. So like this feels like very theater-y. And I was like, oh, I know what these feel like because I worked with a collection of a lot of costumes that felt exactly like all these fabrics.
00:20:55
Speaker
And I was like, ooh, love it.
Influence of 70s and 80s Fashion on Costumes
00:20:57
Speaker
I know. like looking through like When you've been at enough theaters like renting their stuff or working at them and you get to look through their stock, like you'll at least like I think when I was starting out, like you would find stuff from the 70s that was still in there.
00:21:14
Speaker
And it was just like the number of productions of Lion in Winter that these theaters did in the 70s. All of them were the Lion in Winter. Yeah. i because I'm thinking of the lion in winter and I'm thinking specifically of the designer who designed it. And I loved all the stuff that she used because she had these amazing panels that she like applicate onto things. And there was the same sense of like, let's catch the light and have like all these like glass bits and all of these things.
00:21:42
Speaker
yeah And it's just like, Oh, I love it. and I saw this film. This is huge digression. I saw this film. What? Yeah.
00:21:52
Speaker
um In one of my classes in school, we watched like a good hour, I would say, of this filmed stage production of Richard II starring a very young Ian McKellen.
00:22:05
Speaker
So this is from like the late 60s. And they're all in sort of this slightly fantasy-fied medieval stuff And all of the men's tunics were like tie dyed fabric made into traditional looking tunics.
00:22:24
Speaker
Okay. And it was like, it wasn't like rainbow. it was like tonal tie dye. So it'd be like blue and green or like shades of brown. But it was so 60s. Like you could not have ever done that at at any other time. One of the things that we talked about when thinking about this season as what it is was 70s does medieval.
00:22:48
Speaker
Yeah. Because like that is a specific like fashion and costume design era. Yep. That is pretty nostalgic for me. And like, because it really does feel like OG Ren Fairs, like from when we were little.
00:23:04
Speaker
And I just like, you know, of course it is, but I just like love it because there was so much that was solid, loud and proud in that decade. yeah And it was 60s, 70s, that's medieval. So it wasn't just the 70s.
00:23:19
Speaker
And like, there are all these textures and patterns that are so very mod, but like have been mod-eviled. like Did you just invent a new genre? I did not. I absolutely did not. I think you did.
00:23:32
Speaker
Because I've heard that from somebody else. Oh, it's so good. like I cannot take credit for that. um I think that was a Rachel Maxey from one of her videos where she does like a Maud Evil dress that she makes.
00:23:43
Speaker
That's awesome. but like And I'm sure somebody else coined it. But like, yeah, Maud Evil. Yeah. This is very much that, but like it totally hops into the 80s with all this like shiny, glittery, sequiny. The sequins in here, all the different size and shapes of sequins are freaking phenomenal.
00:24:04
Speaker
It's disco. It's disco medieval. Disco medieval. It really is though. It is because all of these like hoods, slinky hoods and headpieces with like coins and chainmail veils that are all over these women's hair is so sequin crochet.
00:24:25
Speaker
yeah Like seven poncho. Yes. Like the draping, the borrowing from like Middle Eastern. like pieces yeah and yeah South Asian pieces that are put on Morgana, aka very young Helen Mirren. Excuse us.
00:24:45
Speaker
god I do want to do a real quick shout out to the fake blood artist, whoever that was, because yeah the scene where we see after Uther has killed Ygrin's husband, whose name I'm forgetting and i'm not going to look up, we get a close up of his body and the blood
Theatricality in Costume Design
00:25:01
Speaker
on him. And it is this like brick red paint that is so solid and so not a color.
00:25:10
Speaker
Because like for anybody who doesn't know this, for oh for a lot of things that you see, people use barbecue sauce or ketchup or some mixture of the two. not necessarily even going into the actual fake blood that people create and people have so many different recipes for that and especially in theater people keep that close to the chest because like yes it's meant to be launderable and so it's like exactly how you get it that way is like a ah high secret so if somebody tells you their blood recipe you know that you are trusted friend yeah the fake blood i literally the fake blood holy shit it's like this is crazy
00:25:50
Speaker
I kind of liked it though. And I'm really picky about fake blood. That's the thing. I liked it because it was a so over the top. It was like the rest of this movie. Yeah. So I would like to talk about the training sequence that we see between Arthur when we jump to Arthur as a young man who's obviously about 32 years old, but he's pretending that he's like No, he had bangs. It's fine.
00:26:13
Speaker
He is a boy. I'm so sorry. I for forgot the legend of the bang. but The yi yang.
00:26:22
Speaker
this training sequence. It's so Star Wars coded. Oh my gosh. Because they're in, not a swamp, but they're in a forest glade. And um we've got Merlin as your Yoda.
00:26:35
Speaker
But do you remember the part in Yoda? i mean, in Star Wars, when Yoda chokes out Luke Skywalker. Well... whispering aggressively.
00:26:49
Speaker
That's my favorite part. Such an uncanny parallel.
00:26:57
Speaker
There was a weird 10-minute block of this movie like during that sequence where Merlin turned into this straight-up clown. He was mugging at the camera.
00:27:09
Speaker
He like fell in a creek at one point. It was insane. And then he just like stopped doing that. I feel like it's a weird part of the legend that I feel like has been written into different books and different parts of it, but I don't know if it's like supposed to be part of it, but it seems like there's a period of time in which Merlin is like, I need to show people as the rise of Christianity is coming that I'm just and a silly, goofy wood wood wizard and that I'm not actually super powerful. And so I have to act like I'm drunk all the time or, you know, whatever, and only let Arthur know exactly how...
00:27:47
Speaker
how powerful I am. And so it's just like to to not really communicate that in a way that we as the audience can follow and instead just have this insane performance and be dialed up into just throwing yourself into like a creek. It's just like, okay. Yeah.
00:28:06
Speaker
okay I did not know that that was part of the story, like what you just said. mentioned That makes more sense. He mentions to Morgana, like, you know, our time is ending. Yeah. When she's like begging him to teach her things.
00:28:23
Speaker
And he's like, I'll teach you what I know, but not necessarily everything because there's no real point. Like the old gods are losing favor and the new gods, the one god is like rising. And so I kind of had to like put that together based on whatever nerd history I have with this.
00:28:39
Speaker
but And I don't know that what I'm saying means anything or it is true. So we're going to accept it as fact. It's the only thing that makes that make sense. so I consider you the dramaturg in this episode. What a new role to add to my CV.
00:28:54
Speaker
So we talk about these headbands? Yeah, I would love to.
00:29:01
Speaker
Now, they they elevate all of these nights, regardless of age, regardless of physical fitness, into jazzy...
00:29:14
Speaker
Broadway dancers for me that need a sweat band in rehearsal for, you know, ah chorus line. Cause they're dancing so hard. They're dancing so hard They just got to absorb that sweat and keep the hair back from their eyes. Everybody and their brother has hair band or a headband. And like, it's one of those that goes above your eyebrows across your forehead And it's a unifying little thing. That's just like this little detail. And it's honestly one of my favorite, even though I'm making jokey jokes because I added my notes that it adds some dancey pizzazz.
00:29:52
Speaker
I love it. But this, this braided detail yeah of it is what's a unifying detail. That's pretty sneaky throughout the whole movie because we have like how much braiding domes we have, you know, all this stuff, but.
00:30:07
Speaker
we have rags or strips of fabric and like Merlin's cloak in the daylight we see is not just one color or one texture. It's actually like a bunch of like knit things like, or even crochet things like layered it's. Yeah. So I can't see it up close, but then there's also strips of fabric that are like blues and purples mixed in with like the Browns and the blacks.
00:30:29
Speaker
Yeah. and there's like, all it's just so theatery. It's so theatery that I can't handle it. I know. And it's like, I think that's why I liked it all so much because it is so so classic.
00:30:42
Speaker
It's like over the top the way that theater is. Yeah. yeah It's just, it's communicating big things that the camera can get, which is awesome because like, it's not like what I love about film is that you get these teeny tiny precious details, but it's,
00:30:59
Speaker
So often so much of that is lost because you're being filmed, you know, from the torso up in up close where you're going to be able to see those details really clearly. Yep. And so like all these big things you can see from farther away and I'm like loving it.
00:31:12
Speaker
So before I get to this big scene that is like what made it worth it for me, I do want to mention the chain mail because we were on armor. So historically speaking,
00:31:24
Speaker
Sometimes history doesn't really matter, especially when we're talking about something like this, which is the yeah equivalent of cooked pasta thrown on a wall when we're talking about design features. It's just what looked good. It's just yeah a dream.
00:31:37
Speaker
yeah There's a lot of chainmail coifs, whatever you want to call them, directly against skin and hair. And that is not a thing.
00:31:48
Speaker
Because I don't know if any of you, dear listeners, have handled chainmail. Not only is that heavy because it does regardless of what you make it out of it it adds weight here that is gonna strip you bald it's gonna pull all your hair out your head all of it and so like what people would wear historically speaking is like a fabric hood that would be called coif that was yeah fitted the way that Merlin's chrome dome is fitted.
00:32:18
Speaker
And it would just like protect your hair and your skin so that the chain wouldn't pull it off of your bones. Imagine that. Sounds useful. There are all these poor actors running around in what looks like freezing weather throughout this whole movie.
00:32:34
Speaker
Damp. Damp. In Full on wet because they're riding horses into like yeah bogs and rivers and creeks. And they're wearing this armor, this theatrical armor and this chain mail and like Your hair, it could be straight, straight as as whatever.
00:32:54
Speaker
That's still when it's wet, going to get all mixed up in whatever is directly against it. Removing this chain mail must have been a holy nightmare for all of these people.
00:33:06
Speaker
If they wore the coif, you wouldn't see their 70s beachy waves. This is so true. i don't think you're considering the whole picture here. yeah i'm You're so right. You wouldn't see their delightful surfer hair.
00:33:24
Speaker
you're so right. I lost the vision. Yeah. I lost the vision here. We can't have that. there is such luxurious hair throughout.
00:33:35
Speaker
Also, no one ever has their hair covered in this movie, which is a huge – there's so much be said. The only time we see that is baby Morgana, where she has a little – Right, she does one. got the little cap. Yeah.
00:33:49
Speaker
And there's such a practical like, it is kind of amazing, you know, we like, people love to look at like medieval stuff and be like, Oh, my God, they look so crazy. ha ha. And it's like, yeah, but that that hood, like women wearing it, like, obviously, there's like religious and um like gendered undertones, but like, ah like everybody's covering everything.
00:34:10
Speaker
their hair up in certain situations in certain times. And it's extremely practical yeah for everyone. Yeah, it's practical because if you have super long hair, which both of us have had very long hair in our lives, my hair was very, very curly. Your hair has curl.
00:34:25
Speaker
like it's not super super tight but it's so curly she's got a little beachy waves she got some waves i could put a little chain mail hood on top of it okay brag but it's like when your hair gets long it is a monster to constantly keep it from getting knotted up so that's why yes that's the practicality it's not the why but that's the practicality that features in to all of these caps and a lice and lice bugs yuck So all these people are free love and lice.
00:34:58
Speaker
but Just, but there's a reason.
00:35:02
Speaker
Fleas, leeches, all of it. And they're just so cold. Everybody is so cold. There's this um battle scene I kept my hair covered a lot more, I feel like, in the early days of like COVID so that I wouldn't touch it yeah if I had been out.
00:35:18
Speaker
That makes sense. like don't touch it lives in yeah Keep it away. Anyway, sorry, you were saying. There's this battle scene that is adjacent to what we've mentioned of people riding horses into water.
00:35:31
Speaker
Yes. Which is where we're introduced to Patrick Stewart's daughter, Guinevere. I'm not going to call Patrick Stewart by his character name. I'm not going to. I don't even know what it is. It wouldn't make sense to me. don't need to. Yeah. yeah And um Patrick Stewart.
00:35:44
Speaker
First of all, this man is, again, another character always in his armor. So much so that he has a scene interior where he is wearing a giant robe over his suit. Like it.
00:35:58
Speaker
so so It was really hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that their choice in this movie was that they literally wear this armor like 99% of the time. They're wearing their armor the way that the cast of Fast and Furious use their cars as their own fists.
00:36:12
Speaker
You know what I mean? It's the same thing where it's just like your armor is your flesh and it's just like absolutely crazy. And so it's just like we see all these people treating their armor as inside in the nuttiest ways and it's just like no armor is for the battle it is for the battle it's disgusting that's why it has to be polished that's why it has to be cleaned is because it's got gore trapped in it it's got sweat it's got all sorts of viscera like it's stinky tetanus i'm sure those things are full of tetanus And so it's just like, and it also would keep you so cold and so damp.
00:36:54
Speaker
Like but in a castle like that, that's why you have tapestries and rugs is to keep the stones, to keep the heat in. yeah And so it's just like having a robe over your armor is hilarious. And that's another moment where I just like lost my mind.
00:37:08
Speaker
But when we're introduced to Patrick Stewart's daughter, Guinevere, let's talk about her for one second. Can we talk about her hair? Oh, so floaty. So that like brushed out curl.
00:37:19
Speaker
But like this woman, so chill in the middle of battle because she sees Arthur and this is like his first day as boy king. So he's still wearing his squire clothing, which is like covered in sweat and blood and mud.
00:37:30
Speaker
And she's like, who's this? She's like, bang boy. oh Who are those bangs? She's literally watching him murder people like on parapet. Right she was about to be murdered herself. And she's like, hold up. like, oh. People are dying all over the place. this a stunning indictment of like the violence of this time? Or is this just insane storytelling? Yeah, because for her to just...
00:37:55
Speaker
hang out but after she was literally screaming for her life hello Aida thank you so much for your announcing yes thank you for joining us um my god but she was just like so chill and then
Anachronisms in Costume and Hair
00:38:08
Speaker
her hair yeah it's just this like floaty 70s and the volume the volume of her hair the volume it's just crazy like it had I'm like this has to be ah augmented i don't believe this is all of this woman's hair so much hair but it also feels like in the 70s and 80s everybody just had so much hair and it's like I can't tell when it was a wig and when it wasn't how did they do that they all had so much hair so much for contributing I'm so glad that you were telling us what you feel
00:38:39
Speaker
ah She's going to keep talking. Yeah, it's fine. She'll be in the other episode. It's okay. So do you have a moment in this movie or like ah an assemblage of costumes that struck you the most?
00:38:52
Speaker
The best thing in this movie, the unimpeachable, notes, hands down, best thing in this entire movie is every single thing that Helen Mirren wore.
00:39:06
Speaker
You're so right. I have one additional, but you are right. Every second Helen Mirren is on screen. She killed it. she looked like um The design of her clothes is perfect. It was insane. It made no sense in context. Didn't need to make sense. Didn't want it to make make sense. Didn't want to it to. I just was looking at the glory of this woman on screen, sashaying everywhere with all of this...
00:39:36
Speaker
stuff happening that is just borrowed from so many different cultures. And it's just like, oh my God. And she's just fantastic. And the long ponytail of it all, the drama this woman.
00:39:49
Speaker
Oh my God. Amazing. And like she has these crocheted like underdresses, yeah long sleeves happening multiple times that are...
00:40:01
Speaker
so cool. they're Just like, yep okay, the way that we're adding texture to everything else that she's wearing just with this is like, what a great leap into just like, okay, here's how we can cover a bunch of this and then add on top of it and just have She's wearing a halter dress yeah at the banquet at the round table.
00:40:21
Speaker
My girl is in a full on 70s halter top gown. And I was like, I i believe it. I believe it. No, no, it's no questions. Yeah. This woman.
00:40:31
Speaker
Yep. Love it. She's got a tassel. Okay. The scene that I want to talk about. but Yeah. Maybe my favorite that has like it hits everything. And this is the scene for me. notes is the wedding between Arthur and Guinevere. hundred percent. The movie is worth it for that scene and everything that Helen Mirren does.
00:40:49
Speaker
Yes. The shiniest moment for all the armor. All of it is just like J.J. Abrams lens flares. Just. Oh, oh. There's a chainmail veil Guinevere.
00:41:02
Speaker
Oh my God. It was so good. So good. All the women have these medieval gowns and they have these like tabards kind of that are like beaded situations that are see-through and they're sequined for Jesus and just like so light catchy.
00:41:22
Speaker
Everything's like gold tones warm. We're in the forest. Like It's so Robin Hood. We losing the plot here and we are just now Robin Hood.
00:41:33
Speaker
And Morgana has a tasseled cloak o that is... my favorite because like this tasseled cloak could have stood out and been like, what are we doing here? no But it it could have been a Muppet piece of clothing, so many other things.
00:41:53
Speaker
But it just is like the movement of it and the size of it and the way that it's put together is just this like glorious movement instead of being too loud or too weird or too clunky.
00:42:04
Speaker
yep And beside her, Merlin has this new getup that's like green and blue and has all these like braided textures and woven things going on with this like maleficent color around his neck and i'm just like this is fantastic like that whole scene her gown underneath the like fringe cloak is like mazarin blue it is like the bluest blue you can imagine it is like you only get kind of like bits of like seeing it because the cloak is like so much but it was just like so exciting
00:42:41
Speaker
yeah It was so different that everyone else everyone yeah else is in these gold tones. She's in the brightest blue you've ever yeah and she and Merlin are united in their color palettes. They are always together because they're supposed to be the magical, the old, the ancient, like, put together. And I just, like, there's, like, a peacock kind of tone to her her clothing because, like, when you look at peacocks, there's so much turquoise and blue and all these different colors going on.
00:43:06
Speaker
And it's just like, oh, it was so stunning. And it's like, I hope that was like, real fun to walk around in and move around in and just be like, i hope so.
Christian Imagery and Contrasts
00:43:16
Speaker
And you know why everyone looked so good? It was the power of Jesus Christ. Yeah.
00:43:23
Speaker
Oh, I thought it was um Liam Neeson's man bun. No. I thought it was that just radiating, vibrating out power from a central location. They made such a big point of like the ceremony being like, and the power of the Jesus and the Christ our Lord. like There was so much. like It was so strong. It was a lot.
00:43:45
Speaker
Yeah. there Wasn't there like a drape behind them that literally had like a Jesus face on it had his face on it. And I like, oh, there's white Jesus.
00:43:57
Speaker
haven't seen him two minutes. There he is. like It was so fascinating to me because I'm like, but yet we're still in the forest. Like we're still in nature. that was sort of like... Because that that's the scene where Merlin says our time is ending. So it's like showing physically.
00:44:13
Speaker
that one is transitioning into the other because it's before we get to chrome camelot. It's just crazy that the ramparts are all the same material as the armor. but I was like, surely I am misunderstanding what I'm seeing with my eyes.
00:44:30
Speaker
The only thing that we're missing is Quaaludes. That's it.
00:44:35
Speaker
With our sensible eyes, that's all we can add here. Wow. So like there's this dual scene after um Liam Neeson shades the hell out of guinevere and lancelot and is like um yeah the queen's the queen's getting it on different guy who's not here because he's like super obsessed with her and um i love that this is where i was especially like this arthur golden age sucks because if this is how justice is meted out f this and also if like
00:45:09
Speaker
were Yeah, no thank you. It's just like that right the women are just nothing except for just a little jewel in the crown of whatever...
00:45:20
Speaker
aspirations these men have like there's so many of them like there's so many women in this movie that are just absolutely silent standing in the background figures like they don't talk they have not nothing like and the like it's not surprising I'm not pretending that I didn't know that that's how the you know but it's still whatever But it sucks. It sucks. And it's just like so stupid. bed And so by the end, I was like, yeah, goodbye to this era. Farewell. And so when Mordred, who is the product for anybody who doesn't know of the incestuous accidental relationship on Arthur's trickery behalf, um but where Morgana has um with ah Arthur is,
00:46:05
Speaker
And has born a son named Mordred and she's raised him to hate Arthur completely and to know that Arthur is his father and Arthur doesn't know that Mordred exists. And they basically meet on a battlefield where Mordred, they kill each other.
00:46:19
Speaker
But Mordred, the whole time we see him as a boy when Percival and other knights are trying to fix what went wrong in Camelot. we're Trying to find the Holy Grail. Yeah, because that's really the solution to the breakup of a triad.
00:46:33
Speaker
As we all know. A poly relationship imploding. You need to find the Holy Grail and that's going to fix it all. yeah And so baby Mordred has this armor and then adult Mordred has the same armor. It's full body except for the mouth yeah and like the fingers, I think.
00:46:49
Speaker
And it's this golden man with like. It's like full burrow. Zardo's pearls. Like it is like a gold like figure from like a filial put onto like a human. It is the weirdest, strangest choice that I loved. It's insane. yeah It's just so, again, theatrical. And it's like imagining somebody riding around in this and having it be functional at all.
00:47:15
Speaker
From an opera. Like it looks like it came off of stage at like the Metropolitan Opera. It's crazy. And I'm like, that is fantastic because like that's the level that we're working at here is King Arthur the Opera with because that's like, everybody's shouting like they're on an opera stage, but they're not actually singing.
00:47:33
Speaker
And so i mean, this, for the costumes, watching this movie was was worth it because it was just like, okay, this is a massive foray into what fantasy is. This is like kind of the genesis of like where things we recognize as fantasy was you know yeah it's like this this really kicks it off like yes we had wizard of oz yes we had a bunch of other things that are very fantastical and very beautiful but this is the sword and sorcery like we're jumping into it and it is so bright and so glittery
00:48:11
Speaker
and the content of it and all my favorites. No, but everything kind of coalesced and made a little bit more sense to me when I was reading on Wikipedia, and I assume is true, that what eventually became this movie when it was first being developed by the director started as an adaptation of Lord of the Rings and turned into this movie.
00:48:35
Speaker
And I was like literally watching the first 15 minutes of this movie being like, And here we are in Middle Earth and Aragorn, son of Arathorn. Like it was so And so like reading that was really affirming because I'm like, yeah, I was right. I was right about that. one hundred percent.
00:48:53
Speaker
So um hilarious discovery that I was like, OK, yeah, I get it now. I'm on so very much like it makes sense for the armor with that black matte armor to be Mordor armor.
00:49:07
Speaker
armor yes And then for all this shiny, shiny, shiny chrome to be elvish. yeah and The Enlightenment. Or Gondorian. It's so extra.
00:49:19
Speaker
And I was like, you know what? Sorry, John Borman, but not sorry because I'm glad I don't have to watch your version of The Lord Rings. I'm okay with that. Honestly, like who's to say what the ripple effect of that would be like? Would we have the Peter Jackson version if we had had like a full live action Lord of the Rings in the 80s? Like, I don't know that we would have like, yeah i don't know.
00:49:43
Speaker
It's hard to say. but I'm I'm happy that we have that version.
00:49:49
Speaker
But it of like, is really depressing watching this movie and seeing how like, just the like pattern of these like supposed like important, you know, figures, like all being like the product of like various forms of sexual assault was really fucked up. It was really fucked up. And it's just like, this is such a,
00:50:11
Speaker
Listen, I'm i'm married to a man. i love I love him very, very much. And we will have we will have these conversations about the world. But this is one of those examples of why I'm so suspicious when I see anything fantasy that is from the mind of a man.
00:50:27
Speaker
Because... so often rape features very heavily in it. And it's a tool in the real world that has been used for forever that doesn't justify the frequency of it appearing everywhere else. And it's like, yes, I do understand basing things on the medieval world, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
00:50:43
Speaker
But like, it feels like so often, like that's why I call this a piece about male hysteria is because this is such a such an insight into what what men, some men think peace looks like or what power looks like.
00:51:02
Speaker
And I don't want any of it. yeah Like, no, this, that's why this felt like a horror movie for me. And so by the end, I was very deeply relieved for it to be over, but this felt very much like a spiritual sequel to like Barbarella, where it's like this I'm saying this grand big thing and it's like, okay, but you're saying it from like the bottom of a trash can. And it's a very limited like idea of what could be.
Critique of Male-Dominated Narratives
00:51:31
Speaker
And so that kind of does tarnish a little bit of the design here and there for me, not necessarily about the costumes because the costumes felt very separate. Yeah. Like the costumes felt very successful and very, even though they're very like,
00:51:47
Speaker
picked from all sorts of eras and cultures, et cetera. They felt very tied together. Yeah. know Yeah. But like, this was, this was rough. Like, I think five minutes and I texted you. Wow. we We're in it.
00:52:04
Speaker
just Yeah. It's, um it's tough. It's, Yeah, there's a lot of um different, like, really successful fantasy properties, you know, cough, cough, Game of Thrones, cough, cough, that I just have not engaged with, because I just don't want to watch that like yeah it's not worth it for me to um see you know this it's like the the idea of peace being like i will kill everyone until peace is attained and it's like that's not peace that's you're alone because you killed everyone melinda how did you learn that accent was it just from watching this movie
00:52:50
Speaker
I went to the Royal Drama Academy in London in 1966 like everyone else. Just really took it in so that you will really hit all the points with all of the points of your mouth. Yes.
00:53:02
Speaker
Oh my God. Like, ah yeah, like there, there was stuff to enjoy in this movie, but yeah, overall it was sort of like, I guess I feel fine with my sort of ambivalence to the Arthur legend if this is what it is. Yeah. Which is why the books that i appreciate about it,
00:53:19
Speaker
been written by women because they're trying to look at it from a female perspective, a different perspective, which just, I don't know, flushes it out a little bit more and looks at different things as being more important than others.
00:53:32
Speaker
right And um so yeah, this this was a very... I was worried that like the costumes would be flat in this, but there was so much going on.
Complexity of Costume Production
00:53:45
Speaker
and like the fact that things were so theatrical and texture and, and everything else that we see here just made it really fun to look at and yeah to like see all of this, because even though there are only four people listed aside from the costume designer as the wardrobe department, this just like,
00:54:04
Speaker
There had to be so many people making this stuff. Another example of like, who was, who was the runner going and getting rental stuff? Like, what did the racks look like? Like, I really wish, and I've said this before, but I do wish that so many different movies could have like a look book of just like behind the scenes, little snapshots of what things look like. And people kind of like compile that now and,
00:54:27
Speaker
Like sometimes actors will take pictures behind the scenes to just like a little thing for themselves and the other actors. And sometimes like, especially with the internet that gets shared out bigger, yeah but it's, it's like with this, how, if, if it were truly only four people, they did not sleep.
00:54:43
Speaker
Yeah. ever Yeah, no, I have to believe there's like an entire workroom of people making a stuff that just didn't make it into. Exactly. it's Because it's like, this is so, so many bodies in this.
00:54:55
Speaker
And even if actors are being reused from a night to like a, just a background extra or whatever, That's a lot of stuff. And every single person is wearing layers on layers on layers. Like it's not just flat printed on the fabric, you know, one piece, everybody has multiple items. So that's a lot of stuff to track. That's a lot of stuff to source, to make, et ceterat cetera, et cetera.
00:55:19
Speaker
yeah, Also the fact that there's so many like crochet sequin things. I don't know if anybody's ever handled those or had them in their personal wardrobe, but they get tangled up like a mofo.
00:55:31
Speaker
And I just like that alone of keeping that stuff, not so tangled up after people are whipping their body parts all over the place in this movie. yeah That alone takes time. And that's like the the most minuscule. And then there's like tracking jewelry, et cetera. So it's just like,
00:55:46
Speaker
How many hands are we missing from, from what's been labeled? And at the bottom of the list on IMDB, it says it has the audacity to say, we believe that the credits are complete.
Visual Appeal Despite Story Criticisms
00:55:55
Speaker
And it's like, okay, maybe according to what was like put on screen, but what was missing from what was put on screen?
00:56:02
Speaker
Like yeah who are we missing? Cause there's a lot of beautiful work in here. So I do recommend it as a look at the costumes kind of movie, but for content, Perhaps not.
00:56:13
Speaker
You know, yeah, you can decide. Like, um it's ah it did not surprise me that, like, I was reading a couple, like, snippets of reviews from when the movie came out. And there was, I think, a decent amount of criticism of the sort of content and, like, story pacing and that kind of stuff. But everyone agreed that the movie was very beautiful to look at. Like, that seemed to be a universal agreement that everyone had.
00:56:40
Speaker
That the movie was great.
00:56:43
Speaker
Yeah, but it was sort of like, yeah, the story's kind of like muddled and it's kind of a little bit messy and apparently they cut like a lot out of it to get it down to like a running time that was acceptable. So You know, that kind of makes sense.
00:57:00
Speaker
um But yeah, just the it's like we always i think we've talked about so many times that like the time at which something is made has a influence over the costume, makeup, hair choices in a way that people don't necessarily always um recognize in the moment, but they become extremely obvious when you look back.
Creative Freedom in Fantasy Costume Design?
00:57:27
Speaker
Like when we're when we've moved on to like a different aesthetic and then we look back at a movie from like 1981 and you're like, wow, that is a disco fantasy dress in the middle of this Arthurian legend. And there's no other way to yeah categorize that. But at the time, they're just like, oh, my God, look at this beautiful, glamorous dress.
00:57:45
Speaker
Look at this gown, this medieval gown. it's like, I love that stuff. And um I think it's ah really fun to witness the like anachronisms like I know, obviously, there's plenty of.
00:58:03
Speaker
people on the internet that would have a lot of feelings about that and I don't really have time for their opinions because um that's like it is a fantasy movie at end of the day so I think that there's there's like there is justification for wishing for less anachronism and things but I'm like you know what's nice is that now we actually do have multiple versions of different things so that kind of you can hit a wide swath of different tastes and you can kind of hit what people need and I don't know that I've really ever seen a King Arthur but really feeds all the thing that I want from a King Arthur yet and because I feel like people swing too wide except like the Camelot 60 whatever actually does hit a lot of points for me but it's also a film that's made in its time so the pacing is insane etc etc but it's like
00:58:54
Speaker
you know, you're not necessarily ever going to get exactly what you want. And so you have to kind of be able to like take a breath, accept that. And then like, you know, if you want to see what's there. And this is one of those where,
00:59:08
Speaker
I can totally see people complaining about the design, which is like a frequent conversation that drives me nuts of people just going like, well, it wasn't historically accurate. And it's like, okay, but that might not have been the point. The point yeah was how do we create this in a fantastical way before that, like,
00:59:28
Speaker
Truly, when Peter Jackson did The Lord of the Rings, that rewrote how you make fantasy movies because they had a budget and they figured out how to make thousands and thousands and thousands of items specifically for that world.
00:59:43
Speaker
But before that, people couldn't really justify that. And I also feel like even though like we're like making fun of them for not having like the quaffs like underneath the chain mail, it's Sure, like, yes, that is historical. But like, I feel like the reason that you're bringing it up is like, how torturous that must have been for the actors on the set of this film. That actually did have a purpose driven thing, which was not rip all your hair out.
01:00:09
Speaker
And so it's like, you know, those things are like, yeah, I'm concerned for the body, which is, you know, a costume designer's That's like We have to think about that. Yeah. And it's like. Think about the people.
01:00:20
Speaker
But this is also from the eighty s Right. and I don't think that was. Right. Get in the water. And it's like, obviously, yes, the reason that they chose not to do it is that like it looks good without, you know, like it looks good to our eyes without. But it's like, yeah, that must have been horrible to be the person that's like trying to get this chainmail hood off everyone's head. Like in between chains. Could imagine that?
01:00:43
Speaker
That wardrobe person, that costumer going, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Like trying to like sneak your fingers in there. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Oh my God. And it's like, it's the same reason why the armor in this movie is made of what it is and why the actors on horseback are wearing armor. That's not actually true steel or whatever is because the horses exist today cannot carry people horseback.
01:01:09
Speaker
full armor. They can't, they're not bred for that anymore. The horses from those eras were actually bred to do that. It's not a training thing. It's physical strength. And so like horses now can do it, but it's to their detriment. It's, it will hurt them. It will damage them because you are heavy as hell in actual plate armor.
01:01:31
Speaker
And so like you're going to make it out of something lightweight because the actors also are not people who've been training their entire adult lives to carry massive amounts of metal on their bodies. And so it's like already probably uncomfortable for both horse and actor.
01:01:47
Speaker
But like, and it's also like, hey, don't fall into the water. It's probably something that they told the actors. i Don't. Just don't fall yeah' be right to get up Don't do it. It's a safety issue. like So just don't.
01:02:02
Speaker
Which is good advice, honestly. Don't. Yeah, but it's also like, do you have health and safety on set? Probably not. 1981? No. It's probably a shot of whiskey and a cigarette. That's it. Yeah. Oh, you fell in there and you almost drowned? Here, have a little hint of this.
01:02:17
Speaker
but This is a wild, wild adventure that we just went on. and And I think this season is going to be a wild adventure. This is going to be a basket of mixed nuts. I can tell you that.
01:02:29
Speaker
Because this is going to be kind of the same as like our sci-fi season of like going through a century. Because we are going to be going and hitting different points. yeah um in film history of fantasy and so thank you for listening to this episode so glad that we could get together yeah but this welcome back um we're here we survived our monstrous frankensummer we're ready to get back into a more uh yeah ah a longer form, you know, category that we can explore. Yeah.
01:03:01
Speaker
Well, thank you for joining us for this ah interesting season opener that we have all experienced now. Yeah. We will be coming back next time to look at the 2006 movie The Fountain starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, which Ariel so smartly reminded me is a Darren Aronofsky film, which I did not remember.
01:03:28
Speaker
um i remember seeing this movie in the theater, ah but I don't remember much of anything about it other than like a few snapshot images. But IMDb tells me that the Logline for this movie is a modern day scientist. Tommy is struggling with mortality, desperately searching for the medical breakthrough that will save the life of his cancer stricken wife, Izzy.
01:03:54
Speaker
And it's going to go. from there into some very ah intense ah fantastical scenes that I believe you can sort of take or leave and explore perhaps poetic quality.
01:04:14
Speaker
i don't know. i do i is that i don't remember. think that's fair. It's very much a ah weird... Right. you know and so i i remember being obsessed with it because anything that has like big sweeping emotions that are bittersweet at best like definitely describe a lot of stuff from when we were younger it like really made an impact So I'm looking forward to seeing this and seeing, because I haven't seen it probably since 2008. And so wow it's been a minute. And this has one of my favorite soundtracks of all time.
01:04:48
Speaker
So that's going be like me in the background. ah Yeah. God. this so So this movie is almost 20 years old at this point. Yeah.
01:05:00
Speaker
Isn't that crazy? Yeah. I remember seeing it um at the like second run movie theater for like $3 and being like, let's check this out. yeah.
01:05:13
Speaker
Yep. Don't remember much else. Speaking of second run, I'm not going to name it, but we are seeing a movie that's being re-released as a cult classic in theaters locally up here that Melinda has not seen that is one of v genesis ah genocide of my of my actual personality. And I'm so excited for her to see it.
01:05:36
Speaker
And I'm so excited for me to see it on a big screen and then we are going to be talking about it. So... Oh, this season is going to be fantastic. ah Fantastical.
01:05:48
Speaker
oh my God. Yeah. yeah This is like the most, ah probably the most epic season i think that we could have picked. I mean, it's, it's a very important one for me. excited Well, thank you for following us along listener, who whomever you may be and we shall see you ah you shall hear us next episode. Thank you much for listening.
01:06:12
Speaker
Bye. Bye.